ABSTRACT
It is very easy for an archaeological discussion of disability to consist of the bare bones of a history of the orthopaedic ward. However, disabled people are not all dead. I wish to raise some of the issues involved in disability politics, of which most archaeologists will be completely unaware. I outline the medical and social models of disability, and the adoption of the social model by the disabled people’s movement in America, and then in Britain. The social model is currently undergoing refinement, as is discussion of the distinction between impairment and disability. Some of the meanings of ‘access’, a key concept in disability issues, are discussed, and some of the ways in which archaeology might become accessible to disabled people are explored. I mention a broad range of issues to put the discussion into a wider contemporary and political context. The social model of disability may have a contribution to make to the archaeological understanding of disability and vice versa, if archaeological considerations can be grounded in a theoretical context in which the past is relevant to the present and future of disabled people.
