Editorial.
Scarre, Chris
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In December 2014 the International Monetary Fund announced that a
long-anticipated milestone had been passed and that China had overtaken
the USA to become the world's largest economy. Given the size of
the Chinese population, numbering 1.4 billion people (or almost 20% of
all those alive today) that is perhaps no surprise, and in terms of
individual living standards, China has some way to go before its
citizens achieve the same average income level as those of western
Europe or North America. But the growth of the Chinese economy has
already been echoed in the expansion of its archaeology, and articles on
the prehistory and early historic societies of China have featured
regularly in recent issues of Antiquity. The current issue is no
exception, and in particular includes an article about one of the rather
puzzling episodes in the Chinese past: the overseas voyages of the Ming
admiral Zheng He (see below pp. 417-32). Between 1403 and 1433, Zheng He
led seven imperially sponsored missions, each of them on a massive
scale, around the coasts of Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean,
reaching as far afield as Aden and East Africa.
Prefiguring the European voyages of exploration later in the same
century, these Chinese voyages began to forge stronger maritime links
and join the different parts of the world together into a single system.
A key node in these voyages, visited by Zheng He's fleet on four
separate occasions, was the island of Hormuz at the entrance to the
waterway known as the Persian or Arabian Gulf. Direct archaeological
evidence of these visits survives in the form of Chinese pottery
collected from Hormuz, including sherds of the classic imperial Ming
blue-and-white porcelain. Lin Meicun and Ran Zhang in their article
explore the wider significance of this material for Chinese overseas
relations in the early fifteenth century. The Ming blue-and-white
porcelain may indeed have been part of Zheng He's diplomatic gifts
to local rulers. Alongside these valuable wares, however, are poorer
quality wares that testify to commercial trade, perhaps conducted
against imperial orders by members of Zheng He's expedition. In the
event, direct Chinese involvement in the Gulf endured for only a few
decades, and by early on in the following century, Hormuz was under
Portuguese control. The Chinese pottery nonetheless stands as a timely
reminder that the Europeans were by no means the first foreign power to
recognise the strategic importance of this vital waterway and to start
spreading their influence overseas.
Rescuing damaged sites
Move north from Hormuz and one enters the troubled region of Iraq
and Syria, where the ongoing human tragedy is accompanied by widespread
devastation of the archaeological heritage. Reports suggest that ISIS is
engaged in (or encouraging) systematic looting of archaeological sites
in order to fund its operations. Major ancient cities such as Nineveh
and Nimrud are within the area that they control, while in Syria to the
west, sites such as Palmyra are under threat not only from looting but
also from military operations. Sad to say, it is difficult to see this
situation improving any time soon.
These conflicts leave archaeological sites damaged and pockmarked,
with structures and sculptures removed and sold, or destroyed. Yet vital
evidence can sometimes survive. An example of what can be achieved is
presented by the Roman and Byzantine village of Hosn Niha in the
Biqa' valley of Lebanon. This fell within one of the hotspots of
the Lebanese civil war, and it was believed that little remained of the
settlement on the hillside below the temple sanctuary. Bulldozers had
been used in the hunt for saleable antiquities, and some areas had been
entirely destroyed. For Paul Newson and Ruth Young, however, the
destruction of Hosn Niha presented both a challenge and an opportunity
('The archaeology of conflict damaged sites: Hosn Niha in the
Biqa' Valley, Lebanon: below pp. 449-63). What archaeological
evidence can be salvaged in these circumstances? Should sites such as
this be studied, or given up for lost and ignored?
In 2011 and 2012, Newson and Young led a systematic survey of the
remains, recording houses, quarries and tombs, and collecting and
mapping the distribution of different pottery types across the site.
Much of this material had been brought to the surface by the bulldozing
itself, and it was clear that the core of the ancient settlement had
been largely destroyed. Around its edges, however, the survey brought to
light new structures, and allowed an overall assessment to be made of
the settlement and its surrounding features. As the authors conclude,
warfare in this region is continuing to take a major toll on the
archaeological record, but their survey shows that even sites that have
been very badly damaged have the potential to tell us about human
activity in the past. With conflict continuing, this is a lesson we may
all need to learn for the future.
A fragile survival from the past
Damage of a different kind hit the news recently when Greenpeace
activists laid out a message "Time for Change! The future is
renewable" next to the elaborate humming bird that is one of the
most famous images of the 'Nazca lines' in the Peruvian
desert. The aim of the activists was to put pressure on world leaders
gathered in Lima to discuss a new agreement on climate change, but they
had not thought carefully about the location they had chosen. A recent
article in Antiquity described this as "one of the world's
most fragile archaeological landscapes" (Ruggles & Saunders
'Desert labyrinth: lines, landscape and meaning at Nazca, Peru
Antiquity 86 (2012), 1126-140). Ruggles and Saunders note that one of
the most surprising features of the Nazca lines is how little they have
been damaged; movement across this landscape when the lines were being
made and used must have been strictly controlled. Even a slight
divergence from the prescribed pathways would have left traces that
would still be visible today, 2000 years later. In order to preserve the
Nazca lines, access to the area has in recent decades been strictly
controlled by the Peruvian authorities, and visitors view them from
above in short aerial tours from one of the neighbouring airports. All
the more ironic then that activists seeking to draw attention to the
fragility of the earth's environment have, unintentionally, damaged
it in this way.
