Archaeology has often been used in support of nationalist ideological, or other partisan political agendas. Archaeological sites, objects, and data are used by partisan groups as evidence of prior possession of lands or as symbols for negotiation of conflict. There are many extant examples, for example, Israelis and Palestinians, and various minority groups in Europe, Africa, India and the USA. All use archaeology to advance their ideological, social, and political agendas, especially claims of precedence and prior occupation. Partisan politics pose difficult ethical issues for archaeologists. Archaeology has standards of acceptable evidence, and, like other sciences, is self-correcting. Data are collected and vetted, and hypotheses formed to account for them; as contrary data accumulate, hypotheses are changed. Data are not ‘objective’ or ‘value free’, but seen as ‘valid’ within a particular theoretical framework. Partisan political groups take archaeological data and transmute them into ‘true’ statements to support demonstrations of legitimacy, authenticity, autochthony, or other causes. In such situations, archaeologists’ first ethical responsibility should be to make their data, and interpretations thereof, as objective and accurate as possible within current archaeological practice and theory. Although archaeologists have an ethical responsibility to oppose egregious misuse of their data and interpretations, how those data and interpretations are used by others, once they enter the commons knowledge base, cannot be controlled.
See also: Ethical Issues and Responsibilities; Illicit Antiquities; Native Peoples and Archaeology; World Heritage Sites, Types and Laws.
World History
