ETHNICITY AND ETHICAL ISSUES IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION: THE CASE OF CHAKELUKA IRON AGE SITE, LUSAKA, ZAMBIA

摘要

The Chakeluka Heritage site in Lusaka, Zambia, has been controversial since its excavation in the late 1960s. It has been a source of tension between ethnic groups living around the site and the National Heritage Conservation Commission, the body mandated by government to protect and manage heritage resources in Zambia. This paper discusses the history of this tension, the problems of misinformation and the legacy of a lack of public awareness about the meaning and significance of heritage to national development. At the centre of the controversy are two human burials recovered during the 1968 excavations. These burials reinforced local interpretations that Chakeluka is an ancestral burial ground and that it should be treated as such. Archaeological excavations in 1968 and recently in 2009 suggest otherwise. The material evidence is that of an Iron Age settlement that was occupied from the closing stages of the first millennium AD up to the 19 th century by communities practising an agricultural lifestyle and with a knowledge of iron working.