Welcome back, everyone,
for our final component
of the Archeology and
Futurity Conference.
It's my distinct
pleasure and honor
to introduce our closing plenary
speaker, Dr. Cornelius Holtorf.
Dr. Holtorf is Professor
of Archeology and Director
of the Graduate School
and Contract Archeology
at Linnaeus
University in Sweden.
His diverse research
interest share a concern
for the place of archeology
in contemporary society
and its role in unknown futures.
Research on monumentality
and the cultural construction
of the past at megalithic
sites in Northeastern
Germany informed is
1998 dissertation
from the University of Wales.
His 2005 book, From
Stonehenge to Las Vegas:
Archeology as Popular
Culture, blurs the line
between artifacts and people
from the past and contemporary
meaning.
He's also the author of
Archeology is a Brand!
The Meaning of Archeology in
Contemporary Popular Culture,
and in addition to co-editing
Archeology In Folklore,
published in 1999, Contemporary
Archeology is Excavating Now,
Second Edition,
published in 2011,
and The Oxford Companion to
Archeology , Second Edition,
published in 2012.
He also serves as the associate
editor for The New Journal
of Contemporary Archeology.
Dr. Holtorf's interest in
archaeological and contemporary
meaning has lead in involvement
in diverse heritage-oriented
projects at zoos and currently,
at nuclear waste facilities
as part of his involvement
in the Assembling Alternative
Futures for Heritage Project.
Taking the question of
archaeological futures
quite seriously and
practically, Dr. Holtorf's work
demonstrates the
urgency with which
we must confront archaeological
futures in the present.
We're very excited to
welcome him here at Brown
and provide our closing
plenary address entitled,
An Archeology of the Future.
Please welcome Dr.
Cornelius Holtorf.
Thanks very much for
the introduction.
And I would like to
say at the beginning
that I noticed that
several of the speakers,
during this event, mentioned
at the beginning of their talks
that they had some difficulties
in addressing the future,
to make their own research
relevant to the theme.
And I'd like to say, I
didn't have this problem,
for two reasons.
One of them is sort of on a
slightly more personal level,
that this is the first
presentation I've ever
given in a Prezi format.
So it feels like the
beginning of something,
and I hope it goes well.
Here you see the entire
presentation already.
But it'll take some
time to go through that.
It
And the second level
is that I will actually
be addressing the future.
It's the title of the talk.
And I'd like to lead us right in
by showing you this image from
the Long Now Foundation
that's based in San Francisco,
which is constructing at
the moment-- in the process,
a very long process-- a
10,000-year clock, in Texas,
I think.
And you know
archaeology's always
interested in and chronology, in
measuring time and dividing up
time.
Now, here's a very
concrete way in how
to measure the future-- at
least a first 10,000 years
of the future.
That will be taken
care of by this clock.
And it's also
making a point here,
which leads us back
to Laurent's talk
at the beginning of
the meeting yesterday.
Because this is an example
from a living material
memory of the future.
He presented a
number of examples
of living material memory from
the past that is still with us
and represents a
multidurational present
and a multitemporality today.
And the thing in this
multitemporality,
you also need to include
aspects of the future,
and not just one of them.
It's something
that is built. It's
in a long process of
building, and then
it is supposed to
last for 10,000 years.
And it's built so that it has
every chance to live that long.
We don't know what will happen.
But at least that's
it's potential,
which may be interrupted
in some form.
We'll have to see about that.
So this the sort of
very concrete future
that I'll be addressing here,
with a number of very different
examples and case studies.
But the key question
is, of course,
not how long future lasts
or how we will measure it.
But the key question
is, will archaeology
be valuable in the future?
And of course, that happens
to be the topic that has also
been addressed a lot
in this conference,
from a number of
different angles.
And everybody's very concerned
with what this our relevance?
In fact, should there be
archaeology at all, maybe,
in the future?
And if so, how?
And what's the
right thing to do?
Now, this question,
obviously it's
difficult to predict any future
appreciation of archaeology.
Because we don't know
what will happen.
Maybe next few years,
we can foresee.
But if you think
ahead a bit longer,
it becomes a bit more difficult.
But there's one thing I think
we can be a little bit more
certain about, and that is
that archaeological knowledge
may be able to help us
communicate with the future.
We can leave messages.
And maybe we must leave
messages for the future.
And some of the examples
in this talk will be--
and I'll introduce
that here-- will
be drawn from a project
that's been working
on for the last
five years, which
is a collaboration with the
Swedish Nuclear Waste company.
And they are constructing--
or at the moment,
they are applying for
a permit to construct
a deep geological
depository of nuclear waste.
And in that context, because of
the liability for a very long
time period to come that
is sort of inherent in such
a depository, they are
concerned about the question,
how do you communicate the
content of that depository
for people who are living
up to a million years
into the future?
Just think about
that, a million years.
So and they asked
us to think about,
what does it mean to communicate
with people in a million years?
You know, we don't even know
if Homo sapiens will still
be around by then,
and who will be.
But it is a challenge which
we somehow need to solve.
And there are several questions
that are relevant to that.
One is, of course,
the material side.
Which materials will
actually last that long?
A second question is,
will the message last?
Because if the material lasts
and the message doesn't, then
what have we gained?
And the final one is, will
the message be understood?
And if it is understood,
is it understood in the way
we would like to.
Will it correspond to what
we hope to communicate?
Now let's look at one example.
Now, this is from a
nuclear site in the US.
Unfortunately, I've
forgotten where.
And it's not a major site.
This is a relatively
small deposit,
and it's not the most
high-level nuclear material.
It's something much less.
But the technology of
communication's interesting.
You see a stone with an
inscription in English.
"Caution, do not dig.
Buried in this area is
radioactive material
from nuclear research conducted
here between 1943 and '49.
Burial area is marked
by six corner markers
100 feet from this center point.
There is danger to visitors."
So here you have
a very simple way
of communicating
with the future.
And it uses stone,
because stone lasts.
And it is inscribed with
a message that has already
been altered only a few years
after this was put into place.
Now, at the moment, it
can still be understood.
We know what is missing and
what the intention is of that.
