One important theme that has attracted an increasing amount of attention among archaeologists recently is the use of the past by modern communities and the social situation and responsibilities of archaeologists in this process (cf. Trigger 1989, Gathercole and Lowenthal 1990). A number of scholars from various countries have begun to examine the manipulation of the ancient past in the construction of ethnic, national and regional *identities in modern history. *Ethnicity and *nationalism are clearly powerful forces in the modern world, and archaeology has frequently been conscripted to establish and validate cultural borders and ancestry, sometimes in the service of dangerous racist and nationalist mythologies. It is important for archaeologists to understand the historical processes by which such identities are constructed and transformed by competing groups and factions and how the distant past is marshalled as a symbolic resource to establish an emotionally charged sense of authenticity and continuity. It is equally important for archaeologists, as the principal conduit to that distant past, to develop a critical awareness of their own situation in this process. This is crucial in order to understand how it may subtly inform their practice by conditioning their research goals, their interpretations and their evaluation of knowledge claims, and in order to recognize their responsibilities in presenting the past in the midst of rival appeals to its use in authenticating modern collective identities.
The fact that archaeology acquired its professional disciplinary identity in the context of the development of modern nation states with their demands for the construction of popular traditions of identity has given many scholars cause for serious sceptical examination of the field. Moreover, examples of the unwitting, or occasionally conscious, participation of historians and archaeologists in the manipulation of the past in the cause of ethnic, nationalist, and colonialist mythologies offer clear examples of the risks of unreflective interpretation and the illusion of scientific objectivity. The dangerous abuses and distortions of the archaeological record in the construction of the Aryan myth that served to justify territorial expansion and genocide in Nazi Germany (Härke 1991) are a prominent reminder of the fact that archaeological research may have serious political ramifications. But a host of other, more subtle, examples (from Greek invocations of the legacy of Alexander the Great in efforts to define the territory of modern Macedonia to the attempted use of the archaeology of the ancient Celts as a basis for establishing a sense of cultural unity in the evolving European Union) offer caveats for archaeologists to be vigilantly selfcritical in evaluating the social and political context of their interpretive perspectives and their epistemological tools.
A major related controversy has developed over the issue of ‘ownership’ of the past. This debate centres around questions concerning the authority of competing interpretations of archaeological evidence, the right to control representations of the past, and actual ownership of the physical objects excavated from the ground. Arguments about ownership of archaeological artefacts and sites are not new: archaeologists have been engaged for many years in attempting to secure legislation which would designate these things as public goods under professional supervision and preserve them from becoming private commodities on the thriving international antiquities market. Moreover, many former colonies have also been engaged for some time in attempts to retrieve the archaeological materials which they consider part of their cultural heritage from the museums of foreign colonial powers. What is new is that indigenous (now minority) populations in some countries, especially in North America and Australia, have begun to demand repatriation of the archaeological materials held in university and state museums and have sought to oppose or control the excavation activities of archaeologists. In many cases, museums are now being forced by legal sanctions to turn over the excavated artefacts and skeletal remains of indigenous peoples for reburial, and excavation projects are required to have indigenous consultants with serious veto powers. Needless to say, a heated debate is being waged over the implementation and justification of these practices.
These developments, as well as a recent relativist critique within archaeology, have also occasioned a greater attention to interpretations of the past which differ from those of professional archaeologists. *Museums, which confer authority in the act of presenting certain interpretations of the past to the public, have been a major battleground for this debate. Not surprisingly, the American celebration of the quincentennial of Columbus in 1992 became a particularly provocative catalyst for discussion. But the same questions have been raised in other contexts around the world.
This new self-consciousness places archaeologists, as the ‘producers’ of the symbolic resources of the ancient past, in a somewhat delicate position. Wariness of archaeology’s manipulation by the state is less morally problematic, although it may require alienating the primary source of funding for research. However, while wishing to be sensitive and open to the interpretations of disenfranchised groups and the needs of local communities to construct popular traditions of identity, the violent effects of ethnic conflict fuelled by emotionally charged appeals to the past show the explosive potential of such apparently more benign manipulations of archaeology in folk traditions. Many archaeologists are seeking ways to be cautiously self-critical about the authority of their own interpretations, while at the same time responsibly engaging in debate about manipulations of the past and exposing ahistorical *essentialist notions to the archaeological record of constant change.
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