2014

Archaeology is not merely the study of antiquity through the systematic discovery, colleting and documenting of ancient things. It is also the appreciation and interpretation of things and their agency which shed light on the character and dynamics of past (and present) societies.

Anthropology News, 2018

2010

Choice Reviews Online, 2007

Canadian Journal of Archaeology, 2014

D efining the relationship b e tw e e n a rc h a e o lo g y a n d th e people it studies has always been an elu sive undertaking. T he people o f the past are long gone by the time archaeologists arrive to tell th eir stories. W hat exactly we can and cannot say about them o r on th eir b eh a lf from th e im perfectly p re served an d n o n -rep resentative sam ple o f th e ir m aterial g estures is not, a n d never has been, very clear. Many archae ologists have, we think, underestim ated the complexity o f this problem . Archae ologists seem to expect the relationships between things and culture, culture and individuals, the past an d the present to be straightforw ard, w hen all evidence from the anthropology of o u r own expe riences suggests otherw ise. In the p re sent th ere is some correlation between m aterial things an d th eir roles in p eo p le's lives, b u t the reality, as anyone who has had a favourite coffee m ug or a dis like for specific places knows, is com plex and varied. T he distance between what we th in k ourselves to be capable o f as cu ltu ral beings a n d w hat we define as the subject o f o th er peoples' history is a m easure o f these limitations. Despite o ur hopes th at the past is understandable in o u r own terms, it seems likely th at this is as m uch an ethnocentric aspiration as a scholarly truth. M artindale and Nicholas (this volume) argue that such bias serves us well when the archaeologists are part o f the descent com m unity o f the people being studied, b u t generates ethnocen tric barriers to o u r perception when the arch aeo lo g ical-su b ject re la tio n sh ip is m ore distant. T here has always existed a double standard in archaeology on this front, one that reflects a wider asymme try in which som e ways of knowing the past are valued while others are not. T he im balance favours the dom inant cultural community, which in the cu rren t politi cal context Atalay 2007:253) defines as "western". H ere we refer n o t ju st to the declarative value o f considering m ulti ple points of view (which has increased lately), b u t to th e dem onstrable effort to do so, which as many papers in this special issue argue, requires disciplinary concessions o f privilege and forthright scrutiny about ethnocentrism . As with any subaltern dynam ic, th e asym m etry is m o re visible to th o se w ho occupy m arginalized p o in ts o f view, which in N orth Am erican archaeology at least, is prim arily Indigenous (although similar relatio n sh ip s exist in th e archaeology o f A frican-A m erican, L atino, C hinese a n d o th e r c o m m u n itie s). T h o se w ho are n o t m arginalized by the structural asym m etries o f pow er do n o t perceive

American Antiquity, 1992

A survey of presentations at recent Society for American Archaeology annual meetings (1983, 1991, and is taken to examine the state of American archaeology. Roughly 80 percent of the presentations focus on New World archaeology, and between 60 and 80 percent are concerned with the last 3,000 years. In the last 10 year there has been a slight shift away from subsistence and production studies to a greater concern with settleme and regional systems, sociopolitical organization, and public archaeology. A major trend has been increased participation by women. Se utiliza un andlisis de las comunicaciones presentadas en recientes reuniones anuales de la Society for American Archaeology (1983, 1991 y 1992) para examinar el estado de la arqueologia americana. Aproximadamente 80 porciento de las comunicaciones se concentran en la arqueologfa del Nuevo Mundo y entre 60 y 80 porciento de ellas se ocupan de los ultimos 3.000 ahos. En los ultimos diez ahos ha habido un leve cambio en los temas de las comunicaciones, con menos enfasis en estudios de subsistencia y produccion, y un mayor interes en sistemas regionales y de asentamiento, organizacion sociopolitica, y arqueologia para elpublico. Una importante tendencia ha sido hacia una mayor participacion de las mujeres.

This dissertation explores how historical knowledge is produced and maintained within the Inuvialuit (Western Arctic Inuit) community of Sachs Harbour, NWT, to determine how archaeological research can best complement and respect Inuvialuit understandings and ways of knowing the past.