The grave of Jim Morrison at Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris is much more than just a funerary site; it is also a space of cult, characterised by dense social materiality and shaped by the performative actions of its visitors. This article uses a field methodology that combines the systematic documentation of deposited offerings, material gestures, participant observation and interviews to explore how the site of the grave has been transformed into a symbolic node where personal memories, social practices and cultural appropriations converge. The findings reveal the ways in which Morrison is perceived as a multifaceted figure – poet, musician and countercultural icon – and how his tomb is constantly reinterpreted through offerings, graffiti, vigils and other ritual gestures. The study sheds light on contemporary forms of popular cult construction surrounding death and memory.
During the Spanish Civil War, the Republicans undertook large-scale guerrilla activities behind enemy lines. Although there are historical continuities with the partisan resistance against the Francoist dictatorship that followed during the 1940s and 1950s, the tactics and objectives of some guerillas in fact had more in common with the special operations that were later seen elsewhere during and since World War II. Through several case studies, we propose an archaeological narrative based on the evanescent materiality that these guerrilla fighters left behind, which we argue allows us to comprehend unknown aspects of their military activities and their lives.
Drawing on examples from the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, this paper explores three different forms of archaeological haunting. First, it examines how revolutionary ruins and other material traces come to have an aura; second, it considers the phenomenon of reported sightings of revolutionary ghosts; and third, it addresses how archaeologists themselves come to be haunted by the objects of their research, and what this might mean for archaeological ethics.
This study explores the ruins of the Matanzas hydroelectric plant, which was built on the San Agustín River in the early twentieth century as part of Cuba’s modernization. Conceived as a symbol of progress, the plant’s early abandonment rendered it a ruin of unfinished modernity, simultaneously marking failure and producing new meanings. Its remains reconfigure the San Agustín River landscape, where technical power over nature intersects with memory, reforestation, and cultural tourism. While institutional silence erased the plant as a failed endeavor, local initiatives have redefined it as living heritage through the Ruta de la Energía, a community-led development project. This paper draws on architectural, artefactual, documentary, and oral evidence to examine from an archaeological and historical perspective a project shaped by technological and financial dependence on foreign capital, epitomized by the use of General Electric turbines; as a case study, it contributes to debates on the archaeology of the contemporary past in Latin America and the political ecology of energy, nature, and technology.
This paper investigates the mostly forgotten spaces of Polish refugees in Tehran who were transported to Allied-occupied Iran during World War II – a case study that crucially breaks with the discursive frame that refugeeism occurs only from “East” to “West” and not from geographies of conflict to geographies of refuge. The Polish spaces consisted of refugee camps, military camps, hospitals, sites of labour and leisure and residences in the city. I explore the spatial relations of these sites by mobilising the Foucauldian concept of the heterotopia, showing how Polish spaces existed simultaneously with other spaces of the city but mostly othered to them. The study also draws attention to distinctions of class, gender and religion amongst the refugees and how these shaped the heterotopias of the refugees. The material culture of the Polish refugees was studied through an approach that I would like to suggest is practical in highly restricted contexts in which doing fieldwork is not possible: using alternative materialities such as historical aerial images and historical sketch plans. Accounts and archival documents were also consulted. Ground truthing, urban survey and site visits were conducted when possible.
Is there a sense in which archaeological artefacts can be activated within the present, perhaps even to call forth different futures? This article involves a personal account – alongside archaeological analysis (and some theoretical speculation) – of an encounter with the Folkton Drums and how a kind of “re-versioning” of them in and for the present allows other affects and meanings to foreground themselves. At stake here especially is a relationship to grief, but also the way in which landscape and community are linked to different devices – such as the drums – both in the past but also in our contemporary moment too. The essay moves between an academic/scholarly mode and a more auto style of writing – the rationale here being that the work of the drums is itself of an intimate and personal character and thus, to a certain extent, calls for a different kind of engagement and writing that is appropriate to this work.
