In his review of recent trends in archaeology, Kristiansen argues that the changes in broad trends in cultural heritage management parallel profound changes in archaeological theory under the banner of postprocessualism. He also argues that one can conceptualize these changes through a pendulum model that swings between rationalism and romanticism, the former favouring generalized interpretations, the latter favouring local and national histories. For Kristiansen the problem lies in the emphasis on local and national frameworks for interpretation promoted by postmodernism and postprocessualism that prevents archaeologists from asking broader questions. Moreover, he claims, ‘the humanities, including archaeology, are today losing academic and political impact precisely because of this narrowing of their role’ (p. 24).

I could not agree more with Kristiansen's concern with the localization and regionalization of archaeology and his call for a frame of reference that conceptualizes the prehistory and early history of Europe as ‘interconnected worlds from local to regional and global’ (p. 24). But I would like to raise a series of questions about some of the premises upon which Kristiansen's paper relies. At the outset, I need to point out that I am writing these comments as a social anthropologist and an academic working on issues of heritage in Turkey. I will draw on examples from social anthropology and from my experience of having worked as a social anthropologist at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey.

I do sympathize with Kristiansen's call for an ‘archaeology of Europe’ and his concern for the structure of archaeological knowledge, but I disagree with his contention that one could hold postmodernism and postprocessualism responsible for these. On the contrary, I will argue that series of processes that are labelled postmodernism and postprocessualism in archaeology have actually enabled and still have the potential to enable the transformation of archaeology into an even more relevant and engaged discipline. I do not think that archaeological heritage and postprocessualism call for local and national frameworks in the sense that Kristiansen uses the terms. Since the trends he describes also parallel the changes in anthropological theory and methodology, some examples from anthropology might be helpful for rethinking the framework that Kristiansen proposes for the archaeology of Europe.

There have been attempts in anthropology to use the emphasis of the postmodern critique on fragmentation, difference, multivocality and the dispersal of meaning in constructive ways – in ways to capture the complex and contradictory nature of social life rather than calling for the end of anthropology or falling into a totally relativistic/localistic perspective. In recent years a body of research has been emerging in anthropology that takes the postmodern challenge seriously and attempts to develop alternative methodologies and representational strategies (see Gupta and Ferguson 1997; Marcus 1995; Tsing 1993). But the strength of this body of research comes from its avoidance of the dichotomies that Kristiansen uses to describe the recent trends in the social sciences and humanities, such as local versus global, natural science versus humanities, quantification versus qualification, big questions versus small questions. In her powerful ethnography of everyday violence and mothering practices in north-east Brazil, for example, Nancy Scheper-Hughes positions herself as an active and committed medical anthropologist and distances herself from anthropologists who rely exclusively on discourse analysis, or quantitative models, or ‘macrolevel analysis of world economic systems in which the experiential and subjective experience of human lives is left aside’, or those who ‘engage in an obsessive, self-reflexive hermeneutics in which the self, not the other, becomes the subject of anthropological inquiry’ (Scheper-Hughes 1992, 28). The power of her methodology derives from the ways in which she combines these perspectives. In order to understand how mothering is experienced in a context of the highest infant mortality in Latin America, she relies on quantitative methods and statistics in order to see the mortality rates over the years. But she combines quantitative methods with the subjective experiences of mothers whose babies have died over the years. What Kristiansen would consider to be a ‘local’ and ‘small question’ such as the experiences of these women in north-east Brazil has significant contributions to make to our understanding the ‘big questions’, such as the history of colonialism and the history of sugar plantations. In other words, ‘local’ and ‘global’, ‘small’ and ‘big’ questions are mutually constitutive rather than mutually exclusive representations of two opposing tendencies, two different ends of a pendulum, as Kristiansen claims. Instead of associating postprocessualism and archaeological heritage with local and national perspectives, I argue that local, national and international perspectives can be read as intertwined and multilayered processes. The series of tensions between these perspectives are not mutually exclusive, as suggested in the pendulum metaphor, but are played out in various forms within specific historical contexts. In fact the pendulum metaphor, rather than revealing the intertwined nature of these perspectives, conceals the complexity of the situation. Moreover, many ethnographic studies on the politics of heritage demonstrate that we need a wider and more nuanced definition of what is considered to be ‘local’ (see e.g. Herzfeld 1991). Let me give an example from the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey. My aim, however, is not to propose a stereotypical social anthropological argument that suggests ‘but it does not work that way in my village’, but rather to use the Çatalhöyük case as an example that might have wider implications for the arguments proposed in Kristiansen's paper.

