Troublesome Cultural Heritage on the Move
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-05-28

Metal objects from the ploughsoil can be seen as direct links to past societies by some, and a time- and cost-consuming nuisance, with little scientific value, by others. Removal from their archaeological context has put them in an interpretive limbo. Seasonal movement is displacing them more every year.
Sometimes finds end up in the “wrong” place after being removed from the dirt. Rare objects are nonetheless used to promote the area it was found as a possible tourist attraction, and as representatives of something uniquely ‘Norwegian’ – functioning as mnemonic devices for collective memories. The country’s increase in private metal-detecting finds the last five years have drastically changed our knowledge about—and view of—certain find groups and time periods. The focus will be on how perceptions of the usefulness of metal-detecting finds, and, as a result, how notions of what can, and should, be defined as cultural heritage has shifted.

Irmelin Axelsen (Museum of Cultural History/University of Oslo)

TAG Deva 2018
Session: Archaeological Movements in Theory and Practice