In recent decades, archaeology and heritage studies have included an increasing focus on the future, revealing an underlying anxiety in relation to major societal challenges. Although this discourse regards the future as a later temporal stage, the future is often conceived in terms of present imaginaries – i.e., the future as emerging in the present. The aim of this paper is to look at these imaginaries more critically. Whether they are utopian, dystopian, or more seldom, something in between, they still depend on capitalist structures. In other words, these futures can be considered already “used”, reflecting present interests rather than representing something truly novel and radical. This shows that our imaginations have become hostage to the capitalist system, a system that seems infinitely flexible and adaptable to whatever is thrown at it. As such, our paper describes crucial elements of our capitalist structures, the specialized division of labour, the global network, and the progress of technology and society, and it imagines what archaeology would look like without these elements. Given that there seems to be a turn towards conservative values in various parts of the world, we need to consider how truly novel futures can be anticipated.
Since the late nineteenth century, the Chilean state has deployed a number of performative mechanisms to consolidate territory annexed at the end of the War of the Pacific in 1884 and the border with Bolivia. In the area of Ollagüe, a Quechua Indigenous community located close to the border, the installation of mining infrastructure once served this purpose, but since deindustrialisation in the 1980s and 1990s Chile has instead asserted its presence primarily through increased policing of migration and smuggling, and the establishment of various heritage sites. In these ways, Chile continues to secure its sovereignty over Indigenous territory and re-enforce nationalist discourses. Despite this, however, local communities from either side of the modern border uphold Indigenous forms of social relations and commercial exchange by organising fairs. This paper focuses on the Hito 67 International Fair, held each month on the actual border, and explores how commercial exchanges and family interrelationships shape the complex social dynamics of the cross-border space. The fair is not just an episodic event but a “persistent place” that simultaneously shapes and challenges state presence and absence at the border.
In this article we present a pioneering project that evaluates the therapeutic potential of archaeological practice in relation to the mental health of veterans of the Malvinas/Falklands War (1982). The framework connects professionals from archaeology, history and mental health sciences (psychiatrists, psychologists and music therapists), whose evaluations and observations are used to assess the preliminary results of three archaeological field experiences with veterans. Although similar projects have been undertaken in other parts of the world, this is the first example from Latin America, and it focuses on the only international war in which the Argentine Republic has taken part: the South Atlantic conflict of 1982, in which Argentinean forces fought against the British Empire, and which still constitutes an open wound in the Argentinean social fabric.
Archaeological traces of warfare are often complex heritage, with traumatic historical events generating contested political narratives even decades later, or longer. In the context of the Spanish Civil War, the fortified line known as Bilbao’s Iron Belt embodies tensions between different narratives of the war as it affected the Basque Country. These tensions are sometimes materialised through acts of vandalism – graffiti, destruction or deliberate neglect – which counterpose the official narrative with alternative interpretations. This article explores vandalism affecting the heritage of the iconic Iron Belt through a focus on three sectors of the defensive line. Our research shows that vandalism of the Iron Belt is a widespread phenomenon and that, in some cases, it has been a chronic problem. Moreover, in instances where vandalism is clearly ideological, as in the case of political graffiti, such acts are directly related to socio-cultural context. Beyond the intention of such (re)actions to transform archaeological heritage and present alternative political narratives, we wonder if they also seek to promote a process of damnatio memoriae. We also raise the question of whether such graffiti may also be worth preserving as symbols of present-day heritage-related activities.
This preliminary report describes an archaeological intervention at the remains of the village of Qadas, a Shi’i community in pre-1948 Palestine adjacent to the Lebanese border, and gives an overview of the historical context, motivations, aims and principal results of our work. The village was depopulated in the 1948 war and razed to the ground in 1966, and the destruction, concealment and appropriation of the village resources by Israel were the primary focus of our work. An unexpected perspective was afforded by the considerable traces of the war itself at the site, present due to the village’s occupation by Arab Liberation Army troops between June and October 1948. The recent war, which has led once again to the temporary depopulation of the entire region, underscores the violence that is immanent in the rubble of Qadas.
