The significant past and insignificant archaeologists. Who informs the public about their ‘national’ past? The case of Romania

Abstract This paper addresses the role of archaeologists in informing the public about a fundamental component of contemporary Romanian identity: the Dacian heritage. I start by exploring how the Dacians and Romanians came to be connected, a process that resulted from a combination of nationalistic zeal on behalf of archaeologists and the nationalist propaganda of the Ceauşescu regime during the 1970s and 1980s. I then move to the present-day situation, where I argue that archaeologists have reduced themselves to having a minor role in the public sphere, while discussions about the Dacians are dominated by two main players: pseudoarchaeologists and re-enactors. This state of affairs delegitimizes Romanian archaeology and places self-declared specialists and enthusiasts in the position of experts. Some of the Dacian narratives produced in this environment are infused with strong nationalist messages and have the potential to fuel extreme right-wing and even xenophobic movements. Consequently, in the final part of the paper, I recommend that Romanian archaeologists should challenge the representations and interpretations of pseudoarchaeologists and re-enactors. Moreover, academics should make it a priority to re-engage with the public and disseminate their work to a broad audience in a convincing manner.

The European Association of Archaeologists has long fostered critical analysis of the relationship between archaeology and politics, particularly the politics of national, regional and supra-regional identities. Although the role of nationalism in the birth of archaeology as a discipline is well recognized, the events of the past few years -from the referendum on Scottish independence in 2014, to the movement for secession in eastern Ukraine, and the rise of explicitly nationalist political movements across the continent -suggest that the (re)formulation of national identities is likely to continue to have major implications both for our interpretation of the past and for the practice of archaeology in the present. In light of this, the Archaeological dialogues editorial board organized a round table at the EAA meeting in Glasgow in September 2015 to explore the extent to which institutional, legislative and funding structures as well as political and cultural imperatives continue to bind our discipline into the construction of nationalist narratives, and this more or less in spite of long-standing critical debates within the discipline itself that for decades have problematized the relationship. Are we caught in a 'can't-live-with-and-can't-live-without' situation? While explicitly nationalist archaeologies have become almost obsolete in the European academies, we rarely contemplate the impact of nationalism on funding or the definition and protection of cultural heritage, for example. Several of the following papers suggest that without the nation state's involvement, the vicissitudes of global capitalism would result in a situation where it would be extremely difficult to adequately protect our 'heritage', however that is defined.
It is, of course, the case that the relationship between nationalism and archaeology continues to have a profound impact, not only on the day-today practices and bureaucratic processes we must engage in as professionals, but also on public perceptions of origins and identity. Funding bodies in many countries support only excavations inside the nation's borders, while others (particularly former imperial powers) may be equally interested in their continued contribution on the world stage; this has a significant effect not only on the research questions we pursue, but also on the sorts of story we recount about ourselves and others. Today, as the integrity of national borders and normative concepts of national identity are repeatedly called into question, for example by the arrival in northern European countries of refugees and economic migrants from the Near East, North Africa and elsewhere, it is inevitable that new formulations of 'nationhood' will have an impact on the discipline. The extraordinary level of interest among European archaeologists in recent years in using stable isotopes to identify 'immigrants' in the past can be read as reflecting current debates around immigration, diversity and multiculturalism; surprisingly, however, public and media interest in questions of origins and belonging has not translated into increased state investment in the discipline. It is becoming clear that if archaeology is to find a place within the new dynamic nation states that continue to morph with migration and globalization, it needs to find new ways of articulating with their citizens. Elsewhere, pseudoarchaeology continues to be used to bolster nationalist rhetoric, as in the case of the Bosnian 'pyramids'. How can academic and professional archaeology meet these claims while continuing to foster participation and multi-vocality?
Just as the status and meaning of 'nation' and 'nationhood' continue to be a focus of debate, so too the way in which individuals and communities articulate with the wider world is changing. In an increasingly globalized world, people may identify as members of transnational communities based on interest, religion, ethnicity or profession (the World Archaeological Congress, or the European Association of Archaeologists, for example), while local and regional identities are often foregrounded in day-to-day experience. Although ongoing mass migration across the Mediterranean creates particular challenges for individual nations, amidst debates and recriminations about border control and financial responsibility, it also calls into question the collaborative transnational values of the European Union -an agenda inscribed into the kinds of archaeological projects that have been successful in attracting EU funding. Alternative formulations of identity at a local and global scale are often in tension with national interests, although they may equally act as fluid layers into which individuals tap according to context. Sometimes, of course, they work hand in hand, as for example when the ease of long-distance travel and the demands of capitalism combine so that archaeology is employed to sell particular visions of national identity via the tourist industry. The ethics around which of these levels of identity -local, national or international -should take precedence are complex, as ongoing debates around the repatriation of cultural heritage such as the Parthenon marbles -national icon or global heritage -so effectively highlight. A similar and more urgent movement to salvage what is perceived as universally 'ours' can be seen in the rush to give refugee status to cultural heritage threatened by Daesh in Iraq and Syria, a gesture not as generously extended to the people crossing the borders of European nation states fleeing for their lives. Likewise, albeit less dramatically, although involvement with the international archaeological community is surely a positive, there are structural inequalities in the extent to which non-anglophone archaeologists may be able to engage with key international organizations.
Our topic, then, is not a dusty issue belonging to the nineteenth century but a live topic with particular relevance today: the meaning, status and value of 'nationhood' in the contemporary world continues to be a crucial question, and the role of archaeology in underpinning or challenging essentialist concepts of national identity is as important as ever. We hope that the

Introduction
The issue of the influence of the state on academics is not new in archaeology, but its context is rapidly changing in the modern dynamic world. Growing supranational associations, supplemented by increasing nationalism, define contemporary politics around the globe, shaping, to some extent, the agendas in social sciences. This is also the case for archaeology and anthropology, which remain, in many ways, interpretative rather than explanatory disciplines. Numerous archaeologists take the discussion of nationalism somewhat ironically, referring its impact to certain episodes in the development of the discipline after the Second World War (Ascherson 2003). So why should this set of issues be discussed at all? The framework of global archaeology, its impact on society, and international collaborations in the field over the next few decades are being shaped now. Hence it seems reasonable to discuss the potential risks today instead of focusing on negative impacts in the future. This paper discusses the recent influences of nation states on archaeology in eastern Europe. In this respect, the following issues are considered: (1) what is the current situation of the nation state? (2) How do states influence archaeology at different levels? (3) What is the impact of archaeological traditions on the recent development of the discipline? (4) Does archaeology still instigate nationalism? And (5), finally, how are nationalistic narratives influenced by language barriers, funding opportunities and access to recent literature and traditions? Are we on the edge of an international division of labour in the field that will deepen the gaps between regional archaeologies?
The article consists of two parts. The first part introduces the reader to the general principles of organization of archaeological institutions in eastern Europe, while the second part analyses the reasons for increasing nationalism in the field. Let us start with a brief overview of the concept and current status of the nation state.

The current situation of a nation state
A nation state may be defined as a population that purportedly has a right to a state of its own (Roeder 2007). The formation of modern nation states started in the 18th century. However, the factors that caused their origins are actively disputed. Marxist tradition links the formation of modern states to the early development of capitalism, or more specifically to the formation of a free-market economy (Polanyi 1944). Different definitions characterize the nation as having the following features: self-identity; territory; its own state; and a common language, culture and heritage. However, each concept in this checklist, except for self-identity, is optional. In eastern Europe political nations generally correspond to ethnic units, with the exception of the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation (see below).
Unlike the early free-market economy, the modern global capitalist system is based on free transfers of capital and labour that require the abolition of state borders and the unification of local laws (McGuire 2008;cf. Harvey 2006). At the same time, local capital associated with a particular state or certain regions within it appeals to or influences the national law in an unequal struggle with supranational capital. The dialectical relationship between 'global' and 'local' forms the current political agenda. On the one hand, the decrease in participation in EU elections from 62 per cent in 1979 to 43 per cent in 2009 does not necessarily mean a decrease in support for the European project, and the formation process of supranational units is ongoing (e.g. Formuszewicz and Stormowska 2013). Moreover, nowadays national identity and citizenship are not always the same thing. On the other hand, trends towards regionalization across Europe, corresponding to national movements or not, are also obvious. These trends are clearly seen in referenda discussing the independence of Catalonia and Scotland or military conflict in eastern Ukraine. Different rules faced by or proposed for national and supranational capitals, hence, should be explicated to the relevant populations and, if the economic arguments are weak, the job of persuasion must be taken on by the sphere of ideology. This is when cultural heritage may be involved in political manipulations. Generally speaking, the nation shares a common heritage; hence one nation has one history, but common history does not necessarily mean common experience (McGuire 2002). Moreover, other issues arise from the structural conflict for heritage, as demonstrated by Zubrow (2012). The ownership of cultural heritage does not always correspond to symbolic value as understood by different groups of people -for instance, artefacts owned by individuals may have symbolic values for larger communities, while heritage owned by a nation may have symbolic value for local communities and for humanity in general (ibid.). At first glance, individual ownership of archaeological heritage is more common in the USA than in Europe. However, this is also possible in some eastern European countries (see below).
If the symbolic meaning of cultural heritage and the level of its inclusion in political manipulation are the result of dialectical relations between global and regional capitals, then does it make any difference how 'nation states' and 'multinational states' influence archaeology? This paper argues that it does. The aforementioned views of McGuire and Zubrow are focused on more or less stable political situations in democratic societies. As soon as a nation state starts the formation of a political agenda based on 'common national heritage' through its institutions and/or media, the risks of increasing nationalism aiming to become monopolistic both in the discipline and in society rise to a great extent (Ascherson 2003;Halle and Schmidt 2001;Hamilakis 2007;Kohl, Kozelsky and Ben-Yehuda 2007;McGuire 2002;Milisauskas 1997-98). Let us review related issues in eastern Europe more specifically.

States and archaeologies in eastern Europe
According to the United Nations Statistics Division, 10 states are classified as eastern European. These are the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Republic of Moldova, the Republic of Poland, Romania, the Russian Federation, the Slovak Republic and Ukraine (United Nations Population Division 2014). This list includes one multinational state, the Russian Federation; eight nation states; and one segment state, the Republic of Moldova, where the dispute regarding Moldavian or Romanian identity has continued over 20 years (Roeder 2007). The Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Moldova, the Russian Federation and Ukraine were parts of the USSR. The other six eastern European countries were members of the Warsaw Pact, dominated by the Soviet Union; all six are current members of the European Union.
The state influences archaeology at different levels, including academic focus and approach, funding and administration, cultural-heritage protection, and connection to society, as suggested at the EAA session out of which the papers in this section arise. This list may be supplemented by 'education' in the case of eastern Europe.
It should be noted that, despite the prevalence of Marxism as an official research framework in eastern Europe, archaeologies of this region were quite different before the people's revolutions in the late 1980s and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and remain different nowadays. Most archaeologists did not publish in the West, nor did they visit Western countries during the socialist era. However, this was not the case for archaeologists in Hungary and the Republic of Poland, who were allowed to travel to the West and left their impact on the development of so-called Anglo-Saxon archaeology (Milisauskas 1990;. As a result, archaeologists in these two countries have relatively quickly integrated into global archaeology since the 1990s Urbańczyk 2002).
In the majority of eastern European countries, archaeology is organized around four groups of institutions: academic institutes at the Academies of Sciences, universities, museums, and archaeological rescue services that may be represented by private or, in most cases, state companies (e.g. Marciniak and Pawleta 2010). For instance, all such enterprises are owned by the state in the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, whereas both private companies and state-owned organizations are engaged in commercial archaeology in the Republic of Poland. However, the state-funded organizations are directed by different ministries. For example, in the Republic of Poland and Ukraine, the Academies of Sciences and universities work under the Ministry of Science and High Schools and the Ministry of Education and Science respectively, while museums work under the Ministries of Culture in both countries. State-funded offices responsible for rescue excavations and cultural-heritage protection in the Republic of Poland work under the Ministry of Culture, while in Ukraine rescue archaeology is carried out under both the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education and Science.
States influence archaeology in these four groups of institutions in different ways not least because the results of their work are focused on quite different audiences. Publications of initial data, typo-chronologies or radiocarbon data and, let us be honest, the greater part of interpretations and explanations are mostly interesting to other experts in the field. This thesis is well illustrated by Zubrow's (2012) study of the relationship between archaeology and society. The study is based upon 41,250 stories published in newspapers and magazines between 2008 and 2012 and divided approximately equally into three categories, 'legacy', 'tradition' and 'heritage'. The general assumption treats the information in the press as a commodity sold by the media and purchased by readers. The results presented in figure 1 indicate quite a low level of interest in the distant past in eastern Europe compared to western Europe. At the same time, the overall trend clearly demonstrates that the press mostly publicized research dealing with the Bronze and Iron Ages (Zubrow 2012). To some extent, the latter may reflect interest in origins and ethnic reconstructions. Moreover, eastern European archaeology during the socialist period includes numerous examples of the reduction of the Marxist paradigm to the superficial citation of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, while the research itself was based on completely different theoretical frameworks (Krekovič and Bača 2013;Milisauskas 1997-98;. As noted by Milisauskas (1997-98), without knowing the author personally it was very difficult to understand who really shared Marxist views and who did not.
However, this level of freedom in academic institutions did not mean that all academics employed by them produced high-quality research. Ideas of direct evolutionary descent between modern nations and the populations of the distant past, or even mythical peoples, are widespread across many parts of the world, including eastern Europe. Hence pseudoscientific narratives become a problem when employed by state authorities responsible for national cultural politics and the education of the general public.
Reassessed political agendas and the early years of newly formed states are often followed by appeals to the distant past that are believed to somehow promote the legitimacy of new countries or regimes (Kohl 1998;Kohl and Fawcett 1995;Kohl, Kozelsky and Ben-Yehuda 2007). Such appeals are shaped in two ways in eastern Europe -as evidence of direct descent from well-known 'ancestors' or as a discussion of where (and specifically in what country) the oldest sites of a certain archaeological culture are located. For example, several theories regarding the earliest sites of the Slavs and Magyars in the Middle Danube region, and respectively the issue of ancestors populating the area in the past, are discussed by some historians and archaeologists in the Slovak Republic and Hungary (Krekovič 2007).
The search for distant ancestors may be exemplified by the related impact on education and cultural history presented to the general public in the Republic of Moldova, Romania and Ukraine. Non-academic writers in Romania promote the idea of Romanian ethnogenesis according to the following equation: Geto-Dacians + Romans = Romanians (Niculescu 2007;Popa 2013;. Ukrainian pseudoscientific narratives go even further, mainly to Chalcolithic/Eneolithic populations of the Cucuteni-Tripolye cultural complex, dated to 4900/4800-3000/2950 B.C. Such narratives are based on assumptions regarding the autochthonous development of Eneolithic populations and ignore even the obvious facts of the location of the earliest sites of this cultural complex in Romania and the Republic of Moldova (Gershkovych 2011;Tolochko 2015; see also Shnirelman 2007 on the 'Aryan' myth in the Russian Federation and Ukraine). Lacking reviewing procedures, ideas of this kind actively infiltrate education, especially in secondary schools (e.g. Krekovič 2007). In the case of Ukraine these processes are intensified by private keepers of archaeological collections of questionable origin. According to Ukrainian law, the state is the exclusive owner of cultural heritage, but, despite this, private collections are exhibited in Ukraine and abroad (Gershkovych 2005). Prescott (this issue) provides us with persuasive arguments for the responsibility of the state for cultural-heritage protection. Meanwhile, the case of Ukraine, where the corresponding law has been openly ignored for years, raises the issue of international control over archaeological heritage. It should be noted, however, that several countries in the region almost completely lack nationalistic influence on archaeology by the state. For instance, the Republic of Belarus generally follows the Soviet agenda where the state itself implements an anti-nationalistic policy, while the Republic of Poland is for the moment relatively untroubled by such pseudoscientific narratives and 'the struggle for autochthonous development across centuries' after going through similar trends in the post-war era (Milisauskas 1997-98;Urbańczyk 2000).
Thus the influence of the state on archaeology varies across eastern Europe. Since nationalistic narratives in several countries are mainly implemented in education, and more specifically in the teaching programmes of secondary schools, their impact may be underestimated nowadays. However, the potential risks for increasing nationalism and segmentation of regional archaeologies in the near future are high.

