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Part I
Introduction
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1 Conflict
People, Heritage, and Archaeology
Paul Newson and Ruth Young
Introduction
Conflict is an inescapable aspect of human life, and has had a huge impact on a significant proportion of the world’s population in the recent past and present. Conflict is arguably an integral part of human interaction, and archaeological studies have provided evidence for conflict from at least the Palaeolithic onwards (Thorpe 2003). Conflicts have occurred throughout prehistory and history, and conflict is an unavoidable evil in many parts of the world today, often impacting on all aspects of human life and culture (Bevan 2006; Boylan 2002; Stone 2013; Wimmer 2014). The human cost in any conflict is high and obviously protecting people has to be the first priority during times of war. However, damage to heritage can be a deliberate tactic during conflict, and this can have major psychological consequences. This volume aims to explore several linked themes around heritage and archaeological sites damaged as a result of conflict.
Archaeologists, politicians, and many others recognize that damage to heritage is irreversible and has very serious, lasting consequences. Research by Boylan (2002, 44) notes the longevity of the practice of destroying, defacing, or converting significant religious and national buildings and monuments in times of conflict, and work by Harmanşah (2015) explores the explicit use of purported heritage damage by ISIS (Daesh) to enrage the international community and garner publicity. The impact of war on archaeological and heritage sites is rightly an area of great significance and concern to archaeologists and other heritage professionals, and is increasingly an area of research and debate, both within and outside academic circles, including the military of several countries. Steps taken by the US Military to educate and inform troops active in areas of conflict about archaeology and heritage form the basis for Chapters 3 and 4 of this volume.
Heritage, in its broadest sense a recognition of the past in the present, is a key element in allowing and supporting individuals and groups to have, create, and develop a secure sense of belonging and place, as well as playing a major role in individual and group identity creation and re-creation (Cresswell 2015; Harrison 2013, 155; Smith 2010, 11). Being aware of heritage and being involved in heritage creation, interpretation, and presentation is important for building and maintaining engaged, stable communities: heritage is such a powerful concept and tool that it can play a vital role in post-conflict community re-building and re-engagement. While preventing conflict in the first place would be (arguably) the best approach, the reality is that conflicts continue to occur, and there is little sign that international peace and stability will prevail in the foreseeable future. If conflict is not preventable, then protecting all heritage in times of conflict in order to prevent any damage, whether deliberate or collateral (Cunliffe 2012), would be highly desirable. While major progress has been made around the listing and protection of key sites during conflict (e.g. Stone 2013), it is impossible for any country to fully protect its entire heritage during conflict. We believe that if conflict is inevitable and unstoppable, then it is critical to begin to explore ways of using archaeology and heritage in post-conflict situations as a means of helping communities to re-build themselves and overcome divisions and disengagement. At the same time, we also believe that as conflict-damaged sites are very much a reality, archaeological and heritage professionals need to consider how to obtain maximum knowledge from damaged sites, both for academic research and preservation purposes, and not simply disregard even very badly damaged sites as beyond usefulness.
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Post-Conflict Archaeology and Heritage: Our Position
We have both conducted archaeological fieldwork for many years in countries that have been affected by conflict in different forms (e.g. Lebanon, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Syria). This has of course shaped the ways in which we approach fieldwork and interpretation, and has increasingly required us to think about the impact of our work on different local communities and how this might be both positive and negative. Our fieldwork and community engagements have allowed us to evolve our working definitions of what we understand post-conflict archaeology and heritage to be, and what we hope it could become. Given the huge potential value of understandings of the past to community re-building, including helping enfranchise groups and individuals, we believe that archaeologists and heritage professionals have a duty to protect and preserve sites and material during periods of conflict. They also need to commit to working with community groups, NGOs, government groups, and so forth, during and following conflict, in order to find ways in which archaeological and heritage material can be used to provide or strengthen a sense of belonging and identity development. This may come partly through the interpretation and presentation of extant materials, and partly through the practical processes of the production of both archaeology and heritage; through team activities and involvement in decision making, the latter can play a major role in rehabilitation (see Chapter 13). It is also vital that professionals recognize the potential in conflict-damaged sites. Rather than dismissing sites as badly damaged, and thus not worth investing time, money, and effort in exploring them, if the right methodologies and research questions are deployed usefully, a surprising amount of information can be obtained (see Newson and Young 2015, and Chapters 8, 9, and 10 in this volume).
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Destruction of Heritage: Sites of Global Importance
Sites of international importance draw out the greatest public and arguably professional response when they are damaged or destroyed during conflict, whether deliberately or as collateral casualties of war. The Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, and the temples of Palmyra in Syria, are two excellent examples of this, both provoking international outrage over their destruction among the public and professionals alike. In 2001 the Taliban government of Afghanistan enforced the destruction of two monumental statues of the Buddha carved into rock (Chiovenda 2014). The Taliban held press conferences and ensured that their plans to destroy the Buddhas were widely reported by the media of many countries, which led to attempts by various international agencies to stop them, including meetings between, e.g. UNESCO, the UN Security Council and Taliban officials (Chiovenda 2014, 417). The acts of destruction were effectively portrayed as evidence for Islamic Iconoclasm in the west (Flood 2002, 641), and at least in part as justification for further western involvement in the region. ISIS (ISIL, Daesh) have also deliberately targeted cultural heritage in both Syria and Iraq as part of their ongoing (at the time of writing) conflict strategy. Harmanşah (2015) has argued that ISIS members have deliberately staged and recorded ‘acts of destruction’ as part of their campaign to horrify and appall the west, while raising their profile as successful upholders of ‘true’ Islam, thus acting as a powerful propaganda tool. Condemnation of attacks on sites such as Palmyra by the Head of UNESCO, Irina Bokova (States News Services 2015), expresses the outrage felt by western organizations, and shows how important such sites are when understood to be part of an international heritage. While the Bamiyan Buddhas were not UNESCO World Heritage sites at the time of their attack, their global cultural significance was recognized (perhaps partly as a result of their destruction), and the Bamiyan Valley was inscribed in 2003 (WH List 2017). Since then, recent attacks on sites that have been inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage list, such as Palmyra, the ancient cities of Aleppo and Bosra, and the ‘Dead Cities’ of Northern Syria, have been characterized as attacks on humanity itself (Lostal 2015). The considered use of different international media meant has ensured even a decade apart the wanton destruction of unique, monumental heritage has drawn worldwide condemnation and outrage.
