CHAPTER 1

  ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE PUBLIC

One thing hastens into being, another hastens out of it. Even while a thing is in the act of coming into existence, some part of it has already ceased to be. Flux and change are forever renewing the fabric of the universe, just as the ceaseless sweep of time is forever renewing the face of the eternity. In such a running river, where there is no firm foothold, what is there for a man to value among all the many things that are racing past him? (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6:15)

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PUBLIC TRUST IN CONTEXT

Ruthann Knudson

Introduction

We all have a right to our past, and our past is the worldwide record of the human experience. Each human being has an inalienable right to use the intellectual and spiritual values inherent in archaeological materials to understand and/or believe one is secure in her or his place in the physical and social world. This is a basic tenet of Euroamerican society, which is derived from the Western Judeo-Christian value system. This article is a discussion of rights and responsibilities for the stewardship of the past, based on that ethic, in the context of multiple cultural values and contemporary corporate cultures.

The idea of having the security of knowledge of one's place (both at the individual and society levels) is not restricted to Western Judeo-Christian thought (cf. Frazer 1890, Malinowski 1955), but merits identification as the basis of this author's ethical system.

A second ethical tenet asserts that there should be a search for the common ground among conflicting values when resolving conflicts over the treatment of values differentially significant to different value systems.

A public trust is an individual or group's responsibility to protect other people's rights to these heritage values, and to the things (artifacts, ecofacts, sites) that embody these values. Because things and ideas are involved, they can be considered property--common property held in a common trust.

This article describes the ethical context in which archaeological site protection is assumed to be a public good.

Philosophy, Language, and Culture

The readings in this volume about archaeological resource protection, as well as other discussions of the topic, are based on assumptions that are most frequently kept implicit--answers to the questions: what are archaeological resources, and why do they merit protection? Explicitly addressing these assumptions involves philosophical statement and analysis of the principles underlying archaeology, which have been set forth in previous discussions (Green 1983; Knudson 1983, 1990; Lipe 1974; McGimsey 1983; Wildesen 1983).

In the late twentieth century, the human community consists of diverse cultures and languages that form the structure of local, regional, tribal, national, and international communications that are involved in archaeological management conflict resolutions. This cultural diversity supports miscommunication based on perceptions, verbalisms, and expectations (cf. Habermas 1989). This article uses terms and concepts in general United States media-oriented English language, relying on standard dictionary definitions (Neufeldt and Guralnik 1988).

In the dictionary, archaeology is restricted to the scientific study of past cultures. Culture is the system of ideas, beliefs, institutions, technologies, arts, and languages held and passed along by a group of people. While the distinctiveness of the groups characterized by different cultural systems is generally recognized on a major linguistic scale (e.g., Navajo vs. Chinese vs. French), there are also finer scales of corporate cultural systems (Deal and Kennedy 1982) that are significant to archaeological management (e.g., Federal land manager vs. natural resource developer vs. general public consumer). Cultural relativity defines the value of each culture only in relationship to other cultures, i.e., no cultural system is of absolute value as compared with any other. This concept is used as a basic anthropological principle and is not intended to lead into post-processual archaeological paradigms (Shanks and Tilley 1987).

Science is systematized knowledge (intellectual ideas) derived from observation and study to determine principles. Humanistic values are a system of thought or action based on human interests or ideals, and spiritual values relate to the beliefs of the soul (generally by a group of people), those things that are sacred or devotional; these are in contrast to scientific values. Resources are things that are ready for use, and use means putting something into action or (physical, intellectual, or spiritual) service. Property is the right to possess (ownership), use, or dispose of something. The term is used to refer to the rights to things or to knowledge, whether knowledge of scientific or intellectual research ideas (Nelken 1984) or of sacred places where knowledge is part of the inherent sacred nature of the place (e.g., Kelley and Francis 1990). A trust is the firm belief in the integrity and/or reliability of someone, or a more legalistic fiduciary responsibility to protect someone else's property. Protection is to shield from injury, damage, or loss, or to guard and/or defend.