shades of brown: the invisible hand of the nation state or the individual choice of the archaeologist?
The preceding sections present the influence of the nation state on archaeology in the form of an invisible hand. It goes without saying that the real situation is more complicated than any black-and-white image. Archaeologists are people who live in specific social, economic and cultural environments and who possess different political views. Hence the relationship between the nation state and the discipline should not be considered a one-way street (Althusser 1971;Hodder 1986;Kadrow 2015).
If the term 'nationalism' has negative connotations in English and Russian, the reverse is the case in Poland and Ukraine. However, other factors than different connotations have had a greater impact on the increase of nationalism. These are language barriers and fears caused by funding and access to recent literature.
The dominance of English in European archaeology today is perceived ambiguously in non-Anglo-Saxon countries. On the one hand, this means unequal opportunities for reading, and especially for writing, in Englishspeaking and other countries. On the other hand, thousands of archaeologists from all over the world have to communicate with each other in one or two languages (Harding 2007;Milisauskas 2011;Neustupný 1997-98). Since English is learned as the foreign language of first choice in the majority of European countries, this issue is less important to younger archaeologists, while numerous scholars of the older generation studied French, German, Spanish or Russian.
Another problem is access to recent literature. Online access even to the top journals and databases remains an issue for the small universities and museums of eastern Europe, while for financial reasons the majority of the archaeological institutions in the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine have no access to digital libraries or paper versions of the most-cited journals in the field. This leads to reopening of older discoveries, reinventing the bicycle, as it were, and 'speaking' different languages even when archaeologists from the West and the East communicate in English.
Certain groups of people in all countries share nationalistic ideas, but nationalism significantly increases only in particular socio-economic climates. Although rescue excavations may be related to state funding, 'academic' fieldwork in several countries in eastern Europe, such as the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, is almost exclusively possible through international projects funded from abroad. Many archaeologists of older generations, who headed large-scale projects for dozens of years in socialist times, often feel psychologically uncomfortable being co-directors without control over funds. Sometimes this causes misunderstandings within international teams, especially considering different field methodologies and principles of team organization -rather vertical in eastern Europe and rather horizontal in western Europe. Hence the fear of some kind of international division of labour in the field, leaving interpretations and explanations to Western scholars and pushing archaeologists from non-Anglo-Saxon countries to carry out fieldwork and material-culture studies, is haunting eastern Europe. The subsequent focus on regional studies and the bias towards nationalistic narratives in archaeology are the obvious results of such fears.
Let us remember that 'archaeologists are not saints', but human beings competing for sites, publications, positions and so on (Milisauskas and Kruk 2008). The scholars who look at issues of language barriers, funding and access to recent literature through the lens of national identity hold positions which influence both contemporary states and the future agenda of the field. When they are leaning towards nationalistic state politics reflecting the interests of the national capital, or even forming such politics, this may lead to unfortunate consequences.

Conclusion and discussion
The influence of the nation state on archaeology varies across eastern Europe. Since the increasing nationalism in the field in several countries mainly concerns education and the popularization of archaeology among the general public, the potential risks are rather linked to the near future than to the current situation. On the one hand, this set of issues is caused by the struggle of the national capital to influence the cultural politics of the nation state and to oppose the transnational capital. On the other hand, language barriers and fears caused by the unequal access of Western and Eastern archaeologists to funds and recent literature bias some eastern European scholars towards nationalism.
Should the potential risks be decreased? The answer depends upon our expectations of the further development of the discipline. If national physics or mathematics sounds funny, to say the least, then how should we perceive the mosaics of national archaeologists? The majority of listed issues are hard to resolve. Meanwhile, several solutions may be proposed for further discussion.
First, it might be a good idea to offer international control over the protection of archaeological heritage to avoid cases where national laws are ignored. Second, intensive learning of English should be incorporated into modern education in archaeology in eastern Europe. Finally, identity-focused fears should be reassessed as part of a wider discussion of equal access to resources at different national and supranational levels.
corporation? Or does it work on a smaller scale than the national, and belong to the regional or the local? These issues were discussed in a round table at the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) conference in Glasgow in September 2015, and this paper will explore them from a Scottish perspective.
The development of archaeology and the history of the nation state are intertwined, with a long history of influence of the latter over the former, from the types of question asked to the structure and institutions of the discipline itself (e.g. Díaz-Andreu and Champion 1996a; Kohl and Fawcett 1995;Trigger 2003). Díaz-Andreu and Champion have considered this impact in several areas, including archaeology's role in maintaining national identities, the state's concomitant influence on the structure of archaeology, and archaeology's role in helping create a public portrayal of the past (Díaz-Andreu and Champion 1996b, 5-6). Archaeology can be (and has been) used to reinforce the state; however, in the conference round table, my position was that archaeology is no longer the project of nation states, at least in the particular case of Scotland. While the state continues to have an impact on archaeological work, primarily through funding provision, planning and policy, there is a growing recognition that archaeology (and the stories that we uncover through it) can make a significant contribution to cross-disciplinary agendas, including well-being, education and economic impact. Improving social indicators such as well-being is a stated objective of Scottish Government; accordingly, archaeology can be used as a vehicle for delivery. This is very different to the idea of archaeology as a 'project' of nation states, and all of these aspects, from well-being and identitybuilding to funding, operate over so many different levels and in such diverse ways that I would contend that archaeology is too messy, operates at too many different levels and is too multidisciplinary to be viewed solely in this way.
Historiographies of archaeology have examined several specific examples that throw the relationship between archaeology and the state into sharper relief (e.g. Arnold 1990;Kohl and Fawcett 1995;Trigger 2003, 174-86). These highlight archaeology's role in relation to forming wider narratives, especially national myths. There is a tendency to focus, however, on the early 20th century; the subsequent post-Second World War and Cold War eras in western Europe have seen a less crude use of archaeology as a tool for propaganda (Trigger 2003, 185). In Scotland, this relationship is much messier. National 'state' concerns in terms of archaeology are often trumped by much more regional issues (as has been the case since the 19th century).
Scotland is a country within a wider nation state, operating under a postimperial legacy. Within Scotland there are strong regional identities with administrations to match, represented by 32 local authority areas. There are also many other ways in which identity can be built or manifested, such as linguistic groupings (including Gaelic and Scots), geography, religion and class. This is by no means an exhaustive or exclusive list and focuses on group identities. Nationalism requires a national story or myth for the purposes of the state, but a range of these is in play, with Scottish traditions (e.g. plucky underdog) colliding with national (UK) narratives (e.g. waves of invaders leaving their best), colliding with imperial propaganda (e.g. the UK's role in bringing Enlightenment to the world), as well as strong regional stories. Archaeologists have to navigate these waters, which have an influence on administrative boundaries, on funding streams and on institutional remitsas well as on how the work of archaeologists might be mobilized as part of a different story.
Scottish Government works towards five strategic objectives: underpinning one of these ('a wealthier and fairer Scotland') is the objective: 'We take pride in a strong, fair and inclusive national identity'. This means that heritage can be mobilized under the banner of a national identity, but in a way very different than it would have been done in the 19th and 20th centuries, with an alternate focus on resilience and inclusivity. In the context of working within Scotland (especially in projects in which a significant proportion of funding comes from Scottish Government) these issues are 'live'. Scotland's historic environment strategy, Our place in time (Scottish Government 2014), includes a strong archaeological component; indeed, the first supporting quotation is from the (then) Institute for Archaeologists, praising the ambition, direction and buy-in from the sector (ibid., inside cover). The ultimate goal of the strategy -well-being -is highlighted throughout, and the intention of the document is to 'ensure that the cultural, social, environmental and economic value of Scotland's heritage makes a strong contribution to the wellbeing of the nation and its people' (ibid., 'the strategy cycle' i). The core themes underpinning the strategy -understanding, protecting, valuing -are set out in terms of participation, skills and diversity.
Underneath this overarching strategy sits Scotland's archaeology strategy (Scottish Strategic Archaeology Committee 2015), which begins with a definition of what archaeology is and why it is important. This highlights the role of archaeology in connecting people today to people in the past and 'this connection shapes our sense of identity and belonging, enhancing our wellbeing' (ibid., 3). The document explicitly positions archaeology as a tool for delivering increased well-being, with a thematic focus on engagement, skills and the understanding and protection of the resource. The strategy for museums and galleries in Scotland, Going further. The national strategy for Scotland's museums and galleries (Museum Galleries Scotland 2012) similarly emphasizes the role of museums as tools to deliver wider societal benefits: regeneration, skills development, jobs, sustainability, tourism and well-being, rather than promoting national myths. All three strategies were created by and for the sector, with objectives that have been made explicit.
Scotland recently -in September 2014 -held a referendum on independence from the UK. Archaeology, archaeologists or any aspect of the past beyond recent history did not greatly figure in the debates around this. It is unlikely that this was due to archaeological views or archaeological evidence being considered too dangerous to use: it is more probable that archaeological opinion was not seen as relevant, and viewed as containing often complex and contradictory material difficult to corral to clearly support an argument (contrary to the observations of Díaz-Andreu and Champion 1996b, 20). However, historians (particularly of the recent past) featured heavily in the debate. It appears that archaeologists were not silenced: rather, we did not effectively communicate our relevance, despite the types of evidence we work with being important in constructing identities today. Exploring the potential role of archaeologists as public intellectuals (Tarlow and Nilsson Stutz 2015) is therefore timely and important.
The relationship between archaeology and state is inextricably linked to identity (or rather identities) and boundaries, and I will address this in relation to two projects I have recently managed which explore these issues: the Scottish Archaeological Research Framework (ScARF), and Dig It! 2015, the year-long celebration of Scottish archaeology.

Borders and boundaries
A countrywide initiative begun in 2008, funded by the then Historic Scotland, ScARF sought to outline current understanding of research questions about the past, and to consider what questions we, as heritage professionals, would like to answer in the future. It was an initiative that took cognizance of earlier regional research frameworks in England, for example the South West Archaeological Research Framework (Somerset Heritage Service, 2007), as well as thematic, nationwide examples, such as that for the Iron Age (Haselgrove et al. 2001). ScARF drew particular inspiration from the Welsh research framework, especially from its design as a primarily online resource. The process of creating the Welsh framework was built around regions, but identified nationwide Welsh research priorities organized by archaeological period (IfA Wales/Cymru 2008).
ScARF differed in that the starting point was national as opposed to regional. It took a nationwide approach, but sought to tie in to Scotland's international context, with a focus on Scottish material (and generally Scottish material in Scotland). ScARF is used as a case study within Our place in time (Scottish Government 2014, 15) as an example of the value of coproduction. The nationwide approach was taken because of the variability in regional traditions of research interest, skills and existing cultural resources and institutional capacity. There was a desire to avoid the danger of these becoming self-replicating (e.g. certain regions recurrently focusing on certain topics, or indeed ignoring them, such as the regional gaps in knowledge of the Iron Age identified in the Iron Age Research Framework (Haselgrove et al. 2001, 25)). Regional and thematic research frameworks are currently being developed in Scotland (e.g. the North-East Scotland Regional Research Framework 1 ), which work to identify those nationwide questions that can be addressed locally, and those that cannot, with alternatives being articulated.
The process of assembling ScARF threw a whole series of boundary issues into sharp relief. Perhaps most obviously, modern administrative boundaries rarely match up with boundaries that would have been meaningful in the past. This is recognized and accepted by researchers, yet there is still a tendency, particularly in prehistory, to create 'regions' as the main actors in accounts of the past. Archaeological work also places a site within its regional context; present-day artificial borders can therefore impact upon interpretation. Research frameworks also affect where people look to for parallels in order to explain phenomena, and the national border between Scotland and England has had an effect: Anglo-Saxon material culture, for example, has been traditionally thought of as an English phenomenon on both sides of the border. In this way, the Scotland-England national border can be seen in a similar way to local administrative borders, though the effects can be more pronounced. An example of this can be seen by comparing the Treasure Trove system in Scotland with the Portable Antiquities Scheme in England and Wales (e.g. Royal Society of Edinburgh 2012). Variation in approach and disparities in funding and personnel lead not only to different interpretations, but also to hugely different data sets built on divergent sampling. This is, however, an effect of how the state is organized, rather than a tool to reinforce its messaging. Different institutional organizational structures in different countries can impact on the comparison and interpretation of data for research. The presence or absence of research frameworks themselves can also do this. The Welsh Research Framework emphasizes this visually, by containing a map index to other research frameworks in Scotland and England (with space for a Northern Irish framework), 2 though the Republic of Ireland (and Europe more generally) are omitted.
Archaeology (and cultural heritage generally) is also used to cross borders and boundaries, including international borders, using archaeology as a way to make links through soft diplomacy. One recent example from Scotland is the analysis of the skeletons from the cemetery site at Auldhame, East Lothian; one of these is thought to have been an important individual from Ireland. This was referenced to celebrate a series of visits and initiatives building on Scottish-Irish cultural relations. 3 The Scottish Ten project, jointly run by Historic Environment Scotland, the Digital Design Studio at the Glasgow School of Art and CyArk, uses skills and expertise in laser scanning and visualization to promote Scotland abroad through surveying five local and five international UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The surveys are used to showcase skills and innovation, explicitly mobilizing not just the past, but also archaeological skills, to cross borders. Crossing the borders between Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the Isle of Man and Scotland, the ongoing Boyne to Brodgar project highlights the opportunity of using archaeology as a vehicle for cross-border collaboration, including the formation of transnational research questions (Sheridan and Cooney, in press). However, there is relatively little tradition of archaeologists from countries outside the United Kingdom running projects here.
Internally, heritage projects also cross boundaries. For example, the landscape-level funding streams of the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) have encouraged projects that focus on river catchments (e.g. the Tay Landscape Partnership and the Clyde and Avon Valley Landscape Partnership), rather than traditional administrative boundaries. Initiatives like the Tyne-Forth Prehistory Forum also sought to cross the England-Scotland border in this way. Disciplinary boundaries are regularly crossed, as archaeologists work with scientists, historians and anthropologists.

Identities
Archaeology tells stories about the past. As a result of ScARF being created and made available online, a writer and a comic-book artist were asked to pull out some of the gripping stories from over 800,000 words of text put together by over 300 experts in their various fields: the result was Telling Scotland's story (Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 2013). Each short chapter of this graphic-novel-style booklet (distributed for free online and in hard copy) told a different archaeological story, from 'Musselburgh and the mysteries of Mithras' to 'The Atlantis of the North Sea'. The work could have been more accurately titled Telling Scotland's stories: the goal was not to create one unified national myth, but rather to celebrate the range of stories that archaeology discovers.
It is important to consider, however, who tells these stories. Telling Scotland's story was selected from among what the 'sector' thought important. Increasingly, those choices are being made by different groups. It is fun to view the Great Tapestry of Scotland (Mansfield and Moffat 2013) and consider the choices that you could potentially make of moments to include that contribute to your own personal conception of a 'national' story. Similarly, A key to Dutch history. Report by the Committee for the Development of the Dutch Canon was released in the Netherlands in 2007 as an educational resource, highlighting a series of 'windows' onto moments in the past thought important in understanding the story of the Netherlands. Rather than a top-down imposition, however, this was conceived as a 'discussion': the resource is updatable and in wiki format (Commissie Ontwikkeling Nederlandse Canon 2007, 44-45), similar to ScARF. The 'windows' will change and be developed and this points to the future of people's interaction with archaeology, exploring their own choice of stories and building identities at different levels.
While the Scottish Ten Project documents ten sites deemed important by UNESCO and the international community, another initiative, Project Accord, run by the Glasgow School of Art and Archaeology Scotland, works with local groups to use modern recording techniques to record what is important to them. In the same way as the A key to Dutch history, this is one way in which people can explore, assert and select their own stories. At both ends of the scale, archaeology is being used to help tell the story of the international or of the local: in each case, their work is the vehicle for something else, from showcasing Scottish skill on an international stage to helping local communities highlight what they like about where they live.
The year 2015 was selected as a year-long celebration of Scottish archaeology, built on the EAA conference being held in Scotland for the first time. The central theme of Dig It! 2015 was 'identities' -primarily local identities, and the intrinsic and diverse connections of people to place over time. Many communities actively use the past to construct identities; at the same time, it should be noted that many do not have a feel for archaeology or have developed an idea that it is not 'for them'. Work undertaken for Dig It! 2015 branding found that the '-ology' could be a barrier to getting involved with archaeology. The underdeveloped potential of the subject matter is mirrored in the demographics of archaeologists in Scotland, which are not reflective of the population at large (Aitchison and Rocks-Maqueen 2013).
However, the rise in 'community' archaeology often builds on strong histories of regional archaeological traditions (which in some cases stretch back into the 19th century). Many funding sources are 'national', but the choice of projects is increasingly local. Similarly, the 2014 Research Excellence Framework gave a 20 per cent weighting to impact on 'economy, society, and/or culture' (REF 2012, 6), which has the potential to make a future contribution to the communities surrounding universities. Museum exhibitions have long been a solid vehicle for delivering a nation state's projection of itself, but there are over 450 museums in Scotland alone. Museum exhibitions therefore highlight an interesting mix of different voices, alien to how a national museum would have spoken in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Coherent national myths are difficult to form against a background of nuanced local narratives. Similarly, as a sector we are being challenged about what is considered 'heritage' or worthy of building stories around. Intangible cultural heritage, graffiti or the recent case of the Tinkers Heart in Scotland are examples of this opening up. 4 Archaeology is also increasingly involved in activism and campaigning at local grassroots level; for example, at the time of writing, the campaign to save Old Oswestry Hillfort in Shropshire utilized expert opinion from a range of archaeological organizations to reinforce the campaign. 5 There are many different voices within, and using, archaeology to tell stories. There are strong local voices, as well as robust international ones, though it should be noted that these are the voices of those already engaged and confident enough to use archaeology. In the cacophony, a national myth would be ripped to pieces. The bigger problem is not the potential misuse of a single story by a nation state, but rather unequal access to the means by which to tell the stories.

