Nationalism and archaeology have been closely related since at least the nineteenth century.[1]Archaeological interpretations andancient history can be manipulated for nationalist purposes, such as cultivating nationalmythologies andnational mysticism. Frequently this involves the uncritical identification of one's ownethnic group with some ancient or even prehistoric (known only archaeologically) group,[1] whether mainstream scholarship accepts as plausible or rejects aspseudoarchaeology the historical derivation of the contemporary group from the ancient one. The decisive point, often assumed implicitly, that it is possible to derive nationalist or ethnic pride from a population that lived millennia ago and, being known only archaeologically or epigraphically, is not remembered in living tradition.
Examples includeKurds claiming identity with theMedes,[2]Albanians claiming as their origin theIllyrians,[3]Iraqi propaganda invokingSumer orBabylonia,[4]Hindu nationalists andTamils claiming as their origin theIndus Valley civilisation[5] —all of the mentioned groups being known only from either ancient historiographers or archaeology. In extreme cases, nationalists will ignore the process ofethnogenesis altogether and claim ethnic identity of their own group with some scarcely attested ancient ethnicity known to scholarship by the chances of textual transmission or archaeological excavation.
In China, the central claim in nationalist archaeology is thatmodern China is the world's oldest continuous civilization.[6] Chinese archaeology began in an era when the Western historical narrative emphasized the derivative nature of Eastern civilization. These narratives were supported by early Western-initiated projects, likeJohan Gunnar Andersson's excavations ofYangshao cultural sites.[7][8] Harvard-educated "father of Chinese archaeology"Li Ji began his career reinterpreting thematerial culture—from Stone Age tools toShang dynasty ruins—to find an origin for Chinese culture within the bounds of China.[8]
The continuous China narrative applies two different types of pressure to excavations. First, digs are undertaken and reported with the goal of finding evidence—presumed to exist—that could validate the belief in an unbroken, singular civilization. For example, the Neolithic sites in Shuanghuaishu are prioritized over other Stone Age remains because of Shuanghuaishu's physical proximity to later Chinese cultural centers.[6] The Ruins ofYinxu, a former Shang Dynasty capital, have long been a focus of excavations, under the idea that material culture discovered supporting the historicity of the Shang Dynasty there, validates classical Chinese writing in general.[7] ArchaeologistKwang-chih Chang describes Nationalism as "a great magnet attracting data" that focuses on discoveries in key locations inZhongyuan at the expense of peripheral areas of the nation.[9] One example of how this presupposition can distort findings is theWushan Man. The jawbone of an ape and ancient stone tools—discovered in the same cave—have been presented as evidence for a fringe "out of Asia" alternative to thewidely accepted African origin of modern humans, positing the "Wushan Man" andPeking Man as a pre-human extension of China's continuous existence in China.[10][11]
The other type of nationalistic pressure in Chinese archaeology is the suppression of studies that could disrupt the official narratives of the state. Notably, China restricts access toTarim mummies like theBeauty of Loulan and thePrincess of Xiaohe. To control the debate between the official narrative of Chinese dominance in theTarim Basin andUyghur nationalist identification with the mummies, China allowsgenetic testing only by Chinese scientists in China.[12] American sinologistVictor H. Mair says that he and Italian geneticist Paolo Francalacci were prevented from testing the majority of genetic samples taken from the mummies.[13][14]
Díaz-Andreu, Margarita.A World History of Nineteenth-Century Archaeology. Nationalism, Colonialism and the Past. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007.ISBN978-0-19-921717-5
Díaz-Andreu, Margarita and Champion, Tim (eds.)Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe. London: UCL Press; Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1996.ISBN1-85728-289-2 (UCL Press);ISBN0-8133-3051-3 (hb) & 978-0813330518 (pb) (Westview)
Kohl, Philip L. "Nationalism and Archaeology: On the Constructions of Nations and the Reconstructions of the Remote past",Annual Review of Anthropology, 27, (1998): 223–246.
G. Fagan (ed.),Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public Routledge (2006),ISBN0-415-30593-4.
Kohl, Fawcett (eds.),Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology, Cambridge University Press (1996),ISBN0-521-55839-5
Bruce Lincoln,Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship, University of Chicago Press (2000),ISBN0-226-48202-2.
Chapman, Malcolm.The Celts: The Construction of a Myth. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992.ISBN0-312-07938-9
Dietler, Michael. "'Our Ancestors the Gauls': Archaeology, Ethnic Nationalism, and the Manipulation of Celtic Identity in Modern Europe".American Anthropologist, N.S. 96 (1994): 584–605.
James, Simon.The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? London: British Museum Press, 1999.ISBN0-7141-2165-7
Israeli
Abu El-Haj, Nadia.Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.ISBN978-0226001951
Spanish
Díaz-Andreu, Margarita 2010. "Nationalism and Archaeology. Spanish Archaeology in the Europe of Nationalities". In Preucel, R. and Mrozowksi, S. (eds.),Contemporary Archaeology in Theory and Practice. London, Blackwell: 432–444.
