Sacred Sites, Contested Rights/Rites project

Submission to All Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group (APPAG)

Prepared by Dr Jenny Blain and Dr Robert J. Wallis

We focus this submission on the condition of 'Sacred Sites' in the UK today. To a growing popular constituency, ancient monuments such as 'stone circles' and other prehistoric sites are 'sacred'. This includes 'Pagans' and others identifying spiritually with pre-Christian sites and landscapes: e.g. approximately 14,500 people were at Stonehenge for summer solstice 2001. Issues are:

1. the desire to revere, respect, and celebrate nature, land, and spiritual (not necessarily physical) ancestors at such places.
2. hence, calls for access to sites at Pagan festivals and other times (most evident in controversies surrounding Stonehenge), and to current archaeological information.
3. calls for action required against vandalism, neglect or 'development' that threaten sites. Monuments all over the UK are seen as suffering progressive degradation (see e.g. http://www.cara.tgis.co.uk/HulyDamage), risk through 'development' (http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~stones), road-building (http://www.savestonehenge.org.uk) or actions such as quarrying (http://www.nineladies.uklinux.net). This includes damage through (often well-meant) actions of spiritual adherents and celebrants.
4. concerns about human remains found in pre-Christian contexts, and respect shown to indigenous and hence, 'ancestral' perspectives on death, burial or cremation: a growing call for reburial of excavated human (and other) remains and monitoring of excavations of the same.
5. public recognition for user-groups, organisations and individuals actively raising these issues within their communities, acting as 'site guardians' and engaging in public education to help prevent defacement and degradation.

Awareness and understanding of increasing spiritual identification with sites, and two-way flow of information, can promote working with user-communities to conserve and celebrate heritage.

Associated documents from the 'Sacred Sites' Project in support at this submission are available at http://www.sacredsites.org.uk

1. A British Reburial Issue?
2. Stonehenge Solstice access, 20-21 June, 2001 (Report submitted to English Heritage)
3. Discussion document and report of current research (forthcoming on this site)

Contact addresses:

Dr Jenny Blain
[email protected]    jenny.blain@freeuk.com
0114 225 4413    07976 170812

Senior Lecturer in Sociology, School of Social Science and Law
Sheffield Hallam University
Collegiate Crescent Campus, Sheffield S10 2BP

Dr Robert J. Wallis
rjw2@soton.ac.uk
02380 592911    07779 037269

Lecturer in Archaeology, Department of Archaeology
University of Southampton
Avenue Campus, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ

The Sacred Sites, Contested Rights/Rites project is currently funded by the Centre for Research on Human Rights, Sheffield Hallam University.