If not the state, then who?
The (potentially) Scottish saying 'who pays the piper calls the tune' reflects the imbalance of power towards the agendas of funders. The Scottish and UK governments (through a diversity of direct and indirect means) provide a sizeable component of funding to archaeology. As I have discussed, governmental concerns in the 21st century appear more instrumental than nationalistic. But what of other funders who might see archaeology as contributing to their 'project'? European funding has in the past promoted a transnational European identity, through the celebration, for example, of the European Year of the Bronze Age (1994), promoting the period as a 'golden age' for the continent. The suitability of the Bronze Age for this type of projection has been noted as a particularly good era to reconcile various national identities with the concept of 'Europe' (Jones and Graves-Brown 1996, 16). The recent Forging Identities project, also drawing on European funding, revisits the Bronze Age and finds parallels of relevance to the challenges faced by modern-day Europe. 6 Current funding streams seem to move more to the instrumental: the Atlantic Area transnational programme, for example, looks to enhance cultural assets to promote cultural identity for the benefit of community wellbeing and tourism, with the emphasis on stimulating economic development. 7 During the process of creating ScARF, it was noted that the Bronze Age (the period par excellence for the modern exploration of European identity) had been given short shrift in UK research frameworks (Last 2008), often divided between the Neolithic and the Iron Age, and therefore lost between them. As a result, ScARF had a dedicated Chalcolithic and Bronze Age panel, and the period itself increasingly appears in Scotland to have been vibrant, as sites previously seen as Neolithic or Iron Age (such as henges and hillforts respectively) are shown to have either a floruit, or roots, in the Bronze Age.
Other funders are more focused on local concerns. Some sources of funding, such as LEADER (through the Scottish Rural Development Programme) or the Heritage Lottery Fund, come from high-level organizations with broad remits; the project funding itself is often for localized projects. Developmentled archaeology still accounts for the majority of funding for archaeological work in Scotland, with local-authority archaeologists in planning departments or trusts ensuring the best dividends for the region. Multinational companies still have to focus on the local specifics of cultural heritage, and the guidance created by Rio Tinto, for example, highlights this, though it also notes the clash between local and national identities (Rio Tinto 2011, 100). In this specific instance, archaeology can be used as a tool for a different end: managing risk, promoting the company's image and ensuring a social license to operate (ibid., 102). University funding is also moving towards social impact, increasingly focusing on the community of place in which individual institutions are embedded.
Although not a bid for funding per se (though the prestige associated with achieving the status can have a measurable and considerable economic value), selection of sites for consideration for World Heritage status brings together an interesting mix of the local, national and international. In July 2015, Scotland attained a sixth UNESCO World Heritage Site status for the Forth Bridge, and this is referenced in the Scottish Government's programme for government -16 (Scottish Government 2015. In part, the inclusion of the bridge as an example can be attributed to its utility as a measurable accolade; however, the text emphasizes this as a monument to Scottish engineering and innovative approaches to protection and management today. Themes of skills and access shine through the other examples in the programme, as heritage is increasingly emphasized as a way of delivering social and economic returns. Economic returns are at the forefront of tourism and regeneration, also increasingly major drivers (and funders) of archaeological work in Scotland. The historic environment in general has been valued at £2.3 billion in the Scottish economy (ECOTEC 2008); tourism is a major component of this value. In places such as Orkney, archaeology is a particularly large contributor to tourism; the Ness of Brodgar dig in Orkney, for example, has contributed considerably to the wider tourism offering and marketing profile of the islands, including featuring on the cover of National geographic magazine in 2014.

Where next?
Following the papers presented at the EAA session in September 2015, there was a discussion about whether archaeology should be the project of nation states. The idea was expressed that nation states are, at least, a known quantity, and to varying extents had some element of democratic oversight. This was contrasted with alternatives, such as multinationals setting the agenda (e.g. Rio Tinto 2011). I was struck by the lack of positive alternatives -maybe archaeology needs to explore more actively exactly what it is the project of. If any discipline is equipped with the tools to see beyond our current circumstances, archaeology is it. The process of practising archaeology itself opens up space to explore and critique established truths -even perhaps the notion of the nation state itself.
So is archaeology still the project of the state? Archaeology is too messy to be a tool for just one constituency. And many (if not the overwhelming majority) of concerns are regional rather than national. Archaeology can be used by the state, though this is done in several ways: to make political/cultural links, to drive or contribute to well-being, as a tool for the development of identity, and through the use of cultural diplomacy as a channel for communication between nation states. Local, regional, national and international stories all collide to muddy the waters. And archaeology is often found on several sides of a debate -for example, mobilized in heritage management as a top-down tool for protecting the public interest, but also used from the bottom up (e.g. through the rise of archaeology at the explicit service of communities). How does the archaeologist sit within this mix? Uncomfortably. And that is a good thing! Notes 1 See www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/leisure-sport-and-culture/archaeology/north-eastscotland-regional-research-framework. 2 See www.archaeoleg.org.uk/other.html.
However, this does not mean that the relationship between nation states and archaeology has come to an end. In reference to Norway, this article contends that on a practical level there is no viable alternative to replace the nation state. In terms of archaeological narratives, it is more relevant to adapt archaeological narratives to the evolving state than to advocate abandoning the nation state altogether.
Keywords cultural heritage; globalization; illicit trade; migration; Norway; Scandinavian archaeology When challenged to consider whether archaeology is still the project of the nation states, a host of associations come to my mind, largely arising from my experiences and practice as an archaeologist. To anticipate my conclusions below: for someone working with prehistoric periods from long before nation states were invented, who is interested in theory, who is an active member of the international academic community, who lives in a city characterized by international migration and who is concerned about the destructive international trade in antiquities, it's a knee-jerk reflex to contend that archaeology has outgrown the nation state. However, I believe it's not that simple, and this paper will explore some examples from Norway to illustrate my point.

Nation states
The 'nation state' may be understood in the traditional sense as a cooccurrence of a sovereign state in an area dominated by an ethnic and/or language group (like the Nordic states). However, for theoretical and empirical reasons this understanding is problematically narrow, and the concept can profitably be expanded to states where people more or less have a shared perception of community (like the United States), which again entails shared perceptions of history. Thus the concept encompasses most modern states. Nation states are, of course, not a homogeneous category in terms of relationships with their own populations, and their long-term institutional histories vary. Some arose within borders imposed by force and arbitrary occurrences in history. Some are or have been at war with segments of their own population, or are oppressive, abusive, chauvinist, expansionist, corrupt and unable to provide basic services. Fundamental distrust, indeed animosity, between the state and the population is not uncommon. Some states are characterized by a dominant population subjugating other groups or engaging in violent ethnic conflict. Other states supply extensive services, justice and security, and are viewed by their populations as legitimate and benign. The historical narratives employed to generate community, and thus the relationship between archaeology and the state, will arguably vary in regard to the nature, context and history of the state and region in question.
The relationship between the modern nation state and archaeology affects a number of academic arenas: goals, perceptions, narratives, management, legislation and labour market sociology. Questions and answers concerning archaeology's relationship with the nation and the state will also vary depending on whether focus is directed inward towards the academic, disciplinary discourse or outward towards society (Díaz-Andreu 2001).
The point of departure for this article is a region of 'benign states', Scandinavia, and particularly the nation state of Norway. Today's Scandinavia is host to some of the world's most successful states. They are politically and socially stable, prosperous, adaptive and competitive. Though internationally oriented, they are still strong national entities. In these (at least until recently) homogeneous states, the majority populations, and the languages they speak, are Germanic, and histories of common heritage are readily shared. Norway has a long history and robust national identity, but the independent Norwegian state was formed as late as 1905.

A resilient narrative structure
Cultural-historical disciplines like comparative linguistics, archaeology and ethnology entered a partnership with the evolving Scandinavian states of the 1800s -and their fates are intertwined with each other. A goal was to create identity and cohesion, the perception of a common ethnic identity (Baudou 2004, 112 ff., Klindt-Jensen 1975, Prescott 2013b, ref. Díaz-Andreu 2001. Examples can be seen in the general interest in Indo-European studies (at least up to the Second World War), arguments of deep historical continuity and appeals to prehistory in the definition of demographic and cultural genesis and traits. In Scandinavia, the convergence of state agendas, heritage and popular ethnic perceptions was a success all-round: archaeology gained access to relatively plentiful resources and political patronage and comprehensive heritage legislation was adopted (Baudou 2004;Hagen 1997;Klindt-Jensen 1975) -creating world-leading research communities (Trigger 1989, 80 ff.). These nation states were involved in territorial disputes with neighbours or independence struggles, or evolved from traditional monarchies to modern governments. Lacking written sources with sufficient depth and detail to create mythical histories of genesis, cultural-historical disciplines supplied the 'deep histories' and myths to promote cohesion and legitimacy. The public was supplied with relevant and interesting stories of the past (e.g. narratives of the initial post-glacial colonization, evolution of agrarian communities, Bronze Age chiefs, the Vikings, and romantic perceptions of the Middle Ages).
The cultural-historical disciplines were important in the 19th and 20th centuries for the evolving Norwegian nation and its state. They also answered a demand in the population for storylines to assist in understanding itself and its place in Europe. Seen as necessary institutions of an independent Norwegian state, 'national disciplines' provided narratives that distinguished the Germanic tribes of Norway from those of the other Scandinavian countries and created interpretative contexts that positioned the majority Germanic population, and its state, in regard to the minority Saami groups. Already at this stage two premises of archaeological discourse were adapted from broader contemporary conceptions of identity: r Norway is geographically peripheral and presents uniquely challenging environments, and this has been the case throughout history; r the population has been stable throughout time and it has accumulated distinctive adaptive qualities.
Thus the perception was created that natural conditions, people and culture had shaped each other through history -creating the strong and unique regional identities that in sum are the Nation (Prescott 2013a).
Cultural-historical archaeology was critiqued in the 1970s, and with the spread of processual approaches ethnic primordialism and nationalism in general were criticized and ostensibly abandoned. The ensuing years were characterized by anti-migrationism, local radiocarbon chronologies, ecology and social explanations. Ironically, the fundamentals of the narrative of genesis and identity were reinvigorated, and continued to emphasize how environment, people and culture shaped each other to create contemporary traits and institutions. History continued to be portrayed along lines of developmental continuity. The interpretative focus resonated with general trends of radicalization and ecological movements in Norwegian society as of the 1970s. An important issue from the early 1970s (and later) was Norway's relation to the EEC/EC/EU -the staunchest political opposition from the far right, the rural center and the urban left. The environmental, anti-bigbusiness and decentralization agenda cast Norway in a David-versus-Goliath storyline, leading to a peculiar brand of liberal leftist nationalism -and protectionism.
The ensuing years of postmodernism in archaeology, the Saami rights movement and growing international academic entanglement might have challenged the above narrative. Though explicit explorations of Norwegian (as opposed to Saami) national history and identities were not on the agenda, the underlying storyline was still implicitly there.
Nationalist and essentialist ethnic narratives are clearly on an empirical and theoretical collision course with good science. The list of problems is long: prehistoric entities and cultural traits do not match contemporary borders. There is little reason to maintain the popular myth of deep coevolution of 'Land-Culture-People'. People have been moving in and out of Scandinavia since deglaciation, and newcomers have readily developed adaptations. Today's urban population has little in common with the huntergatherers, fishermen and farmers (or even recent industry workers) of bygone eras, and so on. On the other hand, in Scandinavia there is a Germanic cultural history and there are identity issues to be explored, but these are contentious, indeed even taboo, within academic archaeology.
Still, in terms of recognition, resources and employment, Norwegian (and Scandinavian) archaeology was and is a success. Saami archaeology became a success, by also adopting an identity strategy. Today the public continues to respond to narratives of ethnic, regional and national identity (whether Norwegian or Saami), and identity continues to justify robust heritage legislation (Holme 2005, 10, 25-26) that helps to ensure a remarkable resource flow to heritage management and archaeology. So, though popular narratives and political rationales aren't academically accurate, perhaps the symbiosis has been innocuous, and for pragmatic reasons justifiable?

Is migration changing perceptions?
[M]oral or ethical issues arise when taken-for-granted conventions of practice are disrupted . . . a rupture occurs, as sociologists sometimes describe it, that makes it impossible to go on as you've been used to doing, or when you confront a situation where it just is not clear what you should do. (Wylie 2003, 6) Though there have been academic challenges to the underlying narrative of the Norwegian nation (and its regions), the most potent challenge -the rupturing force -comes from developments in contemporary society in the wake of globalization and especially the advent of global mass migration. Immigration has created a political and conceptual situation where national and ethnic narratives are under pressure and old practices are increasingly untenable.
Large-scale, non-European migration into Norway started with labour migrants from Pakistani Punjab in the 1970s and has escalated since, with growing numbers of immigrants from all over the world. A significant and growing part of the contemporary population of Norway is immigrant or has two immigrant parents (approx. 20 per cent). Statistics Norway, usually conservative in its estimates, predicts that in 2040 some 24 per cent of the nation's population will comprise immigrants. 1 According to Oslo City's statistics agency, 2 nearly 31 per cent of the capital's population had an immigrant background in 2014 (up from 22 per cent in 2004). Some 41 per cent of the immigrant population is of Asian origin, 17 per cent is of African descent, while Europeans constitute 37 per cent. A quarter of those registered as immigrants are born in Norway to two immigrant parents, whilst the rest are immigrants themselves. Major source regions are found in Pakistan (22,585), Poland (14,765), Sweden (13,858) and Somalia (13,424), as well as Eritrea, Turkey, the Philippines, Iraq and Vietnam. In 2040, Statistics Norway predicts, between 40 and 56 per cent of Oslo's population will be immigrants. According to an article from 2011 in the newspaper Aftenposten (Slettholm 2011) the ratio of immigrant pupils in Oslo's schools has increased from 29 per cent in 1999 to 40 per cent in 2011. Of 139 primary schools, 58 had a majority of pupils registered as 'non-Norwegian-speakers' and 7 per cent of the schools had more than 90 per cent non-Norwegian-speakers in 2011.
For children growing up in contemporary Oslo, whether of Norwegian or immigrant descent, the traditional 'blood-land-culture' genesis of the nation story will readily be seen as irrelevant. It simply does not reflect their experiences. To involve immigrants in heritage, pitches playing on 'their' ethnic or immigrant identities have been made -but some surveys indicate that youth born in present-day Oslo identify with the city and country, and don't appreciate being pigeonholed into a static ethnic or social identity with roots in a country and a bygone era; nor do they identify with eternally being identified as immigrant (Prescott 2013a). This situation represents a strong challenge to archaeology's traditionalist appeal to identity.
In terms of employment, studies and activities, organizations within archaeology, heritage, museums and so on do not engage immigrant youth. In Oslo, the sector (i.e. students, faculty, CRM employees and so on) is overwhelmingly Scandinavian. Despite tuition-free universities and liberal schemes for financing living costs, as well some equal-opportunity initiatives, Oslo students with parents from Africa and Western Asia (as opposed to exchange students from these regions) seldom chose to study the humanities. There are complicated reasons for this, conceivably related to strategies and cultural preferences in immigrant communities, as well as intra-disciplinary structures and narratives in archaeology, cultural heritage, the CRM sector and so on. Still, no matter the cause, for ethical and pragmatic reasons this is unfortunate.
Addressing disciplinary goals and narratives is something archaeology can engage with, and is a starting point for creating broader public involvement. The typical strategy practised in response to, e.g., gender critique, age groups or Saami awareness is to generate multiple identity narratives, such as appealing to separated histories in reference to place of origin, migrant experiences and minority histories. Some surveys indicate that youth growing up in contemporary Oslo experience such strategies as being cemented into stereotyped ethnic categories that do not reflect how they experience a dynamic reality (Prescott 2013a). Another route could be to actively abandon narratives of identity of the nation state or nation spaces, and instead emphasize generalized themes of human history and anthropology. In my experience, the appeal of abstracted narratives not tied to time and place quickly fades and fails to engage the non-academic audience.
A third strategy is to accept that modern political entities -nation states -are largely the point of reference for contemporary people (though often contested). They are rapidly being transformed -as they have been in the past. So although the traditional 'Land-People-Culture' narrative should be abandoned, the above situation entails not the dismantling of nation state narratives, so much as new narratives of the nation state that are more accurate and to a degree focused in relation to contemporary concerns. Such a narrative would critically incorporate elements like the numerous migrations in and out of Scandinavia; histories of cultural, ethnic and religious encounters (peaceful and conflicted); and the general unintentional processes and outcomes that are human history. This is an intermediate position entailing that historical narratives do have a basis in what transpired in the past, at the same recognizing that history is also about the present, and is a potent social force when it is a materialized social structure and unconscious physical dispositions (e.g. Durkheim 2005, 13 f.). Of course, this is not unproblematic for parts of the population that identify as 'indigenous' and appeal to inclusive rights based on heritage, or those who wish to maintain ethnic boundaries to uphold diaspora communities.

