**CHAPTER 1**

**ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE PUBLIC**

*One thing hastens into being, another hastens out of it. Even while a
thing is in the act of coming into existence, some part of it has
already ceased to be. Flux and change are forever renewing the fabric of
the universe, just as the ceaseless sweep of time is forever renewing
the face of the eternity. In such a running river, where there is no
firm foothold, what is there for a man to value among all the many
things that are racing past him? (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6:15)*

**THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PUBLIC TRUST IN CONTEXT**

Ruthann Knudson

**Introduction**

We all have a right to our past, and our past is the worldwide record of
the human experience. Each human being has an inalienable right to use
the intellectual and spiritual values inherent in archaeological
materials to understand and/or believe one is secure in her or his place
in the physical and social world. This is a basic tenet of Euroamerican
society, which is derived from the Western Judeo-Christian value system.
This article is a discussion of rights and responsibilities for the
stewardship of the past, based on that ethic, in the context of multiple
cultural values and contemporary corporate cultures.

The idea of having the security of knowledge of one\'s place (both at
the individual and society levels) is not restricted to Western
Judeo-Christian thought (cf. Frazer 1890, Malinowski 1955), but merits
identification as the basis of this author\'s ethical system.

A second ethical tenet asserts that there should be a search for the
common ground among conflicting values when resolving conflicts over the
treatment of values differentially significant to different value
systems.

A public trust is an individual or group\'s responsibility to protect
other people\'s rights to these heritage values, and to the things
(artifacts, ecofacts, sites) that embody these values. Because things
and ideas are involved, they can be considered property\--common
property held in a common trust.

This article describes the ethical context in which archaeological site
protection is assumed to be a public good.

**Philosophy, Language, and Culture**

The readings in this volume about archaeological resource protection, as
well as other discussions of the topic, are based on assumptions that
are most frequently kept implicit\--answers to the questions: what are
archaeological resources, and why do they merit protection? Explicitly
addressing these assumptions involves philosophical statement and
analysis of the principles underlying archaeology, which have been set
forth in previous discussions (Green 1983; Knudson 1983, 1990; Lipe
1974; McGimsey 1983; Wildesen 1983).

In the late twentieth century, the human community consists of diverse
cultures and languages that form the structure of local, regional,
tribal, national, and international communications that are involved in
archaeological management conflict resolutions. This cultural diversity
supports miscommunication based on perceptions, verbalisms, and
expectations (cf. Habermas 1989). This article uses terms and concepts
in general United States media-oriented English language, relying on
standard dictionary definitions (Neufeldt and Guralnik 1988).

In the dictionary, [archaeology]{.underline} is restricted to the
scientific study of past cultures. [Culture]{.underline} is the system
of ideas, beliefs, institutions, technologies, arts, and languages held
and passed along by a group of people. While the distinctiveness of the
groups characterized by different cultural systems is generally
recognized on a major linguistic scale (e.g., Navajo vs. Chinese vs.
French), there are also finer scales of corporate cultural systems (Deal
and Kennedy 1982) that are significant to archaeological management
(e.g., Federal land manager vs. natural resource developer vs. general
public consumer). [Cultural relativity]{.underline} defines the value of
each culture only in relationship to other cultures, i.e., no cultural
system is of absolute value as compared with any other. This concept is
used as a basic anthropological principle and is not intended to lead
into post-processual archaeological paradigms (Shanks and Tilley 1987).

[Science]{.underline} is systematized knowledge (intellectual ideas)
derived from observation and study to determine principles. [Humanistic
values]{.underline} are a system of thought or action based on human
interests or ideals, and [spiritual values]{.underline} relate to the
beliefs of the soul (generally by a group of people), those things that
are sacred or devotional; these are in contrast to scientific values.
[Resources]{.underline} are things that are ready for use, and
[use]{.underline} means putting something into action or (physical,
intellectual, or spiritual) service. [Property]{.underline} is the right
to possess (ownership), use, or dispose of something. The term is used
to refer to the rights to things or to knowledge, whether knowledge of
scientific or intellectual research ideas (Nelken 1984) or of sacred
places where knowledge is part of the inherent sacred nature of the
place (e.g., Kelley and Francis 1990). A [trust]{.underline} is the firm
belief in the integrity and/or reliability of someone, or a more
legalistic fiduciary responsibility to protect someone else\'s property.
[Protection]{.underline} is to shield from injury, damage, or loss, or
to guard and/or defend.

