On ‘Future Archaeology’: An Interview with Cornelius Holtorf

Does archaeology solely serve to help us understand the past, or can it also play a role in shaping the future? We asked Professor Cornelius Holtorf from Linnaeus University about the preservation of cultural heritage, long-term projects, and ‘future archaeology’.

Cornelius Holtorf studied Prehistoric Archaeology, Social Anthropology, and Physical Anthropology at the Universities of Tübingen, Reading, and Hamburg. He completed his Master’s degree at the University of Hamburg, focusing on the contemporary meanings of megalithic monuments. Later, he pursued his PhD at the University of Wales, Lampeter (now University of Wales Trinity Saint David) with a dissertation titled “Monumental Past: Interpreting the Meanings of Ancient Monuments in Later Prehistoric Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany).” His research explored how prehistoric monuments were perceived and reinterpreted in subsequent periods.

After conducting research at the University of Cambridge, Holtorf worked at Lund University and the Swedish National Heritage Board. Since 2008, he has been a faculty member at Linnaeus University, and since 2017, he has held the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures, where he explores the future roles of cultural heritage.

In this interview, we discuss how Holtorf developed the concept of “future archaeology,” how cultural heritage should be preserved in a rapidly changing world, and what direction archaeology might take in the future.

1- How did your interest in archaeology begin?

My interest in archaeology was awoken by my Latin teacher Helmut Storch when I was 10 years of age. He did not only tell us about his own interest in archaeology and the archaeological courses he attended in the school holidays but he also took us to Roman excavations in convenient travel distance from Tübingen where I grew up and went to school. This interest in archaeology grew during my school period and at age 19, by the time I left school, I had not only seen many archaeological museums and sites in central and southern Europe but also regularly attended public lectures on archaeology at the local University, run an archaeology course for younger pupils during project week, interviewed for our school magazine the newly appointed Professor of Archaeology Manfred Korfmann then starting out to dig in Troia in Turkey, and during my final summer school holidays even taken part in two archaeological excavations of pre-Roman and Roman sites. As much as I was drawn to the practice of excavation, I was by then also already very theoretically interested in the entire field of Anthropology, in the general German sense of the word encompassing even philosophical anthropology.

2- What led you to define yourself as a “future archaeologist”?

My interest in the interface between archaeology, heritage and the future was first stimulated by a book I had picked up in 2003 in a secondhand bookshop in Stockholm. Gregory Benford’s (1999) Deep time: how humanity communicates across millennia blew my mind.  There were chapters, among others, on long-term markers for nuclear waste repositories and on space messages. Benford of course did not claim this to be about archaeology and cultural heritage, but I saw the links immediately very clearly in front of me and lectured to students about it already then. 

A few years later I started to collaborate with Anders Högberg who shared my interest in the future. In 2009 and 2011, we put in a couple of applications for research funding for projects on the future agenda of, and future-thinking in the heritage sector, none of which were successful. At the same time, I was courting the Swedish Nuclear Waste and Fuel Management Company (SKB) which had its research facility near Kalmar where I had moved in 2008 and started my first permanent job at the local University College (which later became part of Linnaeus University). At SKB, they were keen to enter collaborations with scientists at our university, and there were regular opportunities to attend seminars and site visits. I attended whenever I could. After two years, in 2011, a research facilitator at my university could open a door. That spring, Anders and I went up to Stockholm to meet one of the Company’s directors. She appreciated immediately the significance of the expertise we had as archaeologists in the context of repositories of nuclear waste that needed to provide safety for 100,000 years into the future. It so happened that SKB had just entered an international project on “Preservation of Records, Knowledge & Memory across Generations” at the Nuclear Energy Agency which is part of the OECD in Paris. We have been working with them ever since, focussing specifically on memory and communication across (many) generations.

Since about that time, I have increasingly been calling myself a future archaeologist and now use it regularly.

3- What is your role as the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures? How do you aim to shape the future of cultural heritage through this position?

According to UNESCO, my UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures is not meant to be a pure Research Chair but these Chairs serve as thinktanks and bridge builders between academia, civil society, local communities, research and policy-making. 

I have found that the main effect of the Chair is that it opens doors on all sorts of levels. This means that more and other people listen to what you have to say than would otherwise be the case. This gives me the opportunity to reach new audiences and to challenge some widely shared assumptions regarding the value of cultural heritage in society by asking new questions about the future and why exactly we should “preserve the heritage for the benefit of future generations”, as the slogan goes. Although I am not sure I can shape the future of cultural heritage in this way, maybe I can help introducing a sincere concern with future impacts and uses of cultural heritage in understanding and managing cultural heritage in the present.

