ABSTRACT
Twenty-first century archaeology features many new techniques for nondestructive detection and laboratory analysis. The previous century was one of transition from the destructive practices of the nineteenth century to today’s emphases on preservation and consultation. The objectives of descendant communities and scientific ones are aligned more often than not today. The short-lived Norse settlement in Newfoundland a millennium ago presaged the more disruptive incursion of Eastern Hemisphere colonists in the centuries following Columbus. Archaeology today is as interested in the consequences of the colonial period as it is on the immense journey of the first Americans that preceded it. The Columbian exchange saw transformative flows of domesticates, technologies, goods, pathogens, and peoples between the two hemispheres. The attendant demographic decline of American Indian communities resulting from the Columbian exchange reached its low level about a century ago. Since then native populations have grown, striving to retain their fundamental cultural identities in a rapidly changing world.