The ongoing struggle over the establishment of a Çatalhöyük museum demonstrates some of the points I would like to make. Since the excavations restarted at Çatalhöyük in 1993, undertaken by an international group of archaeologists headed by Prof. Ian Hodder from Stanford University, there have been plans to establish a museum at or around this Neolithic site. But since then there has also been rising competition between different local actors in terms of where and why such a museum should be established. Çatalhöyük is located in central Turkey, in the Konya region, within the municipal boundaries of the local town of Çumra, and located near the village of Küçükköy. The mayor of Çumra has been adamantly working on establishing a local museum in his town, where artefacts from Çatalhöyük excavations would be displayed. But the central government in Ankara, which has centralized control over the public museums in Turkey through the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, has been reluctant to issue such a permit for Çumra municipality. This has been one of the ongoing tensions between the local town and central government in Ankara. The town of Çumra and its municipality, however, are not the only local actors appropriating and claiming Çatalhöyük. Over the years, a growing number of villagers from Küçükköy, some of whom are hired at the site, have started to develop an affiliation with Çatalhöyük. With their smaller financial and political resources, villagers have been trying to appropriate Çatalhöyük by using different mechanisms, strategies and alliances (see Bartu-Candan 2007 for a detailed discussion of these issues). Establishment of a Çatalhöyük museum has been one of the central issues in the struggle or competition over Çatalhöyük.

None of the local groups claim any form of descent from the Neolithic people of Çatalhöyük, but the tensions and competition between the villagers, Çumra municipality and central government revolve mostly around the potential benefits and opportunities provided by the touristic development of the region. For the Turkish state it is part of the national heritage that should be protected and controlled but can also be marketed as a sign of ‘respect for heritage and material culture of all groups and periods’ in its negotiations with the European Union. For the local town and village it is a means for social and economic development, a medium through which the nature of the ‘local’ is (re)formulated and the existing power structures and hierarchies are (re)worked. For the archaeologists it is one of the most significant sites that can provide scientific clues as to the origins of human settlement in the Mediterrenean and Near East. But archaeologists are not and cannot be immune to the social, cultural and political wider context in which this Neolithic site is embedded. Series of alliances and identifications are formed among these groups, which cross-cut, complement, and trouble one another. Archaeologists interact with local and central government officials in various ways, such as getting research permits, participating in local symposiums and festivals, getting help in the day-to-day running of the excavation. They also work with the nearby villagers in the interpretation of the findings at the site but also in dealing with improvements in the infrastructure of the area. Local bureaucrats use every opportunity to claim and ‘own’ Çatalhöyük and compete with the local villagers over the ‘ownership’ of the site.

This example demonstrates the ways in which local, national and international perspectives are intertwined in understanding and situating the politics of heritage in specific historical contexts. Similar approaches are also useful in analysing prehistoric processes (see Hodder 2005). In understanding both prehistory and contemporary politics of heritage, focusing on the local does not necessarily imply narrowing of the role of archaeology; on the contrary, I believe that archaeology and anthropology can only remain relevant and maintain their academic prestige as long as they critically and simultaneously engage with local, national and international issues. Focus on the local does not necessarily imply a certain kind of parochialism as long as the local is contextualized within the global, and I believe this is the kind of engagement postprocessualism calls for.

I do agree with Kristiansen that it is imperative for archaeologists, anthropologists and heritage specialists to gain knowledge of different languages, engage with wider debates relevant to their research areas, and question the modern boundaries of nation states as natural entities. But I believe that, in order to achieve the ideal of developing a frame of reference that conceptualizes the prehistory, early history and, I would add, contemporary history of Europe as interconnected worlds, we need to question and go beyond the dichotomies on which Kristiansen's model relies: global versus local; natural science versus the humanities; quantification versus qualification; big questions versus small questions. Rather than a pendulum, a model that conceptualizes local, national and international perspectives in intertwined, overlapping and intersecting fashion might be more useful in rethinking the ‘archaeology of Europe’.