Public Archaeology
- LAST REVIEWED: 31 July 2020
- LAST MODIFIED: 11 January 2012
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199766567-0021
- LAST REVIEWED: 31 July 2020
- LAST MODIFIED: 11 January 2012
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199766567-0021
Introduction
Public archaeology refers to those aspects of the broad field of archaeology that relate to the public interest. It has a number of key aspects, but perhaps the most significant in the United States are cultural resource management and communication with various community groups and public audiences about the practice of archaeology. Cultural Resource Management (CRM) is the set of practices that derive from fulfilling the mandates of heritage protection laws. In the United States, a number of statutes could be cited, but the principal statutes in this regard are the National Historic Preservation Act (and particularly Section 106 of the law) and the National Environmental Protection Act, as well as the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act. In regard to communication, there are a wide variety of communication avenues. One form of outreach involves the active engagement among archaeologists and various publics. This kind of engaged outreach has been labeled “Community Archaeology” or “action archaeology.” Elsewhere, I have defined the latter, for instance, as “involvement or engagement with the problems facing the modern world through archaeology.” This means that archaeologists are “working for living communities, not just in or near them.” Other forms of outreach are not as engaged but nevertheless are quite important. Such outreach includes communication through lectures, newspaper and magazine articles, television, movies, museum exhibits, and Internet blogs, among others.
Introductory Works
A number of highly useful works provide clear introductions to the varied aspects of public archaeology. Two broad introductions that provide good starting places are Little 2002 and Sabloff 2008. McGimsey 1972 offers an historical view of the growth of public archaeology, while Merriman 2004 offers a modern perspective. Downum and Price 1999 and Shackel and Chambers 2004 discuss public archaeology within the context of the more general field of applied anthropology. One key aspect of public archaeology is its engagement with contemporary issues in the communities within which it is working, and a good introduction to this topic can be found in Little and Shackel 2007. Lastly, the political nature of archaeology, in general, and public archaeology, in particular, is discussed in McGuire 2008 and Schmidt and Patterson 1995.
Downum, Christian E., and Laurie J. Price. 1999. Applied archaeology. Human Organization 58:226–239.
This article situates public archaeology in the broader field of applied anthropology.
Little, Barbara, ed. 2002. The public benefits of archaeology. Gainesville: Univ. Press of Florida.
This edited volume is the best introduction to public archaeology for a general reader.
Little, Barbara, and Paul Shackel, eds. 2007. Archaeology as a tool of civic engagement. Lanham, MD: AltaMira.
The authors in this edited volume offer helpful examples of an engaged archaeology.
McGimsey, Charles R. 1972. Public archaeology. New York: Seminar Press.
A pathbreaking book on the subject by a pioneer in cultural resource management.
McGuire, Randall H. 2008. Archaeology as political action. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
Examines the various political roles that archaeology does and can play.
Merriman, Nick, ed. 2004. Public archaeology. New York: Routledge.
A helpful, broad-based introduction to the field of public archaeology.
Sabloff, Jeremy A. 2008. Archaeology matters: Action archaeology in the modern world. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast.
This book is intended for a general reader and provides an overview of the relevance of archaeology in today’s world.
Schmidt, Peter R., and Thomas C. Patterson, eds. 1995. Making alternate histories: The practice of archaeology and history in non-western settings. Santa Fe, NM: School for American Research.
The authors of the chapters in this volume argue for the relevance of local communities, their perspectives, and their histories in archaeological research around the globe.
Shackel, Paul A., and Erve Chambers, eds. 2004. Places in mind: Public archaeology as applied anthropology. New York: Routledge.
A clear introduction to the new roles of public archaeology in the broader contexts of applied anthropology and engaged research.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Africa, Anthropology of
- Aging
- Agriculture
- Animal Ritual
- Animal Sanctuaries
- Anorexia Nervosa
- Anthropocene, The
- Anthropological Activism and Visual Ethnography
- Anthropology and Education
- Anthropology and Theology
- Anthropology of Islam
- Anthropology of Kurdistan
- Anthropology of the Senses
- Anthrozoology
- Antiquity, Ethnography in
- Applied Anthropology
- Archaeobotany
- Archaeological Education
- Archaeology
- Archaeology and Museums
- Archaeology and Political Evolution
- Archaeology and Race
- Archaeology and the Body
- Archaeology, Gender and
- Archaeology, Global
- Archaeology, Historical
- Archaeology, Indigenous
- Archaeology of Childhood
- Archaeology of the Senses
- Archives
- Art Museums
- Art/Aesthetics
- Autoethnography
- Bakhtin, Mikhail
- Bass, William M.
