ABSTRACT
Archaeology is a very particular discipline. I argue that this is the case not because, as is often said in academia, it straddles both the humanities and the sciences, but rather because it relates to the public in a unique fashion. Whether consciously or not, people draw on the past to shape and reshape their collective identity; there are many examples worldwide of how national, ethnic, and local identities are based on a contemporary interpretation of their past by the group concerned (Gathercole and Lowenthal 1990). It can therefore be argued that archaeology, the study of the human past through material remains, is of universal interest because it informs everyone’s view of their past and hence their identity (Kane 2003; Kohl and Fawcett 1995; Meskell 1998; Mizoguchi 2004).
