The Portrayal of Archaeology in Contemporary Popular Culture

Opportunity or obstacle for professional archaeologists?

by Cornelius Holtorf

Table of Contents

References

Acknowledgments

Insofar as archaeology enhances people’s lives and society in general, its major impact might be said to lie in popular culture rather than any noble vision of improving self-awareness.

- Gavin Lucas (2004: 119)

Preface

This book is about the portrayal of archaeology in contemporary popular culture. It is not a manual for a better didactics improving the public understanding of the discipline of archaeology. There will be important lessons for professional archaeology to be learned, but these lie on a more general level than specific methods and approaches applicable to individual public education initiatives.

Many archaeologists use the term ”archaeology” indiscriminately to refer both to their own field or subject and to the past being studied, for example in the book title The Archaeology of Britain: An Introduction from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Industrial Revolution in the magazine title Archäologie in Deutschland. I do not. This book is concerned with the portrayal of the field or subject of archaeology only. I am not disputing the great significance of popular representations of the past but they were not the topic of my research.

I will be presenting important facts, analyses and interpretations, and a few potentially controversial arguments about the social role of archaeology. My intended audience are professional archaeologists and others working in the (broadly defined) heritage sector as well as students studying fields such as archaeology, heritage, cultural studies or science studies. The book will also be relevant to all those interested in the field that has become known as the ”public understanding of science” and in studies of the depiction of science and scientists in popular culture (e.g. Haynes 1994; Bjorklund 2001; Kirby 2003; Weingart et al 2003).

This is a draft manuscript.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commerical Share Alike 2.5 License

Update January 2007: The book has now been published in a revised version and fully illustrated with cartoons by Quentin Drew. It is available directly from Archaeopress in Oxford as well as from Oxbow (not for U.S.) and Amazon.co.uk.

Reviews and other appreciations are constantly being updated here.

The American edition (identical content) will soon be available from Left Coast Press.

Forward to The eBook

Posted at Feb 03/2005 11:08 AM:
Harald Lofgren says: It´s about time that archaeology connects with the public interest.