National narratives and atrocities
In the ethnically homogeneous, socially stable and peaceful post-war Norway the inaccuracies of the autochthonous 'national genesis' storyline -whether overtly or implicitly expressed -mainly mattered to a few dissident academics.
With the demographic influx from the Middle East and Africa, and reactions to globalization and immigration, has this narrative become an excuse or rationale for atrocities?
In the trial against Anders Behring Breivik, perpetrator of the 11 July 2011 massacres, Breivik defended his action as indigenous self-defence: 'Our forefathers have lived in this country for 12,000 years, and we who are Norway's indigenous people do not accept the colonization of our country against our will' (quoted in Johansen 2012). The ideological rationale lifts its arguments from, or at least echoes, familiar archaeology and heritage narratives. Thus we move from theoretical and academic issues concerned with a mistaken primordial ethno-genesis, an untenable anti-migrationist view applied from deglaciation to the historical epoch and concepts of 'indigenous groups' used in policy construction, to the use of these concepts not only for dubious political purposes, but also for a grotesque defence of atrocities.
To counter this sort of argument, the reaction of parts of the liberal to left wing has created an equally mistaken myth that in short maintains that everything is imported, and there is therefore no unique content to Norwegian national identity. It is also held that there has been migration before, and in retrospect this has been positive. The concept of national identity should be scrapped (e.g. Jøssang 2011). Apart from the blunt inaccuracies of positions like this, they are as theoretically mistaken as the primordialist positions in their approach to histories as accurate portrayals of the past, confusing historically inaccurate national myths with the reality of a nation. In practical terms they serve to alienate large groups of people who are genuinely concerned about what is happening around them. Though generated with the best of intentions, this sort of rhetoric probably fuels a confrontational atmosphere detrimental to reflexive communication.
Reproducing cultural-historical myths of the nation state and on the other hand negation of the nation state are both mistaken and are both increasingly perilous. The challenge, academically, is to understand contemporary nation states and place them in a valid and relevant historical and contemporary context. Archaeology can provide deep history, comparative context and multidimensional narratives of contemporary relevance that can influence policies largely generated by nation states. By adopting dynamic perspectives, also exploring the history of migration and cultural encounters, archaeology can be seen as relevant by all inhabitants within a state's boundaries. In the future, narratives will continue to involve strong references to nation states -but reformed narratives, not futile negations of the nation state.

From narratives to ethics: is heritage the property of the nation state or of humanity?
The national agenda in Scandinavia leads to relatively comprehensive and firm heritage legislation. In Norway the initial passing of this legislation in 1905, the same year Norway became independent of Sweden, was hastened by the need to stop the export of antiquities and protect research contexts. The relation to the excavation and threat of private sales of the nationally iconic Oseberg Viking ship in 1904 is complicated (e.g. Guribye and Holme 2001, 33;Hagen 1997, 83 ff.), although the Oseberg issue was probably a symbolic catalyst in creating support for the new legislation. The legislation was thus geared towards protecting national heritage and national research contexts. Objects from and research contexts in other countries were not a priority at this time or later.
The Nordic countries were not particularly quick to ratify international agreements like the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. Thus when the Norwegian collector Martin Schøyen and his group of collaborating academics and public institutions became dubiously involved with materials from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Israel and Iraq in the late 1990s there was little legislation to deter them. Norwegian (and British) authorities had no inclination to help the affected countries enforce their national legislations, and largely ignored pleas for assistance (Brodie 2009;Prescott and Omland 2003;Omland 2006;Rasmussen 2009).
One nationalist argument in defense of Schøyen's activities was that bringing the objects to Norway was a potential source of national prestige. Another, more pertinent, argument was an appeal to the prevalent attitude of internationalism in academia and cultural heritage, maintaining that culture does not belong to a people, area, state or nation -it belongs to humanity. In Schøyen's case this rhetoric is probably an attempt to divert attention from looting and cover-up stories, and to create a defence for the exploitation of misfortune in poor and war-torn regions. Still, there is an unresolved tension between, on the one hand, the fact that most archaeology is bound to places ideally controlled by a nation state and is disseminated, if not created, in a contemporary ethnic, cultural or national context and, on the other, the goal that culture should be experienced internationally and that archaeology belongs to humanity -not a nation or ethnic group.
Philosophical rhetoric aside, in practical terms material heritage entails the appropriation of resources and the generation of income, legislation, law enforcement and management. Here there is no practical alternative to the central role of the state.

Looting, smuggling and trade in archaeological materials
The Schøyen case raised awareness of the problems tied to looting, theft and the international trade in antiquities. This accelerated Norwegian ratification of the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property in 2007. There can be little doubt that this international agreement had positive local impact on inhibiting the end-line market.
Fifteen years ago I was of the opinion that international agreements and cooperation are key to controlling the trade in antiquities, and hopefully halt large-scale local looting, theft and destruction. However, my experience since, e.g., the escalating scale of the looting and trade of antiquities in the wake of state collapses in Syria and Iraq, indicates that the international cooperation does not provide sufficient tools to stop these activities. Though international policing and customs checks, international surveillance and information exchange, and international political and professional involvement are important, they can only work in conjunction with strong national agencies in functioning states. The most important entities are effective local, regional and national heritage protection services at the source end of the supply chain. Only such agencies can stem looting, theft and smuggling at the source, and thereby directly inhibit the destruction of research contexts. The next step is policing and professional bodies with judicial and ethical mandate to interfere with the activities of dealers, collectors and academics at the market and collector end. This approach indirectly curtails the market, but does not effectively stop destructive looting. In today's world, the actual enforcement will still be a national state.

Internationalism or globalization?
Archaeology is an academic discipline that in its nature should be international in outlook and practice -and it is increasingly so. However, in Scandinavia (and most of Europe) there are strong national traditions and institutions that translate into national (and non-English) publishing, a national labor market, national funding and an obligation to disseminate to a national audience. The problem with these structures and institutions is that they tend to generate ethnic and national narratives, to create insulated academic schools, to practise internal hiring and to restrict academic outlooks. Fortunately, in northern Europe internationalization drives are increasingly dismantling such structures and practices in favour of international publishing (usually equated with English-language texts in international journals and books), funding from EU sources and international recruitment of students and faculty.
These policies of internationalization and moving academic archaeology out of national contexts have unequivocally served to improve quality, academic relevance and academic impact. However, there are concerns. 'International publishing', supported by impact reviews, point systems and financial incentives, is increasingly controlled by a few academic publishing conglomerates. These media receive material free of charge from national sources, but charge exorbitant subscription and open-access fees. Concurrent with understandable demands that publishing is in English, national languages are increasingly irrelevant (and impoverished) in academic contexts, and nonprofessional audiences are neglected. This tilts the balance of power further in the direction of the Anglo-American world.
Competition for financing in international arenas is increasingly forcing all research in northern Europe into a mould of EU-type bureaucracy, 'bigis-better' thinking and professional application writing. Though impressive in terms of measurable parameters like overheads, external financing and project size, and sometimes providing impressive breakthroughs, it does not necessarily translate into relevant and efficient knowledge production and dissemination. It also inhibits certain types of research that are all needed in archaeology and the humanities.
In short, academic internationalism has overtones of economic and political globalization. However, national-level regulation, funding and institutions will for the foreseeable future mediate between various goals, and at their best counter the unfortunate sides of globalization for the benefit of a freer international academia.

Pragmatics and principles
Boundaries in prehistory do not match those of nation states. Within a state various cultural histories have played out. The interpretative binds between the nation state and archaeology have often been theoretically and empirically misguided -though profitable for all parties. Today global migration and communication are creating (to paraphrase Wylie) a rupture that makes it impossible to go on as before, and it just is not clear what we should do; the traditional national-ethnic narratives are no longer tenable options. Driven by the international nature of academic archaeology, and various programmes to support international scholarship, the national arena is increasingly irrelevant to the ambitious scholar. The contemporary political and economic forces of globalization pull and push in the same direction. The destructive trafficking in archaeological objects demands international collaboration.
These are all important factors that mandate both international collaboration and regional responses. There is no lack of dysfunctional, violent and chauvinist states. However, the nation states are today the highest level of efficient organization that can potentially meet an audience, and combat violent fanaticism, crime, social exploitation and the hegemony of the few large nations on the world scene that is confused with internationalism. The nation states mandate regions, employment and legislation. So, though archaeology academically, discursively, socially and professionally increasingly transcends the bounds of the nation state, or is practised in regions within states, such states are probably still majority stakeholders in the endeavours of archaeology. Balkanazition is not a viable long-term alternative and there are as yet no effective international bodies to take the place of national bodies. In a world where most people still relate to the national state, but live in an increasingly diverse and globalized world, there is need for transformed national narratives. In short, though international, archaeology also will remain the project of the nation state, and can make a valuable contribution to contemporary and future nation states.
'History is an unintentional project, and all intentional activity takes place in the context of institutions sedimented over long-term periods of time' (Giddens 1982, 32). Both societal context and internal agendas form the path along which archaeology proceeds to evolve, and here, as elsewhere, history leads to unpredictable results (Kristiansen 1990). What the future holds is, of course, uncertain, but for the time being the nation state will continue to be important for archaeology. I start by exploring how the Dacians and Romanians came to be connected, a process that resulted from a combination of nationalistic zeal on behalf of archaeologists and the nationalist propaganda of the Ceauşescu regime during the 1970s and 1980s. I then move to the present-day situation, where I argue that archaeologists have reduced themselves to having a minor role in the public sphere, while discussions about the Dacians are dominated by two main players: pseudoarchaeologists and re-enactors. This state of affairs delegitimizes Romanian archaeology and places self-declared specialists and enthusiasts in the position of experts. Some of the Dacian narratives produced in this environment are infused with strong nationalist messages and have the potential to fuel extreme right-wing and even xenophobic movements. Consequently, in the final part of the paper, I recommend that Romanian archaeologists should challenge the representations and interpretations of pseudoarchaeologists and re-enactors. Moreover, academics should make it a priority to re-engage with the public and disseminate their work to a broad audience in a convincing manner.

Keywords
Dacians; Late Iron Age; nationalism; pseudoarchaeology; re-enactment; Romania 'The Getae and the Dacians . . . broadly occupied the current territory of our country, which in antiquity was named Dacia. The Geto-Dacians are ancestors of the Romanian people' (Bȃluţoiu and Vlad 1999, 77, my translation). With these words from a fifth-form history textbook, the ancestral roots of the Romanians are summarized and fixed deep in time. Together with the Romans, the Dacians are considered to be the forefathers of the modern nation. However, it is the latter that were chosen to provide an ancestral golden age, since the Dacian past alone, dating back to the Late Iron Age, supplied the uniqueness sought by Romanian nationalists and, at the same time, legitimated the 20th-century borders of the country.
Paradoxically, although this Dacian discourse was largely an academic creation, for the last 25 years it has not been archaeologists leading the discussions on the Late Iron Age in public media. This role has been acquired by individuals outside the academic sector, many of them without archaeological knowledge, while scholars have come to be nearly absent. That is not to say that Romanian archaeologists have stopped working on the Dacians. There are numerous studies on this topic. However, nearly all research has remained strictly confined to the academic sector without any further dissemination. In order to explore this issue, I start by giving a brief outline concerning the development of the Dacian discourse and research from its beginning in the 19th century. Afterwards I return to the present, describing the key players and how archaeologists may attempt to rectify the current situation.

Discovering the Dacians
The Dacians were discovered by historians and archaeologists in the 19th century. 1 They entered academic discourse at a time when a small elite was striving to give shape to Romania as a nation and a country, neither of which existed prior to the 1800s. In the second half of the 19th century, after the first Romanian state was established, the Dacians began to be linked to the Romanians (e.g. Haşdeu 1984). However, at that point, it was mostly Romania's Latin heritage that was emphasized, serving to legitimate the connection of the small eastern nation with its Latin 'sister nations' from western Europe, especially France, which constituted the model for the newly born country. The Dacians were instead only minimally present and often represented as a barbaric people, contrasting with the civilizing Romans (Boia 2001, 89-95).
The Dacian ancestors gained much ground after 1900 with the rise of the autochthonist movement, which emphasized the unique character of the Romanians rather than their connection with the West. Extreme ideas can already be read in the work of Densuşianu (1913). He argued that the Dacians, the true ancestors of the Romanians, were descendent from the mythical Pelasgian Empire, and thus had given Europe much of its civilization, a line of thinking that in the literature has been called protochronism (Papu 1974;1977;Verdery 1991, 167-214). Densuşianu's ideas were further developed in the interwar period by amateur historians motivated by nationalistic zeal (Boia 2001, 98). Yet a national archaeology discourse emphasizing the Dacians was established on an academic level only after the publication of Pârvan's Getica (1926), a volume that enjoyed wide distribution and appreciation among both academic and non-academic readers (Lica 2006). This created a situation that characterized much of the period between the two world wars, and especially after the 1960s (Gheorghiu and Schuster 2002, 293-98;Dragoman and Oanţȃ-Marghitu 2006, 60-62). Extreme forms of this discourse were incorporated by members of the ultra-nationalist Legionary Movement into their propaganda articles at the end of the 1930s and beginning of the 1940s (e.g. Panaitescu 1940; see Boia 2001, 96-100).

The comeback
After the Second World War, during the first two decades of Communism, nationalist interpretations from the interwar period were disguised under a veneer of Marxist-Leninist discourse, which flooded the whole spectrum of archaeological writing. Officially nationalist ideas where repressed following the installation of Communism in Romania in 1947. Nevertheless, the Dacian tradition initiated by Pârvan was generally maintained by Late Iron Age archaeologists during the following decades, suffering few modifications despite the declared change to a Marxist ideological research framework. The only significant change was the added dimension of the Dacians depicted as proletarian heroes fighting against the imperialist, slave-owning system of the Roman Empire (Matei-Popescu 2007;Pleşa 2006, 171-73). This lasted roughly until Nicolae Ceauşescu took control of Communist Romania, when nationalist writings started to be encouraged in all disciplines. The shift in ideology allowed for nationalist ideas that pre-dated the Second World War to resurface and grow in strength (Matei-Popescu 2007, 284). This is when the Dacians made a spectacular comeback.
It is at this point that the Dacomaniac movement took shape, under the guidance of top Communist Party members. The adepts of these ideas continued the interwar protochronistic discourse and saw the Dacians as the only, or at least the most important, element that led to the ethnogenesis of the Romanians. The emergence of the Dacomaniac movement may be connected to Ceauşescu's visit to Iran in 1971, when he took part in the 2,500-year celebrations of the Persian Empire in Persepolis. Presumably impressed by how the Iranian shah staged the monarchy's history as a success story of two and a half millennia in front of a cheering crowd, Ceauşescu may have become interested in providing a comparably grandiose narrative of the past for Romania; the Dacians offered such an opportunity. A series of historians, such as Mircea Muşat and Ion Ardeleanu (see Constantiniu 2007), as well as an exiled, right-wing collaborator, Iosif Constantin Drȃgan, played a role in revealing the potential of the Dacians to the Communist leader. One of the peaks of the Dacomaniac phenomenon was reached in 1980, when, following the Iranian model that Ceauşescu witnessed, celebrations were held for the 2,050th anniversary of the first unitary Romanian state, that of the Geto-Dacian king Burebista (Babeş 2008, 9).

