A World History of Nineteenth-Century Archaeology
Journal Data
| Type | SOURCE_BOOK |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Oxford University Press, USA |
| ISBN-13 | 9780199217175 |
| Open Library | OL8094886W |
| Total publications | 15 |
| Coverage period | 2007 - 2007 |
| Language | EN |
| Cited by | 110 |
| h-index | 1 |
| i10-index | 1 |
"Margarita Diaz-Andreu offers an innovative history of archaeology during the nineteenth century, encompassing all its fields from the origins of humanity to the medieval period, and all areas of the world. The development of archaeology is placed within the framework of contemporary political events, with a particular focus upon the ideologies of nationalism and imperialism. Diaz-Andreu examines a wide range of issues, including the creation of institutions, the conversion of the study of antiquities into a profession, public memory, changes in archaeological thought and practice, and the effect on archaeology of racism, religion, the belief in progress, hegemony, and resistance."--Jacket.
Anthropology · Archaeology · Colonialism · Imperialism · Social Science · Sociology
Classical versus Islamic Antiquities in Colonial Archaeology
This chapter revisits the connection between nationalism and religion in a very different setting to that seen in the biblical lands (Chapter 6) and, to a certain extent, in Central, South, and Southeast Asia (Chapters 7 and 8). It analyses how religion is able to induce the creation of alternative historical discourses to those formed on the basis of the remains of the classical civilizations. On the one hand, the historical account about the Gr…
Archaeology and the 1820 Liberal Revolution
Nationalism did not end with Napoleon’s downfall, despite the intention of those who outplayed him in 1815. Events evolved in such a way that there would be no way back. The changes in administration, legislation, and institutionalization established in many European countries, and by extension in their colonies, during the Napoleonic period brought efficiency to the state apparatus and statesmen could not afford to return to the old structures. …
An Alternative Account of the History of Archaeology in the Nineteenth Century
Historians of science (whether philosophers, epistemologists, historians of science, or sociologists of science) have been stubbornly reluctant to deal with archaeology in favour of other disciplines such as geology and medicine. Most histories of archaeology have, therefore, been written by archaeologists and this book is no exception. Being trained in the subtleties of stratigraphy and typology does not, however, provide archaeologists with the…
Conclusions
In this book explanations have operated at various levels, of which two will be highlighted here: top-down and bottom-up approaches. Regarding the first approach, it has been argued that archaeology’s emergence as a professional discipline needs to be understood within the framework of the appearance of nationalism as the political ideology that changed the way in which states were characterized, leading to their definition as self-governed natio…
Colonialism and Monumental Archaeology in South and Southeast Asia
In the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, political and economic power was concentrated in just a few countries. Having eclipsed the most mighty early modern empires—those of Spain and Portugal, the Ottoman Empire, The Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries— Britain, France, the Russian, and the Austro-Hungarian Empires became the major European powers. Later, these were joined by the newly formed countries of Ge…
Biblical Archaeology
The increase of interest that the study of ancient monuments had raised, mainly from the eighteenth century, attracted many individuals to the classical lands. There, as explained in the last chapter, a search for the roots of Western civilization and of the flourishing nineteenth-century empires took place. In addition, however, in some of those countries—mainly in Egypt and Mesopotamia—this concern would not be the only one which boosted schola…
Antiquities and Political Prestige in the Early Modern Era
Television programmes about archaeology, the Asterix series on many children’s bookshelves, Celtic-flavoured holidays in Ireland, the megalomaniacal classical style in the business buildings erected since the late 1980s—all these tell us about the enduring popularity of the past in people’s minds. The intellectual ‘other side of the coin’ are the departments of archaeology, museums of archaeology, and heritage departments operating all over the w…
Archaeology and the Liberal Revolutions (c. 1820–1860)
There was no return to the Ancien Régime after Napoleon’s downfall in 1815. Firstly, the early nineteenth-century economy was increasingly strengthened by the industrial, imperial and trading expansion of the European powers throughout the world (Chapters 5 to 10), which helped to stimulate Western Europe’s financial growth. Adding immeasurable impetus to this movement was the territorial expansion of Russia and the US, and later in the century o…
Evolutionism and Positivism (c. 1860–1900)
This was the way that one of the executive members of the Swiss National Museum phrased, at the end of the nineteenth century, the changes that had taken place in the previous decades: the interest in the national past was replacing the former emphasis on the Great Civilizations. Another transformation that had occurred was that the study of prehistory, rather than the history of the Roman and medieval periods, was definitively on the agenda. Thi…
