Repatriation, display and interpretation.

Repatriation, display and interpretation. The British Museum British Museum,the national repository in London for treasures in science and art. Located in the Bloomsbury section of the city, it has departments of antiquities, prints and drawings, coins and medals, and ethnography. and the National Museum of Wales have lent thefinds from Kendrick's Cave, in Llandudno, north Wales North Wales (known in some archaic texts as Northgalis) is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales, bordered to the south by Mid Wales and to the east by England. , for displayand storage at Llandudno Museum; and the British Museum has sent thefamous body from Lindow Moss, near Manchester, to be shown at theManchester Museum The Manchester Museum is owned by the University of Manchester. It is one of the top university museums in the United Kingdom. Sitting at the heart of the University's neo-Gothic buildings, it provides access to about six million items from every continent of the globe. , 100km away in England. How should metropolitan ornational museums relate to provincial museums? Should there be more suchloans? The exhibition in Manchester deliberately raises another questiontoo: how--if at all--should human remains be displayed? Comparison of the two exhibitions also reveals principles forpresentation. What should visitors expect? In Britain, what does'the public' expect of archaeology and from sites and museumsin particular (Pearce 1990: 133-97; Merriman 1991; Smith 2006: 129-58,207-72)? How should archaeologists explain themselves (Shanks &Tilley 1992: 68-99; Skeates 2000: 89-124)? The Manchester Museum hasbeen following the best meant advice about outreach but is finding itdifficult to draw visitors into current issues of heritage management. One of the reasons that these questions have emerged in England nowis the programme, Renaissance in the Regions, run by the Museums,Libraries & Archives Council. Launched in 2002, it bas inspired andsponsored investment in selected provincial museums in order to counterthe dominance of London. A review in 2005 recommended three moredevelopments (Kingshurst et al. 2005:12): to engage visitors and build'audiences'; further to develop technical'capability' for the purpose; and, on that basis, to create'new opportunities for people to enjoy collections throughinnovative and participative activities: The Council has evidentlyendorsed this recommendation. Museums, Libraries & Archives Wales(CyMAL) has been promoting equivalent development in Wales. Lindow Man Lindow Man is the name given to the naturally-preserved bog body of an Iron Age man, discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss, Wilmslow, Cheshire, northwest England, on 1 August 1984 by commercial peat-cutters. : a Bog Body bog bodyAny of an informal collection of some 700 variously preserved human remains found over the past 200 years in natural peat bogs, mostly in western Europe. The bodies, including the soft tissues and the stomach contents, remain preserved because of the anaerobic fluid Mystery opened on 19 April 2008 and runsuntil 19 April 2009. Llandudno's exhibition opened on 1 April 2008and runs, in its present form, until 28 September 2008. The exhibits Both exhibitions are small. Llandudno's comprises three cases;and, at Manchester, the archaeological material is limited to Lindow Manhimself and a handful of other finds. Thomas Kendrick's finds of bones and implements were made in1879-80, as he converted a small cave overlooking Llandudno into aworkshop, replete with a shopfront taken from the main commercial street(where some of the dainty Victorian ironwork remains in situ In place. When something is "in situ," it is in its original location. , betterpreserved than Kendrick's). The town was booming as an affluentbeach resort and Kendrick had set up in the souvenir trade. One of hisclients was a colleague of W.B. Dawkins, who confirmed that the findsare ancient ('Neolithic'; Eskrigge 1880). FollowingKendrick's death, they were dispersed but then graduallyreassembled at the British Museum, including the decorated mandible mandible/man��di��ble/ (man��di-b'l) the horseshoe-shaped bone forming the lower jaw, articulating with the skull at the temporomandibular joint.mandib��ular man��di��blen. of ahorse, which was salvaged from a junk shop Noun 1. junk shop - a shop that sells cheap secondhand goodsshop, store - a mercantile establishment for the retail sale of goods or services; "he bought it at a shop on Cape Cod"junk shopn → . The mandible has been ondisplay in the British Museum since but the rest of the finds were putin storage. A radiocarbon date of about 10 000 BP has been obtained fromthe mandible (Gillespie et al. 1985: 238); and chemical analysis of thehuman bone has elucidated the diet (see Richards et al. 2006). At Llandudno, the first case holds the finds from Kendrick'sCave: four human bones, including part of a skull; animal teeth withroots incised, apparently as decoration; deer bones dyed with red ochre Red ochre and yellow ochre (pronounced /'əʊk.