The 'Dacianization' of the public
The heroic image of the Dacians and their link to the Romanians was primarily an academic, archaeological creation. However, with the deliberate intervention of the state, helped by museums, national education and targeted propaganda, the inhabitants of Romania were literally transformed into descendants of the Dacians, a process that I have named the 'Dacianization' of the Romanians (Popa 2015). Such a development was likely aided by the framework of the totalitarian regime, which was able to control all the main sources of information. An important role was also played by a series of films produced between the middle of the 1960s and the 1980s which illustrated the rise to power of the first Dacian kingdom and king (Burebista, 1980), 2 or the struggle of the Dacian ancestors against the Roman invaders (Dacii, 1966;Columna, 1968). 3 By the fall of Communism in 1989, after two decades of Dacomaniac dominant discourse, the 'Dacianization' of the Romanians was more or less complete.

The academic retreat
Despite the Communist regime's pressure during the 1970s and 1980s, many archaeologists refused or were reluctant to abide. In order to avoid introducing Dacomaniac ideas into their scholarly work, they opted to refrain from interpretation and instead retreated into a highly positivistic discourse. This consisted of lengthy artefact and stratigraphy descriptions, accompanied by typological and chronological discussions. However, even in such works, the underlying ideological framework was still nationalist, primarily due to the Late Iron Age research tradition established by Pârvan and propagated by leading Romanian scholarly figures such as Ion Horaţiu Crişan (e.g. 1968;1977a;1977b), Constantin and Hadrian Daicoviciu (e.g. C. Daicoviciu 1938;1941;C. Daicoviciu and H. Daicoviciu 1960;H. Daicoviciu 1968;1972), Ioan Glodariu (e.g. Glodariu and Iaroslavschi 1979;Glodariu 1983), Dumitru Berciu (e.g. 1966;1981), and Radu and Alexandru Vulpe (e.g. R. Vulpe 1976;A. Vulpe 1976).
Although the Communist regime fell in 1989, the retreat to the nationalistically coloured 'ivory tower of science' was not cast aside and continues to characterize a large spectrum of today's archaeological practice in Romania. Indeed, while Dacomaniac ideas are rarely found in post-Communist academic publications, many Late Iron Age scholars continue to work within the same nationalist framework as in the two previous decades (see Popa 2015 for an extensive discussion on this topic). This phenomenon appears largely because Romanian archaeology today is highly dependent on the research produced during the Communist period and is still rather impervious to other academic traditions (see Anghelinu 2001;.

Dacians for the people
Contemporary Romanians have strongly incorporated ideas of Dacian ancestorhood into their identity. Many people are at this point keen to hear and read about their Iron Age forefathers. This interest stems from the heroic image of the Dacians, still lingering from the Ceauşescu era, which citizens internalize by going through the Romanian education system and by coming in contact with cultural institutions, especially museums. The current positivist archaeology, despite operating within an intrinsically nationalist framework, cannot provide them with the knowledge they want. The 'scientific' archaeological papers and books, with their descriptive style, are naturally unappealing to the public. Consequently, re-enactment groups and pseudoarchaeology magazines, books, websites and documentaries have appeared to satisfy the Romanians' thirst for the past, stirred up, but unquenched, by scholars. 4

Pseudoarchaeology
Self-proclaimed archaeology experts have produced a plethora of books (e.g. Crainicu 2009;Oltean 2002;Pȃnculescu 2008;Sȃvescu 2002), magazines (e.g. Dacia magazin), websites and documentaries about the mighty ancestors, invading the libraries and the Internet. Most of these authors continue the protochronistic or Dacomaniac discourse from the 1980s and propagate the ideas of the Ceauşescu era, leading to the creation of a mythical aura around the Dacians. Their publications are often backed up by organizations, such as Dacia Revival International Society or Dacia Nemuritoare, that have wealthy financial contributors. Some of these organizations also hold symposia, like the yearly International Dacology Congress, where Dacian enthusiasts present their ideas.
Even the Romanian Orthodox Church has integrated these supposed Late Iron Age ancestors into some theological books (e.g. Vlȃducȃ 2012). In such volumes and various Christian Orthodox websites, authors have often gone as far as proposing a monotheistic-like religion for the Dacians, for which reason the Romanians' forefathers are said to have adopted Christianity easily. Of course such opinions disregard the numerous debates on the character of Late Iron Age religious practices in the Eastern Carpathian basin and the Lower Danube (Petre 2004;Florea 2007;Dana 2008;Taufer 2013) and refer instead, if at all, to the old work of Pârvan (1926,. The idea of the rapidly Christianized Dacians plays into the widespread myth that the Romanians, as an ethnos, were born Christian, a point that academics have rarely challenged in articles aimed at the larger public (as a rare exception see Theodorescu n.d.). Moreover, sometimes the myth was indirectly sustained in history textbooks (e.g. Bȃrbulescu et al. 2002, 90-91, 103-5). Nevertheless, with some corrections, Romanians can be considered to have incorporated Christianity, or more exactly Orthodox Christianity, as a fundamental element of their identity from the very beginning. However, this only applies when talking about Romanians as a nation, which came into being in the 19th century. It does not apply to the ethnogenesis of the Romanians, generally placed, with some controversies, sometime in the second half the first millennium A.D. (Pascu and Theodorescu 2001).
In the last couple of years Dacomaniac ideas have received a new impetus thanks to the activity of blogger Daniel Roxin, whose rise to fame began with the production of two documentaries in which 'unsettling truths' about the Dacians were 'revealed'. The first of these documentaries, entitled Dacii. Adevȃruri tulburȃtoare (The Dacians. Unsettling truths) enjoyed a very large audience over the Internet. 5 Its viewer count on YouTube reaches close to 1.5 million, which, as far as I am aware, is much larger than any other Romanianlanguage documentary. The film starts by accusing archaeologists of ignoring evidence and of deliberately producing a false history of the Dacians and the Romanian people. Roxin and his guests then argue that the Dacians are not only the true and only ancestors of the Romanians, but that they also represent the forefathers of the ancient Romans. Practically, the Dacians are depicted as the cradle of ancient civilization just as Densuşianu portrayed them at the beginning of the 20th century (Densuș ianu 1913). Similar ideas are introduced in a following documentary titled Dacii. Noi dezvȃluiri (The Dacians. New revelations). 6 None of the people expressing their opinions in the two films are archaeologists; most of them are retired military officers or journalists. While a small number are academics, of only two historians who make an appearance, one is known for expressing highly nationalistic ideas. Through the two films Roxin became famous overnight, receiving media coverage and even a temporary show on a national television station. He thus established himself as an expert in the field, earning much public attention and personal gain. Since then he has produced several other documentaries on similar or related topics, one of which had its official launch at the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant. Roxin has also authored an illustrated children's book on the history of the Geto-Dacians and leads the production of a comic book series entitled Legendele Dacilor (The Dacian legends). To top it all off, recently he has taken over the administration of part of the site of Brad, an important Late Iron Age settlement in the east of Romania.

Re-enactment groups
In the last few years, re-enactment groups have appeared, re-creating Dacian dress, crafts and religious practices, and especially fighting techniques. In no way can the ideas of such groups be equalled to the fantasies of pseudoarchaeologists, since, unlike Dacomanics, they attempt to follow the archaeological evidence as closely as possible. Nevertheless, while the wish to inform people about the past may be genuine, the way the information is presented and the facets of society that are primarily depicted serve to further glorify the Dacian ancestors. Images of warriors in heroic stances are generally chosen by groups to advertise themselves and to illustrate the events in which they participate. Unsurprisingly, re-enacted activities in the main relate to the warrior aspect of the Late Iron Age people, although at certain events there are commendable attempts to provide a broader understanding and representation of Dacian society.
A particular feature relating to re-enactment groups is that some of them have come to enjoy a great deal of legitimacy. This is especially the case with Terra Dacica Aeterna, a large Dacian, Roman and Sarmatian re-enactment group from Romania. Its legitimacy stems from the fact that many of its members, especially its founding members, have an archaeology degree. Some of them even have a Ph.D. and occupy positions in local museums. Their Dacian vision is thus perceived as authentic, as being a fully accurate representation of the past. For this reason they are often invited to schools or museums around the country, so that children or museum visitors can see how the Dacians looked. During such visits they speak from the position of expert on the Dacian way of life and such events regularly attract positive media coverage.
The presence of Dacian re-enactment groups is most visible at so-called 'historical re-enactment' festivals where the main public attraction is to see the Dacians fighting against the Romans. One scholar has described the atmosphere during such battles as similar to that in a football stadium, with people booing when the Dacians lose (Aurel Rustoiu, personal communication). Re-enactment festivals often bring in a significant crowd and media reports on these events are full of praise, often stressing the professionalism and seriousness of the re-enactors.
Dacian re-enactment groups blend fact and fiction similarly to Indiana Jones films (Arnold 2006, 158-59). Due to the need to give an entertaining performance and because of the lack of accurate archaeological information on many aspects of Dacian life, gross liberties are often taken. Thus it is hard for viewers to judge when the one ends and the other begins, particularly when some re-enactment groups claim to provide an accurate representation of the past. To what degree are re-enactment groups giving material form to the information that we have about Late Iron Age people? To what degree are their re-enactments primarily the artistic representation of Dacian enthusiasts? It is undoubtedly hard to balance the two and the line is blurry, although I would be inclined to view them more as archaeologically based artistic representations (for a broader discussion on re-enactment see Samida 2012; 2014).

Why is this situation problematic?
There is no problem with the existence of 'alternative archaeologists' (sensu Holtorf 2005a) and re-enactors. It is not uncommon for people to be interested in the past and sometimes to become very enthusiastic about it, sharing their views with other community members. This has occurred in the past, and still occurs today, both in connection with the past of a specific nation, as in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Džino 2014), Albania (Gori 2012), Greece (Bakas 2012) or India (Witzel 2006), and in relation to particular ancient societies, such as ancient Egypt (Jordan 2006) or the Maya (Webster 2006). As an extreme example, there are individuals like Graham Hancock looking for Atlantis, or like Erich von Däniken, who argues for ancient aliens civilizing humanity. Such fringe ideas enjoy a great deal of popularity in several parts of the world, and even, one may argue, on a global scale (Feder 2011), for which reason some scholars have called for action from the archaeological community as a whole (Anderson, Card and Feder 2013;Holly 2015). Therefore the fact that unconventional interpretations of the past are produced in Romania is by no means unique or even unusual.
The issue is that, on a topic of considerable interest for the Romanian people, the ideas of pseudoarchaeologists and re-enactors have greater visibility and circulation in the public sphere than those of archaeologists. As of late, there have been efforts to make archaeological excavations more accessible to the public, through the annual organization of the so-called 'day of open doors', when visitors can partake in the full range of activities conducted during fieldwork. Moreover, in a project currently under way, some Late Iron Age buildings and a large number of artefacts are being laserscanned. The project will result in a public online database and a permanent exhibition at the National Museum of Transylvanian History, where visitors will experience full 3D reconstruction of Late Iron Age sites and objects. 7 In spite of these recent developments, it happens often that Romanians who are interested in the Late Iron Age past primarily come across the works of pseudoarchaeologists and re-enactors since many of these are far easier to access. Such books, magazines, websites, documentaries and events also offer the most unequivocal discourse; their language and the opinions expressed are easy to digest for non-academic readers. Therefore it can be difficult for people interested in the Dacians today to find something other than the ideas produced by enthusiasts. While the visions of re-enactors are partly based on archaeological knowledge, the fantasies of Dacomaniacs are no more a justifiable alternative to rational archaeology than so-called intelligent design is to evolutionary biology (Fagan and Feder 2006, 720-21).
The dominance of self-declared specialists and re-enactors in the Romanian public sphere contributes to a legitimization of their discourse and a delegitimization of archaeologists. Since mass media today are filled with the ideas, images and documentaries of enthusiasts, they gain legitimacy through public exposure. The consumers of such information media conclude that these are the experts and authorities on the Dacians; these are the people that give a true account of the past. On the other hand, because archaeologists rarely make an appearance in the public media they have lost their authority in the eyes of the country's citizens. For this reason, the few appearances of archaeologists in popular magazines, such as Historia, or on public television, where they express more critical and less nationalistically infused ideas about the Late Iron Age past, often provoke a negative or even aggressive reaction from the public. It is not uncommon for online comments to accuse archaeologists of deliberately misinforming the public, of hiding the truth, as it is repeatedly sustained by pseudoarchaeologists such as Roxin, or even of being agents in the pay of foreign powers that seek to undermine Romanian society by denying it its true past and thus future.
A further danger of having such an uncritical, supra-heroic discourse about the past dominate the public sphere is its potential for fuelling right-wing, nationalist or even xenophobic movements. This has happened numerous times in the past, with Nazi Germany and the activity of the SS-Ahnenerbe being the most shocking example (Arnold 1990;Härke 2014), and still occurs today (e.g. the Golden Dawn in Greece: see Vasilopoulou and Halikiopoulou 2015). The Dacians were employed without scruple by the ultra-nationalist Legionary Movement at the start of the Second World War to argue for the superior character of the Dacian, and thus Romanian, race: We are Dacians. In our physical being, in the being of our souls, we feel ourselves to be the descendants of the great and ancient people who were settled in the Carpathian Mountains centuries before Trajan . . . we form part of a great race, a race which is perpetuated in us, the Dacian race (Panaitescu 1940, 1, my translation). Today, the Dacians continue to be a part of nationalist discourse in Romania (e.g. the magazine Noi Dacii). Ideas about the Dacians serve to support the argument for the ancient character of the Romanian nation and its millennial existence in the same land (i.e. the territory of Romania). They are particularly employed to legitimate the ancestral right of the Romanians to the country's land, fostering ethnic tensions with minority groups. This is especially the case in Transylvania, Banat and Crişana, regions that hold an important Hungarian minority, and which were part of the Hungarian Kingdom and the Habsburg Empire from medieval times until 1918. There is considerable potential for similar ideas to be used by nationalists in the current political context, when a significant number of refugees from war-torn countries are arriving in the European Union. Fortunately, the Late Iron Age ancestors have yet to make their appearance in this matter, primarily because Romania has received barely any refugees to this point.