- Beauty
- Belief
- Benedict, Ruth
- Binford, Lewis
- Bioarchaeology
- Biocultural Anthropology
- Bioethics
- Biological and Physical Anthropology
- Biological Citizenship
- Boas, Franz
- Bone Histology
- Bureaucracy
- Business Anthropology
- Capitalism
- Cargo Cults
- Caribbean
- Caste
- Charles Sanders Peirce and Anthropological Theory
- Childhood Studies
- Christianity, Anthropology of
- Citizenship
- Clinical Trials
- Cobb, William Montague
- Code-switching and Multilingualism
- Cognitive Anthropology
- Cole, Johnnetta
- Colonialism
- Commodities
- Consumerism
- Cultural Heritage Presentation and Interpretation
- Cultural Heritage, Race and
- Cultural Materialism
- Cultural Relativism
- Cultural Resource Management
- Culture
- Culture and Personality
- Culture, Popular
- Curatorship
- Cyber-Archaeology
- Dalit Studies
- Dance Ethnography
- de Heusch, Luc
- Deaccessioning
- Design
- Design, Anthropology and
- Diaspora
- Digital Anthropology
- Disability and Deaf Studies and Anthropology
- Douglas, Mary
- Drake, St. Clair
- Dreaming
- Durkheim and the Anthropology of Religion
- Economic Anthropology
- Embodied/Virtual Environments
- Embodiment
- Emotion, Anthropology of
- Environmental Anthropology
- Environmental Justice and Indigeneity
- Ethics
- Ethnoarchaeology
- Ethnocentrism
- Ethnographic Documentary Production
- Ethnographic Films from Iran
- Ethnography
- Ethnography Apps and Games
- Ethnohistory and Historical Ethnography
- Ethnomusicology
- Ethnoscience
- Europe
- Evans-Pritchard, E. E.
- Evolution, Cultural
- Evolutionary Cognitive Archaeology
- Evolutionary Theory
- Experimental Archaeology
- Federal Indian Law
- Feminist Anthropology
- Film, Ethnographic
- Folklore
- Food
- Forensic Anthropology
- Francophonie
- Frazer, Sir James George
- Geertz, Clifford
- Gender
- Gender and Religion
- Gene Flow
- Genetics
- Genocide
- GIS and Archaeology
- Global Health
- Globalization
- Gluckman, Max
- Graphic Anthropology
- Grass
- Haraway, Donna
- Healing and Religion
- Health and Social Stratification
- Health Policy, Anthropology of
- Heritage Language
- HIV/AIDS
- House Museums
- Human Adaptability
- Human Evolution
- Human Rights
- Human Rights Films
- Humanistic Anthropology
- Hurston, Zora Neale
- Identity
- Identity Politics
- Indigeneity
- Indigenous Economic Development
- Indigenous Media: Currents of Engagement
- Industrial Archaeology
- Institutions
- Interpretive Anthropology
- Intertextuality and Interdiscursivity
- Kinship
- Laboratories
- Language and Emotion
- Language and Law
- Language and Media
- Language and Race
- Language and Urban Place
- Language Contact and its Sociocultural Contexts, Anthropol...
- Language Ideology
- Language Socialization
- Leakey, Louis
- Legal Anthropology
- Legal Pluralism
- Liberalism, Anthropology of
- Linguistic Anthropology
- Linguistic Relativity
- Linguistics, Historical
- Literacy
- Literary Anthropology
- Lévi-Strauss, Claude
- Magic
- Malinowski, Bronisław
- Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, and Visual Anthropology
- Maritime Archaeology
- Marriage
- Material Culture
- Materiality
- Mathematical Anthropology
- Matriarchal Studies
- Mead, Margaret
- Media Anthropology
- Medical Anthropology
- Medical Technology and Technique
- Mediterranean
- Memory
- Mendel, Gregor
- Mental Health and Illness
- Mesoamerican Archaeology
- Mexican Migration to the United States
- Migration
- Militarism, Anthropology and
- Missionization
- Mobility
- Modernity
- Morgan, Lewis Henry
- Multispecies Ethnography
- Museum Anthropology
- Museum Education
- Museum Studies
- Myth
- NAGPRA and Repatriation of Native American Human Remains a...
- Narrative in Sociocultural Studies of Language
- Nationalism
- Needham, Rodney
- Neoliberalism
- NGOs, Anthropology of
- Niche Construction
- Northwest Coast, The
- Oceania, Archaeology of
- Paleolithic Art
- Paleontology
- Performance Studies
- Performativity
- Personhood
- Perspectivism
- Philosophy of Museums
- Pilgrimage
- Plantations
- Political Anthropology
- Postprocessual Archaeology
- Postsocialism
- Poverty, Culture of
- Primatology
- Primitivism and Race in Ethnographic Film: A Decolonial Re...
- Processual Archaeology
- Psycholinguistics
- Psychological Anthropology
- Public Archaeology
- Public Sociocultural Anthropologies
- Race
- Religion
- Religion and Post-Socialism
- Religious Conversion
- Repatriation
- Reproductive and Maternal Health in Anthropology
- Reproductive Technologies
- Rhetoric Culture Theory
- Rural Anthropology
- Sahlins, Marshall
- Sapir, Edward
- Scandinavia
- Science Studies
- Secularization
- Semiotics
- Settler Colonialism
- Sex Estimation
- Sexuality
- Shamanism
- Sign Language
- Skeletal Age Estimation
- Social Anthropology (British Tradition)
- Social Movements
- Socialization
- Society for Visual Anthropology, History of
- Socio-Cultural Approaches to the Anthropology of Reproduct...
- Sociolinguistics
- Sound Ethnography
- Space and Place
- Stable Isotopes
- Stan Brakhage and Ethnographic Praxis
- Structuralism
- Studying Up
- Sub-Saharan Africa, Democracy in
- Surrealism and Anthropology
- Technological Organization
- Tourism
- Trans Studies in Anthroplogy
- Transnationalism
- Tree-Ring Dating
- Turner, Edith L. B.
- Turner, Victor
- Urban Anthropology
- Value
- Violence
- Virtual Ethnography
- Visual Anthropology
- Whorfian Hypothesis
- Willey, Gordon
- Witchcraft
- Wolf, Eric R.
- Writing Culture
- Youth Culture
- Zoonosis
- Zora Neale Hurston and Visual Anthropology