ə/, from the Greek ochros, yellow) are pigments made from naturally tinted clay. It has been used worldwide since prehistoric times. and scored with incisions like tallies; and the horse mandible carvedwith chevrons. The other cases put Kendrick's discoveries incontext. In the second are prehistoric finds from other local sites,including the loans from the National Museum of Wales: from the littleUpper Cave, a few metres above Kendrick's own, excavated by thelate Tom Stone in the 1970s, teeth, implements of flint, antler andbone, and potsherds; other finds of Stone's from Pant y Wennol, inthe same district, scored animal bone, microliths and Neolithic stonetools and potsherds, and part of a Neolithic skull; stone axeheads; ahammer, rough-out and flakes from the Graig Llwyd axe factory; and thefragment of an ancient tree found off-shore. The third case is part ofthe museum's permanent display, refurbished for the occasion andshowing, among other finds, the Sychnant bronze hoard, and, stained withthe verdigris verdigris(vûr`dəgrēs'), one of three copper acetates: blue verdigris, Cu(CH3COO)2·CuO·6H2O; green verdigris, 2Cu(CH3COO)2·CuO·6H2 of the Bronze Age Bronze Age,period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscriminately at first; this early period is sometimes called the mine on the Great Orme The Great Orme (Welsh: Y Gogarth or Pen y Gogarth) is a prominent limestone headland on the north coast of Wales situated in Llandudno. An earlier Welsh name is Creuddyn, and it is also referred to as Cyngreawdr Fynydd , above Llandudno,stone hammers and fragmentary animal rib tools. Some of Kendrick's finds were kept for a while by members ofthe Llandudno, Colwyn Bay Colwyn Bay(kôl`wĭn), Welsh Bae Colwyn, town (1991 pop. 27,002), Conwy, N Wales. It is a popular seaside resort. Colwyn Bay has an amusement park, several theaters, a zoo, a botanic garden, and the Pwllychrochan Woods. & District Field Club, which flourishedfor about 50 years from 1906. It ensured the preservation of the passagegrave passage graven.A Neolithic tomb consisting of a passageway and burial chamber made of large upright stones capped with other large stones, originally buried in an earthen mound. on the Great Orme and the stele stele(stē`lē), slab of stone or terra-cotta, usually oblong, set up in a vertical position, for votive or memorial purposes. Upon the slabs were carved inscriptions accompanied by ornamental designs or reliefs of particular significance. at Tyddyn Holland. The return ofKendrick's finds has prompted Llandudno Museum to make a permanentdisplay of the Club's collection. Evidently, some of them did passthrough the hands of the Club's members but the display shows that,true to the time, their interests were eclectic: a gold stater picked upat the Pen Dinas Pen Dinas is the name of a hill just south of Aberystwyth on the coast of Ceredigion, Wales and the name of the extensive Iron Age hill fort situated on it. The southern summit is also where in the Bronze Age a burial mound was erected. hillfort in 1924 is almost lost among fossils, insectsand ethnographic curios of tropical tours. The Lindow Man--more personally, 'Lindow Man', in andaround Manchester (not 'Pete Marsh', formerly the favouritearchaeological monicker mon��i��keror mon��ick��er ?n. SlangA personal name or nickname.[Probably from Shelta munik, name, possibly alteration of Irish Gaelic ainm, from Old Irish; see )--is a body found preserved in a peat bog nearthe city in 1984. In its matrix, it was lifted and eventually taken tothe British Museum for excavation and preservation. It was interpretedas Iron Age in date (Stead et al. 1986). It is kept at the BritishMuseum now, normally on permanent display. The present loan of Lindow Man to Manchester is the third. Thefirst, in 1987, prompted a popular campaign, 'we want youback', but he was returned to London on the grounds that the bodyis of national interest and that Manchester could not ensurepreservation. The second was in 1991, when the results of research onthe body were presented. Other than the body, the present exhibitiondisplays only 15 Iron Age finds, from the Manchester Museum's owncollection and lent by the British Museum. Selected as generic