Levka#archeology #science #media #France #Glozel #gender
"The report emphasized the importance of proper archaeological method. Early on, the commissioners noted that they were 'experienced diggers, all with past fieldwork to their credit,' in different chronological subfields of archaeology. In contrast, they noted that the Glozel site showed clear signs of a lack of order and method.
In their initial meeting in Vichy, the assembled archaeologists agreed that they would give no interviews during their visit to Glozel and would not speak to the press afterward. But, aware of 'certain tendentious articles published by a few newspapers,' the visitors issued a communiqué stating that they would neither confirm nor deny any press reports. Their scholarly publication would be their final word on the non-ancientness' of the site.
The distinction between true science – what the archaeologists were practicing – and the media seemed absolute.
(. . .)
And yet matters were not so simple.
Many newspapers devoted extensive and careful coverage to Glozel. They offered explanations of archaeological terminology. They explained the larger stakes of the controversy, which, beyond the invention of the alphabet, involved nothing less than the direction of the development of Western civilization itself, whether from Mesopotamia in the east to Europe in the west or the reverse.
Even articles about seemingly trivial matters, such as the work clothes the archaeologists donned to perform their test excavations at Glozel, served to reinforce the larger point the commissioners made in their report. In contrast to the proper suits and ties they wore for formal photographs marking their arrival, the visitors all put on blue overalls, which for one newspaper 'gave them the air of apprentice locksmiths or freshly decked-out electricians.'
The risk, apparent in this jocular reference, of losing the social standing afforded them by their professional degrees and education was worth taking because it drove home these archaeologists’ devotion to their discipline, which their report described as a 'daily moral obligation.'
If archaeologists continued to mistrust the many newspapers that sensationalized Glozel, its stakes and their work in general, they could not escape the popular media entirely, so they confided in a few journalists at papers they considered responsible.
Shortly after the publication of the report, which was summarized and excerpted in the daily press, original excavator Morlet accused Dorothy Garrod, the only woman on the commission, of having tampered with the site. A group of archaeologists responded on her behalf, explaining what she had actually been doing and defending her professionalism – in the press."
Stéphane Bortzmeyer
Amaury Havé
TRACES UMR5608
lwy