Tera Pruitt, Cambridge University

Heritage and archaeological sites are often presented to the public as ‘final-product’ reconstructions of the past. However, heritage sites are by nature what Baxandall calls complex “by-products of activity,” culminated negotiations, decision-making and performance, not simply two-dimensional, complete pictures of the past.

This paper approaches heritage site representation from two directions in order to address wider complexities of representation and interpretation. First, from a reflexive and self-appraising sociological approach, we can investigate the way in which we conduct our own professional practices. Secondly, through a reflective approach, contested cases of archaeological practices can be used to mirror or ‘reflect back’ insight about the heritage discipline. These two approaches may help us gain insight into processes we might take for granted in our professional, authorized work and reveal greater insight about the way we represent the past.

In order to illuminate this conceptual approach, this paper highlights a specific ‘alternative,’ contested case of archaeological practice: the Bosnian Pyramids. People involved in this contested account of archaeology have been negotiating a complicated and dynamic process of decision-making, representation and performance. These complex processes have culminated in the ‘final product’ vision of the past that appears in the media and is debated in alternative and mainstream academic forums.

Any study of this kind of site must go beyond traditional producer-consumer, public-academic, or identity academic models. Although an investigation of this kind of project dynamism is interesting in and of itself, we can take a contested study even further. Studying the processes of contested practice provides a useful point of comparison against mainstream archaeology, allowing reflection about mainstream processes of decision-making and performance.

The crux of this paper is to ask whether a study of contested cases of archaeological practice within ‘reflexive’ and ‘reflective’ conceptual approaches can better illuminate our own professional, authorised practices.