culturalcontext, they include the mirror from Aston, Hertfordshire Aston is a village and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 844. Located in Hertfordshire on a ridge between the new-town of Stevenage and the Beane Valley, the village of Aston is just 10 , and theshield boss A shield boss is a round, or conical piece of material at the center of a shield. Shield bosses (or sometimes, just "bosses") are usually made of thick metal but could also be made of wood. from the River Thames at Wandsworth. Yet, likeLlandudno's cabinet for the Field Club, there are lots of exhibitsapart from the archaeology. Before reviewing this method of presentationand the consternation that it is causing, let us consider the two otherissues that arise in both Manchester and Llandudno. With whom do finds belong? Repatriation RepatriationThe process of converting a foreign currency into the currency of one's own country.Notes:If you are American, converting British Pounds back to U.S. dollars is an example of repatriation. has long been contentious between nations, andarguments have sprung up, more recently, within countries as well. Theusual conditions for returning finds are now four: acknowledgement oflegal or moral claims; organisational or administrative cooperation;adequate standards of preservation at the intended destination and/or,in transit; and cost. The story of the Elgin Marbles Elgin Marbles(ĕl`gĭn), ancient sculptures taken from Athens to England in 1806 by Thomas Bruce, 7th earl of Elgin; other fragments exist in several European museums. suggests that anyof the first three are susceptible to political influence; but there hasbeen growing agreement about the return of archaeological andethnographic bodies and artefacts to ethnic minorities. Archaeological context In archaeology, not only the context (physical location) of a discovery is a significant fact, but the formation of the context is as well. An archaeological context is an event in time which has been preserved in the archaeological record. is all, we say. So, allowing for the need topreserve once they are removed (Greenfield 2007:315, 336), perhaps findsmake best sense in a site museum or, failing that, better sense in alocal museum than away in the capital. Surely they make best sense tooamidst their respective assemblages. How, indeed, can finds legitimatelybe abstracted from their local context? Or, considering the rarity ofsuch Palaeolithic material in Britain, is it fair to argue that theycould better be kept in Cardiff, capital of Wales The Capital of Wales is a de facto designation usually applied to Cardiff since 1955. In that year, the Minister for Welsh Affairs Gwilym Lloyd-George commented in a Parliamentary written answer that "no formal measures are necessary to give effect to this decision". , or, indeed, in theBritish capital; or why not Brussels or Rome, as capitals of Europe?Against these arguments, it could be said that many kinds ofarchaeological find are so rare that they have to be shown incomparative context. There has been much debate about the claims of descendants,especially in the USA, and, by now, there is some considerableexperience in responding to them (Smith 2004; for Britain, see MGC MGC Mammalian Gene CollectionMGC Media Gateway ControllerMGC Middle Georgia CollegeMGC Museums and Galleries Commission (UK government)MGC Mississippi Gaming CommissionMGC Manual Gain Control 2000). The Manchester Museum, for one, has returned Aboriginal skulls toAustralia (Greenfield 2007: 304). The principles for artefacts arecommonly regarded as distinct from the issue over human remains. Forfinds other than human remains, archaeologists can argue that they haveprior claim to keep them on the grounds of technical expertise, but thatdoes not convince everyone (Shanks & Tilley 1992). Communities thatdo demonstrate effective descent have succeeded in reclaiming historicalor ethnographic artefacts in recent years (Greenfield 2007: 305-20,327-8). There has been less attention to regional or localconstituencies less recognised by metropolitan or provincial authoritiesand interests. Few archaeologists accept that earnest 'pagan'practices at 'sacred sites' generate 'affiliation with... prehistoric communities' (Wallis 2003: 189) but is itreasonable to claim affinity or identity with finds by virtue of livingwhere they were discovered, as urged recently for the Pazyryk 'IcePrincess' or finds in Yorkshire and Mexico (Page 2004; Cyphers& Morales-Cano 2006; Smith 2006: 254-64)? The principle of heritage offers another argument for placingfinds. This one depends as much on defining the inheritors as on theattributes and associations of