Rewriting the Past for the Changing Present: The Need for New and Pluriversal Histories of Archaeology

Abstract

Since the publication of the second edition of Bruce G. Trigger’s A History of Archaeological Thought in 2006, scholars have produced a negligible number of histories of archaeology. This scarcity contrasts with the considerable amount of historical works on more regionally- and temporally-restricted contexts. With reference to the English-speaking literature, I suggest in this paper that there is a pressing need for new and pluriversal histories of archaeology that connect past and present. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, archaeology has gone through an intense transformation. For instance, during the past twenty years, archaeologists have been concerned with a number of ethical issues, have extensively collaborated with different kind of communities (especially Indigenous), and have reformulated the relationship between theory and practice. It is not only that historians need to incorporate these (and other) developments into our disciplinary history, they also need to rewrite that history with reference to our changing present.