C Holtorf
Biographic Data
| ID | 16221 |
|---|---|
| NAME | C Holtorf |
| GIVEN NAMES | C |
| FAMILY NAME | Holtorf |
| SIGNATURE | HOLTORF C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Linnaeus University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0557-9651 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 92 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 565 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 92 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
When the river disappears
This study offers a better understanding of how post-mining communities emotionally connect to local places they lost and how emotions guide everyday heritage making related to those places’ past, present, and future. Our empirical case focuses on the disappearance of the Sztoła, a small river in Bukowno, located in the Małopolska region of Poland. Using place attachment theory, everyday heritage and solastalgia as an integrated analytical lens, …
A Post-Critical Theory of Cultural Heritage
Framtidsmedvetande på museer
This study investigates how managers and employees at County Museums in Sweden think about, work with, and relate to the future in their daily practice. We examined which tools and routines the museums employ to work concretely with different future perspectives. The study is thus about those forms of future consciousness that exist in the museums. The results show that the future is implicitly present but often remains unarticulated in the work …
The Climate Heritage Paradox - how rethinking archaeological heritage can address global challenges of climate change
For archaeology to address adequately the global challenges of climate change, it needs to resolve the Climate Heritage Paradox which consists of two contradictions. Firstly, in contemporary society, when humanity anticipates and prepares for climate change and associated transformations, archaeological and other cultural heritage predominantly look backward and emphasize continuities. Secondly, when humanity on Earth needs panhuman solidarity, t…
Nuclear Waste as Critical Heritage
Nuclear Waste as Critical Heritage
Uppdragsarkeologiska möjligheter
In this text we discuss how Swedish contract archaeology can develop its socialengagement by creating new areas of relevance to society, beyond the generalactivities of disseminating results. We do so by giving concrete examples of howthis can be done, using archaeological excavations as a starting point. The examplesinclude engaging the local community in future planning for a social sustainableliving environment, collaboration with the tourism …
Heritage futures
Purpose This article explores the concept of “heritage futures”, the role of heritage in managing relations between present and future societies. It assesses how thinking strategically about the future changes, complicates and contextualises practices of heritage. What might an attention to the future bring to work in heritage, and simultaneously, what challenges—both practical and ethical—arise? Design/methodology/approach This article takes the…
Archaeology and cultural heritage beyond quarantine
During the years of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2021 thus far), nobody could remain in any real quarantine. The humans of the world were reminded daily of the global progress (or otherwise) of one virus, several vaccines, and numerous health systems. As always, archaeology could not escape its present. The following are my reflections on some issues I had on my mind during the time of the 'corona crisis'. They reflect my perspective as an archaeo…
Picturing Megaliths in Twentieth- Century Swedish Archaeology
ln this paper I will begin a discussion about the ways in which megaliths appear in archaeological images. My discussion of examples is not comprehensive and the selection of images far from complete, but I hope nevertheless to present some key elements of the pictorial vocabulary with which megaliths have been seen and depicted by archaeologists working in Sweden during the twentieth century. However, entering the third millennium of our chronom…
No Farewell to Interpretation
Dr Space Junk vs The Universe
Dr Space Junk vs The Universe: Archaeology and the Future." Australian Archaeology, 87(2), pp. 210–211
The Future of Nuclear Waste
Reviewed by: The Future of Nuclear Waste: What Art and Archaeology Can Tell Us about Securing the World's Most Hazardous Material by Rosemary A. Joyce Cornelius Holtorf (bio) The Future of Nuclear Waste: What Art and Archaeology Can Tell Us about Securing the World's Most Hazardous Material By Rosemary A. Joyce. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 304. The Future of Nuclear Waste: What Art and Archaeology Can Tell Us about Securing the Wor…
Preservation Paradigm in Heritage Management
Authenticity and Pastness in Cultural Heritage Management
Heritage
Archaeology and Time Travel
Archaeology and the Future
Cultural heritage building up future thinking
Qual é o papel do patrimônio cultural na construção de futuros? Como a cátedra da Unesco pode fornecer ferramentas para pensar e fazer futuros criativos? E como a arqueologia se relaciona com isso? Esta entrevista desenvolve o conceito de patrimônios futuros e chama a atenção do “setor do patrimônio” para ampliar a interdisciplinaridade e o engajamento de colaborações de mente aberta com parceiros fora da academia e da indústria, por exemplo. Aqu…
