| THE ROCK ART OF THE GUADIANA, THE
ALQUEVA DAM, AND THE UISPP “INTERNATIONAL
COMMISSION”: A PERSONAL CLARIFICATION
João Zilhão (Director, Instituto
Português de Arqueologia), September 19,
2001
The following document copied verbatim
from the following web site
In the last few months, the Alqueva
dam and the Guadiana valley rock art have
been the subject of some international interest.
A report has been published in the Summer
2001 issue of the newsletter of the European
Association of Archaeologists, an Internet
petition was started, motions have been
submitted to the governing bodies of at
least one international organization. This
activity follows on a spur of national media
interest, which lasted between mid-April
and mid-May 2001, following the announcement
of new rock art ensembles in that valley.
The latest in this string of events is the
decision to send an “International Commission”
to the Alqueva taken by the Permanent Council
of the UISPP (Union Internationale des Sciences
Préhistoriques et Protohistoriques), in
their September 7 meeting, held in the aftermath
of the Liège 2001 conference of the Union.
The people behind all this activity have
tried to present the situation as a “second
Côa affair”. There are indeed many commonalities
between the two, but there are also many
differences. So, before I comment on the
basic Alqueva facts and on the significance
of the UISPP’s Commission, let me stress
the first, and paramount, difference with
the Côa. In 1994-95, opposition to the construction
of the Foz Côa dam was unanimously voiced
by the community of Portuguese archaeologists,
as individuals, as members of academia,
or through their professional associations.
An international campaign developed in parallel
to support this national movement. The current
Alqueva controversy was started at the national
level by environmentalist groups trying
to use archaeological finds to boost their
opposition to the Alqueva dam. They almost
immediately dropped the argument, as soon
as they realized that such a use was illegitimate
and in fact counterproductive.
A very small number of Portuguese archaeologists
picked up where they left off. No one questions
their right to have an opinion, to spread
it, and to try to win support for it. But
the rest of the world should know that such
an opinion has found no support among Portuguese
professionals: the Alqueva campaign has
not been supported by the body which represents
University archaeologists, the CIUARQ (Inter-University
Commission for Archaeology); it has not
been supported by neither of the two professional
associations that exist in Portugal, the
AAP (Associação dos Arqueólogos Portugueses)
and the APA (Associação Profissional de
Arqueólogos); it has not been supported
by the Portuguese section of ICOMOS; it
has not been supported by the IPA (Instituto
Português de Arqueologia), the agency of
the Ministry of Culture that supervises
all archaeological activity in Portugal;
and it has not been supported by the CNART
(National Rock Art Research Center), the
department of the IPA set up in the wake
of the Côa affair to carry out the inventory,
study and recording of the country’s rock
art.
Today, September 19, I looked up the Alqueva
Internet petition page
http://www.petitiononline.com/Alqueva/petition.html
. Several months after it was
launched, only 1409 persons had signed it.
A small minority identify themselves as
Portuguese, and among those signatures I
could only recognize a handful that belong
to individual archaeologists. I also recognized
the names of the under age children of some
of them.
A bit of history and context
The notice published in the newsletter
of the EAA is signed by Mila Simões de Abreu,
in her capacity as representative of IFRAO
(International Federation of Rock Art Organizations)
in Portugal. Together with other documents
from the same source that were made widely
available internationally, it features my
name, in full. I quote: “As the current
President of the IPA, Prof. Dr. João Zilhão,
was severely critical of a similar situation
during the fight to save the Côa rock art
area, IFRAO urges him to show his total
opposition to the destruction of the Guadiana
rock art area”. Given that those behind
the Alqueva campaign have so clearly enhanced
the personal aspect of the current controversy,
I have no choice but to deal with that aspect
as well, and I will.