While the dictionary definition of [archaeological
materials/remains/resources]{.underline} focuses on their scientific
use, general (professional and lay) definitions of these terms include
all things from the human past and all of their scientific, humanistic,
and spiritual values. Many of the humanistic values are ascribed to
ancient resources based on their derived scientific information, but are
no less important components. There is clearly a major scientific
component to the remains of a 10,000-year-old campsite on the edge of an
ancient river valley, but there is a humanistic component to its
representation of a small family finding a good meat supply one fall
week in a country known for its bitter winters. For many people, such a
site also has a spiritual component in its manifestation of the anima of
the past. All components are essential elements of archaeological
resources, and the humanistic (or sometimes spiritual) values are
frequently more important to the lay public.

When archaeological resources are identified, their management is
usually assigned to the owner of the lands in or on which the resources
have been found; thus they are quickly tied to a property concept. The
ascription of property rights to archaeological resources is a
complicated legal as well as social issue (cf. Knudson 1986, 1990; see
also Fowler this volume). The identification of human remains as
archaeological resources, much less some kind of property, usually has
been culturally relative\--human skeletal materials have generally been
identified as archaeological resources when they are not associated with
known kin of the politically dominant subculture and thus assumed not
subject to historically culturally biased state or local human burial
laws and regulations. Inclusion of human remains within those
archaeological materials designated as \"property\" may relate to
distant common law concepts, but is more likely a condition that
prevails primarily in the absence of public question. In the basic
Judeo-Christian value system, human remains have a special character and
are not appropriately treated as property whether the remains be of
American Indians or Norwegian Americans, but they have archaeological as
well as other cultural values.

This article uses the term \"archaeological resources\" to include
[all]{.underline} materials from the human past, some of which are
appropriate for scientific study, some of which are valued because of
their spiritual significance and may not be appropriate for non-believer
involvement, and some of which have significant spiritual, humanistic,
and scientific qualities that all merit attention.

**The Archaeological Public Trust**

The assertion that initiated this article is based on the assumption
that every human being has an inalienable right to intellectually
understand and be spiritually secure in her or his place in the physical
and social world, within that individual\'s natural capabilities. We
have a right to our own values about ourselves and our world, and we
must be socially responsible in acting out those values.

To be comfortable, each individual must have confident expectations of
other people\'s behavior. That is, there must be trust. A [public
trust]{.underline} is a society\'s collective fulfillment of individual
responsibilities to respect individuals\' rights, as expressed either
informally through group behavior or more formally through
institutionalized processes.

Individuals\' inalienable rights to knowledge and belief have a
diachronic dimension\--they involve our past as well as our present
and/or future. In complement, each of these dimensions has value only in
the context of the rest of time and space. Archaeological resources are
corporeal entities (material remains, things) that embody incorporeal
intellectual and spiritual values of the past (and present, and future;
cf. Lipe 1974,1984). Following the basic tenet that initiated this
article, access to these resources, so that they can be used to fulfill
knowledge and belief needs, is desirable for all people. How to use
them, without \"using them up,\" is always the dilemma of managing
irreplaceable things.

It is noted that most cultures in some manner restrict the use of some
past (and present) things and places that have spiritual value by
circumscribing access to them. As stated elsewhere in this article,
managing these past remnants in the real multi-cultural context involves
finding a common ground if at all possible. In conflicts between
\"system\" vs. \"lifeworld\" cultural patterns (Habermas 1989), finding
this commonality may be extremely difficult. In lieu of that, it
generally involves a process of intra-cultural triage (Stoffle and Evans
1990); i.e., making choices among values held within a single cultural
system.

The complex temporal aspect of archaeological resources is significant
in their \"nonrenewable\" label. Each of them is a somewhat unique
reflection of past human and natural environments and behaviors, with
information relevant to contemporary entertainment, religious comfort,
or sociotechnical problem-solving (e.g., how to manage wastes, how to
live with environmental change). At the same time, these
presently-useful and past-reflecting resources are a \"bank\" of unique
values for future recreationists, believers, and scientists.

Given all this, each individual within society has an ethical
responsibility to deal with past cultural remains in their contemporary
(and projected future) collective sociocultural context\--this is an
**archaeological public trust**. The basic principles underlying this
public trust concept, and its derivation from the public trust doctrine
of Euroamerican water resource law, are described elsewhere (Knudson
1990).