the finds in themselves. Whether, then,on the grounds of science, of rarity, of symbolism or of beauty, thesignificance of Kendrick's finds may be national as well as local;and, on that basis, they could aptly be shown in the most populous placein the country (however define& Cardiff or London). A similarargument was sometimes urged for keeping the Elgin Marbles in Londonrather than returning them to Greece: London was accessible to morepeople; but, from about 1970, this one was weakened by the ease of airtravel. Indeed, domestic travel has become so much quicker that theBritish Museum has put a label by Lindow Man's empty case tosuggest that visitors can see how Manchester is displaying him. As for preservation, standards have improved at many Britishmuseums within the past 20 years. The Manchester Museum completed majorrefurbishment in 2003; and the Llandudno Museum's facilities havebeen improved too. The British Museum now has little technical reasonfor hesitating to send Lindow Man or Kendrick's finds to therespective local museums, or, indeed, to lend them to many others. Without citing any one of these arguments in particular, twoBritish schemes have produced ways to resolve or defuse some of theissue about where to display finds. In 2001, the Welsh governmentlaunched Sharing Treasures to provide for exchanges of museum exhibits,alongside a scheme for circulating works in art galleries. As MortimerWheeler Brigadier Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH, CIE, MC, FBA, FSA (September 10, 1890 Glasgow – July 22, 1976 London), was one of the best-known British archaeologists of the twentieth century. observed, at the National Museum of Wales, communication betweenWales' districts is difficult. Under Sharing Treasures, theNational Museum has contributed to the exhibition at Llandudno. In 2003,the British Museum started Partnership UK for sending exhibits of itsown on tour, and this scheme has provided the principal items both atLlandudno and for Lindow Man. To Llandudno, as well as the exhibits, theBritish Museum has lent its whole collection of Kendrick's finds.The horse mandible will return to London but the rest will stay inLlandudno for 5-10 years and perhaps for good. Lindow Man features an interview with J.D. Hill, formerly theBritish Museum's curator of archaeology. Asked whether recentrestitutions to communities abroad provide a precedent for restoringremains to places within the UK, he is evasive: Lindow Man is so unusualthat the body must be treated as "an Everyman', not theproperty of any one group (transcript, p. 27). Yet it is easy to imaginethat, had it been found 50km away in north Wales, nationalists couldhave succeeded in keeping it at the National Museum of Wales rather thanin London. Display of human remains Against the argument for scientific neutrality, it is sometimesurged that certain objects should be treated with special respect oreven withheld from view altogether. Examples include ceremonialartefacts belonging to indigenous peoples in the USA and Australia; butthe strongest arguments have now been made for the remains of indigenouspeople in the USA, where museums no longer expect to show them at all(Greenfield 2007: 340). The World Archaeological Congress The World Archaeological Congress (WAC) is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization which promotes world archaeology.Established in 1986, WAC holds an international Congress every four years to promote the exchange of results from archaeological research; professional urged the needfor respect in its Vermillion Accord (1989) and then adopted the TamakiMakau-rau Accord on the Display of Human Remains & Sacred Objects Sacred ObjectsArk of the Covenantgilded wooden chest in which God’s presence dwelt when communicating with the people. [O.T. (2006). For Britain, Lindow Man has prompted strenuous comments about howto show human remains and--belatedly, perhaps--whether to show them atall. The implications stretch well beyond archaeology and some of theissues are being explored widely in England at present. During the firstperiod of Lindow Man, the Manchester Museum of Science & Industryput on Gunther von Hagens' travelling show, Body Worlds, and adebate about the two exhibitions was held in Manchester in May. InLondon, at the same time, the Wellcome Collection exhibited photographsof people dying and recently deceased, while Jack the Ripper Jack the Ripper,name given to an unidentified late-19th-century murderer in London, England. From Aug. to Nov., 1888, he was responsible for the death and mutilation of at least seven female prostitutes in the East End section of London. (Museum inDocklands