Because the memory of men is short-lived,
it is perhaps worthy of mention that the
Alqueva Internet petition was started by
Robert Bednarik, an Australian rock art
amateur who for many years posed as a “rock-art
dating expert”. In 1995, he managed to be
hired by EDP, the company building the Foz
Côa dam, after having written a letter to
EDP’s Management Board, dated March 24,
1995, where he infamously stated that, if
the Côa valley engravings were proved to
be of post-Paleolithic age, as he thought,
the interest of the site would be greatly
diminished and construction of the dam could
continue without further ado. In his own
words: “if the art were to be shown post-Paleolithic,
its importance would diminish dramatically
and the controversy concerning its preservation
would be largely resolved”. When, in July
1995, fulfilling his own prophecy, he wrote
a report to EDP proclaiming that his research
had proven that the Côa valley art was indeed
recent, he also asked EDP “to exercise the
tact and compassion of giving these scholars
[the Portuguese archaeologists who had been
arguing that most of the Côa valley art
was of Paleolithic age] the opportunity
of distancing themselves from their previous
pronouncements”.
The nature of these statements should be
sufficient to make it clear that Robert
Bednarik’s activity has nothing to do with
any kind of “unselfish” desire to preserve
the world’s rock art. In fact, had it been
left up to him, the Foz Côa dam would have
been built and what is today a World Heritage
site would have been lost forever under
more than 120 meters of water and silt.
A huge pile of scientific arguments, published
in several peer-reviewed journals, has since
demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt
the Paleolithic age of the Côa rock art.
This research was led by myself: at first,
throughout 1995, as a University of Lisbon
archaeologist; subsequently, in 1996-97,
as director of the PAVC (Côa Valley Archaeological
Park). Ever since his “dating” was exposed,
Robert Bednarik and his Portuguese friends,
Mila Simões de Abreu among them, have pursued
a relentless campaign of slander and insult
against myself and my colleagues in the
PAVC and the CNART. In a string of papers
published in the “AURA Bulletin”, “Rock
Art Research”, “Tracce”, and others, they
have gone to the extent of accusing us of
“professional vandalism” and of “destroying
the scientific evidence that would prove
us wrong”. These accusations were based
on the fact that, in order to record the
numerous fine line engravings that represent
the large majority of the Côa valley rock
art, we had partly removed some of the lichen
covering a few of the Côa panels. Reading
those papers and interpreting his actions
throughout the Côa controversy, I formed
the opinion that Bednarik’s behaviour was
incompatible with proper scientific debate,
and I therefore made the decision that I
would never reply to his numerous and repetitive
attacks. I maintained that decision when
I learned about the Alqueva Internet petition,
and I am maintaining it.
I hope the above suffices to explain why,
in the text below, I will not respond to
the contents of the petition. My only purpose
in beginning this message with the historical
introduction above is to make it clear that
there is indeed a strong personal content
in the current controversy. Colleagues should
try to make their own minds on the substance
of the matter, not on the basis of the personal
politics involved. But the controversy cannot
be fully understood if full knowledge of
its different components is not made available.
And, even if the Alqueva is not simply a
“second Côa”, what is happening today in
the Guadiana cannot be seen in isolation
from what happened six years ago in the
Côa, if nothing else because at least some
of the persons involved are the same. In
fact, in May 1997, after setting up the
PAVC, I was appointed director of the newly
created IPA. I still hold that position
and, therefore, I am the person ultimately
responsible in Portugal, at the technical
level, for the management of the situation
at Alqueva.
I assume full responsibility for the work
being carried out at Alqueva, and I assume
it with the background of having led the
scientific campaign to save the Côa valley
rock art, of having led the team that studied
and recorded it, of having directed the
creation of the Côa Valley Archaeological
Park, and of having prepared the nomination
of the Côa valley rock art to the World
Heritage list. It is also perhaps worthy
of notice here that Portugal itself is the
only country in the world that ever stopped
a dam to preserve a major rock art site,
even if that was made at the cost to the
Portuguese taxpayer of 125 million US dollars,
that is, of 12.5 US dollars per inhabitant.
