Can archaology make the world a better place?

 

There is an usual question in archaeology: how archaeology affect the communities? There is a lot of possible answers, from the ability to know the unwritten past to justice achievement in a forensic case as experts do. But the history of archaeology tells us about a dark past of their practices, the spoils of pieces from indigenous communities, even worse, the removal of ancestors and the exhibition in museum.

 

 

 

 (Fig. Images published in Ayala in 2007)

Nowadays, these practices are under questioning, and the most important factor is the own communities' complaints linked with legal prescription, like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, our neoliberal and capitalism context, entails a lot of investment projects such as mining, energy and property sector, and the contract archaeology or preventive archaeology, wherever the name, most of the time, archaeology turns into a commercial activity without a local cultural awareness.

So, if you ask me, I think archaeology can make the world a better place, but how? To return the past to the people, their knowledge and their things, in that way, can help the reconstruction of the social network among the communities. Nevertheless, I believe, this way can help myself, in my own identity reconstruction, as an indigenous and spanish descendent.