What archaeology does the public demand? Who has the power to decide what is important? These questions are raised and debated at a Conference in Tübingen in May 2015
We live in a new era where archaeology is no longer a walled and ditched reservation for University trained archaeologists with high scientific ambitions. In stead, amateurs are running around with metal-detectors if they are allowed, while minor and insignificant finds are bombastically heralded as if they were the discovery of the millennium by the press. At the same time the cultural tourism industry is busy building events and visitor-centres to accommodate the growing public fascination with the remains of yesteryear.
What to do as an archaeologist? This question will be heavily debated at a major conference organised in Tübingen in May by DGUF – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ur- und Frühgeschichte.
Looking at the programme it promises to open up for a series of lively and controversial discussions of such questions as: Should people pay for visiting excavations? How should archaeologists handle public attention when it is primarily inspired by nationalist or xenophobic interest? Should neo-pagans be allowed to expropriate ancient heritage? What role does blogging and other forms of digital communication play? What does the future of scientific archaeology look like in a world where the enterprise is at the same time exploited, flattered and fêted? But often also fundamentally misunderstood?
This is the annual meeting of the DGUF and only German presentations and cases are debated (and in German). However, the debate is wide-ranging and touches upon the conditions for archaeology in most European countries.
DGUF-Jahrestagung 2015
Tübingen, Eberhard_Karls-Universität.
14.05.2015 – 17.05.2015
PROGRAMME
Schafft sich die Öffentlichkeit eine andere Archäologie? Analysen einer Machtverschiebung
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DGUF – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ur- und Frühgeschichte
FEATURED PHOTO:
Participants are invited to take part in a tour on the river Neckar in in the evening