New Book on Conflict Landscapes

 

[PACHI] When I came here to Poland nearly 40 years ago, it seemed like I was leaving for the end of the world, such isolation ("recipe for oblivion" one late archaeological mentor warned me). Although that's certainly not how I see it now ([geographical] "centre of Europe" after all)*, old mental habits are hard to break. So when I saw that on Twitter there was a lot of talk of this new book, and it's an archaeological theme that over the past two years I've got more enthusiastic about, my first thought was of a colleague who is trying to raise awareness in Poland about this: "must inform Ania about it", so I pull up the Amazon page... and then see from the contents list that she's in it. (Good in a way, because if I'd written now, I'd have had to explain why at the moment I'm not writing that book review I promised). 

What is interesting is that in a country like Poland where in many areas you can't go for a walk very far before almost tripping over some remains of twentieth century conflict, and where in theory all those remains are automatically covered by heritage protection laws, actual archaeological research on it is so sparse.   Perhaps that is because it is so full of traumatic memories for the entire population, including people that are alive today and were/are affected by it (such as my dear mother-in-law), that archaeological research seems superfluous and still rakes up so many bad emotions and memories. This is something difficult for the average Brit to understand. I had huge problems with this when I came here. 

The growth in popularity of literature on conflict landscapes, so-called 'dark heritage' and the like in the areas to the west is also an interesting social phenomenon that it might be interesting to explore.

* present government and its populist ideologies I trust a temporary phase

British metal detecting: Heritage Action: What’s worse than losing hedgehogs and dormice?

 

[PACHI] So often, the collection-driven destruction of the archaeological record is discussed as a matter of "collectors' rights" and "dealers' profits" rather than the massive resource conservation problem it actually is, as pointed out this week by Heritage Action (What’s worse than losing hedgehogs and dormice?). So, when we've not totally eradicated the population we can reintroduce species locally in 'reserves' where they were once present, but forced out by environmental change. So in Poland we have reconstructed bison herds, "there are now sea eagles on the South Coast of England for the first time in 240 years", but, Heritage Action point out:

reintroductions are a double-edged sword, distracting from the fact some extinctions are forever. Hence, few people care that an army of detectorists is engaged in removing archaeological artefacts from the fields. Yet those losses, especially when not reported, are the worst, for they're irreversible: not a single unreported archaeological artefact will ever be replaced nor will any archaeological site exhausted in secret. Sadly such losses are both avoidable and unnecessary. They happen only for personal amusement or personal profit, hence toleration of them is largely confined to Britain.

Vignette: The right way to collect bison. acquisitive metal detectorists have got it wrong about how to express an interest in the past by simply wanting to own it.