While the dictionary definition of archaeological materials/remains/resources focuses on their scientific use, general (professional and lay) definitions of these terms include all things from the human past and all of their scientific, humanistic, and spiritual values. Many of the humanistic values are ascribed to ancient resources based on their derived scientific information, but are no less important components. There is clearly a major scientific component to the remains of a 10,000-year-old campsite on the edge of an ancient river valley, but there is a humanistic component to its representation of a small family finding a good meat supply one fall week in a country known for its bitter winters. For many people, such a site also has a spiritual component in its manifestation of the anima of the past. All components are essential elements of archaeological resources, and the humanistic (or sometimes spiritual) values are frequently more important to the lay public.

When archaeological resources are identified, their management is usually assigned to the owner of the lands in or on which the resources have been found; thus they are quickly tied to a property concept. The ascription of property rights to archaeological resources is a complicated legal as well as social issue (cf. Knudson 1986, 1990; see also Fowler this volume). The identification of human remains as archaeological resources, much less some kind of property, usually has been culturally relative--human skeletal materials have generally been identified as archaeological resources when they are not associated with known kin of the politically dominant subculture and thus assumed not subject to historically culturally biased state or local human burial laws and regulations. Inclusion of human remains within those archaeological materials designated as "property" may relate to distant common law concepts, but is more likely a condition that prevails primarily in the absence of public question. In the basic Judeo-Christian value system, human remains have a special character and are not appropriately treated as property whether the remains be of American Indians or Norwegian Americans, but they have archaeological as well as other cultural values.

This article uses the term "archaeological resources" to include all materials from the human past, some of which are appropriate for scientific study, some of which are valued because of their spiritual significance and may not be appropriate for non-believer involvement, and some of which have significant spiritual, humanistic, and scientific qualities that all merit attention.

The Archaeological Public Trust

The assertion that initiated this article is based on the assumption that every human being has an inalienable right to intellectually understand and be spiritually secure in her or his place in the physical and social world, within that individual's natural capabilities. We have a right to our own values about ourselves and our world, and we must be socially responsible in acting out those values.

To be comfortable, each individual must have confident expectations of other people's behavior. That is, there must be trust. A public trust is a society's collective fulfillment of individual responsibilities to respect individuals' rights, as expressed either informally through group behavior or more formally through institutionalized processes.

Individuals' inalienable rights to knowledge and belief have a diachronic dimension--they involve our past as well as our present and/or future. In complement, each of these dimensions has value only in the context of the rest of time and space. Archaeological resources are corporeal entities (material remains, things) that embody incorporeal intellectual and spiritual values of the past (and present, and future; cf. Lipe 1974,1984). Following the basic tenet that initiated this article, access to these resources, so that they can be used to fulfill knowledge and belief needs, is desirable for all people. How to use them, without "using them up," is always the dilemma of managing irreplaceable things.

It is noted that most cultures in some manner restrict the use of some past (and present) things and places that have spiritual value by circumscribing access to them. As stated elsewhere in this article, managing these past remnants in the real multi-cultural context involves finding a common ground if at all possible. In conflicts between "system" vs. "lifeworld" cultural patterns (Habermas 1989), finding this commonality may be extremely difficult. In lieu of that, it generally involves a process of intra-cultural triage (Stoffle and Evans 1990); i.e., making choices among values held within a single cultural system.

The complex temporal aspect of archaeological resources is significant in their "nonrenewable" label. Each of them is a somewhat unique reflection of past human and natural environments and behaviors, with information relevant to contemporary entertainment, religious comfort, or sociotechnical problem-solving (e.g., how to manage wastes, how to live with environmental change). At the same time, these presently-useful and past-reflecting resources are a "bank" of unique values for future recreationists, believers, and scientists.

Given all this, each individual within society has an ethical responsibility to deal with past cultural remains in their contemporary (and projected future) collective sociocultural context--this is an archaeological public trust. The basic principles underlying this public trust concept, and its derivation from the public trust doctrine of Euroamerican water resource law, are described elsewhere (Knudson 1990).