4- How would you define the concept of “Heritage Futures”? Does it offer a new perspective in archaeology and cultural heritage studies?

Heritage futures is about the roles of heritage in managing the relation between present and future societies. It involves, among others, a concern with anticipating the future, planning for the future and actively prefiguring in what we do how we would prefer the future to be. This is a new perspective concerning cultural heritage and archaeology insofar as in the past, the future significance of archaeological heritage has usually been taken for granted. We are asking new questions such as 

• Which future generations do we preserve the archaeological heritage for?
• How can we be sure that it will provide real benefits to future generations?
• Can some archaeological heritage help future generations solve important challenges, e.g. addressing climate change, warfare, pandemics, AI, economic inequality?
• How can we develop futures thinking (and futures literacy) among heritage professionals worldwide?

This line of thinking seems particularly pertinent after the 2024 UN Pact for the Future which emphasises the significance of culture for sustainable development.

5- Archaeology traditionally focuses on the past. How do you think it can help us understand and shape the future?

Archaeology tells stories about the past that help us make sense of how we perceive the world, other beings and ourselves. Such cultural understandings give meaning to our actions today which in turn contribute to future-making. 

In that sense, you can say that the way people perceive and act for the future is deeply rooted in how they perceive the past. Archaeology thus contributes substantially to shaping the future. That is why I sometimes say that if we want to create different futures than what we anticipate right now, we need to imagine the future in new ways and that means that we will also need to imagine the past in new ways.

6- What do you see as the future role of cultural heritage? In a constantly changing world, how can heritage be preserved and passed on?

The future role of cultural heritage depends on what role we all are creating for cultural heritage in the future. It can legitimize political ideologies and warfare. It can also inspire people to imagine peaceful realities. It can create barriers between people but also connections. Some heritage will be valued and therefore be used or preserved, other heritage will be let go or replaced. Futures thinking helps us make better choices about cultural heritage.

7- When planning for the future of cultural heritage, how should decisions be made about who benefits from it? What are the risks of making assumptions about the future?

The problem with assumptions about the future is that they are based on the present, without us fully appreciating the limitations this implies. That is why decisions affecting the future (which are a lot of decisions!) should be informed by futures literacy. Futures literacy means becoming aware of our assumptions about the future and about enhancing our ability to imagine alternative futures and act according to them.

8- How might climate change, demographic shifts, and technological advancements impact cultural heritage? What role should archaeologists play in long-term projects, such as nuclear waste repositories?

As I see it, the question is not how these factors impact cultural heritage but how cultural heritage can benefit human societies affected by these changes. Heritage can assist people making sense of their lives and who they are in the world. It can help societies adapt to changing conditions, avoid unnecessary suffering and make the most of emerging opportunities.

Since archaeology is used to long-term thinking it can also inform long-term projects in the present, e.g. by reminding everybody of the need to consider major changes over time, just like human history is characterized by continuous processes of change and profound transformation. That is also what we tell the nuclear waste sector. We should not assume that the way we understand nuclear waste and its properties is the only way of understanding it. It will most likely change profoundly over time and come to have a different significance than what it has to many people today, including nuclear engineers and nuclear physicists.

9- How will the archaeology of the future take shape? What new technologies or approaches could revolutionize the field and advance “future archaeology”?

What could advance future archaeology more than anything else is the general integration of cultural and futures studies. Archaeology can be seen as part of culture more generally. Culture, including archaeology, has much to offer to informing futures studies while at the same time futures studies should also inform the study of culture, integrating a concern with the impact on the future of how we understand and manage culture today. Future archaeology will sound rather ordinary and unspectacular when all archaeologists and others studying culture are used to a concern with the future and when all those studying the future will share a concern with culture in their perceptions, scenarios and plans for the future. Maybe that is the future archaeologists’ main hope for the future.

10- How do you hope the concept of “Heritage Futures” will influence current policies and practices in heritage preservation and management?

I hope decisions and policies about cultural heritage management, from selecting what to preserve to maintaining core values and utilizing the heritage in contemporary society should be based on explicit futures thinking informed by anticipation, foresight, and futures literacy. This is not commonly the case now but there are relevant methods and approaches available in other fields and domains that could also be used in heritage. An important inspiration can be UNESCO’s work with futures literacy.

11- What advice would you give to young archaeologists or those interested in archaeology who want to pursue a path in “future archaeology”?

Be persistent, think creatively, use opportunities – the future is on your side!