Santa Cruz de los Pinos is a small town like most others in the Cuban countryside. But half a century ago it was the epicenter of the 1962 Missile Crisis. During that time it served as a Soviet base for middle-range nuclear missiles, and the US air reconnaissance photos of it were spread through media all around the world. The crisis was solved through negotiations without Cuban involvement, and as a result of this neglect the Missile Crisis has been an under-communicated part of history in Cuba. A Swedish—Cuban research project has now investigated what kinds of memories of the crisis remain today at the former missile base — in the ground as well as in people’s minds. Digging in the ground has proved to be an effective way to start a remembering process and to help disarm a politically loaded history and uncover stories other than those dominating ‘big history’.
From 1933From to 1937 the German National Socialist (Nazi) Party arranged an annual harvest festival at Bückeberg, close to the city of Hamelin. The festival was one of the symbolically most important celebrations in the Third Reich; at its height, more than one million people are reported to have gathered there. A special arena, designed by Albert Speer, was built to handle the large number of participants. Although extensive remains of this arena have survived, local feeling has prevented them from receiving official recognition as a historical monument. This article presents the Bückeberg site and discusses the responsibilities of heritage professionals towards sites which may have significance as testimony to the past but which are not actively championed by the public.
We are separated from the prehistoric past by a cultural distance. In the past, people had different cultural beliefs and ideas from us, and in this respect they lived in another world. Therefore, our home ground wherever it happens to be situated —contains a cultural diversity; to meet the past is to meet the foreign. This realization can hopefully lead away from one-sided searches for the roots of one's own group of people. lnstead it can form the basis for a greater interest in and understanding of cultural pluralism in the past as well as in the present.
Archaeology is not only the disinterested study of the human past and its remains but also a way of making a positive impact on present society. Archaeology tells a variety of powerful stories about past and present and offers suggestive metaphors to contemporary society; archaeological methods and approaches can be applied to learn more about contemporary society and to trigger in people existential thoughts and emotions; archaeological expertise can be applied to help solve challenges in contemporary society. It is important for future generations of archaeologists to be aware of these dimensions and to explore and apply them critically in professional practice.
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