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Archaeological sites opened to the public, and especially those
highly photogenic sites that have achieved iconic status, are often
major tourist attractions. By opening an archaeological site to
tourism, threats and opportunities will emerge.The threats are to
the archaeological record, the pre-historic or historic materials
in context at the site that can provide facts about human history
and the human relationship to the environment. The opportunities
are to share what can be learned at archaeological sites and how it
can be learned. The latter is important because doing so can build
a public constituency for archaeology that appreciates and will
support the potential of archaeology to contribute to conversations
about contemporary issues, such as the root causes and possible
solutions to conflict among humans and the social implications of
environmental degradation. In this volume we will consider factors
that render effective management of archaeological sites open to
the public feasible, and therefore sustainable. We approach this in
two ways: The first is by presenting some promising ways to assess
and enhance the feasibility of establishing effective management.
Assessing feasibility involves examining tourism potential, which
must consider the demographic sectors from which visitors to the
site are drawn or might be in the future, identifying preservation
issues associated with hosting visitors from the various
demographic sectors, and the possibility and means by which local
communities might be engaged in identifying issues and generating
long-term support for effective management. The second part of the
book will provide brief case studies of places and ways in which
the feasibility of sustainable management has been improved.
This book will suggest new agendas for identity and heritage
studies by means of presenting contentious issues facing
archaeology and heritage management in a globalized world. The book
is not only present the variability of heritage objectives and
experiences in the New and Old World, and opens a discussion, in a
shrinking world, to look beyond national and regional contexts. If
the heritage sector and archaeology are to remain relevant in our
contemporary world and the near future, there are a number of
questions concerning the politics, practices and narratives related
to heritage and identity that must be addressed. Questions of
relevance in an affluent, cosmopolitan setting are at odds with
those relevant for a region emerging from civil war or ethnic
strife, or a national minority battling oppression or ethnic
cleansing. A premise is that heritage represents a broad scope of
empirically and theoretically sound interpretations - that heritage
is a response to contemporary forces, as much as data. It is
therefore necessary constantly to evaluate what is scientifically
accurate as well as what is valid and relevant and what can have a
contemporary impact.
The publication explores the ways in which archaeological research
can inform us about the manner and motives of European involvement
in the development of a sovereign United States. The five chapters
focus on different archaeological sites (four terrestrial sites)
and each consider the special ways in which archaeology can
contribute to our understanding of the cultural dynamics that set
the historic course of events in motion that culminated in United
States sovereignty. An introduction and conclusion examine how the
material culture that is the central focus of archaeological
research should be preserved, managed, and interpreted. While much
is known through historical documents, this volume seeks to enrich,
modify, and challenge the written record by attention to the
archaeological remains. The scale of analysis ranges from the
artifact through the site to the landscape. Chapters address the
changing relationships between specific European countries and the
United States as indicated by the presence of artifacts or types of
artifacts (e.g., weapons, domestic, architectural) made or traded
by other countries during different time periods; an analysis of
"space syntax" seen at battlefields or fortifications; the
importance of conceptually reconstructing terrain crossed by troops
or at battlefields. The Archaeology of Interdependence: European
Involvement in the Development of a Sovereign United States
presents innovative investigations of what material culture at all
scales might tell us about the political, economic, or ideological
relationships among cultures that corroborates, contradicts, or
enriches the historic record.
Mapping Archaeological Landscapes from Space offers a concise
overview of air and spaceborne imagery and related geospatial
technologies tailored to the needs of archaeologists. Leading
experts including scientists involved in NASA's Space Archaeology
program provide technical introductions to five sections: 1)
Historic Air and Spaceborne Imagery 2) Multispectral and
Hyperspectral Imagery 3) Synthetic Aperture Radar 4) Lidar 5)
Archaeological Site Detection and Modeling Each of these five
sections includes two or more case study applications that have
enriched understanding of archaeological landscapes in regions
including the Near East, East Asia, Europe, Meso- and North
America. Targeted to the needs of researchers and heritage managers
as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, this
volume conveys a basic technological sense of what is currently
possible and, it is hoped, will inspire new pioneering
applications. Particular attention is paid to the tandem goals of
research (understanding) and archaeological heritage management
(preserving) the ancient past. The technologies and applications
presented can be used to characterize environments, detect
archaeological sites, model sites and settlement patterns and, more
generally, reveal the dialectic landscape-scale dynamics among
ancient peoples and their social and environmental surroundings. In
light of contemporary economic development and resultant damage to
and destruction of archaeological sites and landscapes,
applications of air and spaceborne technologies in archaeology are
of wide utility and promoting understanding of them is a
particularly appropriate goal at the 40th anniversary of the World
Heritage Convention.