But you know, just
imagine another 100,
or 200, or 2,000 years,
and it's far from certain
that the message
like this actually
will reach the audience
for which it is intended.
But there is some
archaeological expertise
in these and in the process
of constructing messages
like that.
On the right, you
see another example
from the Yucca Mountain
discussions in the US.
This is where the discussion
globally started in the 1980s.
And this is actually based
on archaeological expertise,
because the material in which
this plug, from which this
is constructed, is burned clay.
And archaeologists
know there's nothing as
durable as burned clay, which
can have messages on it.
You know, the
cuneiform tablets which
have been preserved, not
quite, for a million years,
but a few thousand years, at
least, and are readable today.
And this is certainly
another material
that has every chance
to survive very long.
Also, here.
they chose not to
communicate in English,
because who knows what
language people will
speak in the distant future?
But they communicate
in a symbolic language
with a pictogram.
Now, whether that will actually
help is another matter.
People will still
be able to recognize
the different elements on it.
But for example, that
the slash from the top
left to the bottom right, that
that means not to do something,
is something which is clear
to us from traffic signs
and so on, but may
not be clear to-- even
on this planet-- to everybody
who would see a sign like that.
And symbol of
nucleation-- you know,
this wheel-- may mean anything.
So it's not
necessarily a solution,
but it's another way of
trying to communicate.
Now, if the present
experts fail in this task,
if we will not succeed
in communicating
a message like
that to the future,
then you could say we would
really definitely need
some really good archaeologists
in the future who sort of stop
before they get there.
Have some sort of
inclination, some gut feeling.
I don't know-- some tools,
methodologies, to that tell
them what to expect
a meter lower, maybe,
in the earth before
they get there.
So that's the starting point.
Will archaeology be valuable?
And in what context?
Will we succeed in this
message constructing,
or will we rely on the skills
of our future colleagues
who will find,
maybe, these places?
If there are any archaeologists.
Who knows?
There are good reasons, maybe,
to stop with archaeology
sooner rather than later.
So who can tell?
Now, the main part of the
talk will be about my claim,
and that's the
argument I'm going
to be presenting,
that archaeology
is, in fact, of the future in
a number of different ways.
Three ways.
So I'll the present
my first block here,
that one aspect
within archaeology--
that hasn't really been explored
very much, but could be--
is its contribution to
the history of the future.
Secondly, I'll be talking
about future-making
in the present in an
archaeological context.
And lastly, on what
both of these points
mean for thinking
future futures.
What are the
implications of that?
What can we expect, and
how should we think today,
in relation to the
futures that will
be constructed in the future?
So what does all that mean?
Let's start with the
first block here,
the histories of the future.
Now, this is a relatively
straightforward argument,
I think, even though I haven't
seen much of it in the future.
Now the archaeology
and materiality
of envisaged futures and
imagined futures and planned
futures is, of course,
nothing but the flip side
of the archaeology of memory.
It's not what we
perceive has happened,
but it is what we
would like to see,
and how this is expressed
in the material world.
Let's look at a few examples.
There are different kinds
of futures, of course,
and I cannot present all
possible options here.
This is just a snapshot
of a few possibilities.
Optimistic futures-- and
the examples I'm giving here
are from the modern world,
because of course, you
could take, from different
periods, all kinds of things.
Now, to continue with
the nuclear connection,
this is after the war, one
of the earliest imaginations
of what nuclear power
would allow us to do,
and how it would solve
a lot of our problems.
And this is an image
in Albuquerque.
It's a museum for
nuclear technology,
and it's taken there.
It's an atomic power plant.
Within 50 years, they expected
that cyclotron generators
like these would provide
unlimited atomic energy--
and, of course,
completely safe and cheap
and available to everybody,
and solves our global issues
everywhere.
Now, it didn't quite
turn out that way.
But at that time, this
is what people expected.
And I should say a lot of
these optimistic futures,
or any futures, some
of them did happen,
and many did not happen.
Just the same with memory.
Some reflect what
happened and some do not.
But there are reasons.
It's contextualized.
There are reasons why people
imagine certain things,
and it has consequences, also.
It affects the way the
course of history develops.
It influences people-- what they
perceive, what hopes they are,
what expectations they have.
Then here at the bottom,
you see two other examples.
Of course, one it's not
that long ago-- Concordes.
You know, when I
was a child, we all
expected that it's going
to be supersonic flight.
That is the future.
Or a space shuttle
is another example.
This was supposed
to be the future.
And terrible things
happened, accidents,
and it was deemed to be
unsafe, and it stopped.
And very suddenly, unexpectedly,
the decision was taken.
This is no longer the future.
Now we move into a
different direction.
Or Tomorrowland, in Disney,
reflecting in the '50s and '60s
the optimism, how
the car culture would
be completely unproblematic
and allow us to be mobile.
And this was before the
environmental movement,
where all these issues
were not on the agenda.
And what these
have in common are
that all these three futures
draw on, and they emphasize,
opportunities that arise
due to modern technologies.
And maybe one was too optimistic
about some of the possibilities
of technology at the time.
But then were are.
That's what people
generally believe.
So this is one future.
Now, yes, another
one, the opposite.
There are also
pessimistic futures,
of course, people
who foresee Doomsday
and apocalyptic
visions, and so on.
And an interesting one is this
very early depiction from 1830.
This is Soane's Bank
of England as a ruin,
which is a famous painting
that has often be shown.
And I think you may
just, maybe, can
make out what you see on it.
So this is at the time when
the building was erected,
when it was new.
This was a vision of what it
might look like many years
later, as a ruin.
And it looks like some
sort of Roman city, maybe.
It's a romantic image of
what the building would
look like when it no
longer was in use.
So already at the time
when it was built.
You know, this is
something-- today,
people don't do that anymore.
But here's a vision of a
future that is not hopeful.
It's one where things
end and collapse.
This is another one.
This is an image that is
actually not from the reference
I give, but the book
contained similar images--
Paul Virilio's Bunker
Archaeology from 1975.
A study of the
concrete fortification,
the Atlantic wall, and the
West wall, along the borders,
the Atlantic borders, of Europe.
In this case, the German
troops prepared for any attack
by the Allies.
And this is, of course, a
future where they were afraid.
