Abstract
In the early 1990s the Council of Europe launched the European Plan for Archaeology. A central objective in the European Plan for Archaeology was to increase the public awareness of the existence of a common European heritage. As a means to achieve this goal, the Bronze Age was chosen as the first golden age of Europe and a Bronze Age campaign was set up in 1994. The Bronze Age campaign was essentially part of the on-going European identity discourse. This dissertation analyses the social and scientific contexts of campaign and more generally the ideational dimension of the European identity project. By contextualising the historical roots and reasons for why the Bronze Age was chosen, it sheds lights on the role of the past within 20th century collective identity discourses. Furthermore, the analysis examines the changing relationship between archaeology, heritage and politics in throughout the 20th and early 21st century Europe.
Key words: archaeology, Bronze Age, Council of Europe, European Community, European Union, heritage, identity construction.