Once visited only by the cognoscenti of the ancient world, over the
last decade Petra has drawn almost a million visitors in some
years. Petra burst into popular consciousness with the release of
enormously popular motion picture Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981.
Moviegoers all over the world were introduced to some of the
spectacular scenic wonders of Petra: the Siq, a narrow chasm with
colorful, towering sandstone walls, and Al-Khazna, the exquisitely
carved tomb for a Nabataean king. For centuries, the Nabataeans
controlled the trade in precious commodities across the Arabian
Peninsula, bring spices from Southeast Asia, incense from
present-day Yemen, gold and ivory from Africa, and silk from the
Far East across the Empty Quarter to ports on the western
Mediterranean. In 1985, Petra was included on the list of World
Heritage Sites. Since then, low cost jet travel and a fast highway
from the capital city of Amman have made the site increasingly
accessible. The Jordanian government has made attracting tourists
to Jordan a top priority. For all of the attention that Petra has
received, it is still surprisingly poorly understood. A widely
accepted chronology of the city, even the dates of major tombs and
monuments, has yet to be established. Even the mystery of why and
how Arab nomads adopted a sedentary lifestyle and built a great
city has yet to be fully explained. Will Petra's popularity as a
tourism destination overshadow the importance of addressing these
questions, and, more importantly, will tourism damage the
archaeological remains there in ways that make answers more
difficult or even impossible to find?
Archaeological sites opened to the public, and especially those
highly photogenic sites that have achieved iconic status, are often
major tourist attractions. By opening an archaeological site to
tourism, threats and opportunities will emerge.The threats are to
the archaeological record, the pre-historic or historic materials
in context at the site that can provide facts about human history
and the human relationship to the environment. The opportunities
are to share what can be learned at archaeological sites and how it
can be learned. The latter is important because doing so can build
a public constituency for archaeology that appreciates and will
support the potential of archaeology to contribute to conversations
about contemporary issues, such as the root causes and possible
solutions to conflict among humans and the social implications of
environmental degradation. In this volume we will consider factors
that render effective management of archaeological sites open to
the public feasible, and therefore sustainable. We approach this in
two ways: The first is by presenting some promising ways to assess
and enhance the feasibility of establishing effective management.
Assessing feasibility involves examining tourism potential, which
must consider the demographic sectors from which visitors to the
site are drawn or might be in the future, identifying preservation
issues associated with hosting visitors from the various
demographic sectors, and the possibility and means by which local
communities might be engaged in identifying issues and generating
long-term support for effective management. The second part of the
book will provide brief case studies of places and ways in which
the feasibility of sustainable management has been improved.
From about 1830 to 1849, Bent's Old Fort, located in present-day
Colorado on the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail, was the
largest trading post in the Southwest and the mountain-plains
region. Although the raw enterprise and improvisation that
characterized the American westward movement seem to have little to
do with ritual, Douglas Comer argues that the fort grew and
prospered because of ritual and that ritual shaped the subsequent
history of the region to an astonishing extent. At Bent's Old Fort,
rituals of trade, feasting, gaming, marriage, secret societies, and
war, as well as the 'calcified ritual' provided by the fort itself,
brought together and restructured Anglo, Hispanic, and American
Indian cultures. Comer sheds new light on this heretofore poorly
understood period in American history, building at the same time a
powerfully convincing case to demonstrate that the human world is
made through ritual. Comer gives his narrative an anthropological
and philosophical framework; the events at Bent's Old Fort provide
a compelling example not only of 'world formation' but of a world's
tragic collapse, culminating in the Sand Creek massacre. He also
calls attention to the reconstructed Bent's Old Fort on the site of
the original. Here visitors reenact history, staff work out
personal identities, and groups lobby for special versions of
history by ritual recasting of the past as the present.
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