In order to get a better grip on people’s fascination with archaeology in popular culture, it is useful to consult studies that describe larger, underlying trends in Western culture and society. Over a decade ago, the German sociologist Gerhard Schulze (1993) published a study describing Die Erlebnisgesellschaft (The Experience Society). In this book, which has been very influensive in the German social sciences, Schulze argued that Erlebniswert (experience value) is quickly replacing use and monetary values in significance. As people in affluent Western societies have become economically secure and possess all the tools they require, they are orientating their lives more and more towards experiences: to live and to experience have nearly come to mean the same thing. As a consequence, the market for experiences is expanding fast (see also Köck 1990: 77-82; cf. Pine II and Gilmore 1999 for a similar argument with American focus). From travel agencies to shopping centres, from TV stations to universities, and from swimming pools to theme parks, all are now offering experiences to their customers.

The difficult choices people face today when having to choose between competing experiences are often, albeit unconsciously, informed by larger social patterns. Whereas some sections of the population prefer experiences such as listening to classical music and contemplating art in museums, others enjoy schlager music and watching sentimental films on TV, and others again like rock’n roll, pub visits, and generally ”action” (Schulze 1993: 142-57). Companies trying to reach certain groups of consumers have long understood the significance of framing their products within existing patterns of differently favoured experiences. Similarly, customers prefer to buy products that relate to the preferred experiences of those people as which they see themselves (Schulze 1993: chapter 9). This might explain, at least in parts, why the ”product” archaeology enjoys the amount of popularity it does. It offers (and is perceived to offer) valued experiences for many. Visiting an archaeological museum or excavation site can be about ancient art and education about the past, about (usually idyllic) reconstructions of past daily life and re-assurance about one’s home village, or about modern computer technology and the spirit of Indiana Jones-style quests for treasure. In each case, it is a particular experience in the present that accounts for peoples’ interest.

At about the same time when Schulze wrote his book, the American marketing ”guru” Faith Popcorn published The Popcorn Report (1992) in which she predicted certain trends for the future. She recommended to companies to ”bend” their products around such trends. One of the ten most important trends she noticed was a trend towards ”fantasy adventure” which she described as ”a momentary, wild-and-crazy retreat from the world into an exotic flavour” (Popcorn 1992: 34). Popcorn’s prediction was that product appeal will increasingly result from offering the safe and familiar with adventurous, exotic or sensual twists. Again, archaeology seems predestined to play a key role. What could be more safe and familiar yet at the same time adventurous, exotic and sensual than a visit to an archaeological excavation site or museum near your own home, where archaeologists, the ”cowboys of science” (Holtorf 2005: XX), tell you about peoples’ lives in the past? At the Experimental Centre at Lejre in Denmark you can even book an entire family holiday entitled ”Living in the past” (Köck 1990: 69). Archaeology can have a lot in common with fantasy adventure.

When the German futurist Horst Opaschowski (2000) recently reviewed these trends, he found that the ”Experience industry” was still expanding. Opaschoswki made the additional point that this industry is essentially telling fairytales and selling dreams. What mattered more than the veracity and authenticity of these tales and dreams was that they create the right sensual experiences and thus customer satisfaction. More generally, the American economists Joseph Pine II and James Gilmore argued in their book The Experience Economy (1999: 25) that those ”businesses that relegate themselves to the diminishing world of goods and services will be rendered irrelevant.” Instead, businesses now need to offer experiences to people. These experiences consist of more than entertainment and are first and foremost about engaging people (Pine II and Gilmore 1999: 30).

In his account of The Dream Society (1999), the Danish futurist and consultant Rolf Jensen took this discussion further. Going beyond the previously mentioned studies, Jensen argued that consumers are now increasingly buying stories along with products. For example, when we buy eggs we are willing to pay a little more in order to hear a story about free-ranging chicken. Likewise, we are prepared to donate money to Amnesty International or Greenpeace because (besides everything else they do) they tell us stories about rescuing human beings or natural environments that we respond to very passionately. By the same token, advertising is becoming more emotional, appealing to our hearts rather than our brains (see also Jensen 2002).

