The project discussed in this book continues my research about the interrelations between archaeology and popular culture (Holtorf 2004, 2005). The plan was to compare the portrayal of archaeology in the popular culture of three European countries: Germany, where I grew up, became fascinated by archaeology and began studying it; Great Britain, where I lived for many years first during my studies and then as an academic teacher and researcher; and finally Sweden, where I intended to work on this project, within the professional environment of the National Heritage Board. This choice of countries was determined more by various practical considerations than by the topic of my research in its own terms. It quickly became clear, however, that to some extent I needed to take into account the United States as well, since so much of European popular culture comes from there, especially from Hollywood.

It is true that both archaeology and popular culture in Germany, the U. K., and Sweden are similar in many (though by no means all) respects, for various economical, political and historical reasons. A comparison of popular archaeology in any of these countries with the situation in, for instance, Poland or Italy is likely to have resulted in far more diverse findings. Outside Europe and especially outside the Western world, the entire picture is likely to have appeared differently (cf. Shepherd 2002). But this will be for others to establish and discuss, in the future.

In this study, I did not work with any rigid definition of popular culture (in German I prefer the term Alltagskultur – cf. Holtorf 2005: chapter 1). I am simply considering the main opportunities where people who are not archaeologists themselves and go about their ordinary lives can hear or see something that strikes them as being ”archaeological”. That includes the mass media, movies, advertising, toys, fictional and non-fictional literature, museums and much more. I found a broadly ethnographic methodology best suited for my ambition to shed light on how archaeology is presented in all that popular culture. That involved me visiting places, talking to people, and studying available documents. Although it is clear that the ”general public” has got to be broken down into many specific audiences, I am not after making too many fine-grained distinctions as to precisely which sections of the populations may be interested in what aspect of archaeology. This book is, however, not about how professional archaeologists themselves see their own subject (see Welinder 2000).

Popular culture is diverse, and many of its lines follow their own logic and their own genealogies. At the same, elements of popular culture have in common that fairly large numbers of people can relate to them and appreciate what they are about. At one point I thought it might be a good idea to draw on social psychology for understanding precisely why people may find archaeology appealing in the way they do. I could not find any detailed research by social psychologists that offered answers to my specific question but I read Serge Moscovici’s (1984) grand proposal for studying ”social representations.” Much of it seemed to be applicable to my own study, too. I also read some of the arguments of his critics though, and in the end I did not feel that all this was leading anywhere very useful for the purposes of this book. More applicable was the topical secondary literature that archaeologists have published over the years. A particular long tradition of discussing the popular fascination with archaeology exists in Germany (e.g. Kirchner 1964; Steuben 1977; Andreae 1981; Stern and Tode 2002; Felder et al 2003). In Sweden, the available literature is smaller but what exists is no less inspiring (e.g. Welinder 1987; Petersson 1994). In the United Kingdom, this field appears to be less discussed than many other realms of archaeology but there are still some gems (e.g. Daniel 1964: chapter 8; Bray 1981; Day 1997; Russell 2002a). Additional literature that I found useful comes from various other countries (e.g. Ascher 1960; Pallottino 1968; Fritz 1973; Zarmati 1995; Cohodas 2003). The content of all these studies is too diverse for me to summarise it here, even if in abbreviated form. In subsequent chapters I will return to many of the specific issues these works raise.

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