The Museum in Docklands, which is an offshoot of the Museum of London, tells the story of London's Docklands. It opened in 2003 and is located in a group of grade I listed early 19th century sugar warehouses on the side of West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs, a couple of minutes ) is showing frank images of the Victorian murderer'svictims. The International Council on Museums addressed the display ofhuman remains in a code of ethics in 1987. The British government, forits part, issued recommendations in 2005 (DCMS (Digital Content Management System) See DAMS. 2005). In early 2008, theMuseum of London The Museum of London documents the history of London from the Palaeolithic to the present day. The museum is located in a 1970s building close to the Barbican Centre, approximately 10 minutes' walk north of St Paul's Cathedral and admission is free. put a 'human remains questionnaire' toteachers using its 'London before London' gallery; and theBritish Association for Biological Anthropology Biological anthropology, or physical anthropology is a branch of anthropology that studies the mechanisms of biological evolution, genetic inheritance, human adaptability and variation, primatology, primate morphology, and the fossil record of human evolution. & Osteoarchaeologywas developing a code of ethics at the time of writing. There is no compunction at Llandudno, where the human bones fromKendrick's Cave are displayed in bright light with the rest of theassemblage. At Manchester, on the other hand, Lindow Man is presented ina case of the kind that he occupies at the British Museum but lit verydimly, certainly more dimly than necessary for preservation (B.Sitchpers. comm. 2008). The effect is to make us pause briefly as weadjust sight; a moment which, perhaps, allows us to ask ourselves why wepeer so closely. Part of the fascination may be that Lindow Man looksmore like a person than a mere skeleton, let alone disarticulated bones.The negotiation for Lindow Man's present stay in Manchester tookthree years. In planning the exhibition itself, the Museum consultedcarefully. At the same time and also on the basis of consultation, itdrew up a policy of its own on human remains, including provision for'appropriate, sensitive and informative' display (ManchesterMuseum n.d.: 10); and, now that Lindow Man is open, the principle hasbeen applied to the ancient Egyptian mummies on permanent display in itsmain gallery. Each bas been covered over with white sheets (but notKhnum Nakht's skeleton). Blatantly at odds with everything aroundthem, they confront us. "To see these bodies is an exceptional privilege' statesa notice in the permanent gallery: 'Tell us what you think'.Paper is provided for writing comments both there and in Lindow Man.Plenty of children are responding (e.g. 'wow that man is soo cool,how old is he?') but more interesting, for the evidence of acquiredassumptions, are the remarks of older visitors: 'it is very crucialthat museums display the dead. It is both of interest to people as wellas helping to break down the barriers ... separating the dead from theliving'; or 'please, please uncover the mummy!!! This is amuseum!!! for goodness sake!!' In the interview about Lindow Man, J.D. Hill asserts that, in itsgrowing sensitivity, the museum profession is 'in front of popularopinion' (transcript, p. 9). Museums also made this kind of claim ageneration ago, in updating methods of presentation. Brothwell (2008:227) reports that a new display of the Grauballe body at Moesgard makesthe British Museum's presentation of the Lindow body look"limp'; but it is difficult to imagine that the Museum couldchange its presentation much, since the gallery there was extensivelyremodelled only in 2006-7. Context and interpretation Would it be best, then, to let the body stay in Manchester? Werethat done, the Manchester Museum too would have to think more about howto present it. Apart from the ethics, Lindow Man has to be presented cautiouslybecause he really is 'a ... Mystery'. The body seems to havebeen placed precisely to consign consignv. 