美洲土著人、土耳其人、尼日利亚人有什么共同之处?答案是这些民族璀璨文明的结晶——最精美的文物已遭到劫掠并被出售给开价最高的西方人。“谁拥有过去”,是一个感情问题,保护“过去”与现今的政治权力有着密切的关系。例如,尼日利亚人必须去英国博物馆才能看到精致的贝宁青铜器,而英国人却发动大规模的集资运动以防止自己受人尊敬的文化遗产落人非西方买主的手中,这一事实有力地说明这两个国家文化财富与政治权力的关系。随着考古学家在寻找人类过去的研究中对那些鲜为人知的有关政治和思想领域的事件日益关注,他们发现,解释及保存历史文化的方式的在不断变化。由于“没有历史的民族”正在努力恢复自己历史的本来面目,所以21世纪考古学的特点取决于目前在这一学科中层开的激烈论战的结果。 按照爱里克·沃尔夫在共有影响的著作《欧洲及无历史的民族》一书中的观点,“没有历史的民族”系指他们的历史被其他民族作为自己的历史而否定了的民族。随着西方文明在征服地、殖民地和商业方 Native Americans, Turks, and Nigerians What does it all have in common? The answer is the crystallization of the brilliant civilizations of these peoples - the finest artifacts have been looted and sold to the highest-paid Westerners. “Who owns the past” is an emotional issue. The protection of the “past” is closely related to the present political power. For example, the fact that Nigerians must go to British museums to see exquisite Benin bronzes while Britons have launched large-scale fund-raising campaigns to prevent their respected cultural heritage from falling into the hands of non-Western buyers The relationship between cultural wealth and political power in these two countries. As archaeologists are increasingly concerned with the lesser-known aspects of politics and thought in their search for past human studies, archaeologists find that the way they interpret and preserve history and culture is constantly changing. As “nations without history” are struggling to restore the true nature of their own history, the characteristics of 21st century archeology depend on the result of the fierce polemics that are now stratified in this discipline. According to Eric Wolfe in his book “European and Unending History,” a book entitled “The Nation Without History” refers to the nation whose history was denied by other nations as their own history . With Western civilization conquered, colonized and commercialized