ABSTRACT
This book has sought to demonstrate that, in a variety of ways, archaeology is bound in to the modern condition. Yet as we noted in the first chapter, there are many who would now hold that the world has entered a ‘postmodern’ era, in which many of the principal features of modernity are withering away. Where does this leave archaeology if its very existence is tied to a set of historical conditions that are presently vanishing? This is an issue that has already been raised by a number of authors. Hodder (1999: 179), for instance, has pointed to the decline of the national identities that were often legitimised by archaeology, together with a loss of faith in universal origin stories and a general commodification of the past. Similarly, Olsen (2001: 42) suggests that globalisation and changing relationships with place and locality are promoting a new and different kind of identity politics, which archaeology may be less well placed to engage with in its present form. More generally, if archaeology were only to be conceivable within the scaffolding of modern thought, and necessarily relied upon an epistemology, an ontology, and a relationship to ethics that was uniquely modern, it might be that the discipline was one that had outlived its usefulness. We have maintained that archaeology appears to be wedded to notions of materiality, mind, personal identity, nature and history that have characterised the modern era. Is it possible to imagine what the subject might become if it were to relinquish these ideas? Would it still be recognisable as archaeology?