Conservation and Heritage As Creative Processes of Future-Making
According to the logic of the conservation ethics, the heritage sector has the duty to conserve cultural heritage because it has inherent value and constitutes a non-renewable resource that once destroyed cannot be substituted and, therefore, must be preserved for the benefit of future generations. In this article, I argue, however, that the cultural heritage of the past is not a comprehensive legacy that theoretically, at any point, might have b…
The valuable contributions of archaeology to present and future societies
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Preservation Paradigm in Heritage Management
Authenticity and Pastness in Cultural Heritage Management
Deep time reckoning
It took me until reaching the conclusion to realise what had bothered me while reading this book: Deep Time Reckoning is an ethnographic monograph that does not take a culturally relativistic persp
Homeless heritage. Collaborative social archaeology as therapeutic practice
Book review: Homeless heritage. Collaborative social archaeology as therapeutic practice : Rachel Kiddey, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017, 288 pp., $85 (hardcover), ISBN 9780198746867
The life-histories of megaliths in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany)
In many cases, prehistoric monuments had long 'life‐histories' after their initial construction. In the form of a monument 'biography', this paper traces the lives of megaliths in Mecklenburg‐Vorpommern, especially during later prehistory, protohistory, and early history (1200 BC‐AD 1400) but with an outlook on the present day and perspectives for the future. Various types of evidence for attention given to ancient monuments by subsequent generat…
Notes on the Life History of a Pot Sherd
This article discusses various life history approaches in archaeology: short life histories study the lives of things in the past (until they end up in the ground), long life histories study these lives going on until the present. Both approaches share the assumption that although people are free to give to a thing any meaning they want, their material essence necessarily remains unchanged. As an alternative, I present an ethnographic approach, s…
Embracing change
The notions of risk and resilience are increasingly relevant to cultural heritage. Archaeological sites and monuments in particular are widely perceived to be vulnerable and subjected to growing risks of deliberate destruction, e.g. in the context of armed conflicts. At the same time, it has become a familiar claim that cultural heritage needs to be conserved as an important resource for fostering cultural resilience, reducing disaster risk, and …
Averting loss aversion in cultural heritage
According to Daniel Kahneman's theory of loss aversion in behavioural economics and decision theory, people tend to prefer strongly avoiding losses to acquiring gains of the same value. A recently proposed alternative explanation of the same behaviour is inertia. In this paper, I am heuristically transferring these observations from the realm of economics to the realm of cultural heritage. In the cultural heritage sector of the Western world ther…
On Pastness
This article argues for a modified constructivist approach to archaeological object authenticity which takes the object's materiality seriously. This is accomplished by defining authenticity not in relation to the age of an object but to its age-value, i.e., the quality or condition of being (of the) past-its pastness. Pastness is the result of a particular perception or experience. It derives from, among others, material clues indicating wear an…
Beyond crusades
Archaeologists have often felt uneasy when encountering alternative (fringe, cult, fantastic, pseudo-) archaeologies. Some have suggested that alternative approaches and their results must be disproved, while others have been calling for better public understanding of science. My contribution takes a different point of view. I emphasize the social and cultural needs that both scientific and alternative archaeologies address and suggest that the m…
Can less be more? Heritage in the age of terrorism
Western civilization has no particular good track record of saving cultural heritage from destruction, but in recent centuries it has surrounded itself with a rather firm ideology of conservation and preservation. This paper is meant as a caution against a fundamentalist ideology of heritage-preservationism. I am discussing some inherent contradictions of how heritage is treated in the modern world, some mutually exclusive ways of consuming herit…
No future in archaeological heritage management
Although the future is mentioned frequently in overarching aims and visions, and it is a major drive in the daily work of archaeological heritage managers and indeed heritage professionals more generally, it remains unclear precisely how an overall commitment to the future can best inform specific heritage practices. It seems that most archaeologists and other heritage professionals cannot easily express how they conceive of the future they work …