Harry’s Wall is a site in rural Cheshire where thousands of colourful messages dedicated to the singer and actor Harry Styles are inscribed on the ageing bricks of a nineteenth-century railway viaduct. What initially began as a research project for the MA Contemporary Art & Archaeology at UHI Orkney (Thomas 2024) has since developed into a deep engagement with the site through time, as I have followed the changes both in the messages and in the media attention that the viaduct has attracted. In this paper I briefly introduce the site and Styles himself, and define my research, its challenges and methodology, before illustrating some common themes in the messages. I then consider the value of a fan “shrine” as a contemporary archaeological investigation and highlight questions it raises for heritage professionals. The research has demonstrated that such sites, sometimes easy to dismiss, can hold deeper heritage value than we may initially assume.
The “complaint tablet to Ea-Naṣir” was discovered during Leonard Woolley’s excavations at Ur in the 1920s, and is currently on display in the British Museum. The tablet, with its cuneiform inscription, dated to ca. 1750 BC, is an excoriating attack on Ea-Naṣir’s fraudulent business practices, and has become known as the world’s oldest customer complaint. In 2015 the complaint tablet was the subject of popular viral social media posts on Reddit and tumblr, followed by a surge of international news coverage. Since then the complaint tablet has become a popular and unusually-long-lasting internet meme. Ea-Naṣir, his poor-quality copper ingots and other elements from the inscribed narrative have been creatively combined with images and references to popular culture, current affairs and established meme formats. In this paper I explore the emergence, development and endurance of the Ea-Naṣir meme, based on a corpus of images, texts and related commentary collected from digital media. My analysis, grounded in a framework for studying the dynamics of memetic processes, argues that the meme serves primarily as an “in-joke” for online communities, while Ea-Naṣir himself has been transformed into an archetypal “trickster” figure. While focused on a specific case study, the methods and framework offer a starting point for future research on internet memes in digital folklore, reception studies and allied fields.
This photo essay presents an approach to post-industrial landscapes through single objects and their motifs. The stimulus for these reflections came from revisiting photographs I took of North Shields Fish Quay, a deindustrialised fishing port in northeast England. The essay combines fieldwork photographs and interviews conducted with the local Association of Retired Fishermen to reveal the material and discursive lingering of ships in North Shields Fish Quay. Drawing on the concept of “surface encounters”, I envision the potential of these industrial objects to intervene between researcher and participant. The essay describes the attentive dialogues that may have emerged between me and the retired fishers through embracing the physicality of these boats rather than what they symbolise. These reflections offer insight for scholars of deindustrialisation and contemporary archaeologists using participant-oriented methods.
When a flotation machine, an object routinely employed at archaeological sites, was featured prominently in an art exhibition, its significance did not simply change. As well as interrupting the machine’s meaning (function), the act and event also made possible the emergence of new forms of attention, and of different means of engagement with the object. This paper explores the collaboration between archaeology and art where this occurred, the exhibition Geography of Looking in the Ar/Ge Kunst art space in the city of Bolzano in northeast Italy. The introduction of a flotation machine into the art space initiated a dialogue about the perception, interpretation and disciplinary boundaries of archaeology. Entangled in artistic discursive practice and curated as such, the flotation machine unexpectedly became more “archaeological”. The implications of this collaboration on our understanding and framing of archaeological practice elicited a new question: when is archaeology? This question foregrounds the potential of archaeology to become more democratic, inclusive and responsive, and proposes a more collective and boundary-crossing looking. The paper contributes to the growing discourse on contemporary archaeology and art, inviting further collaborations and co-creations. What role is there for archaeology approaching the contemporary, and is there a prospect for a deep and enduring looking into an alternative, otherwise world building?
