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Archaeology. From usefulness to value

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2009

Cornelius Holtorf
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Extract

I have much sympathy for Shannon Dawdy's eloquent argument in favour of reorienting archaeology ‘away from reconstructions of the past and towards problems of the present’ (p. 140). The topic is timely, her argument sharp, and the discussion of the issues at hand benefits from them being put on the spot in rather dramatic fashion. I do not agree with those who might argue that such calls for more social relevance in a humanities subject are merely the symptom of an unhelpful but prevalent insecurity and demonstrate a lack of confidence in one's own academic abilities. At the same time, Dawdy's passionate and courageous argument would have benefited from additional analysis of the subject matter at hand. As it stands, I have two main reservations to her paper.

Type
Discussion
Information
Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , December 2009 , pp. 182 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

Notes

1 See also the Cultural Heritage without Borders project (http://www.chwb.org) and the PUSH project (http://www.pushproject.org).

2 See http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/timeteam.

3 The same point also applies to initiatives such as UCL's Centre for Applied Archaeology (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/caa).