A Critical Review on "Invention of Tradition" from an Anthropological Archaeological Perspective: Based on the Study of Iron Slag found in the Cebu Central Settlement, Cebu City, Philippines

Since the 1980s, the tradition of culture has been discussed by numerous authors (e.g., Hobsbawm and Ranger eds., 1983 Talalay 2010, 山下1995). Most of their statements are critical toward the “tradition”. At an extreme end, it has been said that almost all “traditions” were invented matters. In this academic atmosphere, it seems to me that discussion concerning tradition went too far from the academic consideration. Therefore, many of the recent arguments concerning “cultural tradition” tend to completely deny the concept of cultural tradition itself, since every “tradition” should politically and so purposefully be created, providing somebody or institution with benefits. While cultural anthropologists discussing cultural tradition, in the field of archaeology, the concept of “tradition” has also been discussed for a long time (e.g., Cleere ed. 1989; Fagan 1978; Rathje 1980; Renfrew 1991). Archaeologists note continuity seen in material culture, and call it, namely the continuity of techniques “tradition”. This concept has long discussed as one of the key concepts to think about the continuity of crafts work, and everyday practice by archaeologists. In this well-established concept, “tradition” has been given a domain that same kind of technology or underlying concept can continue for a certain period in a certain area. The present paper pursues therefore to examine two different concepts of tradition. By doing so, the paper will argue that the tradition is really invented or not. This examination is particularly important in studies of recent popular topic: cultural heritage. Discussing cultural heritage, researchers always face problems of cultural tradition, and are somewhat confused when thinking about what we have to conserve, preserve, and restore. In the field of tourism development too, it is of significance to think about the traditional continuity, since it is one of the important tourism resources elsewhere in the world. In this trend, it has been pointed out that fake tradition was created for political or commercial purA Critical Review on “Invention of Tradition” from an Anthropological Archaeological Perspective: Based on the Study of Iron Slag found in the Cebu Central Settlement, Cebu City, Philippines