For comparison, that cost is the equivalent,
in the United States, of spending something
like 3.5 billion US dollars to preserve
an archaeological site, or, in France, of
spending some 5000 million francs for the
same purpose. To my knowledge, nothing even
remotely approaching this scale was ever
done by any other country. So, these are
the credentials, in terms of commitment
to preserve rock art, of the country where
the Alqueva dam is located.
Above, I mentioned the Portuguese associates
of Robert Bednarik in the slander campaign
against the Côa Valley Archaeological Park.
They are also involved in the current Alqueva
campaign. Besides Mila Simões de Abreu,
who authors the notice published in the
newsletter of the European Association of
Archaeologists, there is also Luiz Oosterbeek,
who teaches at the Tomar Polytechnic School.
Where this colleague is concerned, all those
who wish to form an independent opinion
on this issue should also be aware of the
following facts. In November 1995, once
a newly elected government decided to stop
the Foz Côa dam, the Portuguese Minister
of Culture appointed a three-person Commission
to design and prepare a new, separate, administration
for archaeology, subsequently to become
the IPA, which I currently direct. Luiz
Oosterbeek was a member of this Commission.
In September 1996, the Minister disbanded
the Commission, among other reasons because
of his involvement in the hostile activities
of Robert Bednarik against the recently
inaugurated Côa Valley Archaeological Park.
In the framework of the very intense political
activity that accompanied the campaign to
stop the Foz Côa dam and to set up a new
administration, differences of opinion among
colleagues arose, battles were fought, won,
and lost. This is all natural and healthy,
and part of the democratic process. But
there can be no democracy when those whose
action (a vote, a signature) is asked for
are not fully informed. Only in possession
of all the facts can we make up our own
minds on the different factors that influence
the positions of the political actors, which
are always a complex combination of social
and personal beliefs and interests. I have
no intention of suggesting that Abreu and
Oosterbeek’s activities are motivated by
anything else than a genuine desire to expose
what they see as the wrongdoings of Portuguese
authorities in the Alqueva. But colleagues
around the world who wish to form an opinion
should also be aware that, besides issues
of fact and differences of opinion, there
is also a personal factor in all of this,
at the national as well as at the international
level.
The substance of the matter
Construction of the Alqueva dam, which
will create the largest reservoir in Europe,
was hotly debated in Portugal for decades.
Its supporters argued that it could provide
the water supply needed to boost irrigation
agriculture and promote the economic development
of the region. Its opponents argued that
the poor soils of the region could not sustain
irrigation and that the cost of the water
would make the whole scheme economically
impractical. More recently, the argument
changed somewhat. Opponents argued that
the products of irrigation agriculture in
the European Union were in surplus and that,
given the Union’s agricultural policy, the
investment made no sense. On the other side,
it was argued that the warming climate was
bringing desertification to interior southern
Portugal and that a major water reservoir
was a strategic need given the growing urban
demand for water supply.
Preparatory construction work began in
the late 1970s, but the project was stalled
soon after because of the major economic
difficulties undergone by Portugal in the
early 1980s. A decision to continue was
made by the Portuguese government a decade
later, in the early 1990s. A company called
EDIA was set up to build the dam. As part
of the process, new environmental impact
assessment studies were carried out, and
the corresponding mitigation measures were
discussed and approved.
Where archaeology is concerned, the need
to carry out a systematic survey of the
area was recognized early on. Already in
1980, a special resolution passed by the
Portuguese government ordered the creation
of a Commission for that purpose. This work
continued, albeit with low intensity, underfunded
and understaffed, throughout the decade
of interruption in construction work. In
1996, EDIA set up a department to organize
the archaeological salvage of the area to
be inundated. The first task of this department
was that of preparing a frame of reference
and specific mitigation measures. This several
hundred-page document was largely publicized
and discussed. Although it was recognized
that several weaknesses existed, a consensus
was reached in the profession that this
was a valuable and sound basis on which
to organize the salvage process.
