Last week, I offered my views about Cold War archaeology as an emerging subfield of historical archaeology. This week, I add a few particulars to that proposal.
In my mind, any attempt to mark out some plausible boundaries to the notion of a Cold War archaeology subfield, it would seem appropriate to consider the Cold War in terms of an episode––that being a significant event that is part of, but distinct from a greater whole––rather than in terms of an era. This idea of the “Cold War era” may indeed be popular in a conventional respect, but lacks the focus necessary to explicitly define a field of inquiry.
It is critical to remember that the “Cold War era” was a period comprised of more than simply a prolonged chapter of nasty US/Soviet relations supported by an arms race. There is more to it than that. As a result of the devastating economic, social, and political effects of World War II, the first few decades of the CW witnessed a range of significant historical events including the collapse of numerous long-standing colonial regimes around world. These events were accompanied by a range of remarkable medical, scientific and technical advances, and various social and educational reforms, yet much of this noteworthy history-making had little or nothing to do with either the core Cold war issues of the nuclear arms race and the unfriendly state of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. With a few exceptions, these events could be excluded from the scope of Cold War archaeology. In addition, those instances when the “Cold War went hot”, such as during the Korean War or Vietnam, might logically be excluded from Cold War archaeology’s purview.
Leaving these other events and their accompanying historical sites for the scrutiny of historians and archaeologists more deeply interested in them, the field of Cold War archaeology might find its greatest focus by defining itself through the twin issues of capitalist/communist relations and the nuclear arms race. This characterization would help situate such historic spaces and places as the Berlin Wall, Cheyenne Mountain, Spadeadam Range, Rocky Flats, Greenham Common, Semipalatinsk, and the Nevada Test Site, along with hundreds of other significant, if somewhat less widely known, Cold War sites as the field’s intellectual domain.
Once a preponderance of the world’s Cold War sites have been cataloged, the task before archaeologists would likely be to decide which merit archaeological study and which do not. That is, what do we know, and what is yet to be learned. This decision, however, may very well be made on behalf of the field by others, as a considerable number of former Cold War sites around the world are even now being taken out of operation and demolished or converted to other uses. As Wayne Cocroft of English Heritage reminds us, “We have a brief opportunity to understand and record what Top Secret sites were once used for before the evidence is lost.” Site owners may seek to have their sites better understood and even preserved, but others may not. In either case, Cold War archaeology in the United States may very well begin its life operating in a rescue archaeology mode.
However it may be that the field of Cold War archaeology comes to fruition, there is a range of paradigms, methods, and theories that might be applied to the field’s practice. In my particular case, methods of ethnoarchaeology have proven particularly valuable, but various other approaches, such as systems theory, agency theory, gender, and historical processualism, are apt to provide critical keys to our understanding of the Cold War. In that regard, John Schofield and Mike Anderton’s paper “The queer archaeology of Green Gate: interpreting contested space at Greenham Common Airbase” (World Archaeology 32 (2), 236-51) serves as a cutting-edge example of that sort of critical work.
Ultimately, any attempt at defining the field of Cold War archaeology is certain to be a lengthy, evolving, and perhaps even controversial, process that will require the scrutiny, wisdom, and intellectual commitment of more than just this author, and perhaps this blog can serve as a forum for facilitating the process.
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