Destruction of Heritage: Quotidian Sites
While a small number of sites deemed of international significance dominate news headlines and capture public imagination, an unknowable number of lower profile sites of all forms and sizes from many periods will also have been severely damaged in recent conflicts. Sites such as Palmyra, Hatra, Babylon, and Ninevah have all sustained considerable damage during conflict from a range of different causes, and all have received considerable media attention. That they are all major, monumental sites, with impressive, extensive standing architecture is undoubtedly why they have been the subject of attacks or occupation, and also why they have received such media attention. It is far harder to glamorize a small tell or a series of post-holes and middens. UNESCO and their list of sites that are deemed to represent World Heritage has also played a key role in the recognition of what constitutes ‘heritage’ and how it is valued, in some parts of the world at least (Askew 2010; Harrison 2013). With a clear bias towards monumental sites built from stone and other durable materials, the WH List has undoubtedly shaped a particular approach to heritage. The role of UNESCO in dealing with post-conflict heritage is explored in Chapter 2, and it is not our intention here to offer a critique of UNESCO or the WH List in relation to post-conflict archaeology and heritage. It is, however, incredibly important that the loss of quotidian sites through conflict is recognized and discussed, and strategies both for the protection of sites during conflict, and approaches to post-conflict archaeology and heritage are based at least as much around these ‘ordinary’ sites as they are around those deemed valuable by UNESCO or other western agencies. Monumental sites are far more likely to be reconstructed and subject to redevelopment and academic study, while smaller, quotidian sites are far more likely to be dismissed as having been compromised, both in terms of stratigraphy and authenticity. We argue that archaeologists should view conflict-damaged sites as opportunities to gain information and explore sites and regions with new agendas, as well as providing opportunities to engage different communities with their heritage (Newson and Young 2015).
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That concern for heritage sites damaged in conflict is very much a political act is not in doubt; the disparity between attention, effort, and funding given to major sites at the expense of minor sites is clear, even when ‘minor’ sites might well hold more information, or be less well-studied than the ‘major’ sites. Many archaeological and heritage sites are known to have sustained damage in antiquity – not just by conflict, but by disasters such as earthquakes – and this seamlessly becomes part of the site history, and is treated as such by archaeologists (e.g. work in the Islamic period in the Middle East, Walmsley 2007). That modern conflict acted upon a site somehow renders it beyond or unworthy of academic investigation is not an approach we can reconcile.
Why We Came to This Subject
As noted above, we have both carried out fieldwork in conflict-affected countries over many years. Although we both started our careers as archaeologists, i.e. interested in the material culture of particular regions and people in the past, we very quickly discovered that it was impossible to separate our practice in the present from the contemporary context: a context that clearly included many difficult issues such as conflict, religious tensions, ethnic tensions, and political manipulation of heritage. Of course we recognize that as western, educated ‘experts’ or ‘elites’ in our field, this brings with it all sorts of questions around archaeological imperialism and biases. We have always striven for a post-colonial approach in all our projects: to be as open and reflexive as possible about our theoretical and analytical orientations, and our academic and personal biases. In this way, we have become increasingly aware of the critical need for bottom-up community engagement in all archaeological and heritage work, including through outreach and education programs.
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Working extensively in countries, such as Lebanon, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Syria, during and after diverse forms of conflict, exposed us to a wide range of ways in which these conflicts have affected archaeology, heritage, and communities. These impacts include immediate, very direct damage from conflict, such as occupation and activity by military forces, bomb and gun damage, and much longer-term impacts around lack of infrastructure, planning laws, encroachment, looting, and so forth (we discuss the latter further below, see also Chapter 8). This work has also forced us to recognize that if all conflict-damaged sites are dismissed as compromised, then a huge heritage resource is simply being lost – not just through conflict, but also through deliberate professional decisions to disengage with sites that are not pristine, or have only been previously investigated by other professionals.
Our separate work in both field archaeology and different conflict-damaged countries intersected in a project dealing directly with a severely conflict-damaged site in Lebanon (see Newson and Young 2011, 2015). This site – Hosn Niha in the Bekaa Valley – is discussed in more detail as a case study in Chapter 10, and is an excellent example of how prior to our project professional interest and expertise had been lavished on the monumental, religious buildings largely untouched by conflict, and the dismissal of the surrounding village which had been subject to extreme and repeated episodes of destruction. In many ways Hosn Niha can be seen as a typical site subject to extensive damage during conflict, and exemplifies our argument that not only can these sites still provide a great deal of unique information, but that archaeologists need to make plans to investigate such sites post-conflict.
Syria as an Example of Post-Conflict Preparation
The recent conflict in Syria has seen a great deal of deliberate (and collateral) damage to archaeological and heritage sites, and this has been the focus of a good share of both media and academic atte...