The complexity and the exceptional preservation of the Nazca lines
combine to make them one of the most intriguing legacies of
pre-Columbian South America. It is the thinly populated arid environment
that is largely responsible for their survival. Unusual preservation is
not always on this scale, however, nor in such a remote and spectacular
setting. Shortly after reading about the Nazca episode, I had
opportunity to revisit a much smaller but still striking example of
unusual preservation at Greensted in Essex, not far outside the London
suburbs and within the commuter belt--until its closure in 1994 the
station at nearby Chipping Ongar marked the terminus of the London
underground Central Line. A narrow side road from Chipping Ongar leads
past the few houses of Greensted to the Church of St Andrew, the sole
surviving example of an early medieval timber church in England. It
claims to be the oldest wooden church in the world.
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Akin to most medieval churches, St Andrews has been extensively
modified. When told that a building is AngloSaxon in date the sceptical
archaeologist always questions which particular part of the building is
meant. There were major changes to the church over the years, not least
in the nineteenth century, but the original timberwork is striking in
appearance and impossible to miss. Split oak trunks form the side walls
and the western end wall. Grooved and tongued to make a continuous
weatherproof structure, they are raised off the ground and rest today on
a brick plinth, but are thought to have been originally set directly in
a bedding trench (1). Over the centuries, their lower ends rotted away,
and the Victorian restorers chopped off the decayed material, which
makes it hard to say how tall they once were. But we do know they are
old: dendrochronology in the 1990s dated them to 1053 +10-55 years
(British Archaeology December 1995) (i.e. somewhere between 1063 and
1108--shortly before or after the Norman Conquest). Roof, chancel and
tower are later additions, but most of the timbers are clearly original,
if truncated, and despite the many modifications they are a striking
reminder of how many early European churches must have looked.
Profiling the profession
How are we as archaeologists seen by outsiders? "The Hollywood
image of the dashing adventurer bears little resemblance to the real
people who, armed with not much more than a trowel and a sense of humor,
try to tease one true thing from the rot and rubble of the past."
So we read in the opening pages of a recent book that seeks to give
insight into who archaeologists are and what they do, across a whole
range of contexts. In Lives in ruins: archaeologists and the seductive
lure of human rubble, Marilyn Johnson offers a detailed and generally
sympathetic account that puts flesh on the bone. She takes us through a
number of settings--fieldwork, conferences, university programmes--to
show the variety of the things with which archaeologists have to
contend. Underpinning it all is the dedication that drives us as
practitioners, and not far behind that are the slim and uncertain
rewards that many archaeologists accept, at least in the early stages of
their careers. The rewards lie elsewhere.
Johnson's account offers many familiar and memorable
moments--the cash-strapped excavation projects in overseas settings, the
conference discussions, the struggle to save things before they are
destroyed. Not surprisingly, perhaps, we learn that archaeologists see
the world in a different way. On a conference excursion to Machu Picchu,
for example, we are told how "you can tell the archaeologists, of
course, by their photos. The tourists' photos feature people in
front of mountains, terraces, stone structures, sundials. The
archaeologists wait until the people move away to take theirs: they want
the terrace, the stone wall, the lintel, the human-made thing, all sans
humans." Trying to photograph crowded sites is a problem with which
I am sure most of us will be familiar.
This is a readable and enjoyable account of the dedication and
enthusiasm of which our profession should rightly be proud. One feature
emphasised by Johnson is archaeologists' sense of
responsibility--towards preserving or recording the remains; towards
their field teams and the local communities they work among; towards
protecting cultural heritage in times of conflict. If one of her
chapters is subtitled 'Taking beer seriously' another carries
the by-line 'Mission: respect'.
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In this context, it was not surprising to learn that the recent
murders in Paris triggered responses from students of archaeology. In
the Ecole nationale des chartes, the bust of its first professor of
archaeology, Jules Quicherat (1814-1882), was festooned with the message
"Je suis Charlie". Nathan Schlanger has recently become the
latest holder of the chair established for Quicherat. He writes:
"Venerable institutions have venerable traditions. At the Ecole
nationale des chartes in Paris, established in 1821 to promote the
critical study of history, this striking bust has endured generations of
student pranks designed to enliven the erudite surroundings. Since the 7
January 2015, it serves to broadcast a vital republican message of
freedom, tolerance and determination." Archaeologists may not
always be well paid, but the subject remains as relevant as ever. doi:
10.15184/aqy.2015.17
Chris Scarre
Durham, 1 April 2015
(1) Christie Hakon, Olaf Olsen & H.M. Taylor. 1979. The wooden
church of St. Andrew at Greensted, Essex. The Antiquaries Journal 59:
92-112.
