Is there a future for the past? Chaco Culture National Historical Park Larry J. Zimmerman

Is there a future for the past?

Chaco Culture National Historical Park Larry J. Zimmerman

What does the past mean?

How do you ‘connect’ to it?

San Rock Art, Eastern Cape, South Africa

How do you use it?

What are Heritage Resources?

Chaco Canyon Pottery

What is heritage?

Districts, buildings, sites, structures, and objects significant in a culture’s history, architecture,

archaeology, and engineering, which possess integrity of location,

setting, design materials, workmanship, and feeling and

association

Who Owns the Past?

Is it a public heritage?

Is it owned by those from whose culture it originated?

Crow Creek Massacre Remains, South Dakota, circa AD 1325

Crow Creek Massacre Reburial, 1981

The Struggle for Kennewick/The Ancient One

Does it matter who tells the story?

US?

Or them?

Obviously, many of us have strong opinions about it.

Purposeful Destruction of Heritage

Destruction of the Stone Buddhas of Bamiyan in Central Afghanistan

Taliban Religious Fervor

March 8, 2001

A Plan for Restoration?

Painted ceiling of one Buddha

December 6, 1992

Destruction of the Babri Masjid Mosque, Ayohdya, India

What Happens Next?

Sacred Sites and Traditional Cultural Properties?

Bear Butte SD

Should we protect

US laws say we should.

Traditional Cultural Properties

Eligible for inclusion in the National register of Historic Places because of their "association with cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that

a) are rooted in that community's history,

b) are important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community.

Is imitation heritage still heritage?

Lascaux II: The Price of Heritage Tourism

From Stonehenge…

and New Age Solstice Rituals…

England, 2003

… to Foamhenge

Natural Bridge, Virginia

Can heritage be restored?

The Great Sphinx Restoration Project

Angkor, Cambodia Restoration Project

Restoration of Angkor

A multinational enterprise

Closer to Home

Morris-Butler Home

Walker Building

Union StationAngel Mounds, Evansville

In developed nations, heritage management is an industry in its own right.

Same here in the USA

US Cultural Resources ManagementNational Historic Preservation Act, 1966

and the National Register of Historic Places

• That are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or

• That are associated with the lives of significant persons in our past; or

• That embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or

• That have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in history or prehistory.

How do we know what’s significant?

Sites or objects:

National Park Service oversees the CRM process in the US.

Cultural Resources Management and Archaeology

CRM is approximately a $125,000,000 industry in the US annually.

CRM is largest employer of archaeologists at all levels of education.

CRM is the largest employer of BA level anthropology graduates.

CRM, a free journal from NPS

Who Pays the Bills?

You!

What should you get for your money?

Tourism? Opportunities to work on excavations?

Materials at your level?

Museums?

Popular culture?

Television shows?

Books and CDs?

How does the public learn about their heritage?

Society for American Archaeology Harris Poll, 2000

Is it worth it?

That would be your call…