Fulfillment of this trust responsibility begins when archaeological resources are first identified, whether they are arrowheads in a plowed field, human skeletal remains in a waterline trench, or shipwreck timbers in a dredge line. It includes the protection of the identified material in place, insofar as is possible and feasible until all of the remains' archaeological values can be initially evaluated and publicly responsible decisions made about their treatment. To dig, and if so, how? To analyze, and if so, how and how much? How to treat in the long run (discard, curate, inhumate)? These decisions must be made in consideration of the common ground among potentially conflicting scientific, humanistic, and spiritual values, and in the context of contemporary socioeconomics and politics.

Following the basic ethical value asserted at the start of this article, protecting archaeological resources--the secrets of the past--is then basically a public trust to protecting human values within diverse cultural contexts, to protect the things so that human access to the use of the items is sustained to the maximum extent possible in a diverse and dynamic world context.

Context of Protection

Archaeological aficionados, be they professional scientists, devoted avocationals, or more casual museum visitors, are familiar with the use of "context" in reference to the relative position of artifacts, samples, and features within a prehistoric or historic site. Protection or management decisions must be made in consideration of several other archaeological contexts (cf. Costa et al. 1988).

The management responsibility for in situ archaeological resources is initially very place-oriented, in the context of resource location--where it is found in or on the ground, or under water. Variations in national property and/or heritage laws and/or regulations differentially assign this to private landholders or public trustees (Cleere 1989; Knudson 1986, 1990). In the United States, "The Federal Government shall provide leadership in preserving, restoring, and maintaining the historic and cultural environment of the Nation (Executive Order 11593 Sec. 1 [1971])." Land managers, acting as archaeological resource management decision-makers, must consider the rights of the users of the land or river/lakebed in or on which the archaeological materials are found. The stormwater sewer needed by a metropolitan community, the money-making housing development desired by the entrepreneur, or the grazing lease held by the rancher with children in college may each have to be considered when deciding whether or how to protect an archaeological site and its included values.

Private landholders also bear responsibilities for archaeological resource management. While the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment (the "taking clause"; Bosselman, Callies, and Banta 1973) requires compensation for the public use of private property, in the past two decades there has been much broader application of the Public Trust Doctrine in United States land law (Knudson 1990). The Doctrine relies on common property concepts, asserting the rights of society over individual rights when both are involved in the management of community resources. Issues of social responsibility of private individuals and corporations have been frequent topics of discussion lately (e.g., Preston and Post 1975). These various perspectives mean that there is a need to find a common ground in managing publicly valued archaeological resources when they are in or on private lands. Traditionally, land owners have the first responsibility for actions that affect their property. They are participants in the public archaeological trust.

The physical context of an undisturbed archaeological resource is a primary constraint on resource protection decisions. Given that an undisturbed site can or must be moved, decisions about the manner of removal and subsequent disposition must be made within multiple socio-cultural-political contexts. The individuals whose inalienable heritage rights are being protected live and function within those multiple contexts.

First, all individuals must be recognized as members of a worldwide human community with multiple and frequently conflicting values and needs. Within that world view, individuals are members of different cultures and culturally relative value systems, and decisions about archaeological resources must consider both the cultural relativity and world community trust responsibilities. Cross-cutting the cultural variations are the sociopolitical rules and regulations, which variably assign land ownership/management responsibilities as well as responsibilities for preserving, protecting, and managing included archaeological resources.

All the required ethical considerations for managing archaeological sites must also be addressed in managing the site-derived archaeological artifacts, ecofacts, and documentary evidence.

Conclusion

Each individual, and each governmental unit (or individual/organization operating under a governmentally-provided authority), has a responsibility to protect the human community's past. This includes education of the general public (both adults and children), the individuals responsible for managing direct adverse impacts to archaeological materials (e.g., development planners, engineers, farmers, miners, foresters), and the individuals with archaeological management responsibilities (both of the sites and of the derived materials) (cf. Archaeological Assistance Division 1990). It includes enforcement of stewardship laws, regulations, guidelines, and policies where they are relevant.

At its most basic level, there is a public trust to recognize and fulfill a commitment to respecting the worldwide value of heritage resources to help each of us fit within our present world.

Acknowledgements. Bennie Keel, Frank McManamon, Velouta Canouts, and Muriel Crespi made useful comments on an early draft of this paper, and Alan Downer and Mark Leone inadvertently led me to ideas useful in developing the final version.

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