In 1997, EDIA and IPA signed a joint declaration
setting the rules for the final stage of
the mitigation process. EDIA would be responsible
for selecting and hiring the different teams
needed to carry out the salvage work, whereas
IPA, as a regulatory authority, would accompany
the process in order to make sure that the
mitigation plan was applied as agreed. A
total of 5 million US dollars, 2% of the
project’s budget, was set aside for the
archaeological salvage operation, which
began in 1998. More than one hundred archaeologists,
from both private companies and the Universities,
have been involved and, as a result, our
knowledge of the area’s archaeology has
been significantly enriched: 222 sites of
all periods had been tested or excavated
by April 2001.
It was expected from the beginning that
new sites would be discovered as soon as
fieldwork began. The contracts signed by
EDIA with the different teams included a
component of further survey and, in fact,
for some periods, the major sites that were
to be excavated were only found after 1998.
Such is the case, in particular, of what
is arguably the most important archaeological
find made in the Alqueva area: the Epipaleolithic
camp site of Barca do Xarês de Baixo, an
extremely well preserved ensemble of hearths
extending over more than 1000 sq. meters,
at a depth below surface which in places
can be of up to 4 meters. A string of Iron
Age settlement sites that radically changed
our knowledge of the period was also found
and partially excavated.
As is always the case in such situations,
the salvage operation does not have the
aim of completely excavating or completely
recording every single piece of archaeological
heritage that exists in the area. The size
of the reservoir (25,000 hectares) makes
it clear that such an aim would be totally
unrealistic. It is a prior assumption of
any salvage operation of this kind that
many sites will not be found and will be
inundated without having been identified,
and it is also clear that most sites will
be excavated only partially. The purpose
of the salvage operation is to obtain as
much information as possible from a sample
of the archaeological record preserved in
the area.
Several locations with rock art were identified
early on, but none was situated below the
future water level. As survey and excavation
work progressed, new finds were made. In
November 2000, the Spanish authorities reported
that a rock art site existed in Spanish
territory, in a section of the Guadiana
valley located at the tail of the reservoir
which, therefore, would be inundated under
shallow waters once the reservoir was filled.
EDIA immediately negotiated with the Badajoz
Museum the beginning of the recording work,
which effectively started in January 2001,
and resulted in the identification of a
few hundred panels with Neolithic and later
anthropomorphic and abstract motifs (434
as of July 2001). A few panels also include
fine-line zoomorphic engravings in Paleolithic
style: the number of such figures identified
as of today, September 19, 2001, after several
months of research, is eight.
In mid-April 2001, more rock art finds
were made in the same area, but this time
in Portuguese territory. These finds, and
all the information related to them (maps,
descriptions, photos), were made public,
including web site posting
http://www.ipa.mincultura.pt/news/noticias/DecGuad/
First %20news), on the same day they were
reported to the IPA: April 26, 2001. CNART,
with EDIA support, immediately responded
to the situation. A team of 20 archaeologists
and technicians was sent to the field to
record these new sites, which they did between
mid-May and mid-August 2001: 75 km of the
margins of the Guadiana and tributaries
were systematically combed, and 200 panels
with the same range of Neolithic anthropomorphic
and abstract motifs were recorded. The Spanish
team continues to work, and the Portuguese
team will go back to the sites in October
to carry out nocturnal photography, which
cannot be done in the summer because of
mosquitoes.
Among the different categories of archaeological
sites that will be affected, rock art is
but one. Unlike the others, however, it
can be safely assessed that most, if not
all of it, will be recorded. Unlike the
others, this rock art will also suffer very
little, if anything, with the submersion.
Although this basic fact tends to be omitted
in the statements that have been made by
those behind the Alqueva campaign, the vast
majority of the rock art of concern here
is located in the river bed or in the floodplain,
that is, it has been regularly under water,
in the Winter, or variably covered by river
sands and gravel, in the Summer, for several
millennia. A significant portion of the
work carried out over the last few months
consists precisely in taking advantage of
the dry season to remove the river-bottom
sands from under which outcropping boulders
are visible, in order to find out whether
they are decorated, and record them if that’s
the case. The fact that this art is still
here today to be the subject of this debate
is sufficient evidence that it will not
be seriously affected by a period of submersion
under shallow waters (at most one hundred
years) once the Alqueva reservoir is filled.
