[MUSIC].

Alright folks, so some of our dirty

little secrets are now out.
We've talked so far about what
archaeology isn't.
It's not all about digging, it's not
about working just in exotic places.
It's not all about the past and so on.
So it's probably time to start talking
about what archaeology is.
So, to do that let's think about the
structure of this class.
In each unit we're going to ask and
answer some very basic questions.
First, and most fundamental you know,
what actually survives for archaeologists
to find and just how does that survival
happen?
How do we find things? By accident, spy
satellites?
And once we've found something, how do we
investigate it?
Do we dig it?
Leave it alone?
Re-bury it?
And how might we figure out how old it
is?
What on earth do you do with it?
And what if it is a dead body?
Who gets to be an archaeologist and where
do they work?
And, most basically and hardest of all,
who owns the past?
How do we manage it, how do we sell it?
So it's question on question, problem on
problem and, as you'll soon see, there
are very rarely straight-forward,
unquestionably correct answers to any of
them.
So to quickly sample these questions,
kind of give a preview of the course as a
whole, lets quickly look at just one
place.
One of the most famous archaeological
sites in the world.
And that is Pompeii in Italy.
The plan here is to use Pompeii,
you see an aerial view, as a case study.
To ask and answer the sort of core
questions of the class.
Unit by unit.
So unit two.
What survives for archaeologists to find?
And just how does that happen?
Now as you see before you at Pompeii the
answer is lots.
Pompeii is notorious, of course, for it's
terrible fate.
It was buried by the eruption of the
volcano you see in the background.
Mount
Vesuvius which, apparently, is getting
active again.
Making some people pretty nervous.
And what was once a bustling city was
smothered, literally blanketed by several
meters of volcanic debris.
You see here the stratigraphy of the
eruption, the strata, the layers of
deposition.
So this blanket killed, but it also
preserved.
We have food, furniture, sidewalks,
beware of the dog signs.
You get a very real sense the immediacy
of the lives that were lost.
So Pompeii is a spectacular example of
sad fact, and another one of our dirty
little secrets, that archeologists often
benefit from strange occurrences, unusual
conditions and sometimes tragic events.
So unit three, how do you find things?
Archaeology isn't just digging.
Now at Pompeii, people who lived in the
area in the centuries after the eruption
of Vesuvius, knew, they knew that
something was down there.
They would find things in their fields
for example.
It's a good example of the power of local
knowledge, of local informants in
archaeology.
Still today many discoveries start with
conversations, conversations over coffee,
over beer, asking people, you seen
anything old around?
And maybe they will tell you, and maybe
they won't.
Now, if we discovered Pompeii today, the
question of how to investigate it would
be a, a tough one to answer, and I think
would lead to lots of controversy.
Should we excavate this dead city?
How should we dig it?
How much should we dig of it?
Should we just leave the place alone to
preserve it for future generations?
What lies behind this turmoil is a very
basic fact, one that is, it is essential
you take on board now, because while
excavation is very revealing, very
informative, and often the only way to
learn what you want to know, it is also
destructive.
As you dig, you destroy what you are
digging.
And you can't go back and try it again.
So archaeological ethics today demand
that we consider as many non-destructive,
non-invasive forms of investigation
first, and only then do we go for the
shovels.
Now that is what would happen if Pompeii
was found today.
Unfortunately, archaeology at Pompeii
started long ago far back as the 18th
century.
And another dirty little secret.
The early days of archaeology were pretty
much out of control when it came to what
we today would consider good practice.
Early days of exploration at the site
were what you could kind of call a slash
and burn archeology, people very much out
to find goodies.
diggers would go in, often by tunneling,
and they would just pull out nice things:
statues, metal objects, paintings.
You see tunnels here, and you see
paintings literally just cut out of the
wall.
[SOUND] Taken away, and this has led to
enormous damage to the site, and the loss
of archaeological context.
That context where something is found.
Where, when what it was found with we've
talked about this.
Without context objects lose most of
their ability to tell a story.
And to tell the story of the people who
made, used and discarded them.
The loss of archaeological context is the
problem of problems.
It's the archaeologist's worst nightmare.
Thankfully, however over time
archaeological methodologies evolved
with definite improvement over the course
of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Today there is much emphasis, for the most
part anyway,
on data recording, on new forms of
documentation of context, on site
conservation and site preservation.
Let's turn to Unit Four.
How do you get a date and why do you need
them?
Dating the destruction of Pompeii is not
hard.
We know thanks to first-person historical
accounts that it occurred in AD 79.
Or 79 CE.
That's an absolute date.
On the other hand, that's just the
destruction level.
That's only one moment in Pompeii's long
chronology.
How could we date, for example, when
people first lived at Pompeii?
When were certain houses built?
Which temple is older that which?
We need for, other forms of absolute and
relative dating.