How can we protect us from
what is going to happen
or actually did
happen, eventually?
Very thick concrete walls.
And they were so solidly built
that they're still there.
And in many cases, they
gradually sink into the sand.
But they're very
evocative structures
that tell us about the fears and
the expectations of the people
whom lived there, at
least periodically.
And the politicians behind
it, of course, also.
And here's another example.
And again, this comes
from the nuclear context.
And actually, this is
rather interesting.
Because as I said,
in the context
of the American discussions
about the Yucca Mountain,
but also about the WIPP,
the Waste Isolation Pilot
Plant, that has been
constructed and is in use
now-- there was a lot of debate,
including anthropologists
and archaeologists and
science-fiction writers
and artists, a very broad,
still very interesting debate,
to read their documents.
And in that process-- I
think it's the late 1980s,
approximately-- they
had a competition.
How should we communicate to
people, in a million years,
that this site is not where you
should dig or search for water,
or should drill down,
for whatever reason.
And some of that is
based on messages,
like I showed the
examples earlier,
that you just write
in plain language,
and maybe in
different languages,
maybe with pictograms and so on.
But this is another approach.
And this is the
Landscape of Thorns.
And this is an attempt to
evoke emotions in people
through material culture.
So it's really very topical to
many contemporary theoretical
discussions in archaeology.
The sense, the emotions, how we
can develop a complete picture
of what it means to be human.
And how do we
bring that together
with the material world?
So here, the intention is
to construct these thorns
in a very durable
material which will
last under the specific
conditions in this area,
and which will make
people uncomfortable
when they get there.
They just don't
want to be there.
It doesn't tell them anything.
It doesn't tell them
that there's danger,
or don't dig, or be careful.
No, it says, you
know, get confused.
We want you to leave
here, get out of here.
I don't know if you've seen the
Holocaust Memorial in Berlin,
which has a very similar sort
of-- it affects your emotions.
It affects your-- you
don't know what's going on.
It's not pleasant to be there.
And it's very interesting,
how material culture
can affect things.
So this is another approach
in a similar direction.
So these, then, are
pessimistic futures.
And they share that
they're all about
expressed fears and
risks, perceptions
of what could happen and will
happen-- and, in some cases,
did happen.
And you prepare yourself
for that, it some form.
Now, in the history
of the future,
some got the idea
that maybe there
are also key years,
certain years,
which are more significant,
where things come together.
And it seems to me that 1972
was one of these key years,
in recent years, in
the last century,
in the history of the future.
Because there are three very
significant events happening--
happened to have happen,
just in those one year.
One is the Club of Rome's
Limits of Growth, which
is the beginning of the
environmental movement
and led to everything, with
Rio And all the climate
change debate is
ultimately a consequence
of a process of
started at that time
and that expressed worries about
what's going on the planet,
and called for responsibility.
And even the Anthropocene,
which we heard about earlier,
sort of is the last culmination
of this particular kind
of thinking.
And then the year also saw
UNESCO's World Heritage
Convention, which is also about
concern for the destruction
of heritage.
But it takes a more
constructive view, maybe.
Because it proposes that in
order to solve this problem,
as far as the
heritage is concerned,
we need a global effort
to conserve certain sites
and protect them, so that
they will not be suffering
from whatever we can expect.
And finally, this is also the
year when NASA's Pioneer 10
space probe was launched.
Now, what has that got
to do with the future,
you may wonder.
And I'll talk a bit
about space now,
and I'll also come
back to that later.
Now, the Pioneer is one
of the few space probes
that has left the solar system.
So it's on its way to
reach an unlimited future,
or nearly unlimited
future-- which, in a way,
puts humanity in its
place in the universe,
in the biggest imaginable
scale that there is.
But let me give you some more
context on the space probes.
There are four space probes
that, until recently,
have left the solar
system, not more.
All the others are on
various trajectories
within the solar system.
And these are Pioneer 10
and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2.
And here you see their
current locations.
So they are nowhere
near from each other.
And you had this in
three dimensions,
it would become even clearer.
They're going in different
speeds in completely different
directions.
And as you know,
the Pioneer image
reflects one version
of what it means
to be human for
whoever may find that.
And of course, partly, that's
a message sent to intelligence
that may be or may
not be out there.
But it's also a message that
is sent to people on Earth,
to all of us.
And I think you've all
seen this image before
and heard the critiques, very
justified critiques, about it.
It reflects a
particular expectation
of a universal, global,
limitless future at that time.
Let's communicate the essence
of what it means to be human.
I think that's what
they tried to do.
And this was a
consensus, at least
in the people who were
responsible at that time,
that this means we
focus on the biology.
It's our nature that is
the most important thing.
And so we show we show some
natural elements, some physics
and chemistry and
astronomy and so on.
And we show these naked
people, and the man
with the greeting gesture
that maybe not everybody
would understand as
greeting, not even on Earth.
And the woman to the side,
standing with a different step,
and so on.
You can see the-- well,
it's easy to critique
the gender messages that
are in this message.
It is easy for us now.
It was not, of course, to
people who did it at the time.
But it's a classic image now.
Now, here's the Voyager.
And they sent a golden record.
It was a time of records, so
they sent a golden record.
And again, it's an attempt
to communicate what it
means to be human into space.
But this was a few
years later, and people
had thought more about
what had maybe gone wrong
with the Pioneer, and they
were focusing more on culture.
So it's a much richer message.
And it says what is on it here.
It contains recorded audio,
117 pictures of the planet;
different elements; greetings
in 54 different human languages;
and songs of the
humpback whales.
So it's the idea to
represent nature, as well.
And it also has
some other sounds,
and then comes-- in
has 90 minutes of some
of the world's greatest music.
And I know some
of the background.
There are three people mention
at the bottom-- Frank Drake,
Carl Sagan, and Bernard Oliver.
And he and this group, and
a number of their closest
friends-- it's like
six or seven people--
they did the entire Voyager
message in six weeks.
From the moment they
heard they could do it
until the launch of the
rocket was six weeks.
So this is, you know,
how can we fix this fast?
And there is not a
particularly extensive process
which leads behind the
selection of the music.
It's these individuals'
favorite music.