In this case, therefore, the loss involved
in the inundation is mainly a loss of visibility.
Since many other rock art sites of the same
period and of the same kind exist both in
Portugal and in other European countries,
we will not be deprived of something unique,
as would have been the case if the Foz Côa
dam had been built. In this situation, the
IPA, as well as the community of Portuguese
archaeologists, believes that exhaustive
recording and publication, and the display
of contextualized replicas in a Museum dedicated
to the archaeological heritage of the inundated
area, is appropriate and sufficient mitigation.
This is recognized even by those behind
the last international Alqueva events. The
motion submitted to the Liège conference,
for instance, does not ask for construction
of the dam to be stopped (which would in
any case be impossible, given that the dam
is already built). Environmentalist groups
in Portugal are not asking that either:
their demand is that the reservoir be filled
up to elevation 139, instead of elevation
152, which is irrelevant in terms of the
rock art concerned, all of it located below
elevation 139.
I fully acknowledge the possibility that
the diagnosis of the situation made by Portuguese
archaeologists and the Portuguese government
could be wrong. However, throughout the
whole process, Portuguese law, European
Union directives, and the Malta convention,
were strictly enforced. This is another
difference with the Côa, where part of the
problem lay in the fact that several recommendations
of the environmental impact assessment had
not been followed, and in the fact that
initial discovery of the rock art sites
was kept secret for two years. In the Côa
case, therefore, there were errors, and
it was only fair that Portugal paid for
those errors, as it did. That is not the
case in the Alqueva, but in the Alqueva
too there is an issue of costs. So, those
of you in other countries who believe that
the Alqueva should not be built, or that
filling up the reservoir should be delayed,
should not stop short of that issue. Signing
a petition is not enough. If, in spite of
our opinion, you firmly believe otherwise,
you must also address your own governments
and ask them to be ready to pay for the
bill.
The UISPP Commission
In the Liège 2001 UISPP conference (September
2-7), a motion was submitted, and approved,
by the participants in the session on rock
art that took place in Room R on September
3. Nowhere was it advertised that the political
situation at Alqueva was going to be discussed
there, and the session ran in parallel with
many others, as is usually the case in large
conferences, so that only one side could
present its arguments to the participants
in that session. I learned that such a motion
had been passed on September 5, not from
anyone in the UISPP but from a journalist.
On the night of September 4, I had already
been able to discuss the Alqueva with the
President of the UISPP, Pierre Bonenfant,
in the presence of Marc Groenen, a colleague
from the University of Brussels. I made
myself available, as a member of the Permanent
Council and director of the IPA, to provide
the UISPP with a report on the situation,
if asked to.
Instead of following the normal procedure
of asking for such a report before making
any decision, the Permanent Council of the
UISPP instead decided, on September 7, to
endorse the motion and, also, to send an
“International Commission” to the Alqueva.
I know of the text of the motion from a
Portuguese journalist. The UISPP never provided
a copy, even though I formally asked Jean
Bourgeois, the secretary-general of the
Union, to be given one, which I did in my
capacity as director of the IPA and member
of the Permanent Council, through a September
10 e-mail message and a September 11 fax.
In his reply to me, through a fax message
sent September 13, Jean Bourgeois said that
the text approved by the Permanent Council
was the same as that passed in Room R, with
some modifications, but he didn’t provide
the final text. I can only use, therefore,
the text provided by the journalist, which
is as follows: “Having been informed by
the Europreart network of the discovery
of more than 600 rocks in the Guadiana valley,
in an area that will be inundated by the
reservoir of the Alqueva dam, the UISPP
thinks that everything should be done in
order to exhaustively record and protect
the engravings and in order to make sure
that their systematic study is undertaken
before the reservoir is eventually filled.