The Early Search for a National Past in Europe (1789–1820)
In the nineteenth century, the allure of the past of the Great Civilizations was soon to be contested by an alternative—that of the national past. This interest had already grown in the pre-Romantic era connected to an emerging ethnic or cultural nationalism (Chapter 2). However, its charm would not be as enticing to the lay European man and woman of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, who were much more under the influence of neo…
Colonialism and the Archaeology of the Primitive
Westerners encountered a wide variety of societies in their colonial expansion. Politically these were categorized from the most complex—the state societies in regions of Asia and North Africa—to those perceived as formed by savages and primitives, with the simplest types of political organization. Their entrenched belief in a philosophy of progression took Western scholars to assume an uneventful and unchanged past for these societies. It was co…
Informal Imperialism in Europe and the Ottoman Empire
‘Informal colonialism’ and ‘informal imperialism’ are relatively common terms in the specialized literature. The term ‘informal colonialism’ was coined—or at least sanctioned—by C. R. Fay (1940: (vol. 2) 399) meaning a situation in which a powerful nation manages to establish dominant control in a territory over which it does not have sovereignty. The term was popularized by the economic historians John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson (1953), who a…
The Archaeology of the French Revolution
The nineteenth century saw the emergence of both nationalism and archaeology as a professional discipline. The aim of this chapter is to show how this apparent coincidence was not accidental. This discussion will take us into uncharted territory. Despite the growing literature on archaeology and nationalism (Atkinson et al. 1996; Díaz-Andreu & Champion 1996a; Kohl & Fawcett 1995; Meskell 1998), the relationship between the two during the late eig…
Informal Imperialism beyond Europe
This chapter examines two very different examples of informal imperialism. The first takes place in Latin America, an area colonized by the Europeans for three centuries and politically independent from the 1810s and 1820s (see map 1). There the ancient Great Civilizations were mainly concentrated in Mexico and Peru, extending to a limited extent to other countries such as Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, and Ecuador. These countries provide the focus…
A World History of Nineteenth-Century Archaeology
Margarita Diaz-Andreu offers an innovative history of archaeology during the nineteenth century, encompassing all its fields from the origins of humanity to the medieval period, and all areas of the world. The development of archaeology is placed within the framework of contemporary political events, with a particular focus upon the ideologies of nationalism and imperialism. Diaz-Andreu examines a wide range of issues, including the creation of i…
A World History of Nineteenth-Century Archaeology
Margarita Diaz-Andreu offers an innovative history of archaeology during the nineteenth century, encompassing all its fields from the origins of humanity to the medieval period, and all areas of the world. The development of archaeology is placed within the framework of contemporary political events, with a particular focus upon the ideologies of nationalism and imperialism. Diaz-Andreu examines a wide range of issues, including the creation of i…
Classical versus Islamic Antiquities in Colonial Archaeology
This chapter revisits the connection between nationalism and religion in a very different setting to that seen in the biblical lands (Chapter 6) and, to a certain extent, in Central, South, and Southeast Asia (Chapters 7 and 8). It analyses how religion is able to induce the creation of alternative historical discourses to those formed on the basis of the remains of the classical civilizations. On the one hand, the historical account about the Gr…
Archaeology and the 1820 Liberal Revolution
Nationalism did not end with Napoleon’s downfall, despite the intention of those who outplayed him in 1815. Events evolved in such a way that there would be no way back. The changes in administration, legislation, and institutionalization established in many European countries, and by extension in their colonies, during the Napoleonic period brought efficiency to the state apparatus and statesmen could not afford to return to the old structures. …
An Alternative Account of the History of Archaeology in the Nineteenth Century
Historians of science (whether philosophers, epistemologists, historians of science, or sociologists of science) have been stubbornly reluctant to deal with archaeology in favour of other disciplines such as geology and medicine. Most histories of archaeology have, therefore, been written by archaeologists and this book is no exception. Being trained in the subtleties of stratigraphy and typology does not, however, provide archaeologists with the…
Conclusions
In this book explanations have operated at various levels, of which two will be highlighted here: top-down and bottom-up approaches. Regarding the first approach, it has been argued that archaeology’s emergence as a professional discipline needs to be understood within the framework of the appearance of nationalism as the political ideology that changed the way in which states were characterized, leading to their definition as self-governed natio…