And in one or two cases,
copyright was too difficult,
so that was left out.
Just imagine-- copyright for
a message sent into space.
Which is more than ironic.
And maybe it's those
songs that did not
get copyright clearance that
really tell us most about what
it means to be human, or
it meant at that time.
Anyway, so this is another way
of sending a different message,
but it also is supposed to
reflect the best of humanity,
or who we really are.
And I think you
see the connection
to how this challenge to address
an unlimited future almost,
how that brings an
energy into people.
And really to think, what
does it mean to be human?
How do we solve this
particular task?
So this are elements of the
histories of the future.
And all of them, if
you analyze that,
there's some recurring
themes in that.
And they are about
the possibilities
of powerful technology,
its risks, and the question
of accountability
that'll always crop up,
especially in recent centuries.
Now, my second point is about
how do we make-- ah, sorry.
Now it comes.
How do we make the future in
the present through archaeology?
And archaeologists
contribute to future-making
in a number of different ways,
and I'll go through them.
They are to do with knowledge,
with preservation of heritage
objects, and also with
a number of other realms
where archaeological
expertise is coming in now.
And they draw on
modern technologies,
but again, they're
linked very often
to this notion of
taking responsibility
that is so paramount,
really, in our age right now.
So let me just very quickly
give a few examples for that.
I'm sure there are many more.
But these are just some that
show the variety in which
the future's made today.
Now, one aspect is that the
way we accumulate knowledge
about the past, that
this provides us insights
about trends for the future.
And one example is, of
course, our libraries.
This is the Haddon
Library at Cambridge.
And well, I think
you have libraries
like here and in many
places, and it just
is the accumulated knowledge
of a whole discipline,
really, that is there to be
used by subsequent scholars
and students, to learn
and build on that.
And eventually
help us understand
one aspect, or several aspects,
of the world a little bit
better.
But there are also
very applied notions.
Now, this is a very
simple diagram,
and it reflects just one
body of evidence, data.
This is just the number
of world population.
And it's so simple,
but it's also so clear,
in the trend you see in that,
how the population is rising.
And of course,
there are varieties
between different
parts of the world,
and you can depict that, also.
But it's a very clear trend
here, only over 2,000 years.
But you can make this graph
much longer, see what happens.
So you can predict
certain things.
Not unlimited, long.
Obviously, there may
come the breaking point.
People argue when that may be.
And in fact, we are
maybe already beyond it.
Who knows?
But the risk is
very clear in where
this curve is probably going to
continue, or wants to continue.
And it delves to other issues
that people are talking about.
And a lot of them
are environmental.
Climate change has similar
curves for temperature rises
and other environmental trends.
And more and more
people see this as one
of the main challenges
in archaeology,
to address very concrete issues
of concern, often in relation
to the environment.
And I found one
quote that expresses
that in recent years,
from Sander van der Leeuw,
in a major article
he wrote together
with a large number
of his colleagues.
He says, that "We must
focus our historical efforts
on the future,
rather than the past.
We must concentrate on learning
about future possibilities
from history.
The new approach outlines a
number of possible trajectories
from the present into
the future and then asks
the following questions.
What is the future
result we desire?
And what do we need
to achieve that?"
I think today, also, we heard
a number of other examples.
It was not environmental,
but other issues where
similar questions come up.
So this really seems to be an
issue that is on the agenda
and throughout
archaeology, really,
in different domains within it.
Here's a second
example, which is now
not about-- moving on now from
the accumulating knowledge
point to the point of
preservation of heritage.
And this is a
wonderful poster which
I think illustrates a way
of thinking that all of us
have seen in many contexts.
It is part of many policy
documents, of slogans,
of societies.
Politicians like
to argue like that.
In this case, 25
years of preserving
the past for the future.
Sometimes it says
that we are preserving
the past for the benefit
of future generations.
Even UNESCO documents
have phrases like that.
And you can do that, of
course, in different ways,
either in situ or by record.
And I think you're all familiar
with this distinction, how
archaeologists work.
Now, one can wonder how
this claim-- to what extent
this claim reflects a
mantra that is repeated
for its own sake, very often.
And in fact, there
are studies which show
that it may just be just that.
Also, we did
interviews with people
in several countries, about
60 interviews in total
with heritage experts.
And not a single
person knew what
they meant by preserving
heritage for the future.
Everybody says that
this is what we do.
But when we are asking which
future, how do you mean?
How is this going to work?
Nobody has ever
thought about that.
Very senior people,
even at UNESCO,
who are clever in every respect,
in all areas of practice,
and they say, you know, what
an interesting question.
I've never in my life
thought of that before.
This is the pattern.
Which sort of seems to underline
this claim that it really
is a mantra, most often.
But there is
potential, of course.
It could be different.
And there are
examples where there
seems to be a genuine
commitment to impact the future.
It may not be too many,
but there are some.
And I just want to show you two
different ones from major sites
where slightly different
approaches are taken,
and which illustrate the
potential to really impact
the future through
the preservation
and presentation of heritage.
Now, the first one is
Auschwitz, which is of course,
a site-- everybody knows
what happened there,
and which receives
many visitors,
and has been open to the
public for many years, also.
And I went about a year ago
and documented the phrases
and references, the
explicit references,
to the future on the site.
And they all share
a sentiment that I
think we've all come
across many times,
that this is a
place where we want
to remember what happened so
that it doesn't happen again.
But essentially,
it's about memory.
It's about not forgetting.
It's about keeping it in
the back of our minds,
what once happened.
And the risk, of course, is
that it might happen again
under different circumstances.
And to prevent that, one
contribution to prevent that
from happening, we
keep the memory alive.
And I found a different
approach to the future
in another major site.
That is Hiroshima.
Also known to everybody, and
we know what happened there.
And here you see a very
different approach.
This is not about memory.
Throughout the entire site,
very little references.
It's not about commemoration
of what happened and keeping
the memory alive.
They took a completely
different view.
For example, here, the
Peace Bell, which is that.
It rings every August--
let me read that here.
The bell is rung during
the Peace Memorial Ceremony
every August 6 by
a representative
of a family of an A-bomb victim
as a hope for world peace.
And you see that in
the other quotes, also.
The pope was there in 1981.
