Archaeology at the Crossroads: What's New?

Abstract

Is archaeology in serious trouble, or does it stand on the threshold of brilliant new accomplishments? Many prehistoric archaeologists view with considerable trepidation the varied and seemingly disparate directions in which their discipline appears to be developing. There is also growing uncertainty about the theoretical propositions relating to human behavior that have guided the interpretation of archaeological data for the past 25 years. Yet at the same time acrimonious debates are yielding to profitable dialogues, while archaeology as a whole is coming to appear less sectarian within the broader context of anthropology (59-62, 120, 137). All of the major changes that are taking place with respect to the interpretation of archaeological data influence to some degree the relationship between archaeology and sociocultural anthropology. To understand where current developments may lead it is therefore worth considering how these trends have already altered the relationship that Binford and Clarke defined between these disciplines in the early 1960s (10, 11, 43). Paying more explicit attention to this relationship may also help archaeologists to cope more effectively with the problems being posed by the unparalleled accumulation of archaeological data (76), the accelerating destruction of archaeological sites (186), and the proliferation of expensive and timeconsuming new techniques for analyzing archaeological data. It may also assist in finding compatible goals and field methods that will bring cultural resource management and academic archaeology closer together (61, p. 431). In the 1950s and 1960s prehistoric archaeologists emphasized the similarities between their field and the rest of anthropology (10, 188, pp. 1-7). Today, whether archaeology and ethnology or social anthropology are thought of as separate disciplines or as two branches of anthropology, it is once again being acknowledged that they exploit different categories of data, which differentiate