Blicke in die vaterländische Vorzeit -
Regional and national identities and the history of German archaeology

During the 1930s, certain radical-nationalistic German archaeologists tended to view the period of flourishing archaeological research in the early 19th century as an expression of a national awakening resulting from the Napoleonic wars. They compared this period with that after World War I, placing emphasis on both a national archaeology as a historical science and on research into the history of archaeology, going back to the 16th century. The modern term archaeology is used here to describe all the activities involved in recovering material culture of the past from the soil. Linking archaeological finds from German territories to people known from Greek and Roman writers enabled scholars to interpret these finds as the remains of their national forefathers, and to postulate an ethnic paradigm. In this way, material culture could be conceived as national heritage. On the other hand, the interpretation of archaeological finds interacted with regional identity. Archaeological research thus had an inherent value for the building of collective identities, although the scholars were for a long time ignorant of the absolute chronology of the archaeological finds and their contexts.

This project conducted under the auspices of the Sonderforschungsbereich 541: Identitäten und Alteritäten at Freiburg University, seeks to explore the role and the development of archaeology within the discourse of German identity.

		archaeology between the wars (1918-1939)
	archaeological research in the national states (1806-1852)
archaeological research in the territorial states of the Holy Roman Empire (17th-18th century)

Originally, archaeological research and interpretation was above all the domain of individual scholars who were not professional archaeologists, but pastors, physicians or civil servants. The personal sentiments of the scholars found expression in publications and archival records, which are the primary sources for the history of archaeology. By means of bio-bibliographic case studies and collective biography an attempt is made to understand the interaction of personal/collective identities and archaeology

The principal points to be investigated are:

• Sentiments - To what extent are Romantic, patriotic and nationalistic sentiments evident in archaeological publications?
• Motivation and agenda - Did scholars pursue an agenda and what was the motivation for archaeological research?
• Popularization - To what extent did archaeology evoke the interest of a more general public?
• Instrumentalization - When did the ethnic paradigm give rise to radical nationalism and racism in archaeology?