Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-94d59 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T08:27:29.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Archaeology and identity in south Asia — interpretations and consequences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Robin Coningham
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford BD7 1DP, England. r.a.e.coningham@bradford.ac.uk
Nick Lewer
Affiliation:
Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, Bradford BD7 1DP, England. n.lewer@bradford.ac.uk

Extract

Whilst archaeological discoveries initiated by the Europeans have long encouraged a pride in India's past among its educated elite, there is even less evidence of nationalism influencing the practice of Indian Archaeology. TRIGGER 1995: 271

In 1995 Bruce Trigger dismissed the role of nationalism within the archaeology of south Asia (1995: 271), apparently ignoring even the archaeological nature of the crest of the new Indian republic — the Sarnath lion; and his comments have acted as a catalyst for this special number of papers, many of which explore the very real relationship between the south Asian nation-state and archaeology. We have expanded Trigger's tripartite division of nationalist, colonialist or imperialist archaeology (1984), to reflect the aspirations of additional units such as regions, religious groups and individual communities over the last 200 years. In so doing we have used the concept of identity, as offered by Northrup (1989: 63), to encompass these disparate groups:

Identity is the tendency for human beings, individually and in groups, to establish, maintain and protect a sense of self-meaning, predictability and purpose. It encompasses a sense of self-definition at multiple levels.

Type
Special section
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Archer, M. 1980. Early views of India. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Azar, E. & Burton, J. (ed.). 1986. International conflict resolution: theory and practice, Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books.Google Scholar
Bernbeck, R. & Pollock, S.. 1996. Ayodhya, archaeology and identity. Current anthropology 37 (Supplement): S138S142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhan, S. 1998. Recent trends in Indian archaeology, in Shrimali, K.M. (ed.), Reason and arcaeology. 115. Delhi: Association for the Study of History and Archaeology.Google Scholar
Chakrabarti, D.K. 1988. Theoretical issues in Indian archaeology. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.Google Scholar
Chakrabarti, D.K. 1997. Colonial Indology. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.Google Scholar
Chapman, J. 1994. Destruction of a common heritage: the archaeology of war in Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Antiquity 68: 12026.Google Scholar
Chippindale, C. 1992. Editorial, Antiquity 66: 14.Google Scholar
Chippindale, C. 1994. Editorial, Antiquity 68: 19.Google Scholar
Choudhury, P. 1995. The Aryan hoax. Calcutta: Pannesh Choudhury.Google Scholar
Coningham, R.A.E. & Young, R.L.. 1999. The archaeological visibility of caste: an introduction, in Insoll, (ed.): 8493.Google Scholar
Coningham, R.A.E. & Lewer, N.. 1999. Paradise lost: the hombing of the Temple of the Tooth — a UNESCO world heritage site in Sri Lanka, Antiquity 73: 85766.Google Scholar
Deo, S.B. & Kamath, S. (ed.). 1993. The aryan problem. Pune: Bharatiya Ithasa Sankalana Saiti.Google Scholar
Diaz-Andreu, M. & Champion, T. (ed.). 1996. Nationalism and archaeology in Europe. London: University College London Press.Google Scholar
Edrosy, G. (ed.). 1995. The Indo-Aryans of ancient south Asia, Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Gathercole, P. & Lowenthal, D. (ed.). 1990. The politics of the past. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Gellner, E. 1964. Thought and change. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson.Google Scholar
Insoll, T. (ed.). 1999. Case studies in archaeology and world religion. Oxford: Archaeopress. BAR International series S755.Google Scholar
Kohl, P. & Fawcett, C. (ed.). 1995. Nationalism, politics, and the practice of archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kriesberg, L., Northrup, T. & Thorson, S. (ed.). 1989. Intractable conflicts and their transformation. Syracuse (NY): Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Lahiri, N. 1999. Bodh-Gaya: an ancient Buddhist shrine and its modern history (1891–1904), in Insoll, (ed.): 3343.Google Scholar
Layton, R. (ed.). 1994. Conflict in the archaeology of living tradition. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Leach, E.R. 1990. Aryan invasions over four millenia, in Ohnuki-Tierney, (ed.): 22745.Google Scholar
Lowenthal, D. 1994. Identity, heritage and history, in Gillis, J. (ed.), Commemorations: 4157. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lukacs, J.L. (ed.). 1984. The peoples of south Asia. New York (NY): Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Mehta, G. 1994. A river sutra. London: Minerva.Google Scholar
Northrup, T. 1989. The dynamic of identity in personal and social conflict, in Kriesberg, et al. (ed.): 5582.Google Scholar
Ohnuki-Tierney, E. (ed.). 1990. Culture through time. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Rahman, F. 1950. Preface, in Wheeler: 5.Google Scholar
Rao, N. 1999. Ayodhya and the ethics of archaeology, in Insoll, (ed.): 447.Google Scholar
Shaffer, J.G. 1984. The Indo-Aryan invasions: cultural myth and archaeological reality, in Lukacs, (ed.): 7490.Google Scholar
Shennan, S. (ed.). 1989. Archaeological approaches to cultural identity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Silberman, N.A. 1989. Between past and present: archaeology, ideology and nationalism in the modern Middle East. New York (NY): Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Smith, A.D. 1981. The ethnic revival. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, A.D. 1986. Conflict and collective identity: class, ethnie and nation, in Azar & Burton: 6384.Google Scholar
Stephan, G. & Stephan, C.. 1996. Intergroup relations. Boulder (CO): Westview Press.Google Scholar
Summerfield, D. 1998. The social experience of war and some issues for the humanitarian field, in Bracken, P. & Petty, C. (ed.), Rethinking the trauma of war. 937. New York (NY): Free Association Books.Google Scholar
Tajfel, H. & Turner, J.C.. 1979. The social identity theory of inter-group behaviour, in Worchel, & Austin, (ed.): 3347.Google Scholar
Tajfel, H. & Turner, J.C.. 1982. Social identity and inter-group relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thapar, R. 1966. A history of India. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Trigger, B.G. 1984. Alternative archaeologies: nationalist, colonialist, imperialist, Man 19(3): 35570.Google Scholar
Trigger, B.G. 1995. Romanticism, nationalism and archaeology, in Kohl, & Fawcett, (ed.): 26379.Google Scholar
Walimbe, S. 1993. The Aryans: the physical anthropological approach, in Deo, & Kamath, (ed.): 10815.Google Scholar
Wheeler, R.E.M. 1950. Five thousand years of Pakistan. London: Royal India & Pakistan Society.Google Scholar
Wheeler, R.E.M. 1955. Still digging. London: Michael Joseph.Google Scholar
Worchel, S. & Austin, W. (ed.). 1979. Psychology of inter-group relations. Chicago (IL): Nelson-Hall.Google Scholar