Although archaeology is not the only research discipline where fieldwork is one of the tools in the process of acquiring knowledge, rare are the disciplines that harness and organize physical labour ...of non-professionals in the ways done by archaeologists during excavations. Throughout the history of archaeology the usage of physical labour has implied a firm hierarchical order in accordance to which archaeologists have bought or exploited human work during excavations. The physical effort to uncover the layers of earth covering archaeological sites is a tacitly implied part of the archaeological practice. The dichotomy and the relationship between an archaeologist/director of excavations/decision-maker, who considers, analyses and interprets the archaeological record, and the workers who undertake the more physically demanding tasks, has remained largely unchanged, conditioned by the traditional and commonsensical attitude towards archaeological practice. It is paradoxical that the research discipline, publicly mainly recognized through excavations, rarely investigates the conditions under which the human labour is organized and exploited during field campaigns. The paper treats some characteristic examples dating into the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, starting with the excavations at Viminacium, the works at Stobi between the two world wars, and finally the forced labour during the World War II harnessed during the works at Kalemegdan. By discussing the ways and conditions under which human labour was used during these archaeological excavations, the paper raises the issue of the intention of archaeology and who is it aimed for. The cited examples point to the conclusion that the conditions of an archaeological excavation reflect the society, and the way in which the human labour was organized here speaks of the ways of valorising work. The examples of Viminacium and Stobi indicate that the idea of cultural heritage as a common good was shared by a small number of representatives of middle and higher social statuses, while physical labourers possessed no right over it. The excavations at Kalemegdan quite explicitly speak of the many ways in which the Third Reich exploited forced labour.
Kako bismo razumeli nastanak, širenje, usvajanje i održavanje ideja u nauci, naučnika bi trebalo sagledati u svetlu njegovih savremenika. Studije sociologije nauke pokazuju da neformalni nivo, ...odnosno personalna komunikacija, čini značajan deo naučnog života. Kroz personalnu komunikaciju naučnici grade različite strategije, nalaze potvrdu svojih ideja ili utemeljuju sopstvene položaje. Vođeni različitim interesima naučnici se na taj način grupišu u mreže interakcija. Analiza personalne korespodenicije Miodraga Grbića (1901–1969), kustosa i arheologa Narodnog muzeja u Beogradu, pruža uvid u nepoznate ali značajne detalje istorije srpske/jugoslovenske arheologije. Grbićeva delatnost postaje znatno jasnija ukoliko se posmatra u kontekstu, kroz prizmu internacionalnih naučnih mreža. Ideje koje je delio u okvirima naučnih mreža postaće očigledne tokom Drugog svetskog rata i konačno dobiti svoje otelotvorenje u vidu Muzejskog kursa. Gledano šire, iza Grbićevih naučnih mreža naslućujemo velike i važne teme kulturno-istorijske arheologije u specifičnim idejno-političkim okolnostima Evrope između dva svetska rata.
In order to understand the creation, spread, adoption, and maintenance of scientific ideas, it is productive to study scientists in relation to their contemporaries. The studies in sociology of ...science indicate that the informal level of personal communication makes up a substantive part of scientific life. Scientists build various strategies, find confirmation for their ideas, or fortify their position through personal communication. Driven by various interests, scientists form networks of interaction. The analysis of personal correspondence of Miodrag Grbić (1901–1969), archaeologist and custodian of the National Museum in Belgrade, offers insight into the less known, but important details of the history of Serbian/Yugoslav archaeology. The activity of Grbić becomes considerably more comprehensible when observed in its context, in the light of international scientific networks. The ideas he shared in this framework will become apparent during the World War II, to gain their final shape in the form of Museum Course. From a wider perspective, major important themes of culture-historical archaeology under the specific political circumstances of Europe between the wars, may be discerned beyond the scientific networks of Grbić.