Some Reflections on Heritage and Archaeology in the Anthropocene
Are we now living in a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene? Geo-scientists discuss whether there is a need for a new concept covering the last 250 years' immense human impact on the earth. How are we going to understand and define ‘heritage’ and archaeology in a rapidly changing global environment? The ‘linguistic turn’ in humanities and social sciences has had a huge impact on both archaeology and heritage studies since c. 1980. A criti…
Can you hear me at the back? Archaeology, communication and society
Archaeologists often enjoy the role of giving the people what the people want, at least, so long as that is information about the past. But besides the ambition to enlighten people about the past, there are at least two alternative approaches concerning the way archaeology communicates with its publics in society. One considers archaeology a business and sees people as potential customers who need to be persuaded to buy the products of archaeolog…
Endangerment and Conservation Ethos in Natural and Cultural Heritage
In recent years, various external circumstances such as environmental pollution and urban development have been emphasised as threats to the conservation of both wild animals and ancient remains in the ground. This has been taken as an argument for the need to protect both endangered animal species and threatened archaeological sites. Nowadays, zoos often evoke the image of Noah’s Ark and describe themselves as sanctuaries for endangered species.…
A European perspective on indigenous and immigrant archaeologies
This essay scrutinizes the special status of indigenous archaeologies in contemporary world archaeology. My aim is to contribute to the future development of indigenous archaeologies by giving them the critical attention they deserve and have earned themselves. A contemporary European perspective not only shows that national heritage is no longer able to unite increasingly diverse populations but also that indigenous perspectives on the cultural …
Heritage erasure
Notes1. Figure from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_issues_of_Pompeii_and_Herculaneum (accessed 23 September 2014). See also the work carried out by the Pompeii Sustainable Preservation Project: www.pompeii-sustainable-preservation-project.org and the Herculaneum Conservation Project: www.herculaneum.org.2. See https://www.publicartfund.org/view/exhibitions/6042_danh_vo_we_the_people (accessed 24 September 2014).3. Four of the papers pu…
What Does Not Move Any Hearts- Why Should It Be Saved? The Denkmalpflegediskussion in Germany
This paper is about the recent discussions (known as Denkmalpflegediskussion) on the principles and practices of state heritage management in Germany. In an expert report commissioned by the prominent German politician Antje Vollmer from Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm, a number of fundamental criticisms were made. They concern existing practices of state heritage management, some of which are said to alienate and patronize people. One of the main issues…
Meta-stories of archaeology
I argue that archaeologists contribute most to the contemporary ‘experience society’ when they tell stories. Such stories well told may be either about what happened in the past or about how archaeology proceeds. Far more significant, however, are the meta-stories of archaeology. These are defined as stories of archaeology in which contemporary audiences themselves feature as characters, engulfed in a plot about archaeology or the past that gives…
Conservation and Heritage As Creative Processes of Future-Making
According to the logic of the conservation ethics, the heritage sector has the duty to conserve cultural heritage because it has inherent value and constitutes a non-renewable resource that once destroyed cannot be substituted and, therefore, must be preserved for the benefit of future generations. In this article, I argue, however, that the cultural heritage of the past is not a comprehensive legacy that theoretically, at any point, might have b…
Perceiving the Past
According to the Austrian art historian Alois Riegl (1857-1905), cultural heritage possesses age value (Alterswert) based on the perception of an object's visible traces of age. His 1903 essay "The Modern Cult of Monuments" became a classic, and age value has ever since been constitutive for cultural heritage. Closer scrutiny, however, reveals that clever copies, reconstructions, and imaginative inventions can possess age value too. I therefore s…
Zoos as Heritage
Sculptures in captivity and monkeys on megaliths
This paper reconsiders some aspects of displays at archaeological open-air museums and heritage sites by looking in some detail at how wild animals are presented in zoological gardens. Topics discussed include the historic and current functions of collecting ancient artefacts, the various appeals of different artefacts and displays, trends in attracting visitors, the significance of systematics and typology, narratives reflected in the overall ex…
