ABSTRACT
The idea of presenting an overview of current public and educational archaeology in North America is daunting. This is even true if one limits, as I do here, the discussion to projects whose focus is primarily educational, and whose explicit objective is enhancing popular interest in matters archaeological. A recent appeal for a description of current programs sent out over the Internet resulted in some 122 e-mails, and there are undoubtedly literally hundreds more educational archaeology projects in operation. Accordingly, I begin here with a discussion of the history, purpose and development of educational archaeology on the North American continent.1 The latter half of this chapter demonstrates the wide range of educational archaeology programs that are available at the moment. These are divided into general categories based on the venue and intended audience of the program, and are usually direct quotes from the many professionals in the field who so generously responded to my request for information.
