Excavating an Excavator: Gerhard Bersu, his networks, and linking past and present

Summary

Actor-Network approaches allow connections between people and people, and people and things, to be explored in new ways. This is illustrated through a historiographical case study. Gerhard Bersu avoided Nazi persecution by being invited to excavate in the UK, only to be then interned on the Isle of Man in 1940, where he continued to excavate. We explore his social and intellectual networks at that time, together with his relationships with archaeological deposits, field records, and artefacts. Having re-excavated some of the Bersu sites, thereby researching 1940s field methods, there is now a new, contemporary, set of relations between modern archaeologists, the public, the past archives, and the archaeology. These reveal the stability of some relationships, and the dynamic qualities of others; the implications of these are discussed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Actor-Network Theory and other Relational Approaches in Historical Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 618