Colonialism and Monumental Archaeology in South and Southeast Asia
In the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, political and economic power was concentrated in just a few countries. Having eclipsed the most mighty early modern empires—those of Spain and Portugal, the Ottoman Empire, The Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries— Britain, France, the Russian, and the Austro-Hungarian Empires became the major European powers. Later, these were joined by the newly formed countries of Ge…
Biblical Archaeology
The increase of interest that the study of ancient monuments had raised, mainly from the eighteenth century, attracted many individuals to the classical lands. There, as explained in the last chapter, a search for the roots of Western civilization and of the flourishing nineteenth-century empires took place. In addition, however, in some of those countries—mainly in Egypt and Mesopotamia—this concern would not be the only one which boosted schola…
Antiquities and Political Prestige in the Early Modern Era
Television programmes about archaeology, the Asterix series on many children’s bookshelves, Celtic-flavoured holidays in Ireland, the megalomaniacal classical style in the business buildings erected since the late 1980s—all these tell us about the enduring popularity of the past in people’s minds. The intellectual ‘other side of the coin’ are the departments of archaeology, museums of archaeology, and heritage departments operating all over the w…
Archaeology and the Liberal Revolutions (c. 1820–1860)
There was no return to the Ancien Régime after Napoleon’s downfall in 1815. Firstly, the early nineteenth-century economy was increasingly strengthened by the industrial, imperial and trading expansion of the European powers throughout the world (Chapters 5 to 10), which helped to stimulate Western Europe’s financial growth. Adding immeasurable impetus to this movement was the territorial expansion of Russia and the US, and later in the century o…
Evolutionism and Positivism (c. 1860–1900)
This was the way that one of the executive members of the Swiss National Museum phrased, at the end of the nineteenth century, the changes that had taken place in the previous decades: the interest in the national past was replacing the former emphasis on the Great Civilizations. Another transformation that had occurred was that the study of prehistory, rather than the history of the Roman and medieval periods, was definitively on the agenda. Thi…
The Early Search for a National Past in Europe (1789–1820)
In the nineteenth century, the allure of the past of the Great Civilizations was soon to be contested by an alternative—that of the national past. This interest had already grown in the pre-Romantic era connected to an emerging ethnic or cultural nationalism (Chapter 2). However, its charm would not be as enticing to the lay European man and woman of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, who were much more under the influence of neo…
Colonialism and the Archaeology of the Primitive
Westerners encountered a wide variety of societies in their colonial expansion. Politically these were categorized from the most complex—the state societies in regions of Asia and North Africa—to those perceived as formed by savages and primitives, with the simplest types of political organization. Their entrenched belief in a philosophy of progression took Western scholars to assume an uneventful and unchanged past for these societies. It was co…
Informal Imperialism in Europe and the Ottoman Empire
‘Informal colonialism’ and ‘informal imperialism’ are relatively common terms in the specialized literature. The term ‘informal colonialism’ was coined—or at least sanctioned—by C. R. Fay (1940: (vol. 2) 399) meaning a situation in which a powerful nation manages to establish dominant control in a territory over which it does not have sovereignty. The term was popularized by the economic historians John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson (1953), who a…
The Archaeology of the French Revolution
The nineteenth century saw the emergence of both nationalism and archaeology as a professional discipline. The aim of this chapter is to show how this apparent coincidence was not accidental. This discussion will take us into uncharted territory. Despite the growing literature on archaeology and nationalism (Atkinson et al. 1996; Díaz-Andreu & Champion 1996a; Kohl & Fawcett 1995; Meskell 1998), the relationship between the two during the late eig…
Informal Imperialism beyond Europe
This chapter examines two very different examples of informal imperialism. The first takes place in Latin America, an area colonized by the Europeans for three centuries and politically independent from the 1810s and 1820s (see map 1). There the ancient Great Civilizations were mainly concentrated in Mexico and Peru, extending to a limited extent to other countries such as Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, and Ecuador. These countries provide the focus…
A World History of Nineteenth-Century Archaeology
Margarita Diaz-Andreu offers an innovative history of archaeology during the nineteenth century, encompassing all its fields from the origins of humanity to the medieval period, and all areas of the world. The development of archaeology is placed within the framework of contemporary political events, with a particular focus upon the ideologies of nationalism and imperialism. Diaz-Andreu examines a wide range of issues, including the creation of i…