Some emotional stories have, of course, been with us for considerable time. They include stories about nations, political ideologies, and state religions. Although few archaeologists are proud of it, in the past they have been making significant contributions to each of these grand stories (see e.g. Kohl & Fawcett 1995). Indeed, the size and status of many contemporary archaeological institutions as well as the strong legal protection of archaeological heritage in the Western world owe a lot to the very firm and long-standing links between archaeology and stories about the origins of modern nations. Only relatively recently has a focus on the national heritage been replaced by one on the cultural heritage.

Now, new kinds of stories are emerging that are particularly characteristic for the Dream Society in which, according to Jensen, we will be living in the future. All of them provide experiences by engaging us in different ways. Three out of the six main stories of Jensen’s Dream Society can be told, in parts, through archaeology (the other three are Togetherness, friendship and love; Who-Am-I; and Convictions). These stories are about:

(a) Adventures (see also Köck 1990): archaeology is particularly good at telling adventure stories, usually based around its fieldwork. Significantly, Rolf Jensen himself is seen on his web pages as sitting at a desk with an Indiana Jones film poster on the wall behind him: The return of the great adventure.

(b) Care: in the Dream Society, people have an increased need to provide care. They like caring for pets, save whales from extinction, and donate money towards humanitarian aid in emergencies. Zoos, once doomed, are popular again because they present themselves as conservation centres. Likewise, significant parts of professional archaeology have in recent years redefined themselves in terms of preservation. Archaeology is now often presented as being about managing ancient sites or artifacts as non-renewable resources, and rescuing precious finds and evidence, in a race against time, from obliteration due to modern development.

(c) Peace of Mind: in an insecure and constantly changing world, people desire peace of mind and reassurance in relation to their livelihoods, ways of life and values. They seek answers rather than more questions. They like romanticizing the past and trust established brands more than new products. Among the themes which established brands draw on are stereotypical sceneries of the past and, in a way, they in turn have become archaeological brands. Jensen’s examples include the world of Classical Greece featuring shining temples with Doric columns and philosophers immersed in discussion on the market square. He also refers to the Scandinavian Vikings who venture out in their longboats to plunder foreign shores, yet preserve their purity of mind. Peace of mind can also be evoked by stories that extent our own daily routines back into the distant past. A recent Swedish newspaper report, for example, was entitled ”Commuters in the Stone Age” (Helsingborgs Dagblad, 25 October 2002, my translation). The ubiquitous celebration of origins provides reassurance in an insecure present.

These books I have been referring to are not brand-new. Yet much of what they are about seems to be very relevant still today (see chapter 5). If Schulze, Pine II & Gilmore, Opaschowski, Popcorn, and Jensen are broadly correct in their analyses, this is an age in which archaeology should do particularly well. Indeed, already during the 1960s, the German archaeologist Horst Kirchner (1964: 5) suggested that the 20th century would become known as ”the great century of archaeology”. The Swiss historian Franz Georg Maier (1981) referred two decades later to an evident ”archaeomania” in Western culture. Concerning the last decade, Karol Kulik argued that we have been living through a ”golden age” of archaeology in the mass media (see chapter 3). In the year 1999-2000, history and archaeology books reportedly outsold cookery books in the U.K. (Paynton 2002: 44). Moreover, since 1996 the archaeology-inspired computer game series Tomb Raider featuring Lara Croft sold in millions worldwide, each game topping the PlayStation game best-seller lists. The first associated feature film grossed more than 274 million US Dollars worldwide (Rose 2003). And I already mentioned the success of the new Mystery Park in Switzerland. Clearly, archaeology is no longer a subject which only small sections of the population find interesting. Evidently archaeology is today a popular theme in many genres and formats of popular culture (see Appendix). Although this popularity may have grown out of an archaeo-appeal the subject has perhaps always had (Daniel 1964: chapter 8; Pallottino 1968; Andreae 1981; Zintzen 1998; Russell 2002a), it certainly reached new peaks in recent years (Jensen and Wieczorek 2002).