The need for action
In light of the situation outlined here, there is a dire need for the Romanian archaeological community to come down from its ivory tower. Undoubtedly the comfortable option would be for archaeologists to simply ignore everything that is said about the Dacians in the public sphere and concentrate only on their academic work. However, given the dangers that I have enumerated above, scholars should not allow for the current state of affairs to continue and they cannot expect conditions to change on their own. As Arnold (2006, 179) has argued, in such situations it is necessary for academics to engage rather than withdraw. Consequently, echoing the call of Anderson, Card and Feder (2013, 28), I suggest that Romanian archaeologists should take simultaneous dual action.
First, archaeologists should start to engage on a large scale with the arguments of self-declared archaeology experts and the visions of re-enactors to point out their inaccuracies or fallacies. This action should take place both in the academic and especially the public discourse. Until now, few Romanian archaeologists (e.g. Babeş 2003; Petre 2012) have expressed their professional opinion on the phantasmagorical assertions sustained by individuals like Roxin and even fewer, if any, have commented on the artistic representations propagated by re-enactment groups. While it could be argued that engaging with the opinions of such individuals can serve to further legitimize their discourse, just ignoring them altogether produces the same effect (Anderson, Card and Feder 2013, 25). In the face of a near-total apathy from archaeologists, non-specialist volumes are appearing which deconstruct the arguments of the Dacomaniacs and expose what Alexe calls their 'lunacy' (Alexe 2015, 49-123; see also Marcu 2015).
It is true that a large majority of the claims made by pseudoarchaeologists appear so far-fetched that it hardly seems necessary to counter them. Furthermore, in many instances, contesting the opinions of Dacomaniacs may prove highly challenging because of the ludicrous nature of the arguments they employ (Fagan and Feder 2006, 721-22). How can one contradict someone who cites ancient written sources or text passages that do not exist? 8 Nevertheless, it is necessary to do this by referring to verifiable archaeological or historical sources. The absurdity of some claims is clearly not a large enough impediment, since the ideas of Roxin, Drȃgan (1976) or Sȃvescu (2002) are accepted by many members of the public. Archaeologists have to make obvious the falsehood expressed by such individuals and put a stop to academics being ridiculed as ignorant.
Second, in order to counter the ideas of pseudoarchaeologists and balance out the views of re-enactors, Romanian archaeologists should offer alternatives that the public can digest. In the words of Holly, 'it's time we talk to the guy sitting next to us on the airplane' (Holly 2015, 616). The public has to be made aware that there are other views on the Late Iron Age that make more sense and correspond better with the archaeological record and written sources. I am not advocating a return to the nationalistic interpretations from Pârvan's time or from the Ceauşescu period. Rather, I am suggesting that Romanian scholars should put their current research results and views in a form that is easy for non-academics to read and understand. Additionally, this dissemination of archaeological ideas should take place on a large scale, using all existing types of media (e.g. books, popular magazines, written press, television, public lectures, documentaries, websites, blogs), and such works need to be clearly distinguished from 'alternative' sources. By offering easily accessible, empirically grounded perspectives on the past, archaeologists can give the opportunity to Romanians to make a judgement on the different views that they are exposed to. Naturally, the interpretations proposed by scholars are far less heroic and entertaining than those of Dacomaniacs or reenactors, but they can be put in a form that is attractive to a broad audience (e.g. the activity of Bradley Lepper 2005). However, it is not the task of archaeologists either to produce a heroic past or to entertain.
When addressing the general public, archaeologists should aim to convince rather than rely on authority. This represents an important element of winning back people's trust and regaining legitimacy. Rejecting multivocality and claiming that archaeologists alone have the authority and capacity to produce narratives of the past would certainly only serve to aggravate the current situation. Some voices have called for a near-complete equalizing of positions between archaeologists and non-archaeologists (Hamilakis 2009) or even for archaeology to become an integral part of popular culture (Holtorf 2005a;2005b;. I do not share such an extreme view, and particularly disagree with the ideas of Holtorf that have been rightfully and extensively criticized (Fagan and Feder 2006;Kristiansen 2008). Nevertheless, the relationship between archaeologists and citizens has to be strengthened in a manner adapted to each context (see Dalglish 2013). It may be useful not only to write for the public, but also to listen to what they have to say and address their interests and questions (Holly 2015, 616). In the case of Romania, engaging with a broad audience in an open and persuasive manner can foster a critical way of thinking among the public, empowering people to reflect on their ideas of the past. Furthermore, it can help to generate wider support for archaeologists and dissipate the idea that they are hiding the true past and that they are supporting the interests of some occult anti-Romanian global conspiracy, as claimed by Dacomaniacs.

Dropping the old baggage
Parallel to regaining public presence, Romanian archaeologists also need to continue the process of escaping from the shadows of Ceauşescuera scholarship. Several authors have signalled that much of Romanian archaeology, particularly Late Iron Age scholarship, is still stuck in a 'theoryless' culture-historical research tradition (e.g. Niculescu 2002;Palincaş 2006;Popa and Ó Ríagáin 2012;Popa 2013;. This has created a situation where, despite an obsession with producing 'scientific' and 'objective' work, much Late Iron Age research remains caught in a nationalist frame of reference, producing ideologically coloured interpretations. Scholars do not directly or overtly politicize their research. Instead the situation has reached a point where the nationalistic discourse is so subtle, so embedded in everyday archaeological practice and writing, that it is invisible to the authors and academic readers of that environment. Nonetheless, this does not make the phenomenon any less real. My suggestion has been for archaeologists to be more introspective about their work (Popa 2013;. Romanian scholars should explore the diversity of archaeological approaches in order to understand how knowledge is created and thus situate themselves and their research. This does not mean simply importing concepts from Anglo-Saxon archaeology, but rather finding and enunciating working theories after obtaining an understanding of the various existing options (see Bintliff 2011;Thomas 2015). This requires also an awareness of the role played by the social context of our research, and the complex relationship between us and the subject of our work (Jenkins 2003;Shanks and Tilley 1987, 29-60).

For many the Geto-Dacian 'heritage' has become equal to the pride of being Romanian. The deliberate exaggerations from the Golden Age [i.e. the Ceauşescu period] and other times have become deeply rooted in the collective memory and have made it so that in the common perception
Romanian nationalism is tied tightly with a population whose heritage we 'preserve', significantly diluted, in our DNA. (Petre 2012, my translation) The Geto-Dacians are cemented in the identity of contemporary Romanians, a phenomenon that owes as much to archaeology as to nationalist-Communist state propaganda. Nowadays, this feeling of identification is brought to new heights, as the Dacian draco, the assumed emblem of the Dacians (Florea 2001), is finding its way onto the Romanian flag at public manifestations. Moreover, the Dacian forefathers, or supposed forefathers, are attributed increasingly grandiose achievements, from the invention of writing to the founding of Rome. Sadly, Romanian archaeologists are watching indifferently how the subject of their work is manipulated and infused with nationalistic zeal.
In this paper I have argued that the Romanian archaeological community needs to realize that their excavations and interpretations are not purely an academic exercise. Not only do the Romanian public care about the results of archaeological research, but many are also genuinely interested in the narratives of the past. I have suggested that Romanian archaeologists should make it a priority to disseminate their interpretations to a broad audience in a convincing manner. Yet this does not entail readopting the nationalist ideas of the 1970s and 1980s; rather the Ceauşescu-era ideas should be increasingly phased out. Last but not least, I have advocated for archaeologists to challenge the representations and interpretations of re-enactors and Dacomaniacs. The artistic or imaginary character of their views and 'evidence' should be laid bare, and the fallacies in their argumentations made obvious. also grateful to Barbara Hausmair and Aurel Rustoiu for their invaluable feedback. Lastly, I would like to thank the Dahlem Research School, the Topoi Excellence Cluster and the Freie Universität Berlin for supporting my research.

Notes
1 The name 'Dacians' was employed in ancient Latin texts to refer broadly to the population occupying the northern part of the lower Danube and the river mouth, while in the Greek ancient sources the term Getae was generally used. Starting primarily from a passage belonging to Strabo (Geography VII, 3.13), scholars assumed that the two labels referred to the same population and thus coined the widely used modern umbrella term Geto-Dacians. 2 Burebista (1980), director Gh. Vitanidis, producer M. Opriş. and the heritage sector are transforming within the nation state. Heritage in presentday societies has increasingly come to serve citizens with a range of cultural identities to chose from. But what is actually new in the way archaeology and the heritage sector address issues of heritage and citizenship? This text discusses how the heritage sector tends to renegotiate the essentialism of the nation state in theory, but at the same time maintain essentialism as the driving force in professional practices and interpretative frameworks. I suggest a new way for archaeology to work within another framework than essentialism. This suggestion does not go beyond the nation state, but inspires archaeology to rethink its narratives on how heritage links to citizenship. Keywords heritage; essentialism; constructivism; ethnos; demos

Introduction
The world is filled to the brim with heritage. Since the 1970s, an increasing amount of more and more tangible and intangible heritage has been accumulated and listed in country after country all over the world. Harrison (2013) describes it as a 'heritage boom'. The list of heritage, growing at an exponential rate, is of vast proportions, of such magnitude that Holtorf (2005b) argues that heritage is best perceived as a renewable, not an endangered, resource. Thus heritage today has become an almost ubiquitous entity in the public and the private domains. It virtually saturates every part of society on local, regional, national and supra-national scales (Peckham 2003;Harrison 2013). Hence heritage is constructed and used in many contexts in society (Jensen 2008). Here I focus on heritage practices by professionals, i.e. archaeologists, organizations or authorities financed to perform heritage conservation, management, staging and so on. In this realm, a substantial part of what is conceived of as archaeological heritage is handled. This is done within structures of experts operating in institutional frameworks that can broadly be defined as the heritage sector (L. Smith 2004;Waterton and Smith 2009). Needless to say, the way the heritage sector performs its tasks contributes to how a common understanding is shaped in society about what heritage is, how it should be thought of and given meaning to (Ashworth, Graham and Tunbridge 2007;Holtorf and Högberg 2015).
Here I draw on results from a study on how heritage management bodies in Sweden have worked with issues of plurality to promote social sustainability (Högberg 2013;. I focus on how archaeology as heritage practice within the framework of a nation state refers to national identity and boundaries when heritage is defined in relation to how citizenship is understood. I propose that different ways of linking heritage with citizenship give very different outcomes. Using the concepts essentialism, constructivism, ethnos and demos, I conclude that even though Swedish heritage management has seen a change in how heritage and plurality are addressed over the last ten to fifteen years -moving away from a historically established nation state framework in its definition of heritage -nothing is actually particularly new in how heritage is thought of. In broad terms, archaeology and heritage management can still be classified as inherently nationalistic practices limited by implicit defined boundaries referring to the nation state in the same way as been done from the late 19th century on.

Essentialism, constructivism, ethnos, demos: linking heritage with citizenship
Essentialism sees cultures and ethnicities as static entities. This manifests itself in the notion that we are born with and into culture and ethnicity, entities we bear with us unchanged throughout our entire lives like an all-embracing complete package we cannot get away from (for discussion see Hegardt 2012). Mattsson (2005) has discussed the consequences of giving value to heritage through essentialism. She concludes that a view of affiliation which defines people on the basis of an ascribed cultural community -interwoven in an imagined community of fate which is based on notions of an origin-based collective past -results in the singling out of differences. People are ascribed qualities based on their heritage, their relationship with the so-called ethnic group they are considered to be a member of, or the geographical place they are assumed to come from. This is done 'by using so-called root metaphors: narratives and depictions which root an imagined population to a certain place' (ibid., 10).
Adam Smith (2004) argues for an approach where ethnicities should not be regarded as origin-based categories, which can be derived directly from the past and applied in a contemporary context. Instead, he advocates a constructivist approach in which culture and ethnicity are seen as categories, which are produced and formed in specific contexts (A. Smith 2004). While essentialism finds its substance in perceived natural, unchangeable values, constructivism focuses on the processes that create values (and meaning). Transferred to a study of how the heritage management sector attributes values to its plurality work and how citizenship is conceptualized, these two approaches are diametrically opposed (Harrison 2013;Högberg 2015).
In a perspective of plurality where cultural and social processes are seen as stable entities, definitions and a confirmation of what is contained within a specific community are made important by reproducing that which is identical. However, in a perspective of plurality where cultural and social processes are seen as being in motion, the organization of variations and focus on border-crossing aspects is the principal interpretative framework (Taylor 1994;Ashworth, Graham and Tunbridge 2007). This may also be described as multiculturalism's emphasis on essentialism versus pluralism's emphasis on constructivism, hybridity and border-crossing aspects (Eriksen 2004;Högberg 2013). To attribute value and content to the word 'origin' is a key in both these perspectives, but in different ways.
The concepts of ethnos and demos are helpful to elaborate on this (Taylor 1994). Basically, ethnos refers to ethnic citizenship and is based on the notion that people on earth consist of ethnic groups with different cultures. Demos refers to political democratic citizenship. What defines a population as citizens in the framework of an ethnos is perceptions of ethnicity and belonging based on a shared heritage and origin linked to blood and soil. In the framework of demos, it is not ethnicity, origin and essentialism that define a population as citizens. Instead, it is an understanding of a shared present and a shared future where a sense of belonging together is linked to mutual values related to democratic rights and obligations (Habermas 1994).
Translated into a discussion on heritage and citizenship, this means that heritage basically can be given legitimacy through agreements based on democratic consensus, thus applying the concept of demos with reference to the loyalties of citizens. Or heritage can be legitimized through ideas of belonging linked to origin, based on an idea of ethnos with reference to loyalties deriving from ethnicity and tradition.

A study
The heritage sector all through Europe and beyond is historically linked to the task of providing nations with glorious myths of origin within a metaphysical framework of essentialism (Díaz-Andreu 2007). Numerous studies have analysed the intimate links between heritage practices and how citizenship is defined using 'blood-and-soil' metaphors, i.e. hegemonic definitions promoting ideas that heritage is about common national inheritance, lineage or a set of essential values; that it concerns a singular past manifested through shared traditions, memories, monuments or heritage sites (Hegardt 2012). These studies show how the 19th-and 20th-century growing body of what Smith (2006) has termed the authorized heritage discourse (AHD) has been exceptionally successful over time in defining what does and does not qualify as belonging to a nation's heritage. Accordingly, this also classifies who has an appropriate heritage to be qualified or not as a proper citizen (for discussion see Watson 2009;Waterton 2010). This is currently changing. With ambitions of pluralizing the past, heritage in present-day multicultural societies increasingly serves as individual or ethnical projects to provide citizens with a cultural identity (for discussion see Kuper 2003). For example, heritage bodies increasingly promote national heritage as multicultural in its origin. Consequently, different ethnicities linked to, e.g., indigenous groups, regional identities or personal background are seen as important parts of what makes up a national heritage (Harrison 2013). However, acknowledging that things are seemingly changing, several researchers have remarked that essentialism still serves as a key anchor point for cultural nationalisms around the world (for discussion see Winter 2012). Hence a legitimate question to ask is, what is actually new in the way archaeology and the heritage sector address issues of heritage and citizenship?
In a study of Swedish heritage projects conducted by local, regional and national heritage bodies, I have analysed how archaeology and the heritage sector, within its defined boundaries, handle the complex issues of how nationalism, transnationalism, plurality and heritage are currently understood and renegotiated (Högberg 2013;; also see Nilsson Stutz 2015). The projects studied were conducted over the years 2002-12. A point in common in these projects is that in one way or another they work with plurality issues with the ambition to facilitate integration of immigrants in Sweden and renegotiate a 'traditional' nationalistic heritage. They have in various ways tried to find a course of action to engage with communities, invite immigrants into archaeology and heritage practices or work with issues around the representation of heritage in relation to current migration trends in Sweden.
The results uncover great variation on all levels, making generalization difficult. But one result is clear. The vast majority of the heritage bodies studied understand heritage in a specific way: r In Sweden, there is a heritage that is Swedish. It consists of inherited artefacts, sites and traditions. It is a heritage exclusively linked to Sweden, consisting of tangible and intangible entities given by the past for us to foster and hand over to future generations. It defines who we (i.e. Swedes) are. r Immigrants have their own heritage. It differs from the Swedish heritage.
It is defined by origin and is exclusively linked to the immigrant's home country/place of birth. It defines who they (i.e. immigrants) are.
Immigrants are considered ignorant about the history of the place where they now live, i.e. in Sweden. For that reason, initiatives are carried out in order to provide them with knowledge about Swedish heritage. In these initiatives, actions are also taken to let immigrants tell stories about their heritage, i.e. the heritage relating to their home country/place of birth. The purpose is to compare heritage from the 'old' and the 'new' country, with the objective to strengthen individual cultural identity. Consequently, doing this results in a specific way of defining heritage as, on the one hand, a Swedish heritage known and represented by Swedes, and, on the other, 'heritage of the other' known and represented by immigrants.
This corresponds to a traditional way of understanding heritage that can be found in many countries (Díaz-Andreu 2007). Cultural identity is linked to origin, ancestry and place of birth. A fixed ethnic past is linked to a similarly fixed ethnic present. People are classified on the basis of their different backgrounds and it is seen as important to make these differences visible. Ownership rights to the past, passed down throughout history in a direct line, are taken for granted. People are given qualities through the relationship between themselves and the territory (country) they come from. Implicitly, this way of understanding heritage states that since territories (countries) are different, people are different. Implicitly, it also defines people from the same territory (country) as unquestionably alike.
In the conducted projects, the heritage managers involved expressed a clear ambition to renegotiate a nationalistic heritage. And the heritage sector evidently works with issues on plurality, expressing a clear ambition to include more narratives in their work than just the national. But heritage is linked to identity in the same way as it has been from the 19th century, i.e. by referring to origin, ethnicity and cultural nationalism. This is a classic ethnos-based way of linking heritage to citizenship.
Thus the heritage sector tends to renegotiate the essentialism of the nation state in its theoretical intentions and goals. At the same time, essentialism is maintained as the ontological and epistemological background in professional practices and interpretative frameworks. Old ways of understanding heritage and identity (essentialism) are dressed up using new words (plurality, renegotiation).
This understanding of heritage has consequences for how citizenship is defined: people are classified according to who they are and what they are supposed to do, not according to what they actually do and who they want to be.
Hence a legitimate question to ask is why the majority of the studied Swedish heritage bodies choose to link heritage and citizenship based on an ethnos perspective. I will here touch upon one possible explanation -what Harding (2008) has described as the core values of national cultural-policy goals.
Originating from much older practices, Swedish cultural-policy goals from 1974 described immigrants as neglected groups in need of specific political solutions, i.e. integration. Although far-reaching changes in public policies have happened since the cultural-policy debate in the 1960s and 1970s (Pettersson 2003), many aspects of the cultural-policy goals from 1974 are still active in public administration (Högberg 2012). It was not until 2009 that the Swedish parliament adopted new cultural-policy goals. This means that values relating to goals formulated in 1974 were still operative within the heritage sector during the 10-year period covered in the study (Harding 2008). Therefore many of the analysed projects (implicitly in cognizance) took the core values of the cultural-policy goals from 1974 as their starting point: certain groups are invisible in the activities of the heritage sector, and as a consequence these groups are designated as neglected and special initiatives are taken in order to make these groups more visible. This perspective defines such groups as a problem in need of a solution (Harding 2008). The solution is integration. In Swedish public and political debate, integration is often given the meaning of assimilation. This means that integration is seen as a one-way process within a specific group. A common example is the kind of discussion in which those defined as immigrants are supposed to change, voluntarily or through pressure (e.g. by languages tests), in order to become more like the majority population. In a historic summary of the concept of integration, Kamali (2011;see also Peralta 2005;Kamali 2006; demonstrates how this has contributed to imbalance in the power ratio between different population groups: Swedes were thought of as integrated and not in need of any integration policy, while 'the immigrants' on the other hand were considered to be a group that is not integrated, who need to become so through efforts by 'the Swedes'. Consequently, the population was divided into an integrated part, i.e. 'the Swedes' who also become integration agents, and a non-integrated group, i.e. 'the immigrants' who shall be integrated (Kamali 2011, 100, my translation). This is in no way specific to Swedish politics (Saukkonen 2013). For example, it is a reality in most EU countries today to make a clear distinction, in political rhetoric, debate and administration, between persons not born in the country (immigrants, non-citizens) and so called 'native citizens' (persons born in the country by parents born in the country) (Eriksen, Fossum and Menéndez 2003).
In this perspective, the majority population is not defined as a problem but as those who provide solutions. These solutions are special initiatives aimed at specific groups. In the projects conducted by Swedish heritage bodies, this repeatedly manifested itself in activities that aimed to distinguish groups of individuals, who were defined as immigrants with a heritage of their own. These groups were supposedly in need of knowledge about Swedish heritage. This was provided by the heritage sector, representing the majority population.