To remember Hiroshima is
to commit oneself to peace.
It's not about memory.
It's about constructing
a better world.
It's a commitment to a world
where war's no longer happen.
Not only atomic
wars, but no wars.
It's a commitment to peace.
So here we have
a positive vision
for the future that is sort
of in-built in the very site.
That's the message
people take with them.
And it's very different from
Auschwitz and, of course,
many other heritage sites.
So these are examples
for how the future is
made at heritage sites that
are preserved in the present.
Very often, it's a mantra.
It's a phrase that means little.
But there are
exceptions where you
can see that people have
thought about a strategy
and how to create certain
behavior or certain processes
and practices that
will impact the future,
and contribute to make it a
little bit better than it might
otherwise be.
Now, let me give you some other
examples for activities that
are not inherently,
necessarily, archaeological
but where archaeological
expertise comes in and informs
the way they make
the future there.
Now, these are novel
forms of fragile heritage
preserved for the future, and
very often also anticipating
risks.
And one example is
in the central image.
It's the seed bank in Svalbard.
You may have read about that.
It's been in the
media throughout.
And there are several
seed banks in the world.
This is one of them which is in
a permafrost area on Svalbard,
where they keep samples
from around the world, seeds
that are considered important
to have preserved after mishaps.
For example, now, in
the Syrian context,
there are certain people who
withdrew certain seeds again,
because they had lost
their own records
due to the war at the moment.
This was the first
time, actually,
something had been
withdrawn again regularly.
Now, archaeologists
work with these.
And I can say that
because I'm part
of a project where we have met
the responsibles for the seed
bank.
Only a month ago they
came to Stockholm.
And you should think, you
know, they are professionals.
They know how to build, how
to deal with their seeds
and preserve them, and
they do all that right.
But at the end of our
meeting, the person
responsible for the seed
bank, a Norwegian, he said,
I learned something
from you archaeologists
that I hadn't thought about.
Because yes, we know
how to preserve seeds,
and that's all taken care of.
But we never thought
that as important
as the seeds is to preserve the
information about the seeds.
We cannot just preserve seeds.
Because if this is for
the long term-- I mean,
now everybody knows.
In a thousand years, we may
have a seed and a Latin name,
and we know where it's
coming from, maybe,
but we don't know
what to do with it.
So to preserve the
information about the seed
is as important as
the seed itself.
And he said he had
never thought about.
They have no strategy for that.
And this is an outcome
of people like him
meeting a group of
archaeologists and heritage
experts and just
talking to each other.
And it just emerged
from discussions,
because other people in this
group were thinking like this.
And he thought, hang on.
We've never considered that.
And here's another example.
Oh, that became big.
And now this is again--
I've shown here-- oops.
I don't know.
I've shown you earlier
pictures from the nuclear waste
deposits and the communicative
efforts that are being taken.
Now, this is an archaeological
site of the future.
This is the plan for
the final repository
of high-level nuclear
waste in Sweden.
And the process
has come quite far
and will probably be the second
country in the world that
will get the permit to build the
structure within a year or two.
The first country is Finland.
They've just received
that permission.
So it looks almost
like an Egyptian grave.
It could be inside a pyramid,
with all these-- you see,
obvious, these
archaeological connotations.
And here, as I said, the
nuclear waste company,
in the process of building
that, they, again,
invited us as archaeologists
to work with them
and think through
these questions.
How do we perceive
of the future?
What approach will work and
what will certainly not work?
And how do we have to
address and do justice
to the responsibility we
have for future generations?
Because if we don't
address that properly,
it's not only that we
don't act responsibly,
but it's also that
we may never get
the permit, for good reasons.
And the local
municipalities, the people
of the community there,
is also concerned
about this issue, of course.
So this is another-- this
is the nuclear sector, which
is also suddenly listening
to archaeologists
and wants to have us
involved in some way.
And I think there
are other examples.
And then finally--
and now I'm returning
to space-- there is, how
do we make futures today?
Now, the ultimate future-making
are universal futures,
what I've discussed briefly
earlier, in relation
to the Pioneer and Voyager.
And you could say this is
world heritage beyond UNESCO.
This is the world
heritage that sort of
is in the world and the
universe, or will be.
And there is a new
project now that's
been going on for
a number of years,
but it's still waiting for the
final permission from NASA.
This is the fifth space
message that hopefully
will be sent into space, and
it's probably the last one
that any of us will encounter
during our lifetime.
Because NASA projects
are very long-term,
and it takes many
decades to plan them.
And there's nothing else
in the works at the moment,
so we can't predict-- it's like,
for the next 40 or 50 years,
there will be no
more space message.
This is the last chance.
And this is also-- I mean,
like always, this is adapted
to the time in which we live.
It's our age's
space message, which
means it's a digital message.
And those of you following
the news and so on, now,
of course, that the New
Horizons space probe has already
left Earth 10 years ago, and in
fact passed Pluto last summer,
and is now on its way--
they're in the process
now of applying for an
extension of the mission
so that it will also visit a
few places in the Kuiper Belt.
And after that, it looks like
there's every opportunity--
Alan Stern, the
principal investigator
is behind this
message project also.
There's every
opportunity, every chance,
that the project will get
the permission to upload
about 100 megabytes of data,
through the communication
channels that exist,
onto this spaceship.
So if you go on the
internet and google that,
you'll find this web
page where they are now
gathering support and
interest in order to be ready
when the time comes.
And through some
coincidence, I'm
a member of the advisory
board of that project.
And it's great fun to be able to
think about universal heritage
issues, and this
particular future,
from an archaeological
perspective.
So they're asking people to
contribute to this message.
It's going to be crowd-sourced
this time, the message.
They want to involve
as many people
as possible from
around the globe.
It's not going to be five
individuals and their wives,
or something.
But if this is going to be
a different effort which
makes an attempt to be
much more inclusive.
So it is, again, a
message sending to space.
But also, mainly, I would
say a message sent to Earth,
which mobilizes people and makes
us all think about humanity
and who we are.
Now, there are many
different challenges,
and I just want to name them.
I could give a lecture on
all of that, but not now.