This paper presents a detailed analysis of a collection of figurines located in Portugal, focusing on their role as artefacts that reflect and influence societal norms, cultural attitudes and political issues. Most of the figurines date from the 1970s to the first decade of the twenty-first century, and range from characters associated with animated TV series and adverts to political caricatures and commercial mascots, and through studying particular examples the paper explores themes of political commentary, racial representation, gender stereotypes and the impact of media on socialisation. Additionally, the paper considers the personal significance of these figurines to their past and present owners, highlighting the diverse experiences and interpretations associated with these material objects. By situating the analysis within the context of Portugal, the paper offers insights into how cultural artefacts intersect with local contexts and contribute to broader discourses on identity, history and societal change.
This preliminary report describes an archaeological intervention at the remains of the village of Qadas, a Shi'i community in pre-1948 Palestine adjacent to the Lebanese border, and gives an overview of the historical context, motivations, aims and principal results of our work. The village was depopulated in the 1948 war and razed to the ground in 1966, and the destruction, concealment and appropriation of the village resources by Israel were the primary focus of our work. An unexpected perspective was afforded by the considerable traces of the war itself at the site, present due to the village's occupation by Arab Liberation Army troops between June and October 1948. The recent war, which has led once again to the temporary depopulation of the entire region, underscores the violence that is immanent in the rubble of Qadas.
Archaeological traces of warfare are often complex heritage, with traumatic historical events generating contested political narratives even decades later, or longer. In the context of the Spanish Civil War, the fortified line known as Bilbao's Iron Belt embodies tensions between different narratives of the war as it affected the Basque Country. These tensions are sometimes materialised through acts of vandalism - graffiti, destruction or deliberate neglect - which counterpose the official narrative with alternative interpretations. This article explores vandalism affecting the heritage of the iconic Iron Belt through a focus on three sectors of the defensive line. Our research shows that vandalism of the Iron Belt is a widespread phenomenon and that, in some cases, it has been a chronic problem. Moreover, in instances where vandalism is clearly ideological, as in the case of political graffiti, such acts are directly related to socio-cultural context. Beyond the intention of such (re)actions to transform archaeological heritage and present alternative political narratives, we wonder if they also seek to promote a process of damnatio memoriae. We also raise the question of whether such graffiti may also be worth preserving as symbols of present-day heritage-related activities.
The "complaint tablet to Ea-Nasir" was discovered during Leonard Woolley's excavations at Ur in the 1920s, and is currently on display in the British Museum. The tablet, with its cuneiform inscription, dated to ca. 1750 BC, is an excoriating attack on Ea-Nasir's fraudulent business practices, and has become known as the world's oldest customer complaint. In 2015 the complaint tablet was the subject of popular viral social media posts on Reddit and tumblr, followed by a surge of international news coverage. Since then the complaint tablet has become a popular and unusually-long-lasting internet meme. Ea-Nasir, his poor-quality copper ingots and other elements from the inscribed narrative have been creatively combined with images and references to popular culture, current affairs and established meme formats. In this paper I explore the emergence, development and endurance of the Ea-Nasir meme, based on a corpus of images, texts and related commentary collected from digital media. My analysis, grounded in a framework for studying the dynamics of memetic processes, argues that the meme serves primarily as an "in-joke" for online communities, while Ea-Nasir himself has been transformed into an archetypal "trickster" figure. While focused on a specific case study, the methods and framework offer a starting point for future research on internet memes in digital folklore, reception studies and allied fields.
This photo essay presents an approach to post-industrial landscapes through single objects and their motifs. The stimulus for these reflections came from revisiting photographs I took of North Shields Fish Quay, a deindustrialised fishing port in northeast England. The essay combines fieldwork photographs and interviews conducted with the local Association of Retired Fishermen to reveal the material and discursive lingering of ships in North Shields Fish Quay. Drawing on the concept of "surface encounters", I envision the potential of these industrial objects to intervene between researcher and participant. The essay describes the attentive dialogues that may have emerged between me and the retired fishers through embracing the physicality of these boats rather than what they symbolise. These reflections offer insight for scholars of deindustrialisation and contemporary archaeologists using participant-oriented methods.
