Archaeology and history

[Luis Gonzalez-Reimann]

In the wake of the Rajaram "horse-seal" fiasco, some list members may be
interested in the following:

Arnold, Bettina. 1990. Past As Propaganda: Totalitarian Archaeology in Nazi
Germany. Antiquity 64, no. 244: 464-78.

Or, the shorter version for a non-scholarly audience:

Arnold, Bettina. 1992. The Past As Propaganda: How Hitler's Archaeologists
Distorted European Prehistory to Justify Racist and Territorial Goals.
Archaeology 45, no. 4 (Jul./Aug.): 30-37.

The latter article closes with this:

"The potential for political exploitation of the past seems to be greatest
in countries experiencing internal instability. Germany in the years
following World War I was a country searching for its own twentieth-century
identity. Prehistoric archaeology was one means to that end."

Best,

Luis Gonzalez-Reimann
University of California, Berkeley