Editors’ Comments: Celebrating the Sixth World Archaeological Congress

Abstract

In this issue of Archaeologies we celebrate the very successful and important sixth meeting of the World Archaeological Congress in Dublin, Ireland, in the summer of 2008. WAC-6 hosted 1,800 archaeologists from across the world who participated in many special events that have been widely covered by global media outlets and are described fully on the Congress website http://www.worldarchaeologicalcongress.org/site/news_pres_30.php. Two WAC-6 events are of special relevance for this issue of Archaeologies. First, the Forum section on Archaeology in War comes directly from the WAC-6 Plenary which showcased the perspectives of Peter Stone, Professor of Heritage Studies and Director of the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies at Newcastle University, UK; Yannis Hamilakis, Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton, UK, and Chair of the WAC Task Force on Archaeologists and War; and Patty Gerstenblith, Distinguished Research Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Art, Museum, & Cultural Heritage Law at De Paul University, USA. These three specialists discussed the legal, ethical, and social obligations of archaeologists to their profession in times of armed conflict. Their presentations have been reproduced here to reach the largest WAC audience, not because they cover all possible perspectives but because Stone and Hamilakis offer very passionate and ethically grounded arguments for very different approaches. These alternatives, presented against a backdrop of the changing legal realities described by Gerstenblith offer a particularly pithy summary of the major points that archaeologists must consider when determining a course of action in a violent and destructive context. People who attended the plenary with strongly held opinions were profoundly moved by this brief session, since the stature, professional record, and ethical commitment of the three participants place them above reproach; yet they disagreed. Many archaeologists who came in the door with a sense of outrage that anyone might not accept their point of view left with a deeper understanding of ‘‘the other side.’’ Clearly this discussion is not over, and many important points remain to be made. The editors of Archaeologies offer these statements as the beginning of a more inclusive conversation E D IT O R IA L