ABSTRACT
It can be argued that archaeology in the English-speaking world has ceased to be an elite or specialised subject, and has become one that belongs to all. The rise of ‘community’, ‘collaborative’ and ‘democratic’ archaeologies is now well documented (World Archaeology 2002; Field et al. 2002; Moser et al. 2002; McDavid 2002; Faulkner 2000; McDavid 2004) and recent discussions in the UK (e.g., Clark 2006) have focused upon the ‘public value’ of archaeology as part of ‘social inclusion’ policies and the creation of a sense of national identity based upon shared values rather than ethnicity. What is interesting to me is that we have been here before: the connection between preservation and promotion of the archaeological heritage and social welfare, rather than being a new invention, goes back to the creation in the late 19th century of what we now call ‘heritage’ (Carman 2005b). What is new is the concurrent focus upon the economic values of heritage-as material to have a ‘price’ placed upon it as advocated by accountants (e.g., ASB 2006; Carnegie and Wolnizer 1995; Hone 1997); or as a resource with ‘instrumental’ and ‘institutional’ values as well as ‘intrinsic’ values (DEMOS 2005; Clark 2006a). I want to review some of these developments here in order to link them with other concerns of mine which I hope will help us to view these matters in a new way.