“UISPP believes that the rock art ensemble
of the Guadiana, given the number of rocks
and their chronological and stylistical
diversity, is of world value, and opens
new perspectives for the understanding of
the anthropisation of the territory.
“UISPP thinks that all necessary means
must be made available to the teams at work
in the Guadiana. In particular, UISPP considers
that a solid coordination of the scientific
work on both sides of the frontier, with
a global definition of recording methods,
is fundamental to warrant future interpretation
and publication.
“UISPP makes its resources and competences
available to help the teams in the field.
In particular, UISPP accepts the invitation
of the Europreart network for an International
Commission to travel to the Guadiana.”
Apart from the irresponsible presumption
that the value of a site can be decided
upon by the vote of a small group of people
attending a conference session, most of
this text, in itself, is totally innocuous,
and one can hardly understand what purpose
it serves, unless one believes that not
enough time and not enough means have been
made available by the Portuguese government,
or that no coordination exists between the
Portuguese and Spanish teams. However, no
evidence is provided in the motion that
such is the case. The colleagues directing
the rock art studies in the Alqueva are
António Martinho Baptista, in Portugal,
and Hipolito Collado, in Spain. They have
never complained about lack of time, lack
of means, or lack of coordination. On the
contrary, they have declared several times
that they would be able to complete the
recording work well in advance of inundation,
that EDIA had provided them with all the
means they required, and they are helping
each other in the process.
It is clear, therefore, that the only concrete
and practical aspect of the motion is the
decision to send an “International Commission”.
On what authority, and with what mission,
however, is not clarified. Once I learned,
through the September 8 issue of the Portuguese
weekly newspaper EXPRESSO, that this
Commission existed, I formally asked Jean
Bourgeois, through the e-mail message and
fax mentioned above, to confirm or correct
the information given by EXPRESSO,
not only concerning the text of the motion,
but also regarding the composition of the
Commission, its mandate, and the dates of
its arrival. I got no reply to these specific
points, but I did get the statement that
the UISPP “believes that it is its duty,
wherever that seems to be necessary, to
intervene in order to make sure that the
archaeological heritage is protected or
that enough time is given for its study”.
When confronted with them, Jean Bourgeois
did not deny either that three other statements
regarding the Commission which appeared
in EXPRESSO were exact. Such statements
are the following:
1. That the Conference decided
“to send an International Commission of
Experts in Prehistory to the Alqueva, with
the purpose of finding about the ongoing
state of the study of the Guadiana rock
art and emphasize that the Portuguese authorities
provide enough time for the study to be
completed”.
2. That “the visit intends to represent
a warranted evaluation of the quality and
importance of the rock art heritage, which
will be formalized in documents to be sent
to the Portuguese and Spanish governments
and UNESCO” (statement attributed to Marcel
Otte, secretary-general of the Liège conference).
3. That the Commission members
are Jean Bourgeois, Marcel Otte and Muiris
O’Sullivan and their visit is scheduled
for September 19-22.
It is clear, therefore, that the UISPP
is “intervening”, and that the Commission
has an inspective nature. Given that this
is its mandate, it becomes relevant to discuss
the process through which it came into being.
Here are the facts:
1. The UISPP decided that its intervention
was necessary in a given country, without
first conferring with the colleagues from
that country who were members of the Permanent
Council at the time of the decision. I have
since resigned, but I was a member of the
Council then, and I was present in the Liège
conference. Apparently, however, no one
in the directive bodies of the UISPP thought
that it was a good idea to discuss the topic
with me before deciding anything, in spite
of the fact that I had alerted the UISPP
President himself to the need for following
proper procedure.
2. The UISPP decided that its intervention
was necessary in a given country, without
first asking that country’s archaeological
authorities for information on the matters
relating to the intervention. This is in
spite of the fact that the person most responsible
for that country’s archaeology was a member
of the Permanent Council, and that he had
already made himself available to provide
any information the UISPP might require.
