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AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN<br />
and that we need to change our attitudes towards a stronger focus on<br />
archaeology through its surface assemblages. In a response to Harrison’s<br />
article archaeologist Paul Graves-Brown write: “Indeed, one might argue that<br />
the site and the digging thereof are what we have needed, subconsciously, to<br />
legitimate our practice” (Graves-Brown 2011:169). Harrison’s article can be<br />
seen as a way of rethinking the way we conduct archaeology and turn<br />
“interest towards an emerging present” (Harrison 2011:181). This shifts the<br />
emphasis of archaeology away from being a study of the past to be a study of<br />
the past in the present. A shift in perception of time is also present in the<br />
work of archaeologist Laurent Olivier who claims that we should view<br />
archaeology more in relation to memory as fragmented and constantly<br />
created and recreated instead of as fitting into a unilinear history writing<br />
(Olivier 2004:209–211). What happens when we apply these perspectives of<br />
time on the material that we study<br />
Methodologies for studies of contemporary archaeology sites are still<br />
somewhat experimental and unproven and as Harrison and archaeologist<br />
John Schofield (2010:88) write the productivity of the research techniques<br />
to be used in studies of a more recent material will only be demonstrated by<br />
further work. My research should therefore be seen as a part of this current<br />
discourse and a way to test and further the understanding of the study of<br />
sites from a contemporary past. I wanted to understand the materiality of<br />
the Iron Curtain and how this related to the popular idea of this iconic,<br />
Cold War divider between the East and West. The choice stood between<br />
concentrating on one site and studying several in order to compare. This<br />
comparison between sites along the former militarised borders throughout<br />
Europe offered the best possibility to understand the material and so I chose<br />
to include more than one case study in my research. Research into sites<br />
closer to our own time often provides a rich source material and it therefore<br />
becomes important to make decisions of how to approach what can be a<br />
vast assemblage of material evidence. Archaeologist Bjørnar Olsen, with his<br />
cry for a return to things within archaeology (2010, 2003), suggests that<br />
although materials are studied they are not seen as interesting in themselves<br />
but are always only used in order to reach something else: “The material is a<br />
source material, an incomplete representation of the past, traces of an<br />
absent presence – not part of the past (or society) itself” (Olsen 2003:90). It<br />
is by turning to the material and looking at the smaller pieces that we can<br />
begin to understand the bigger picture. Archaeologist Jonathan Westin<br />
writes: “…a single letter of [an] inscription is not accountable for the<br />
meaning of those words or sentences it helps form, political or religious as<br />
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