Fulfillment of this trust responsibility begins when archaeological
resources are first identified, whether they are arrowheads in a plowed
field, human skeletal remains in a waterline trench, or shipwreck
timbers in a dredge line. It includes the protection of the identified
material in place, insofar as is possible and feasible until all of the
remains\' archaeological values can be initially evaluated and publicly
responsible decisions made about their treatment. To dig, and if so,
how? To analyze, and if so, how and how much? How to treat in the long
run (discard, curate, inhumate)? These decisions must be made in
consideration of the common ground among potentially conflicting
scientific, humanistic, and spiritual values, and in the context of
contemporary socioeconomics and politics.

Following the basic ethical value asserted at the start of this article,
protecting archaeological resources\--the secrets of the past\--is then
basically a public trust to protecting human values within diverse
cultural contexts, to protect the things so that human access to the use
of the items is sustained to the maximum extent possible in a diverse
and dynamic world context.

**Context of Protection**

Archaeological aficionados, be they professional scientists, devoted
avocationals, or more casual museum visitors, are familiar with the use
of \"context\" in reference to the relative position of artifacts,
samples, and features within a prehistoric or historic site. Protection
or management decisions must be made in consideration of several other
archaeological contexts (cf. Costa et al. 1988).

The management responsibility for in situ archaeological resources is
initially very place-oriented, in the context of resource
location\--where it is found in or on the ground, or under water.
Variations in national property and/or heritage laws and/or regulations
differentially assign this to private landholders or public trustees
(Cleere 1989; Knudson 1986, 1990). In the United States, \"The Federal
Government shall provide leadership in preserving, restoring, and
maintaining the historic and cultural environment of the Nation
([Executive Order]{.underline} 11593 Sec. 1 \[1971\]).\" Land managers,
acting as archaeological resource management decision-makers, must
consider the rights of the users of the land or river/lakebed in or on
which the archaeological materials are found. The stormwater sewer
needed by a metropolitan community, the money-making housing development
desired by the entrepreneur, or the grazing lease held by the rancher
with children in college may each have to be considered when deciding
whether or how to protect an archaeological site and its included
values.

Private landholders also bear responsibilities for archaeological
resource management. While the U.S. Constitution\'s Fifth Amendment (the
\"taking clause\"; Bosselman, Callies, and Banta 1973) requires
compensation for the public use of private property, in the past two
decades there has been much broader application of the Public Trust
Doctrine in United States land law (Knudson 1990). The Doctrine relies
on common property concepts, asserting the rights of society over
individual rights when both are involved in the management of community
resources. Issues of social responsibility of private individuals and
corporations have been frequent topics of discussion lately (e.g.,
Preston and Post 1975). These various perspectives mean that there is a
need to find a common ground in managing publicly valued archaeological
resources when they are in or on private lands. Traditionally, land
owners have the first responsibility for actions that affect their
property. They are participants in the public archaeological trust.

The physical context of an undisturbed archaeological resource is a
primary constraint on resource protection decisions. Given that an
undisturbed site can or must be moved, decisions about the manner of
removal and subsequent disposition must be made within multiple
socio-cultural-political contexts. The individuals whose inalienable
heritage rights are being protected live and function within those
multiple contexts.

First, all individuals must be recognized as members of a worldwide
human community with multiple and frequently conflicting values and
needs. Within that world view, individuals are members of different
cultures and culturally relative value systems, and decisions about
archaeological resources must consider both the cultural relativity and
world community trust responsibilities. Cross-cutting the cultural
variations are the sociopolitical rules and regulations, which variably
assign land ownership/management responsibilities as well as
responsibilities for preserving, protecting, and managing included
archaeological resources.

All the required ethical considerations for managing archaeological
sites must also be addressed in managing the site-derived archaeological
artifacts, ecofacts, and documentary evidence.

**Conclusion**

Each individual, and each governmental unit (or individual/organization
operating under a governmentally-provided authority), has a
responsibility to protect the human community\'s past. This includes
education of the general public (both adults and children), the
individuals responsible for managing direct adverse impacts to
archaeological materials (e.g., development planners, engineers,
farmers, miners, foresters), and the individuals with archaeological
management responsibilities (both of the sites and of the derived
materials) (cf. Archaeological Assistance Division 1990). It includes
enforcement of stewardship laws, regulations, guidelines, and policies
where they are relevant.

At its most basic level, there is a public trust to recognize and
fulfill a commitment to respecting the worldwide value of heritage
resources to help each of us fit within our present world.

**Acknowledgements**. Bennie Keel, Frank McManamon, Velouta Canouts, and
Muriel Crespi made useful comments on an early draft of this paper, and
Alan Downer and Mark Leone inadvertently led me to ideas useful in
developing the final version.

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