Plenary Address

Tim Harrison from ISAC offered the Plenary Address at #ASOR25. He highlighted the tremendous loss of cultural heritage in the last twenty years due to war, destruction and pillaging of archaeological sites, agricultural expansion, and urban sprawl. He argued that this loss has a tremendous impact on local communities whose identities are shaped by their cultural heritage (e.g., tells and burial sites).

He advocated that the response from the west to such loss ought be driven by local desires, local leadership, and local workers, not the west swooping in what they think is best…an indigenous archaeology of sorts.

In his lecture I see archaeology grappling with the same issues of colonialism with which Christian missionary endeavors have been grappling (the fostering of an independent and indigenous Christianity). Notably, Christian overseas missions and the history of archaeology follow quite similar chronological frameworks through the 19th and 20th centuries.