Recently I received a call from an American colleague who was writing a short introduction for a piece I had written for her newsletter, She wanted to know exactly what I said when people asked me what I did for a living. This confusion of identity arises because, over the past decade, a real revolution has been taking place in the profession of archaeology. The hoarding has come down around urban digs.
Archaeologists regularly visit classrooms and conduct public site tours.
The people, whose cultures we archaeologists have studied for so long, are actually having a chance to learn what archaeology can tell them about their ancestors, and the broader human family across all times and in all places. One reason for this is that the public is now more aware, more demanding of information, better educated, made up of people from all parts of the globe and from every cultural and ethnic background that there is, and it wants to know where its tax dollar is going. Archaeologists, too, have changed. Ever diminishing funding for research, especially from government sources, has been coupled with the rapid industrial and structural development that is impacting so negatively upon archaeological sites in all parts of the globe. Looting has increased.