Archaeologists as the Bad Guys

El Mirador

Yesterday in Los Angeles:

A melee broke out at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Sunday evening when activists rushed the Español stage to protest a talk by archaeologist Richard Hansen.

The protesters were targeting Hansen’s decades of excavation and research at a vast ancient Maya complex in Guatemala called El Mirador.

The group of about 15 masked protesters rushed the small stage where Hansen was being interviewed by L.A. Times en Español columnist Alejandro Maciel. . . .

The protesters toppled chairs, shouted “this is stolen land!” and “f— imperialism!” and unveiled a large banner that read “Gringo colonizer fuera del Mirador.”

As stunned spectators looked on, a tussle broke out between the demonstrators and some of the event crew who were desperately trying to clear the stage. One stage crew member emerged with a bloodied nose as police arrived quickly at the scene.

Hansen is one of the archaeologist trying hard to do everything right: he hires and trains locals, works closely with local leaders, supports cultural tourism programs, works against illegal loggers. The LA Times reporters who wrote this article tracked down somebody from an entity called Maya View who told them, "We totally believe in the work of Dr. Hansen."

So what's going on?

I suppose one should make some allowance for regular differences of opinion; Hansen is working with one faction of Maya leaders, but there could be others who disagree with the approach his friends are taking.

But what this really represents is that for many activists these days, archaeologists are bad guys, plain and simple. They are arrogant outsiders stomping on sacred ground, digging up ancestral graves, imposing their own views over local traditions, and generally acting as agents of imperialism. These activists think archaeology is another word for colonialism.

Archaeologists do have a lot of sins to answer for: looting, smuggling, grave-robbing, arrogance, etc. Archaeology really did develop as a colonial enterprise. People like Hansen, who represents the more usual sort of archaeologist these days, think they can make up for past archaeological sins by working with locals and using cultural tourism to help them economically. But there are some people too angry for that.

There is also a serious philosophical difference in play. Archaeology considers itself a branch of science, devoted to the truth. It shares, therefore, in the arrogance of science: the belief that the methods of science are the best way to learn about the world. Archaeologists think they can learn things about past cultures from their physical remains that the living descendants don't know and could not figure out on their own. Imagine how galling it is for people who have spent their lifetimes learning local lore for some white man from a thousand miles away to show up and say, sorry, what you believe about your history is wrong, and we're going to set you straight.

The thing is, I think the archaeologists are right. People around the world believe all sorts of false things about the history of their cultures, from Lakota who think the gods gave them horses at the creation to Southerners who think the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. But if you, like most anthropologists, think ancient cultures are wonderful things that should be preserved, then shouldn't you be writing down their stories rather than digging in the ground to find out what really happened?

What is the value of knowing the truth about el Mirador, compared to the self-esteem and cultural integrity of modern Maya? If what archaeologists dig up hurts people by violating their notions of their past, what is being gained to outweigh that damage. What is the truth worth?

People like our protesters in Los Angeles say, your archaeology has no value at all, it is only destructive of our lives and our ways. It is only a new kind of imperialism, colonizing our minds with your "scientific" ideas about our past. We don't want it, and if we have to, we will fight you to keep you from attacking our right to tell our own story in our own way.

Me, I don't much care, I propose to go on searching for the truth no matter who objects. But for anthropologists whose profession and identity are built around working with and advocating for indigenous people, it is a very hard problem.