Different strategies--
the starting point
for many people in the project
is that we should carefully
select representations of our
one Earth, in as inclusive way
as possible, of course.
But that we should send
images or sound files,
or even some short videos,
that show different things
on the Earth.
And that's one approach.
Now, I find some of the other
approaches more interesting.
We can, for example, consider
sending metaphors and symbols
of humanity into space.
And it doesn't bother me too
much that metaphors may not
be understandable for ET.
Because how big are the
chances that ET will understand
anything that we send?
And they are not
all that hopeful
that this actually
reaches a receiver.
And it's much more so
that we talk to ourselves,
we talk to other
people on this planet--
and future generations, of
course, on this planet--
and they will
understand a number
of metaphors and symbols.
For example, I've
been thinking today,
with the discussions
on capitalism
and the injustices in the
world, and human suffering,
and all of that.
Now, this is also elementary
about being human today,
and maybe messages
about that should also
be represented on this.
And how do you do that?
How do you send a
process into space?
How do you send a process
of liberal capitalism,
for example, if you
want, into space?
And I don't have the answer.
But I think that should
be the challenge,
to open up this project
for alternative ways
of representing things that
are meaningful to all of us
and important for all of us,
but cannot necessarily be easily
expressed in a single image.
Another way of trying to
represent the entire globe
is, of course, an
inclusive decision-making,
that it's not just the
experts being involved,
but as many people as possible.
Which I think will happen.
But it's people who have access
to the internet at this point,
because there's just no way of
reaching everybody on Earth.
And there is also
still this issue
that NASA needs to
prove everything.
And we know some of the
sensibilities that exist there.
You know, no naked
people, and so on.
And how do you realign
that with the ambition
to present something that
shows the whole variety of what
it means to be human?
And finally, how do you deal
with allowing different voices?
Should you send
contradictory messages?
Should you say, you
know, here's the Earth,
and there are different
ways of looking at that.
And from this angle, it would
like this, and from this,
like that.
And to have opposing
views, I think,
would be elementary in
many ways, to allow that
and to resist streamlining
a message, which somehow
gives the impression
that everybody's agreed
on something.
But how do you do that so that
it still becomes meaningful,
and that different voices can
talk to each other and about
each other?
So these are some of
the issues in which we
are making a universal
future, or are
preparing to make a universal
future at the moment.
So this, then, was
my second point,
and how future-making
in the present happens,
some examples for how it happens
through archaeology today.
And now let me take
this one step further
and think about future futures.
Now, in the future,
preserved material remains
will, of course, be enlisted to
make future futures then, also.
And one issue we need to ask
is which of them will still
be available or accessible,
available and accessible
in the future?
And you've all seen headlines
like this one, which
is a very dramatic
language, that here,
a destroyed mural in Damascus
is described as in terms
of destruction of antiquities,
as "a loss for all eternity."
You have these
universal references.
And some things get
destroyed, so they will not
be accessible in the future.
And this is a recent image,
what Palmyra looks like today,
compared with what
it looked like
before the recent destruction.
And I think you've all seen
these images, recently,
in the media.
So some things don't
make it physically.
And of course, other things
may make it physically,
but they're no longer accessible
in terms of interpretation.
Their meaning is lost.
Now, here you see an expert
looking at a disk in a writing
that the people of the time can
no longer-- they speak code,
you know, what are they called?
Bar code language.
And they have the object, but
can no longer make sense of it.
And that's another way in which
accessibility may be lost.
But of course, more
importantly, the question
is not only-- are
maybe not only,
mostly how to
preserve something,
but how it will be
valued, and whether it
will be valued in the way we
would like it to be valued.
And whether it will be able to
make a positive contribution
to society in the future.
And this question is
similarly significant
for the nuclear waste sector as
it is for the heritage sector.
I mean, we are also preserving
things for the future.
That's what it says
in the legislation.
That's what many of us believe,
and it's what we try to do.
But it only works
if we can be sure
that it will have a
benefit in the future.
If we cannot make that possible,
then the whole thing falls.
The logic is no
longer applicable.
Now let's look a bit more
deep, a little bit deeper
into this question.
Now, the particular
value of an object
may be a reason for material
transformation also.
It may lead to a very thorough
shift in what a thing becomes.
Now, we've seen Ai
Weiwei earlier today,
and he's great for many things.
And of course, this
complex meaning
that he communicates,
also, through art,
which has a lot to do about
China, culture, politics,
and so on.
But I here use it in a different
context, this famous artwork,
Dropping a Han
dynasty urn, from '95.
He dropped an urn in
front of a photographer
in a very sort of
casual gesture,
as if it doesn't matter.
And I've read, in one of
the appropriate literature,
that in fact, he
dropped two urns,
because the photographer missed
it the first time around.
These are real urns.
These are urns that he owned,
that he had bought somewhere,
presumably legally,
for all we know.
His property,
which he destroyed.
Now, can he do that?
And what happens
as he does that?
Because Ai Weiwei is a
big name in the art world.
And by doing that,
arguably, the shards
and the representation
of the act of destruction
gains in value.
It doesn't lose value.
The object becomes
famous because it
was dropped by Ai Weiwei.
It doesn't disappear
from the planet of Earth.
It just is transformed
into something else.
It becomes an artwork.
And the story continues here.
This is Manuel Salvisberg
from Switzerland
and his work, Fragments
of History, in 2012.
Now he bought one
of Ai Weiwei's urns.
And if you look carefully--
you'll see in a moment.
I have another picture--
it says Coca-Cola
on the urn, which Ai Weiwei
had painted on the ancient urn.
And he bought one of them
and dropped it and created
a similar sort of image.
And Ai Weiwei was
furious, it says.
Of course, it was legal.
He couldn't do
anything about it.
There was nothing
wrong with that.
But now it perpetuates.
The logic is continued.
Is this an act of loss?
Or is it an act of creation?
It certainly is an act of
appreciation, both of Ai Weiwei
and of the vases, in
a particular context.
Now, here you see
what I'm getting
at-- how complicated
this becomes
to be assured of a
value of something
in the future, when all
these things may happen along
the way.
And these are not
acts of vandalism.
I mean, there is much more
to it than the vandal act
that you see depicted,
maybe, like that.
Yeah, here's the question.
