Introduction

It is not only in a Eurocentric context that one finds unequal access to resources and unequal awareness of, and control over, heritage. The benefits derived from or denied by the relics of the past distinguish the few from the many, rich from poor, mainstream from minority, male from female. Archaeology, which is now called upon to understand and even to mediate such differences, plays a role as significant for shaping the present as for understanding the past. Archaeological responses to these distinctions, and to the confrontations they generate, are discussed in the chapters in this section.