ABSTRACT
In the late 1980s in the United States, concern for the protection of cultural resources spurred archaeologists to attend to K-12 archaeology education.1 The overriding purpose of archaeology education focused on three areas: convincing archaeologists and educators of the importance of teaching archaeology, developing resource guides, curricula and lessons for use in the classroom and presenting testimonials as to the effectiveness of these materials and programmes. Student learning was not really assessed and to date, few efforts in the United States have investigated the impact of archaeological study on children’s historical thinking.2 Although we sympathize with the desire to preserve and protect evidence of the material past, this goal alone cannot justify the inclusion of archaeology in already-crowded school curricula. Archaeology education can, however, be justified on more substantial and educationally sound grounds: its analytical emphasis on the deep past, on collective rather than individual behaviour and on understanding behaviour as including both people and objects acting on each other in particular socio-cultural and historical contexts.3 To the extent that students incorporate these understandings into their thinking, we argue that they are more likely to value common as well as individual good; collective as well as individual behaviour. Further, they are more likely to recognize the ways in which culture shapes and is shaped by human/object interaction. And, finally, broader, deeper understandings of human variety and change over time should better prepare citizens to understand and respect the perspectives of their fellow citizens, inclining them towards negotiation rather than confrontation. As Gaddis suggests:
You can hardly do without history as a discipline, because it’s the means by which a culture sees beyond the limits of its own senses. It’s the basis across time, space, and scale, for a wider view. A collective historical consciousness, therefore, may be as much a prerequisite for a healthy wellrounded society as is the proper ecological balance for a healthy forest and a healthy plant.4
