The Nature and Development of Community Archaeology in Israel/Palestine: An Introduction

Community Archaeology in Israel/Palestine - Raz Kletter

Raz Kletter [+-]
University of Helsinki
Raz Kletter is since 2009 Docent for Near Eastern Archaeology at Helsinki University. After postdoctoral studies (Oxford UK, 1996), he worked in the IAA as Deputy of Finds Department, Senior Archaeologist, and Head of Scientific Processing (1990–2007). He directed and published many excavations in Israel/Palestine. Major excavation reports include Yavneh, The “Temple Hill” Repository Pit (two volumes, 2010, 2015); and Rishon le-Zion, the Middle Bronze Age Cemeteries (2018, Vols. 1a-b). Kletter is an authority of coroplastic art and religion (The Judean Pillar Figurines and the Archaeology of Asherah, Oxford 1996); economy (Economic Keystones, Sheffield 1998); and history of archaeology (Just Past? The Making of Israeli Archaeology, London 2006; and Archaeology, Heritage and Ethics in the Western Wall Plaza, London 2019).
Liora Kolska Horwitz [+-]
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Liora Kolska Horwitz is a prehistorian and archaeozoologist affiliated with the National Natural History Collections of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on the cultural and biological interface between humans and their natural environment, with a special focus on animals. She has published extensively in international journals, conference proceedings and book chapters, in addition to editing monographs and special issues of journals. She is a member of the Negev Rock Art Center, co-editor of the Israel Journal of Prehistory, and participant in numerous field projects in Israel and South Africa, including co-directing the Wonderwerk Cave project (South Africa).

Description

In the introduction, we discuss briefly the development of “community archaeology” in general and the issue of its definition. We opt for a broad definition (following Reid, Grima and others), namely: “archaeology of past communities, performed in cooperation between archaeologists and living communities, for the benefit of both.” Consequently, all archaeology is to some extent at least community archaeology, and community archaeologists are not special experts of a field within archaeology, but any archaeologist who is aware of her/his role in relation not just to the past, but also to living communities. The body of the introduction is a detailed catalogue of more than forty community-archaeology focused projects in Palestine/Israel since the 1990s. This is followed by a discussion of their forms, growth, and changing ideologies. We touch on the complex issue of evaluating success/failure of such projects and end with the question whether there is a certain model of “true” community archaeology that can “liberate” us.

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Citation

Kletter, Raz; Horwitz, Liora Kolska. The Nature and Development of Community Archaeology in Israel/Palestine: An Introduction. Community Archaeology in Israel/Palestine. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. Jul 2024. ISBN 9781800504820. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=44983. Date accessed: 29 Apr 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.44983. Jul 2024

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