Archaeologies of Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past
This interview with Victor Buchli and Gavin Lucas was undertaken over email during the Summer / Autumn of 2013 and coordinated by Alfredo González-Ruibal on behalf of the editorial team: Alfredo González-Ruibal, Rodney Harrison, Cornelius Holtorf and Laurie Wilkie. An initial set of questions was drafted and agreed amongst members of the editorial team, and a series of follow-up questions (indicated by the presence of author’s initials) were subs…
Homeless heritage. Collaborative social archaeology as therapeutic practice
Book review: Homeless heritage. Collaborative social archaeology as therapeutic practice : Rachel Kiddey, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017, 288 pp., $85 (hardcover), ISBN 9780198746867
A Comment on Hybrid Fields and Academic Gate-Keeping
The workshop on Poros which forms the basis of this collection of papers was entitled ‘Archaeological ethnographies: charting a fi eld, devising methodologies’. Both the workshop and the present volume that resulted from it constitute attempts to establish a new fi eld, with its own methodologies and its own contested practices, at the interface of several existing disciplines and fi elds of research. My comment takes the workshop on Poros and it…
Archaeology. From usefulness to value
I have much sympathy for Shannon Dawdy's eloquent argument in favour of reorienting archaeology 'away from reconstructions of the past and towards problems of the present' (p. 140). The topic is timely, her argument sharp, and the discussion of the issues at hand benefits from them being put on the spot in rather dramatic fashion. I do not agree with those who might argue that such calls for more social relevance in a humanities subject are merel…
Engaging with multiple pasts
Engaging with multiple pasts: Reply to Francis McManamon." Public Archaeology, 1(3), pp. 214–215
The Climate Heritage Paradox - how rethinking archaeological heritage can address global challenges of climate change
For archaeology to address adequately the global challenges of climate change, it needs to resolve the Climate Heritage Paradox which consists of two contradictions. Firstly, in contemporary society, when humanity anticipates and prepares for climate change and associated transformations, archaeological and other cultural heritage predominantly look backward and emphasize continuities. Secondly, when humanity on Earth needs panhuman solidarity, t…
Towards a Chronology of Megaliths
I argue in this paper that monuments such as megaliths can be understood in terms of 'prospective' and 'retrospective memories'. They were originally built as permanent and widely visible mnemonics in order to transmit a particular message to the future, but that message is now lost. Megaliths were then, and stayed for much of their later history, 'sites of memory'. In later ages, people considered such ancient monuments as part of their 'cultura…
Theorien in der Archäologie Fra ting til tekst. Teoretiske perspectiv i arkeologlsk forskning
Stonehenge. Ein Taktikspiel für 2 Spieler ab 10 Jahren
Playing Prehistory - Stonehenge. Ein Taktikspiel für 2 Spieler ab 10 Jahren (A tactical game for two players from age 10). A game by Dr Reiner Knizia. (Blatz Spiele, Berlin, 1994, ca. DM 30) - Volume 1 Issue 2
The life-histories of megaliths in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany)
In many cases, prehistoric monuments had long 'life‐histories' after their initial construction. In the form of a monument 'biography', this paper traces the lives of megaliths in Mecklenburg‐Vorpommern, especially during later prehistory, protohistory, and early history (1200 BC‐AD 1400) but with an outlook on the present day and perspectives for the future. Various types of evidence for attention given to ancient monuments by subsequent generat…
Age as Artefact
Authenticity is frequently seen as crucial in archaeology. In this paper, we examine the nature of authenticity and question by implication whether so much attention should be given to determining the actual age and thus the genuineness of archaeological objects. We show that numbers of authenticated objects are potentially fakes. There is an acceptance that many archaeological sites and reconstructions are not actually really old, although the a…
Age as Artefact
Authenticity is frequently seen as crucial in archaeology. In this paper, we examine the nature of authenticity and question by implication whether so much attention should be given to determining the actual age and thus the genuineness of archaeological objects. We show that numbers of authenticated objects are potentially fakes. There is an acceptance that many archaeological sites and reconstructions are not actually really old, although the a…
Is History going to be on my side? On the experience of writing and submitting a hypermedia Ph.D. thesis
This paper outlines why and how I have used hypermedia technology and the World Wide Web in the construction of my Ph.D. thesis, how the end result compares with my initial aims and what I would do differently if I could start again. I also discuss how I persuaded my supervisor and the University of Wales to accept a doctoral thesis written in HTML and submitted on CD-Rom, and how my examiners coped before and during the viva. There are also sect…