1) to deliver goods to a merchant to sell on behalf of the party delivering the items, as distinguished from transferring to a retailer at a wholesale price for re-sale. Example: leaving one's auto at a dealer to sell and split the profit. it to the wilderness; it lackscontextual evidence. Doubt remains as to whether he was executed (Steadet al. 1986: 178). Even the date is in doubt. That the first radiocarbondeterminations were consistent with the Iron Age seems to have let usimagine that Lindow Man was sacrificed to the water--perhaps by druids(Stead et al. 1986:180); bur further samples indicated the first centuryAD (Gowlett et al. 1989). So should the museum have selected Romanmaterial to accompany the body? Consider the interpretive implications! Partly in view of these technical doubts, evidently partly to showhow, in general, archaeological interpretation depends on makingassumptions, and partly too to acknowledge the pathos that gathered soquickly around the corpse in the mid 1980s, the Museum has tried toexpose the archaeological reasoning, the bases of epistemologicalauthority and even the roots of today's local lore by presentingthe views of people who were involved, directly or indirectly, in thediscovery of the body, the research on it, and the subsequent effort tomake sense of it. The Llandudno Museum has taken the trouble to explainprinciples of archaeological inference in a file that visitors can readin the gallery. It is offered there as optional background. AtManchester, however, the issue is made unavoidable. For Bryan Sitch, thecurator, Lindow Man is about knowledge (pers. comm. 2008). CompareLlandudno's display on the Field Club: do we distinguisharchaeology from other researches, how is knowledge produced, and onwhat assumptions does learning depend? Manchester's answer is'post-modern': arising from diverse social and culturalcontexts, there are various ways to know anything, and each may beequally valid. The first things First Things is a monthly ecumenical journal concerned with the creation of a "religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society" (First Things website). we see at Lindow Man are the portraits of sevenpeople whose interviews about the body are presented on audio-tapes andin transcripts. On moving into the gallery, we meet, first, thearchaeologist, Don Brothwell, who led part of the research, and thenAndrew Mould, the peat cutter who first found the body, with hisbrother. Next we find Melanie Giles, archaeology lecturer at ManchesterUniversity; and then Susan Chadwick, a local girl in 1984, who remembersthe excitement greeting Lindow Man on his first return. Next comes EmmaRestall Orr, founder of the Druid DruidMember of a learned class of priests, teachers, and judges among the ancient Celtic peoples. The Druids instructed young men, oversaw sacrifices, judged quarrels, and decreed penalties; they were exempt from warfare and paid no tribute. Network; and then Sitch and Hill. Eachis illustrated by exhibits, laboratory equipment for Prof. Brothwell,for instance, tools and a toy mechanical digger for the Moulds, a teddybear and pin-ups of pop stars for Ms Chadwick, for Emma Restall Orr acrow and a wand; and there are books, Anne Ross and Miranda Green, Steadet al. (1986), Living Druidry, Gerard's Herbal, Girard'sViolence and the Sacred, Ted Hughes. There are lots of books andarticles to browse too as well as the transcripts. The exhibition is arranged in four cells. Lindow Man is in themiddle one. The body is lit so dimly, indeed, that it is difficult todistinguish against the peat that stained his skin. Like the MoesgardMuseum's new display (Brothwell 2008: 227), the archaeologicalfinds are separate from the body, in the last cell. The cells are mockedup like a stage set: hard to describe concisely, they evoke perhaps theracks in a museum's basement store or the sort of temporaryquarters that archaeologists often have to work in. The design doessuggest work in progress, a provisional state of mind. Suffering 'cognitive dissonance', many visitors aredismayed: the exhibition is 'not celebrating', reads oneremark on the comments pages; 'appalling; indeed, 'To havesuch an important part of our history hidden away amongst selving andirrelevant items and artefacts' [sic]. Comparison with Llandudnoshows that the issue is as to which framework of knowledge is'relevant'. Although done quietly, the method of'distancing' visitors from the assumptions with which manyevidently do enter is like that of the dramatist, Berthold Brecht; andthe exhibition's artful contradictions accord well with therecommendations of Shanks & Tilley (1992: 98-9) on how to show findsso as to allow or encourage the creative response envisaged by Merriman(1991--who is now the Manchester Museum's director) and Skeates(2000) and witnessed by Smith (2006). The National Museum of Wales too is now trying to open archaeologyout: 'what do you think?' (Edge 2008: 53); but intellectualwork can be difficult or even disturbing; and, not unreasonably,'the public' tends to expect archaeologists to pronounce asexperts (Skeates 2000: 123). It can be dispiriting too, Sitch points out(pers. comm. 2008), to receive as much criticism as the ManchesterMuseum