being unrolled. In the following months the association became prey to
internalWghts and divided up into two rival groups, one changing its name
to the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (Marsden 1983:
ch. 5; Wetherall 1994). Most of these societies had their own journals such as
the BritishArchaeological Journal. In 1849 the Sociedade Archeologica Lusi-
tana (Lusitanian Archaeological Society) was founded in Portugal (Fabia ̃o
1997). TheXurry of new societies indicated that the former dominance of
classical archaeology in learned societies was clearly giving way to an interest
in the national past. A clear illustration of this process is the example of the
Russian Archaeological Society, founded in 1846, whose initial emphasis on
classical archaeology was overturned as early as 1851, when Russian nation-
alists managed to take control of it and declared that the study of Russian
antiquities should be its aim (Shnirelman 1996: 222).
MID NINETEENTH-CENTURY ARCHAEOLOGY IN EUROPE:
FINAL REMARKSThe contrast between the early and the mid years of the nineteenth century in
terms of the interest towards the past is striking: the sheer numbers of people,
associations, and museums that have cropped up in these pages are staggering
in comparative terms. Yet, this is but an intermediate period, for in theWnal
years of the century numbers would again show an increase—and this trend
would continue later. An analysis of the social composition of those doing
archaeology is revealing. Firstly, the balance between professionals and non-
professionals still favoured the latter, as in fact would be the case well into the
twentieth century. Secondly, in contrast to earlier centuries and even theWrst
two decades of the nineteenth century, the individuals dealing with archae-
ology mainly originated from the middle classes: not from the aristocracy or
those with suYcient means not to have to work, but from individuals—
mostly men—in a very wide range of professions. Thus, Theodor Mommsen
commented at some point in his life (despite his role for the discipline) that
archaeology was a harmless but useless hobby ‘for regional doctors and
government oYcials, retired army oYcers, village teachers and superannuated
village priests’ (in Sklena ́r 1983: 114). Eric Hobsbawm aptly reminds us that
the romantic passion sweeping Europe since the last years of the eighteenth
century led many to the quest for the pure, uncorrupted peasantry and its
customs and folklore, and, I would add, to the remote and romantic past. He
indicates that in some parts of Europe those involved in these studies did not
belong to the same ethnic group as the peasants. This was the case of Swedes
364 National Archaeology in Europe