Did these transformations
result in a loss
or a creation of value?
And here you see
one of the urns,
the way they looked like,
the way he has transformed
them already before.
Now let me give you
another example.
Trinidad Rico wrote a
very interesting paper
a couple of years ago.
And this deals with
the 2004 tsunami
which destroyed much of
Banda Aceh in Indonesia.
And here's one image of what
this looks like, an this is
quite a recent image.
Now, when Trinidad
returned years later,
she found that the disaster
heritage had developed, which
witnessed of a
historical turning point
and was helping to bring
local populations together
in their efforts to overcome
loss and plan for the future.
So things had been destroyed.
But the act of destruction,
and the heritage
of that destruction,
became something positive.
It helped people in
acknowledging what happened
and overcoming it,
and going further.
And tsunami belts,
in several of them,
they become a
heritage of its own.
It's not just a loss.
Of course, it has
also destroyed things.
A lot of things were
destroyed through that.
But here, it
becomes a symbol, it
becomes part of the heritage.
It becomes a symbol of something
that points into the future.
It becomes a new legacy
that is being mobilized
in a different context.
So it's not so clear
that the destruction that
also was part of the
tsunami, of course,
that this was entirely-- has
to be seen in terms of loss.
It's also an act of creation,
just in the different way.
Right.
Now, Rico says that the future
heritage sites, actually, they
are being built
rather than rebuilt,
and I think that's a very
interesting way of putting it.
Heritage sites are being
built in every present.
They're not rebuilt
all the time.
We are contributing to heritage.
We are continuing the history.
I mean, that is the
whole point of heritage,
that it reflects the
course of history
and what happens in our
different circumstances.
And it raises, of
course, the question--
do we need to think differently
about our own future-making?
How can we make heritage
future-proof and thus
sustainable?
These are issues
of sustainability.
How can we create something
that will lose its meaning,
lost its significance, through
an act that, in this case,
nobody could control, a tsunami?
It may be cultural events.
It may be wars.
It may be all kinds of things.
How future-proof is it to
preserve heritage, when we
don't take this into account?
When we don't curate
processes and/or structures,
institutionalize a preparedness
for change and transformation?
I think that's the challenge,
to achieve sustainability.
it's illusionary to think that
we can conserve everything
as it is.
That's not the point of
history, and it's not
the point of heritage.
So we need to create
something else.
But how do we do that?
It's not an easy-- the
heritage sector has never
dealt with that.
We realize that there is
some variety in space,
different perceptions of
heritage and different claims,
and so on.
But we haven't yet come
to grips with the fact
that there's also
variety in time,
and that heritage changes
over time dramatically.
And this is not only
a negative thing.
This is part of the very
logic of heritage and history.
Now, a recent book
on these issues
contains a paper
by Stephanie Lavau,
and she makes an interesting
distinction between two types
of conservation.
She says, basically, that
these sorts of events,
terrible events, they make
us question how the heritage
sector thinks and how we work.
And she makes this distinction
between fortress conservation
and fluid consideration.
Now, fortress
conservation is the one
we're all familiar with.
That's the conservation
that builds fortresses,
that anticipates risk
and tries to prevent loss
as much as possible.
Preserve the status
quo as much as we can.
Now, fluid conservation
is the alternative.
That's what she
suggests comes out
of examples like Banda
Aceh and its tsunami boats.
This means we need
to adapt to loss.
We need to be ready and willing
to create new legacies all
the time, as things change.
And it just puts
on its head many
of the principles that the
conservation world is governed
by, and many of the
policy documents
that are out there
in conservation.
But this is what
thinking about the future
can do to you-- that you realize
in order to create sustainable
futures, you need to
rethink the very logic
of what you're doing.
I'm not going to
go through that.
I'll just make a reference.
Because there's an article
just published in Antiquity,
literally weeks ago, by Nathan
Schlanger and two other authors
from France.
But they make a
very similar point,
but in relation to the
Fukushima disaster and the way
they are thinking
about heritage now.
And how they're arguing for
the preservation of some
of the destruction--
some of the boat
pictures you get also
here, but also the
destroyed reactors and so on.
So that, it can become a sort
of symbol for a new beginning,
for a turning-point
in Japanese history,
and to help the community to
move into different directions.
Which is quite different to the
dominant way in which heritage
has been dealt in the
aftermath of disaster in Japan,
where they've tried to cut
losses and rescue information
that's-- you know, in
a rescue archaeology,
preventive archaeology,
kind of context,
try to preserve the
knowledge that is contained.
Whereas here, those
three advocated
we should think
about the disaster,
in itself, as an heritage event
which we need to memorialize
with a view to the future.
So these are the
three ways in which
I've argued that archaeology
is of the future.
And I have-- especially
the last one,
that there are implications for
what that means for practice
and how we think today about
what we should or should not
be doing with heritage and
with archaeology today.
And I hope that it has
become clear to the readers
of my newspaper what all these
different categories mean--
or at least what I mean to mean.
And maybe it also
stimulated you to think
about what they mean to you.
So this, then, is the talk on
an archaeology of the future.
And what I should say at the
very end is a word of thanks,
that the Heritage Futures
project, which I mentioned,
is an inspiration for
all these thoughts.
And I'd also like,
of course, again
to thank Matt and
Joukowsky Institute here
for the invitation and the
hospitality we've all received.
And with that, I say thank you
very much for the attention.
Thanks.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you very much.
And we do have some time
for questions and comments.
I know you guys
are really itching
to get over to the Fetty
Wap concert that'll
be starting soon.
So before you head over
there, if there any comments
and questions, we're happy
to field them at this point.
Not all at once.
[LAUGHTER]
Thank you, Cornelius.
That was very interesting.
The question of
anticipation, leaving room
for the unanticipated.
I mean, you know,
I'm always struck
by the Pioneer and the Voyager.
Because the first
one goes out, and you
have two humans standing there.
And then the next one goes out,
Carl Sagan and his friends,
and they have whale songs,
and they have elephants.
They have these other creatures
that we share this world with,
right?
And now the new
message is up again,
and how are you anticipating
for those others
that we share this planet with,
and what role do they play?