The museum course in the Museum of Prince Paul in Belgrade lasted from 1942 to 1944, initiated by Miodrag Grbić, one of the curators of the Museum. The whole generation of the post-war ...archaeologists, art historians, and architects stemmed from the lectures of Miodrag Grbić, Đorđe Mano Zisi, Milan Kašanin and Ivan Zdravković. The course became the turning point in the history of archaeology, a sort of parallel university in the occupied city. However, it should not be valorised isolated from other events in Belgrade during the World War II. The German authorities established new institutions in charge of heritage protection in the occupied Serbia – Kunst und Denkmalschutz, the department chaired by Baron Johann von Reiswitz. Himmler’s organization Ahnenerbe was also active in the region of Belgrade and Serbia. As part of its activities, Wilhelm Unverzagt, the director of the Berlin museum conducted the excavations at Kalemegdan. These excavations symbolically legitimized the German presence in Belgrade. On the other hand, the project became one of the topoi of the ideology of collaborationism. The students of the museum course acquired their practical training during these excavations.
Prehistoric archaeology derives its roots from various practices and sciences: antiquarianism, natural history, geology, philology etc. The key conceptual tools of archaeology, including its “basic ...bloc” – archaeological culture, were formed by the end of the 19th century. Identifying the spatial dimension of archaeological cultures is largely linked to the innovations in adjacent disciplines, such as anthropogeography and its founder Friedrich Ratzel, but also with the general developments in cartography, perceived as a useful and “objective” tool for mapping the European nation states and various ethnic and linguistic communities. Ratzel based his ideas upon the ones of Moritz Wagner, geographer, traveller and researcher, and his work Law of the Migration of Organisms, conceived as an extension to Darwin’s theory of evolution. The innovative method of mapping cultures, as well as migrationism, have both remained permanent traits of Ratzel’s anthropogeography and the school of “cultural circles”. The examples from German-speaking archaeology demonstrate beyond doubt the ways in which the visualisation of archaeological cultures influenced the interpretations of European prehistory.
The paper analyses the role of the German archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna in the formation of the idea of archaeological culture. Often this concept is taken as an unquestionable given and Kossinna’s ...life and work have been presented as an exception in the European archaeology, but it may be much more productive to consider it as “the tip of an iceberg”. It is argued that the simplified concept of ethnicity and the search for its reflections in the archaeological record have long become commonplace of the discipline, and considered almost irreplaceable in the local archaeological community.
Reading the popular culture may contribute to the reflexive view on a discipline such as archaeology. Film, as a part of popular culture, frequently unveils the hidden messages, which may be an echo ...of a discipline or its distorted image in the mirror. Film and archaeology share not only the common origins in the modernity, but also the imaginary spaces where the past and the present meet and intertwine. The subjects treated in films, the contexts in which archaeology appears, speak of the place the discipline holds in the society, reminding us at the same time of all the elements encompassed by the archaeological discourse. On the other hand, if we compare the portraits of the imaginary archaeologists (such as Professor Mihajlo Pavlović, Vera Zarić), with the witnesses of archaeology in Serbia over the 20th century (Nikola Vulić, Dragoslav Srejović, Milutin Garašanin), we shall approach the meeting point between academic and general public, science and the audience, theory and practice. Extraordinary individuals, unemployed dreamers living at the borders of the worlds, charming connoisseurs of the underworlds – these are but some of the qualities ascribed to the discipline by the films. However, these stereotypes do not generate out of the void, they are the consequence of the self-representation. This mystification of the discipline leads us back to the debate on the responsibility and ethics of the social scientists inside the society they live in. Of course, the suggested reading is one of the many possibilities, one of the archaeological interpretations.
About the Scordisci Aleksandar Bandović
Etnoantropolos̆ki problemi,
11/2020, Volume:
15, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Mihajlović, Vladimir D., 2019. Skordisci između antičkih i modernih tumačenja: pitanje identiteta u (proto)istoriji. Filozofski fakultet, Novi Sad, 357 strana, ISBN 978-86-6065-521-1
Mihajlović, Vladimir D., 2019. Skordisci između antičkih i modernih tumačenja. Pitanje identiteta u (proto)istoriji. Filozofski fakultet, Novi Sad, 357 strana, ISBN 978-86-6065-521-1
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