3. The UISPP decided to send an
inspective commission to a given country,
without first asking that country’s professional
associations and administrative authorities
whether they agreed that such an inspection
was necessary or welcome.
4. The UISPP decided that such
a commission would visit archaeological
sites in the country without first asking
the colleagues in charge of research at
those sites whether they agreed to the visit
and authorized it.
5. The UISPP decided on the dates
upon which the inspection would take place
without first conferring with the colleagues
and institutions concerned whether they
would be available in those dates in case
the commission decided that it needed to
consult with them.
6. The UISPP decided to send a
commission to inspect on a rock art situation,
but the commission itself is composed of
colleagues with no known experience in rock
art studies and from countries where rock
art is virtually non-existent.
I must also note that the UISPP apparently
does not know the meaning of the word “invitation”.
An individual or an institution can only
be invited to Portugal if some Portuguese
person or Portuguese institution with jurisdiction
asks them to come. In this context, a “network”
of whatever nature and composition does
not qualify as a host. The “International
Commission” may travel freely in Portugal,
as stipulated by the Schengen agreements,
but it will not be able to state that it
was invited.
I will stop here. I believe this is sufficient
to define the extremely dangerous precedents
that are being set. I can only explain the
behaviour of the UISPP under the assumption
that its directive bodies believe that they
have some kind of God-given right to go
around the world spreading the Gospel of
what they think is the right thing to do.
Personally, on the merits of the Alqueva
situation alone, I would have ignored the
UISPP Commission, given that its scientific
credentials are nil. But the precedent should
worry us all, and I feel that it is my duty
to explain to all those concerned by the
Alqueva or the activities of the UISPP why
such “International Commissions” should
not be tolerated. Watch out, you could be
next.
CONCLUSION
This turn of events is very unfortunate
for two other reasons. First, at the national
level, because it only serves to create
confusion, and boost a rejection of archaeology
by the media and the public — “those folks
who never know what exactly it is they want
and are always fighting each other anyway”.
The first elements of such a rejection are
already there, and this only serves to undermine
the authority of the IPA and other heritage
agencies to implement the kinds of procedures
dictated by the Malta convention with regard
to rescue archaeology. Second, at the international
level, because archaeological heritage is
not properly looked after in most parts
of the world (just to give an example, Belgium,
the country of origin of two of the members
of the UISPP Commission, is probably the
only country in Europe that lacks proper
and specific legislation for the protection
of archaeological heritage), and because
conflicts such as those created by the situation
in the Côa valley in 1994-95 may arise again,
in Portugal or elsewhere. That is bound
to happen, and international action by the
profession is bound to be necessary again.
These kinds of “International Commissions”
only serve to undermine the potential success
of such future initiatives.
Portugal is a very open country, where
archaeologists from different nationalities
have always been welcome and were many research
projects are conducted by foreigners with
no restrictions whatsoever. At our invitation,
or at their request, many colleagues from
different countries have already visited
the Alqueva, or worked there. The year 2000
Annual Meeting of the European Association
of Archaeologists, held in Lisbon, offered
participants the opportunity of a pre-Conference
excursion to the Alqueva, so that the work
carried out there could be presented and
discussed. All colleagues who wish to come
and see with their own eyes what is being
done will be welcome. But we will not accept
“inspections” by “Commissions” that lack
any legitimacy and that are constituted
on the basis of a shocking ignorance of
the basic rules of courtesy, not to mention
those of professional ethics.
To conclude, I hope I have been able to
clarify my point of view concerning the
situation at Alqueva, the reasons why I
find the behaviour of the UISPP in this
affair unacceptable, and the reasons why
I resigned from its Permanent Council. I
also hope I was able to convince you of
the differences between this situation and
that of 1994-95 in the Côa valley, although,
in some aspects, those who claim that the
Alqueva is a second Côa do have a point.
But, as a great nineteenth century social
scientist put it, when history repeats itself,
the first time it’s a tragedy, the second
time it’s a comedy.
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World
Archaeological Bulletin