is getting. Pearce (1990: 169) warns that, in order to makesense, an exhibition's norms have to be compatible with whatvisitors expect. Perhaps a dozen words could be added to the portraitsat the start of Lindaw Man to explain that this exceptional, tantalising Adj. 1. tantalising - arousing desire or expectation for something unattainable or mockingly out of reach; "a tantalizing taste of success"tantalizinginviting - attractive and tempting; "an inviting offer"2. body is difficult for anyone to interpret, and that the exhibition is aninvitation to help with understanding archaeology. Next questions Are archaeological corpses just finds? One pantheistic pan��the��ism?n.1. A doctrine identifying the Deity with the universe and its phenomena.2. Belief in and worship of all gods.pan , lesshumanistic strand of 'pagan' thought posits that people belongto their environments. The implication would be that Lindow Man doesbelong in or near Manchester; and that it is apt that the body should bedifficult to distinguish from the peat. Another implication could bethat we should think more, as archaeologists do with artefacts, aboutthose who put him there (Stead et al. 1986: 176-80). Improvements in standards of preservation at provincial museumshave weakened the case for keeping the most delicate or valuable findsat national institutions. Will there be a shift by next year, when thepresent loan ends, from 1987's judgement about where to keep LindowMan; and, as for Kendrick's finds, could we hope that keeping themback in Llandudno will encourage study? As J.D. Hill points out in theinterview (transcript, p. 28), it is difficult to move a fragile item;it can be very expensive too; but transport infrastructure has improvedsince 1984. Yet if, as Bryan Sitch remarks (transcript, p. 29), valuesor priorities vary from region to region (and funds permitting), couldthe issue of repatriation be avoided in future by keeping some of themost interesting finds on tour? In 1998, Lindow Man was shown inCardiff. Other than students, should a museum challenge its visitors? Publiclife in Britain badly needs the imaginative quality of critique offeredby Lindaw Man. Llandudno Museum is independent but its interpretivecreativity could be constrained by its heavy reliance on the localauthority. The Manchester Museum is part of Manchester (Victoria)University. Critical thought is what universities are for. Yet theManchester Museum too has to be careful: its founding collection wasadopted from the Manchester Natural History Society and no other museumserves the city's local interests; neither the Museum nor theUniversity in general are insensitive to public image--far from it; andthe Museum has accepted 'Designation' by the Museums,Libraries & Archives Council, which promotes public participation. On whose terms, though, should people in the regions be'engaged' (as Kingshurst et al. [2005] put it)? If they wantto keep finds, presumably pre��sum��a��ble?adj.That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. they must acknowledge, on one hand,professional guidance about preservation and face up, on the other, tointerpretive issues. Yet, despite growing public scepticism aboutprofessionalism in general, the common presumption of authority grantedto archaeologists does persist widely in the UK if not elsewhere (seeSmith 2006). Despite decades of sociological research we still knowlittle about how learning can grow from leisure. It is vital, for anymuseum, that challenges such as Lindow Man's should be understood.Once the smoke clears, next year, Manchester will have valuableexperience to share. Acknowledgements I benefited from discussion or correspondence with Richard Hughes(Llandudno Museum), with Bryan Sitch, Gurdeep Thiara and Malcolm Chapman(Manchester Museum), with Daniel Clarke, Carole Pegg and John Robb(Cambridge University), Fiona Henderson (Tavistock Institute) and HannahBoulton (British Museum), and from the help of Timothy Manley and AnnaBunney and colleagues (Manchester Museum). For comments on an earlierdraft of these remarks, I am grateful to John Goldsmith (CromwellMuseum) and Marie-Louise Sorensen (Cambridge University). The blame forany errors of factor judgement is mine. References BROTHWELL, D. 2008. Review. Antiquity 82: 227-8. CYPHERS, A. & L. MORALES-CANO. 2006. Community museums in theSan Lorenzo Tenochtitlan region, Mexico, in H. Silverman(ed.)Archaeological Site Museums in Latin America: 30-46. Gainesville(FL): University Press of Florida. DCMS. 2005. Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums.London: Department for Culture, Media & Sport. 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