ABSTRACT
Archaeology has long been recognized as something much more than an academic subject concerned with piecing together the past. Certainly, the product of archaeological work is what might loosely be termed ‘knowledge’, but as I have argued elsewhere (Darvill 2007) this cover-term embraces a many different faces of knowledge which reflect the inherent complexity of the subject, the emergent novelty of new applications, and the increasing need to move away simple binary dichotomies relating to discipline boundaries such as those with history or anthropology. For some, the emergence of an independent and more rounded and distinct ‘archaeology of our world’ which conflates established binary categorical structures of thinking-for example: past and present; us and them; and people and place-poses a crisis of representation and for some at least a retreat into a ‘two-cultures’ mentality. This is played out very clearly, and ritualistically, in the identification of ‘research-focused’ and ‘development-prompted’ investigations, and in the institutionalized distinctions between ‘academic’ and ‘commercial’ sectors. Recognizing a plurality to endeavours associated with producing archaeological knowledge, and accepting an inherent diversity within the forms of knowledge produced, provide early steps along the route towards a more culturally constructed discipline with a worthwhile role in today’s world.