Concluding discussion
In another context (Holtorf and Högberg 2015), I have discussed the heritage sector as an example of what Ludwik Fleck (1935) called a specific 'thought collective' (Denkkollektiv). A thought collective is the result of a group of people reciprocally exchanging ideas or maintaining intellectual interaction and, in doing so, becoming more and more skilled and specialized in their profession. Collectives of these kinds continuously reproduce what is understood as common knowledge and understanding within the group. A special way of speaking and acting develops; consequently, the collective adopts certain ways of perceiving and thinking. A characteristic 'thought style' is established. It motivates people to act in certain ways without analysing the impact of these actions in relation to conditions outside the thought collective (ibid.). It is reasonable to suggest that the way the heritage sector thinks about heritage and citizenship is a thought style developed within a limited thought collective. However, this thought style has consequences outside the thought collective.
When a group of professionals who work with archaeology and heritage management within a nation state regulate heritage-sector use categorizations which link heritage and citizenship to origin and place of birth (essentialism), many people in society will assume -since professionals express themselves in this way -that there are sound and reasonable reasons to do so.
Nevertheless, there is no indication that those who express themselves in this way have a clear understanding of why heritage and citizenship should be linked to origin and place of birth (Högberg 2013). Instead the way they express themselves is an example of certain ways of thinking that unreflectively have developed within a given thought collective (the heritage sector).
Diversity generates many different individual identity projects. The complexity in the interaction between these projects and society's national history has caused many to declare that the era of grand uniting narratives is over. In turn, this has caused others to call for a (re)vitalization of grand narratives to create what is considered to be vital social cement. Their argument is that the plurality of individual narratives causes social fragmentation, creates conflicts between various interests and thus cannot be the basis for social cohesion (for discussion see Taylor 1994). But as several researchers have shown, the fact that there are different individual identity projects in a society does not necessarily prevent social integration or the establishment of a sense of solidarity, and does not necessarily lead to fragmentation and conflict, as long as individual projects are felt to complement each other and not to be incompatible (e.g. Taylor 1994;Eriksen 2010).
This makes it important how the heritage management sector attributes meaning to diversity work. Does one define oneself and others based on juxtapositions, i.e. differences, or does one describe oneself and others as structurally equal? Are the identity narratives, which the heritage management sector creates through working with issues on plurality, potentially complementary or incompatible?
In an analysis of the ties between cultural heritage and nationalism, Winter (2012, 1) writes, 'In the 1990s much of the academic literature on globalisation heralded the decline of the nation-state and the emergence of a new global order, one supposedly defined by transnational connectivities, "glocal" intersections and a seamless capitalist economy'. In the same article, he concludes that, despite the many declarations of a global new order, heritage still continues to serve as a key anchor point for cultural nationalisms around the world. Hence the 'coupling of a material culture of the deep past with the politics of nationalism and the making of national citizens remains as vibrant and, in some cases, as troubling as ever' (ibid., 2). The results presented here confirm this conclusion. It shows that a majority of the projects analysed see heritage as roots, as origin associated with place of birth. They fail to understand heritage in other ways. In this sense the role of archaeology and heritage beyond the nation state is, implicitly, understood as 'business as usual'.
Present-day trends in how heritage is made important, and how it is used to reinforce citizenship in Europe and beyond, move in seemingly different directions. Regional cultural identities are (re-)created in many places in Europe. Simultaneously, the European Union has had a long-term targeted cultural-political plan to create a supranational community, using cultural heritage as a tool. However, another trend can be seen in an increased stress on group affiliation linked to ethnicity as a framework, so-called ethnonationalism, a trend apparent in, for example, minority policies. Moreover, on a global scale, changes in how world heritage is defined empower more and more communities, at the same time as its practices to some extent result in neo-colonialism ('coloniality') (Kuper 2003;Mansbach 2010;Harrison 2013;Macdonald 2013;Winter 2013).
At first glance, these trends seem to suggest the presence of an archaeology beyond the nation state. But they hold a paradox. Even though these trends provide communities and citizens with collective identities beyond reaffirming their place in the nation state, and in that sense are new, the way heritage is used, given meaning and linked to citizenship is actually old. An ethnos-based understanding of heritage as historic roots linked to ethnicity dominates, as it has done throughout the 19th-and 20th-century projects of the nation states (Díaz-Andreu 2007). The result is that differences between persons are made important in the project conducted by these heritage bodies. A potential consequence for such a perspective might be that it creates potentially incompatible narratives difficult for society to build social cohesion from (see discussion in Taylor 1994;Mansbach 2010).
Much academic attention over the past few years has been dedicated to ideas of post-national forms of identity, and to the possibilities of citizenship oriented less around a prototypical nationalism and more around an ethos of cosmopolitanism (Beck 2006). In relation to heritage and heritage studies, Harrison (2013, 204) discusses these issues within the frames of the concept of 'dialogical heritage'. This is a perspective that moves beyond bare representation by essentialism. It implies an ontology of connectivity and democratic processes in heritage decision-making, 'an ethical stance in relation to others, and a belief in the importance of acknowledging and respecting alternative perspectives and worldviews as . . . a way to connect heritage with other pressing . . . issues of our time ' (ibid., 9). Now, 'acknowledging and respecting alternative perspectives' was the core substance in the Swedish heritage projects studied. Virtually all of them express a genuine ambition to make a positive impact in society, to work against xenophobia and facilitate inclusion and integration of immigrants in society. Hence the projects have a specific political agenda. However, an overwhelming majority of the projects were not able to move beyond old ways of understanding how heritage links to citizenship.
In line with the results presented here, others have stressed that Scandinavian countries are entangled in a political understanding of heritage fixed in essentialism. This has had, and still has, a crucial impact on how society understands itself in relation to issues of plurality. It influences how society manages to develop in new ways (Eriksen 2010).
A heritage sector that has ambitions to work inclusively and against xenophobia, but does not understand heritage beyond essentialism, will not work in new ways. Instead, confirming old thoughts with new words, there is actually a risk of contributing to xenophobia: by saying that who you are and what you are supposed to do (origin -ethnos) matters more than who you want to be and what you actually do with heritage to create a shared present and a shared future (process -demos).
To move away from essentialism, archaeology needs to think beyond old ways of doing archaeology and invent new roles for its heritage practices within the nation state. I propose that archaeology and the heritage sector (and society at large) need to rethink the concept of heritage, from something inherited (essentialism, ethnos) to something to be chosen (in flux, demos), from a thing (a subjective) to a process (a verb). Doing so, archaeology and the heritage sector also need to rethink the concept of citizenship, from a definition of who everyone is and what they are supposed to do (based on ethnicity and origin) to what everyone actually does and wants to be (based on shared values and present and future opportunities and obligations). This will be an archaeological practice not beyond the nation state but as a project of nation states that, referring back to Fleck (1935), establish a new thought collective with new narratives defining its thought style.
'If not for you', as Bob Dylan once famously sang alongside George Harrison, 'I couldn't even see the floor'. If not for the nation state, so I will argue in this deliberately provocative and opinionated piece, we archaeologists wouldn't even find this floor, let alone excavate, record, study and protect its contents. The truth is that, instead of the usual bashing around, what the nation state really needs now is some defending and reinforcement. The 'nation' part of the compound term has admittedly long suffered bad press, and justifiably so, as can attest the papers assembled in this issue of Archaeological dialogues. Interfering xenophobic or separatist agendas are undoubtedly condemnable for their practical and political implications -but they are also relatively easy to identify and to monitor. After all, this strand of nationalism which draws on historical monuments and narratives to construct identities, and then uses the past to impose or to exclude, has been around for over two centuries in both benign and more brutish guises: surely practising and reflexive archaeologists will have learned by now to recognize its rhetoric and expose its implications?
It is in fact the other component of the nation state compound, the 'state', that is at issue here, and that requires our urgent and focused attention.
The framework it provides is indeed one we archaeologists would be well advised to uphold and to defend. If only to expose any excessive nationalist contents -and for so much more besides -we need to ensure that there exists a viable and visible state around, with its regulations, procedures, oversight and, yes, if it proves unavoidable, its lumbering bureaucracy. Our fellow citizens' recognition and appreciation of their shared historical and archaeological heritage depend on it, and so do the various practical, conceptual and ethical conditions necessary for archaeology to thrive. Leaving aside, then, its sometimes debatable contents, it is first and foremost as a context that the nation state needs to be cherished. Much like the depositional context that links sediments, features and finds meaningfully together, so does this present-day practical and conceptual context for the exercise of archaeology prove to be both precious and vulnerable. Immune as it may be to material decay or destructive constructions, this archaeological context clearly has to be protected against various vested interests and near-sighted ideologies seeking to erode or undermine its bedrock -this being the 'state' component of the nation state.
Indeed, can we begin today to conjecture what the dearth of the state might look like? The form of absenteeism relevant to us here is not the violent, anarchic or retrograde ruination currently prevailing in Syria, parts of Iraq, Libya or Somalia -although there too we will find some lessons to learn. 1 What concerns us at present is rather the more subtle, calculated, seemingly measured and consensual retrenchment currently experimented with in some Western democracies on economic-cum-ideological grounds. As far as archaeology writ large is concerned, this syndrome applies notably to university-based academic research and teaching, where the so-called 'knowledge economy' makes of students cash-paying customers and recasts contributions to knowledge as deliverables. Of more relevance to us here, this withdrawal also impacts severely on archaeological heritage management, and especially on this strand known as 'preventive', 'contract' or 'developerfunded' archaeology -namely those archaeological operations which are undertaken ahead of infrastructure and construction works, and which account nowadays for the vast majority of archaeological activity throughout the developed world (D' Andrea and Guermandi 2008;Demoule 2007;Carver 2011;Schlanger 2012b;Guermandi and Salas Rossenbach 2013, among others). While state-related tinkering is attested, with various degrees of intensity, foresight and dedication, in such countries as Spain, Sweden, France and Japan -each of course with its different histories, outlooks and prospects -it is without any contest the United Kingdom, and specifically England, that offers the most instructive example of all.

The English patient
Indeed the English system of archaeological heritage management epitomizes to the full the 'capitalist' model of the spectrum proposed by Kristian Kristiansen in his 'Contract archaeology in Europe. An experiment in diversity' (Kristiansen 2009). This English system has, of course, a rich and diversified history behind it, to which justice can hardly be done within the confines of this paper. 2 Focusing on the topic under discussion, namely the state as an archaeological context, it is undeniable that several of the heritage management practices deployed there during the last decades of the twentieth century, and again over the past 10 years or so and until this very moment, have been both radical and unprecedented, and could well represent a harbinger of things to come. Passing through changing legislations and guidelines (the Planning Policy Guidance notes 15 and 16, the shortlived Planning for the Historic Environment (PPS5), and, as of 2012, the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF)) and a spate of institutional restructurings involving English Heritage (see below), rough-ridden by a long-drawn-out financial crisis itself exacerbated by manifold relentlessly imposed austerity measures, the English archaeological heritage management system is currently being trimmed and pared to its limits, verging inexorably towards what the Council for British Archaeology has heart-wrenchingly termed its 'unsustainable decline' (Council for British Archaeology 2015).
It was during the twilight days of Margaret Thatcher's government that the current system was put in place. Since 1990, archaeology has become a 'material consideration' in the planning process, so that, following the 'polluter-pays' principle, builders and developers throughout the country have to demonstrate that they are aware of any 'heritage assets' above or below ground potentially threatened by their construction projects, and consequently that they take measures in order not to adversely affect the 'significance' of these assets. One perceived advantage here, if not the main one, was that any costs incurred for taking care of heritage were to be directly borne by the developers, rather than the state and its tax-paying citizens. The system's champions did not consider, or dismissed as irrelevant, two points. First, that developers would seek to avoid as best they could, or at least minimize, any archaeology-related expenditures. Second, that they would quite smoothly shift these costs onwards to their private or public customers. In any case, the system has been predicated since its conception on a distinction and complementarity between two major archaeological functions: the 'contractors', who undertake archaeological operations on behalf of the developers, and the 'curators', who instruct and oversee them.
Contactors, to begin with them, are archaeological units or operators that are commissioned by the construction and infrastructure industry to deal with archaeological remains and heritage issues on their behalf. While some of these units are strongly related to universities or academic bodies with developed research agendas, and several have obtained charitable status which earmarks a proportion of their potential income for outreach and training activities, they all engage in competitive commercial tendering, involving the desktop evaluation, survey, detection, assessment and eventual 'preservation by record' (i.e. excavation and post-excavation studies) of archaeological remains likely to be impacted by the developer's building and infrastructure projects. Quite independently of the outstanding commitment manifested by many archaeological contractors across the land, and the massive scale of the work accomplished, the 25 years' perspective now available on the contractarchaeology 'market' in England rather suggests that it is a. fragmented, with numerous units of various dimensions, from several hundreds in size to isolated consultants and cottage-industry specialists; b. vulnerable, with major losses of personnel and skills following the economic crisis of 2007-8 and subsequent austerity (see figure 1); c. employee-unfriendly, with a low-paid and often itinerant, short-term, high-turnover workforce; and d. poorly regulated, with no statutory minima for archaeological intervention and knowledge production, and no professional licensing or capacity requirements -and with, as we will just now consider, an alarming reduction in local and national monitoring ability. 3 While contractors are commissioned by developers to minimize or mitigate adverse impacts on archaeological remains -or indeed, put differently, to 'decontaminate' their property from eventual heritage encumbrances as quickly and as cheaply as possible -they crucially depend on the effective presence of curators, the other component of the system. Operating at local or national levels, curators (also known as archaeological officers or advisers) are those who formulate, represent and oversee the implementation of heritage management policies as well as quality-control issues (on which see a comparative perspective in Willems and Van den Dries (2007)). Without curators providing proactive control and guidance, vast tracts of archaeological remains will be irredeemably lost under the crunching bulldozers and the concrete mixers. Indeed, even more to the point, 'if not for curators' (as goes the song), developers will be under little or no compulsion to call upon archaeological contractors at all: soon enough, with the latter gradually liquidated, there will simply remain too few professional skills and human resources around to study those vestiges fortunate enough to survive the development onslaught. In this respect, the fact that recent appeals to bolster local archaeological advisers have emanated from educational charities such as the Council for British Archaeology, as well as professional associations, pressure groups and commercial units -which we might normally expect to be weary of tightened regulations -is symptomatic of the growing malaise. 4