Also in the context of
heritage, which I think
is fundamental, how do we
include these others that
have been evicted out
of all our cities,
and we don't live with in
the way that we formerly did.
What role do they come in?
And this is just a general
worry about heritage, as well.
Whose heritage?
And I know you worry about this
too, but just to throw it out
there.
Yeah.
It's a worry.
Let's take the next one.
Thanks so much for the very
thought-provoking talk.
One of the things that
I wanted to return to
is a question you
posed to us about 1972.
And I was trying to think
about the oil crisis and David
Harvey.
And 1972-- that didn't
start happening until 1973,
so that's not the answer.
But it raises a broader
question about why now?
Why are we interested
in futurity now?
What is it that's really
compelling these questions?
I think Chris has offered
some answers about it.
That's something else I'd
like to put out there.
And I also wonder what your
speculations about that
might be.
Well, I mean, what
drives history?
I think that's a clear
trend, and in fact,
a much longer trend, than
just a few years or so.
You've seen already how
both the future and the past
expand dramatically over
the last few hundred years.
And this process
is still continuing
as we are going ever
further back in time,
the origin of the universe,
and longer into the future,
also, with an increased
sense of responsibility
and worry about where
will it all end?
And so on.
I cannot explain it.
But it's something that
we-- certainly 1972
is one high point,
and it's still
continuing along those lines.
I don't know if
anybody can explain it
or has an idea on why
that happened just now.
And it seems to be it's probably
bigger than Western, right?
I think really, the concern is
global, even though maybe it
comes from here.
I'm not too sure.
I would like to
tell you a story.
The writer, Georges Perec,
he had a very bizarre plan.
His idea was to choose 12 places
in Paris, to sit down-- well,
there are 12 months in a year.
So each month, to
sit down in a cafe,
have a glass of something, and
just record what's going on.
To put that into an
envelope, to glue it,
and then the next month,
to go somewhere else.
And the idea was to keep
doing that for 12 years.
So you end up with 12 stories.
So unfortunately, he died before
being able to achieve that.
But what is very
striking, and it's
very close to what you
have been talking about,
is this is something
quite astonishing.
You're creating a story in
sending message to the future.
This is what he was doing.
The idea that you
don't remember what
you have been writing the year
before, and in fact, the story
is reconstructing
itself after that.
And of course, he was completely
unable to predict in which
direction it was going to.
It's a bit like the
Warhol boxes, you know?
Every week, he was
piling stuff into a box.
And so it's a very
fascinating process
in which in recording
the present, in fact,
you're sending
messages to the future.
But at the same time,
you're creating a story.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I mean, I emphasize
process in one context,
in relation to the message.
But there's also
the process-- what
we're doing right now,
in thinking about this,
there is also a story that
will be told, eventually,
in a much bigger context.
So that's absolutely the case.
And what I think, another
heritage aspect that the space
project needs to deal with,
is its own legacy management.
And that was badly
handled before.
They thought the job was
done, with the Voyager,
when the message was sent.
But of course, it's not.
This is only sort
of a middle point.
At some point,
something happened,
an event, and then
it continuous.
Because you need to tell the
story in a particular way
and update it.
So good point, absolutely.
It's storytelling
on different levels.
Thank you for a great
talk, [INAUDIBLE].
I find it really interesting
that this most recent and kind
of ongoing attempt to send
a message out of this world
is in digital.
It's a digital format.
Especially kind from our
archaeological approaches,
the fact that we're
trying to convey
who we are, not through objects,
is really interesting to me.
And I'm wondering
if you or anyone
else who would care
to comment sees
that as an attempt to
move human expression away
from the object world?
Are people trying to
escape the material
as a way to express
humanity and our interests?
Or is it more just
a function of kind
of the necessities of
having this thing already
out in space, and that's how
we could get information to it.
Yeah, interesting question.
But I don't think it's moving
it away from the material world.
Because there is the
space probe, you know?
There is this memory where
it is being recorded.
And I don't know enough about
what digital things look like,
but it is zeros and ones, and
there is a physicality to that.
So it's just a different
medium in which
we operate with the material
world, a different way
of engaging with it.
So it's interesting, because
it's all-encompassing
and it brings completely new
possibilities and challenges.
It has a lot of
implications in many ways.
But I'm not necessarily
sure it's a complete turn
away from what we had before.
Of course, another thing
which is interesting-- again,
linking back to story and
process, which I also think we
should be doing.
I'm not quite sure if
they will by that--
is that since we will be
in touch with the space
probe for a number of
years into the future,
you could create a
process by which something
gets updated regularly.
You could say, I don't know,
you choose a particular school
somewhere in the world,
and every generation
will act to the story,
Chinese Whispers
through space or something.
I think that could be
wonderful, this sort of updating
continuity and change.
Make that part of
process, as well.
Would be possible.
And this, the
digital technology,
makes that possible.
Because once you
sent it physically,
you cannot retrieve it again.
All right, well, thank
you very much, Cornelius.
I'd like to add that I think
this was a great closing
plenary to kind
of complement what
was going on about 24 hours ago
with Laurent's keynote address.
And in particular, you
mentioned Ulrich Beck
and citing Risk Society,
and the idea that technology
is the subject of history,
and not necessarily humanity.
I think you could
make a case here
for technology is the
subject of futures,
not necessarily humanity itself.
And this kind of addresses
Chris's point about the
Anthropocene not necessarily
be being anthropocentric.
I think what it kind
of brings to mind
is the idea that this
technological focus is
deeply material and therefore
deeply archaeological, as well.
And something that we need to
address as we move forward,
and to keep these
discussions going.
And I hope we can do that
over the course of dinner,
and of course, over
drinks, as well.
So I will definitely
be setting plans
to continue these
conversations a little bit
later tonight after dinner.
So for graduate students and
other faculty who are here,
please coordinate with
us, and certainly we
can meet up later to
continue these conversations.
So I can't thank
you guys enough.
Thank you so much
to the participants
for being here today.
These were really
excellent papers.
And I look forward
to seeing what
comes out of this in the end.
So thank you very much
for your contributions.
And of course, thank
you, the audience,
for your contributions as
well, with the comments
and questions.
So again, thanks very
much for being here.
And thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
