Teaching the Past: Prehistory and Archaeology in European Schools and National Curricula

Since the foundation of archaeology as a discipline, archaeologists have aimed to communicate proper information about the past to the wider public. For the most part, however, this dissemination of knowledge has been informal. The teaching of archaeology and of prehistory as part of an adopted national curriculum, meanwhile, has been largely ignored; while subjects such as the 'Stone Age' often feature in school curricula, the ways in which archaeology and prehistory are taught has often been disregarded. This volume aims to fill a gap in our understanding of how archaeological knowledge is disseminated by examining the presence of archaeology and representations of the distant past in school education, particularly through the analysis of history textbooks. The contributors to this volume, drawn from different countries across Europe, here assess the teaching of archaeology and prehistory in their own countries in the light of national perspectives, and distinctive education policies. Covering topics such as the portrayal of prehistory, the use and manipulation of the past, the role of stereotype and myth, and the perceptions of archaeology as a discipline, the papers together shed a unique light on to the dissemination of the material past.