And fortunately, there are an increasing
number of scientific ways to get at such
information.
What, and here comes Unit Five, what do
you do with what you find?
Now the answers to that question are many
and various, and very dependent on what
those finds are.
There are also many stages of activity to
consider.
Finding something is just the beginning
of a lengthy process.
Things come out of the ground.
They may need to be conserved so they
don't immediately fall apart.
They need to be documented, described,
drawn, photographed, scanned.
They need to be analyzed.
They need to be published, or otherwise
shared.
Archaeologists have an ethical obligation
to make their data available.
We'll talk a lot more about this.
But, you want to know another dirty
little secret?
The vast majority of archaeological finds
sit in boxes in storage.
And after their initial study, if they
get initial study, no one ever looks them
again.
And that's something to think about.
Others, however, make the big time and
end up in museums and in exhibitions.
Pompeii, of course, is always a big draw,
lots of cool things, tragic story line,
Romans are always sexy and so on.
But that, in turn, raises issues of how
we present the past and we'll come back
to that in a minute.
Unit Six - what's involved in the
archaeology of people?
What if what you find are human remains?
Now Vesuvius left us many victims though
there's not much mystery about how they
died.
But, what about how they lived?
For example what did they eat?
At Pompeii we can actually see some last
meals like that bread.
Left on tables.
Or, and indeed better, bio-archaeologists
today can get, can gain senses of diet
and overall health from looking at
physical remains, particularly skeletal
remains.
So palaeopathology, pathologies of the
past is one way to interrogate social
conditions.
Did it matter?
If you were rich or poor, male or female,
free or slave, when it came to your diet
and your health.
And the answer, then as now, was
absolutely yes.
Now, not all of these victims of Vesuvius
can be studied in that fashion the
exploration of skeletal remains.
At Pompeii, for example, the bodies were
covered by the fall of ash, which
hardened around the body.
And the body then eventually decomposed.
Archaeologists digging the site began to
notice cavities in the ash and they came
up with the idea of pouring in plaster,
or other material, and the result as you
see, often in startling detail, is the
shape of the missing person.
these are evocative and painful to look
at as are the deaths of the other
inhabitants of the city, its animals.
Probably the most famous is this dying
dog of Pompeii chained up and left to its
death.
If the people don't get you, if the
people don't tug at your heart strings,
the doggy will.
Unit Seven.
Where does archaeology happen?
And who can play?
Pompeii is not the only buried city in
archaeology.
Other sites have been smothered by
volcanoes.
You see here the famous site of Akrotiri, on the island of Thera in Greece.
There are also sites in India, Costa
Rica, Tanzania, Canada and the United
States.
And as we will see, sites can be buried
and preserved by other slightly less
drastic and dramatic means as well.
So Pompeii is not unique, but it remains
highly unusual in the number of people
who work at it, visit it, worry about it.
The site operates under the authority of
a government ministry.
Various archaeological projects, both
Italian and foreign, are ongoing.
Numerous non-profit organizations
contribute money for its conservation.
But above all, there are the tourists.
How many people annually do you think
Pompeii has attracted in recent years?
Some 2.5 million visitors annually and
some days see as many as 20,000 people
walking through the entrance gates.
Now is this a good thing?
Good that people are interested in the
past?
Yes.
But, visitor numbers combined with
restrictive resources for conservation and
site protection and conservation, is
leading to what's been called, the Second
Death of Pompeii.
People marching through at thousands,
billions of feet annually.
Wearing away these ancient streets,
touching things, leaning against walls,
bumping into wall painting with their
backpacks.
Helping themselves to little souvenirs.
Most recently structures at Pompeii have
actually started to collapse.
They just plain fall down.
All and all it's impossible to deny that
Pompeii today looks much older than it
did just 50 years ago.
It just can't take the strain of its
celebrity status.
And Pompeii is a perfect object lesson of
how once a site is dug and exposed.
It takes a lot of time,
effort, and money to save it from the
inevitable forces of decay.
Things just want to fall apart.
So what do we do here?
I'm going to ask you to comment on this
question in the discussion forums.
What might work, what's worked at other
places you've visited?
But let me put one idea out there, for
the sake of argument.
Just shut down the site.
Public keep out.
Close Pompeii off to everyone but real
scholars, people who can understand and
appreciate what they are looking at,
PhD's, like me.
I can get in, you can't.
You can go to the gift shop.
What do you make of that idea?
Looking at Pompeii opens up a Pandora's
box of legal rights and ethical
responsibilities.
Issues that apply to all sites, not just
the biggies, not just the famous ones,
all sites of human cultural heritage.
Who gets to tell the stories?
Who has the right to see?
Who has the obligation to protect?
Where should archaeological loyalties
primarily lie?
To the past, to the present, or to the
future?
In other words, Unit Eight and the end of
the class and the final secret of the
class, who owns the past?
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