The fascination with archaeology could however lie on a different level than professional archaeologists – pleased by the interest in their work – often assume. Archaeology provides memorable experiences that appeal to many people. It tells stories that relate to wider trends and themes of our society. It is engaging people in various ways. Many of these experiences, stories, and engagements draw on the practices of doing archaeology in the present: excavating ancient remains, discovering ”treasures”, rescuing archaeological sites, and investigating our origins with the help of modern technology loom large. When it refers back to the past, much archaeological appeal derives from idealized clichés that are nothing but our own visions superimposed on times gone by. In each case, it appears that the meaning of archaeology in society is more to do with metaphors and stereotypes than with literal truth about the past (see also chapter 5).

From a purely academic point of view, this conclusion may be seen as sad and deeply unsettling. But humans have always drawn on a rich supply of metaphors and prejudices that provided guidance and visions for their lives. Arguably, the world is too complex for everybody to assess all of it on its own merits. Social psychologists have long understood that every society and every age needs to provide specific ”short-cuts” for making the unfamiliar familiar (Moscovici 1984).

Julian Thomas, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Manchester, argued in his book Archaeology and Modernity (2004) that the discipline of archaeology is intrinsically linked to a modernist worldview. It could only have been generated in the specific context of the modern world and is firmly tied to the conditions of modernity as they developed over the past few centuries in the Western world. A similar argument has been made by the Swedish archaeologist Björn Magnusson Staaf (2000) regarding the defining influence of modernism on archaeological heritage management and research design. If the modern world and its conditions are now changing beyond recognition, both Thomas (2004: 223) and Staaf (2000: 192) wonder whether that means that scientific archaeology and heritage management, too, will need to change in order to remain relevant. As the German journalist and archaeological author Dieter Kapff (2004: 130) put it in a recent commentary (my translation):

Archaeology appeals to a large number of people. But members of the contemporary fun-society are not actually interested in increasing their knowledge, in education, information or intellectual stimuli. The educated classes {Bildungsbürgertum} of the 19th and early 20th centuries no longer exist. Today, people want entertainment.

Does, then, a new type of society require a new profile for archaeology? Have the links between archaeology and traditional values of education been cut? Is its popular portrayal showing archaeology the way to the future? Already now, popular archaeology contributes to some of the themes and stories that increasingly give orientation and quality of life to people today. But as things stand, computer game manufacturers, Hollywood studios and people like Däniken benefit most from the currency of archaeological themes.

As society transforms itself, archaeologists need to know precisely what it is that almost everybody else seems to find so irresistible about ”their” subject. They also need to ask themselves where they wish to position their subject, their own profession, and the role of their institutions in relation to that existing appeal. In the light of a number of particular significant key themes that have come to define the subject of archaeology in the popular domain, the entire field may need to be rethought – and certainly the way, archaeologists themselves have been relating to their popular representations. This kind of analysis is not entirely original but increasingly shared even by senior representatives of the discipline. For example, Brian Fagan, the doyen of American archaeology, recently stated (2002: 255, 258):

Today’s archaeology requires new skills, new sensitivities for communicating effectively with the wider audience... We are woefully unprepared for the challenges of an entirely new kind of archaeology. … The academic culture is becoming increasingly irrelevant to much of what contemporary archaeologists do. Yet we persist in training predominantly academic archaeologists.

The issue is not how archaeologists can make those people who love Heinrich Schliemann, Indiana Jones, Lara Croft and Time Team more interested in their own version of archaeology. The issue is rather what these popular figures can tell the professionals about popular themes and interests they need to address themselves. As a major report of the Economic & Social Research Council in the U.K. recently stated, the problem is not one of a lack of ”public understanding of science” but increasingly it is one of a lack of scientific understanding of the public (Hargreaves & Ferguson 2000).

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