Curators under cure
As indicated, curators (in the broad sense) are present in England at both local and national levels, with a somewhat complex distinction and complementarity between them. Potential gaps or grey areas in terms of competencies and responsibilities are likely to increase in the near future, for example if new revenue-seeking initiatives gather pace (see below). What is, however, patent is that all levels of archaeological heritage management, and especially the curators' side of the equation, suffer alarmingly from the deliberate financial and organizational retrenchment of the state. In England, the management of archaeological assets across the land (all but the c.5 per cent already designated at national level) lies firmly at the door of local authorities. This is, of course, well in line with a much broader and deeper-running movement towards decentralization and the empowerment of local communities -a movement whose initial good intentions have rather been reduced of late, notably upon the 2011 Localism Bill, to the cynical heaping of added responsibilities onto well-meaning but overstretched and out-of-depth local bodies. 5 So far as archaeology is concerned, professional curators or officers are (or should be) an integral element of the local planning authority (LPA) setup, part of the process which receives, screens, authorizes and monitors planning applications with material archaeological and heritage considerations (as assessed and documented for the developers by their contracted archaeological operators). Alongside their conservation colleagues, archaeology officers are engaged in the management of the local historical environment records (HERs, formerly known as sites and monuments records), an updated multilayered database which geo-localizes and characterizes archaeological, historical and heritage occurrences. They also liaise with resource centres and museums serving as depositories of finds and records, and contribute to public outreach and awareness. Even in times of plenty, this replication of functions by cells averaging 2.1 professional archaeologists across narrowly circumscribed administrative areas is not without its challenges. Much as the HERs, for example, constitute an indispensable tool for developers and archaeologists alike in their planning and research decisions, the fact that there are by recent count no less than 87 such distinct databases to consult (operated by county councils, district councils or unitary authorities across the land), each with their own management structures and personnel, cannot really serve the coherence and efficiency of the system. 6 The outlook darkens manifold if we take into account the 2008 financial crisis, the subsequent recession and the draconian austerity measures imposed since throughout the country. With variations across areas and sectors, overall local government funding has been slashed by more than 40 per cent over the past five years, and more cuts are already scheduled. With any initial leeway long gone, these are now front-line public services (social and health care, education, infrastructure and, as we have just been reminded at our cost, flood control measures) that are being brought to their knees, including, in the cultural sector, public libraries, arts venues, museums . . . and archaeological and historical assets. 7 Strapped-for-cash local authorities are increasingly tempted to shed what they see as 'non-essential' luxuries, including archaeological and conservation advisers. The 2015 report on 'Archaeological local authority staff resources' shows that, since 2006, numbers of archaeological advisers to local authorities in England have dropped by 23 per cent, and those of conservation specialists by 35 per centwith even worse figures in the South West region and, ineluctably, the North. 8 The situation is made even less tenable by the slight increase in planning applications over the past couple of years, leaving fewer archaeologists to cope with an increased workload. Those made redundant or shifted to other duties are often the senior, higher-salaried professionals with local experience -leading to a loss of skills that can hardly be compensated by the hasty outsourcing of services to commercial consultants and makeshift advisers. Clearly, this dearth of competent archaeological officers puts more and more sites and historical assets at risk from ongoing construction projects (and flood-induced damage). At the same time, stressed local authorities increasingly realize that the maintenance of an updated historic environment record, the provision of archaeological archives and actions of public outreach are not in fact explicit statutory obligations in the 2012 National Planning Policy Framework (with its 'presumption in favour of sustainable development' rather than 'in favour of conservation of heritage'). Some LPAs have already frozen their HERs or are about to, while others are now charging fees -some cost-related and others plainly exorbitant -for their consultation. 9

English Heritage Trust: Historic England Inc.
What, then, at national level? Can the state actually trim down or withdraw also from its own structures and procedures? Can its own bodies be made to depend on fees charged for archaeological services? Apparently so, if the recent avatars of English Heritage are anything to go by. English Heritage is the working name of the Historic Building and Monuments Commission for England (HBMCE), created by the National Heritage Act of 1983 to gradually take over the functions of such bodies as the Ancient Monument Board, the Historic Building Council, and the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. Following recent spells of ruthless financial restrictions and staff redundancies -with a 32 per cent budget slashing in 2010 alone -English Heritage has been split as of 1 April 2015 into two distinct entities: English Heritage Trust (henceforth EHT) and Historic England (henceforth HE). 10 The newly created EHT, which retains the name English Heritage, is a charity entrusted with managing some 400 or so historic properties that are part of the state-owned national collection and are open to the public. Set to draw its revenues from entrance fees, catering and merchandizing, EHT has to achieve self-funding in seven years' time. The lump sum of 80 My£ it has been granted to this end is, however, already substantially earmarked for long-overdue conservation work, leaving a trickle for routine maintenance and indeed for development. Moreover, uncertainty clearly looms once this period of government support expires, especially if revenues from visitors prove more modest than optimistically expected. In order to ensure its survival beyond 2023, will EHT have to close down those monuments that are costly to maintain and do not generate revenues -or will it refuse to add such dead weight to its portfolio? Will it be forced to dispense with (or to outsource) its in-house heritage and archaeology expertise, retaining only gatekeepers, communication experts and accountants? Conversely, even if assurances are given that the properties it manages are not be privatized, will EHT be able to fend off pressure from increasingly starved local authorities and district councils now clamouring for their own share, if not overall control, of the more lucrative assets?
It is of even greater concern that issues of funding and organization loom high also on the agenda of Historic England, the other creation of 1 April 2015. Described on its website as 'the public body that champions and protects England's historic environment', HE's major tasks, as inherited from English Heritage, are to maintain and increase the national heritage list of designated sites and monuments, to monitor the state of designated heritage at risk, and above all to provide statutory planning and conservation advice to central government and local authorities. Just how much clout and room for manoeuvre this professional expert body is likely to secure remains to be seen. Variously designated as an 'executive non-departmental public body of the British Government', 'expert advisor', or 'arms' length body', HE is attached (like English Heritage before it) to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, from which it receives its annual grant-in-aid, amounting in 2015-16 to 88 MY £. Barely eight months after coming into being, however, HE has already seen its grant truncated by 10 per cent over the coming four years. This latest measure was announced on 25 November 2015, as part of the government's Comprehensive Spending Review, which sets the British public-sector budget until 2020. Historic England's press release in response is worth quoting here: The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has today confirmed it will receive a 5% real terms cut to its funding. The Secretary of State has said this is an excellent settlement in the context of the Spending Review. Historic England, an Arm's Length Body of DCMS, will receive a cut of approximately £2.2m to its baseline by 2020, representing approximately 10% in real terms over the four financial years from 2016/17. Responding to this news, Duncan Wilson, Chief Executive of Historic England, said: 'The government has recognised the significance of Historic England's role in caring for our spectacular historic environment, and we are grateful for this. We fully appreciate that we have been given some protection in comparison to many other public sector bodies. We can't afford to lose the momentum that the launch of Historic England has created. A 10% cut is not an insignificant challenge, and other aspects of today's news will create further challenges for us as we care for the historic environment during a time of change. But public recognition and support for our mission is high, and we intend to press on with vital initiatives to increase our impact '. 11 Clearly, HE is wont to put a brave face on things -'receiving cuts' rather than suffering them, drawing comfort from the fact it could have been worse, that the government deep down actually recognizes . . . , that the public obviously supports . . . and so forth.

Enhanced advisory services
Not only has the newly created HE seen its budget substantially reduced, but it has also been enticed since its inception with the mirage of financial autonomy: 'The Spending Review and Autumn Statement makes [sic] permanent the operational and financial freedoms for national museums announced at Spending Review 2013, which will be extended to include . . . Historic England and the Churches Conservation Trust. This will support these bodies to move towards greater financial self-reliance and sustainability' (HM Treasury 2015). Whether or not this foisted freedom to fend for oneself, float or sink, actually featured in the consultations leading to HE's creation, it was clearly in the air very soon thereafter. In its founding corporate action plan, HE indicates that it 'will seek to increase its resilience and ability to champion historic places by developing non-UK government sources of income. These will include introduction of charged-for Enhanced Advisory Services', expected to 'generate an income . . . of £1.6 million by 2017/18, enabling greater organisational resilience'. 12 These great expectations are still a long way away, but some details on the scheme can be gathered on HE's website and attached documents. On top of the existing 'free (taxpayer-funded)' planning and listing advice it provides as part of its statutory remit, HE now proposes a range of new charged-for enhanced advisory services, which are designed to 'speed up projects and reduce risk', while 'offer(ing) greater speed, clarity and engagement from Historic England'. Four such services are available: (1) 'Fast-track listing' ('in a quicker and guaranteed timeframe'), (2) 'Listing enhancement' ('fast-track within 12 weeks'), (3) 'Extended pre-application advice' ('reduces the risk of an application for consent being refused by the decision-making body'), and, last but not least, (4) 'Listing screening service' ('Reduce uncertainty early in the development process. Find out whether an area of land contains structures that could merit consideration for listing'). This last 'listing screening service' is a new, pay-only service specifically tailored for HE's targeted customers, the developers. As part of the service, HE experts will survey the land in question and assess the likelihood of any heritage assets present warranting statutory listing as well as local designation. HE will not, however, identify or consider any below-ground archaeological potential, including schedulable assets, on which advice is to be obtained from the local planning authority. Finally, HE indicates that results of the screening service will be disseminated through HERs and other relevant public channels. 13 Before considering this move from an archaeological standpoint, the views of its expected customers, the construction and development sectors, is worth recording. Recognizing that these are early days and that fine tuning is still ongoing, their focus is, as it should be, on issues of cost and organization. In its proposals, HE mentions fees of some £3,000 to £8,000 per dossier, but also indicates that billing will be based on staff time spent on the dossier, as well as travel, administration and overheads. So, ask the developers' consultants, will the dedicated HE staff be senior enough for the job, but at the same time not unnecessarily costly salary-wise? Will regional variations (e.g. London salaries) be factored in? What part of the time spent on a paid-for service will be included in the free statutory advice? Another worry concerns the relations between national and local planning authorities. How can we ensure, ask the consultants, good coordination between these levels? Why pay for enhanced services that can (sometimes) be obtained free of charge from the LPAs? Conversely, in most cases, why have to pay twice? Should we not anticipate unwelcome costs, uncertainty and delays, working with 'public organisations now operating on a more commercial footing and unused to dealing with each other in this way'? Lastly, the outcomes of the screening service are a matter of concern. From the developer's perspective, the aim is to reduce the risk of planning applications being refused, but is there not an added danger that these proactive paid-for services might, on the contrary, lead to the faster statutory designation of more and more heritage assets? And if further work is required for assessment, will it be free of charge or billed -or will HE reimburse the developers? Moreover, is the outcome of an enhanced screening service a private document, like LPA pre-application advice, or is it a public one, which could then reach the hands of heritage interest groups? After all, sums up Grant Lock from NLP consulting, 'an applicant or developer doing "the right thing" in asking for advice "up-front" may find themselves having unwittingly provided financial support for those wanting to frustrate the development they intend to bring forward'. 14 With this 'cunning plan', HE has thus cornered itself into a crossfire between development and conservation: being the statutory body that 'champions' England's heritage, is it not -or should it not be -at the forefront of those 'wanting to frustrate developments' when the need arises? Moreover, this scheme puts HE on a potential collision course with LPAs, who seemingly offer developers similar pre-application services (and who, as all agree, urgently need some resources to survive), and also with archaeological contactors and operators across the land, who might feel that their niche market is being tampered with. True, HE has noted that below-ground archaeological potential will be outside its remit, and specifically left to LPAs and contractors to deal with. But not only is this arrangement quite inefficient (potentially requiring two separate assessments on the same plot of land), it also hardly serves scientific knowledge and understanding by artificially separating standing and buried heritage assets. In any case, for this enhanced scheme to prove profitable, over 300 such dossiers (at an average bill of £5,000 each) will be needed to reach the 1.6MY£ targeted in HE's initial action plan -and quite a few more to cover the 10 per cent budget cuts since announced in the November spending review. Whether any 'resilience' or 'self-reliance and sustainability' will ever ensue, this 'freedom to raise revenues' explicitly imposed on HE for the coming four years risks inflicting considerable damage to its standing as a statutory public service provider.
The professionals concerned are all undoubtedly well-meaning and alert, and there seems as yet little risk of seeing watered-down or complacent reports being produced to ensure clientele loyalty. But the very fact that statutory advice is being bought and sold is bound to raise questions. Will not 'fast track' necessarily imply slow track, leading to a dual system where the well off get better and speedier services from a body that might seem, as a result, to be no longer impartial and incorruptible? Is it not the case that the 'free (taxpayer-funded)' statutory services will inevitably appear to be slower and less efficient, if only because HE's senior and higher-paid lead officers will be deployed as a function of their billing-hours potential, and not of their specific expertise or the scientific or heritage priorities of the dossiers being assessed? Even if we are spared all or most of these damaging side effects, there remains a lasting risk that, alongside its reduced scope for action, it is the very integrity and raison d'être of Historic England that will go into unsustainable decline.

Conclusions: is there any alternative?
Observing the system in its unfolding details, local actors, professionals and institutions are well aware that the situation is hardly tenable, with fewer resources and capacities to share between increasingly stressed commercial contractors, local government archaeologists and national bodies. The main solution proposed now with renewed urgency is to radically reshape archaeological services and functions at a larger spatial and functional scale, and in the process curb or tone down some deeply ingrained individualist, stand-alone tendencies in favour a genuinely shared, coordinated approach based on trust, solidarity and common purpose. Following early criticisms of PPG16 and the 2003 APPAG report, nowadays also RESCUE, the CBA, the IFA, the Society of Antiquaries and others all see the need (concerning HERs, for example) to upgrade data and management structures, and to pool hitherto fragmented and redundant resources at regional or sub-regional levels. 15 Likewise, many consider that individual LPA services should be encouraged to regroup into wider coherent entities which would maintain a register of quality-approved archaeological contractors in regional franchises, where adequate control mechanisms, conservation, documentation and archive services, long-term research initiatives, scientific publications and community involvement and outreach actions could all be programmed, provided for, shared and enriched together.
Taking a broader look, in line with the theme of this paper, it seems clear that this predicament cannot really be about money, or lack of it. In case we have forgotten that Britain remains among the world's wealthiest nations (fifth in nominal GDP ranking), the Chancellor of the Exchequer has timeously reminded us that it is 'brilliant at culture too. One of the best investments we can make as a nation' -he pursues in his 2015 spending review statement -'is in our extraordinary arts, museums, heritage, media and sport. £1 billion a year in grants adds a quarter of a trillion pounds to our economy -not a bad return. So, deep cuts in the small budget of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport are a false economy'. 16 Undeniably they are -so it must be for some other reasons, mustn't it, that these deep cuts are nonetheless carried out, slowly bleeding culture and heritage to their death. Beyond the economy, indeed, it is an ideologically motivated disengagement of the nation state that we have been observing throughout these pages, with England as our exemplary case study. The process there began in the 1990s with PPG16, and reaches now a point where the current government would rather be 'fully relieved' of taking care of core historic environmental or wider cultural services, and manifestly drags its feet at even recognizing that 'final responsibility towards the core protection of culture and heritage rests with it' (Council for British Archaeology 2015). Is this kind of neoliberal disengagement from collective responsibilities, enforceable frameworks and statutory obligations a premonition of things to come? 17 Given the current tribulations of Historic England, kept at arm's length as far as its capacity and clout are concerned, and at the same time steered towards the bear's embrace of 'liberating' commercialism, should we anticipate the gradual emergence of the corporate state or the laissez-faire state? Granted, I have focused here excessively on a single example, with too little scope for counter-cases, nuances or mitigating circumstances -let alone any convincing or workable solutions. Still, it is in order to invite further dialogue, in the spirit of this journal, that I would like to posit here a concluding cri-de-coeur: there is no alternative to the nation state! Notes 1 Note as an aside how the deliberate destructions of heritage in Syria and Iraq have generated some well-meaning responses which, while leaving largely intact Western insufficiencies (non-ratification of key legal texts, continued laxity towards illegal trade) have rather encouraged nationalist jingoism and retrospective whitewashing of shady collecting practices. See www.gov.uk/government/news/ new-scheme-to-protect-cultural-sites-from-destruction, and www.elysee.fr/assets/ Uploads/Cinquante-propositions-francaises-pour-proteger-le-patrimoine-de-lhumanite. pdf (all websites in this paper accessed 31 December 2015).