ABSTRACT
The past is always around us, offering encouragement and inspiration, precedent and cause for apprehension. We archaeologists study ancient times over a very long chronological span, and are unique in our ability to look back over thousands of years of human experience. The history of archaeology is our past, for we cannot hope to advance knowledge of ancient societies without a clear comprehension of how our predecessors thought about their discoveries and of their ways of studying human behavior over two and a half million years. In previous chapters, we have described the transformation of archaeology from little more than a glorified treasure hunt into a highly sophisticated scientific discipline. We have rejected simplistic diffusionist and evolutionary interpretations of culture change, examined the potential of ecological archaeology, moved beyond processualism into the uncertain smorgasbord of contemporary archaeological theory. One question remains. Can we distill a sense of where archaeology’s future lies from this tangled web of historical strands? This chapter briefly examines some of the trends that lie ahead. This is no academic exercise, for the decisions that we make about the past in the next few generations will help determine whether archaeology has a future at all.