Stonehenge
Sculptures in captivity and monkeys on megaliths
This paper reconsiders some aspects of displays at archaeological open-air museums and heritage sites by looking in some detail at how wild animals are presented in zoological gardens. Topics discussed include the historic and current functions of collecting ancient artefacts, the various appeals of different artefacts and displays, trends in attracting visitors, the significance of systematics and typology, narratives reflected in the overall ex…
Engaging with multiple pasts
Sculptures in captivity and monkeys on megaliths
This paper reconsiders some aspects of displays at archaeological open-air museums and heritage sites by looking in some detail at how wild animals are presented in zoological gardens. Topics discussed include the historic and current functions of collecting ancient artefacts, the various appeals of different artefacts and displays, trends in attracting visitors, the significance of systematics and typology, narratives reflected in the overall ex…
Engaging with multiple pasts
Engaging with multiple pasts: Reply to Francis McManamon." Public Archaeology, 1(3), pp. 214–215
The 21st Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference, Cardiff, 14–17 December 1999
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The 21st Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference, Cardiff, 14-17 December 1999
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Digging Holes in Popular Culture
While Jean-Luc Picard was in the Academy he excelled in his studies in archaeology. He even considered pursuing archaeology further and might have become the foremost archaeologist of his generation, but then he opted for a career in the Starfleet after all. As Captain of the Enterprise, Picard was still an avid amateur archaeologist, occasionally even publishing scientific papers on the subject and once addressing the Federation Archaeology Coun…
Digging Holes in Popular Culture
Notes on the Life History of a Pot Sherd
This article discusses various life history approaches in archaeology: short life histories study the lives of things in the past (until they end up in the ground), long life histories study these lives going on until the present. Both approaches share the assumption that although people are free to give to a thing any meaning they want, their material essence necessarily remains unchanged. As an alternative, I present an ethnographic approach, s…
Has Archaeology never been so much fun? Archaeology is rubbish. A beginner's guide By Tony Robinson and Mick Aston
Has Archaeology never been so much fun? Archaeology is rubbish. A beginner's guide By Tony Robinson and Mick Aston
The future of electronic scholarship
This paper about the future of electronic scholarship takes the form of a commentary about my experiences with publishing an electronic monograph. An earlier version of that work was originally submitted to the University of Wales as a hypermedia Doctoral dissertation in archaeology. I will discuss to what extent (if any) the electronic and multilinear format of my work proved valuable in challenging and advancing some foundations of current acad…
Beyond crusades
Archaeologists have often felt uneasy when encountering alternative (fringe, cult, fantastic, pseudo-) archaeologies. Some have suggested that alternative approaches and their results must be disproved, while others have been calling for better public understanding of science. My contribution takes a different point of view. I emphasize the social and cultural needs that both scientific and alternative archaeologies address and suggest that the m…
The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology
The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology provides an overview of the international field of historical archaeology (c. AD 1500 to the present) through seventeen specially-commissioned essays from leading researchers in the field. The volume explores key themes in historical archaeology including documentary archaeology, the writing of historical archaeology, colonialism, capitalism, industrial archaeology, maritime archaeology, cultural …
One world archaeology today
Can less be more? Heritage in the age of terrorism
Western civilization has no particular good track record of saving cultural heritage from destruction, but in recent centuries it has surrounded itself with a rather firm ideology of conservation and preservation. This paper is meant as a caution against a fundamentalist ideology of heritage-preservationism. I am discussing some inherent contradictions of how heritage is treated in the modern world, some mutually exclusive ways of consuming herit…
The past in our lives
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
History (70 works) · Archaeology (56 works) · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation (53 works) · Sociology (48 works) · History (41 works) · Art (36 works) · Archaeological Research and Protection (28 works) · Political science (24 works) · Computer Science (23 works) · Anthropology (21 works)