Public Benefits of Archaeology edited by Barbara J. Little

Guide Rating -

2002. Public Benefits of Archaeology. University of Florida Press, Gainesville.

Ever been in one of these situations? You're standing in a huge excavation, it's a really hot day and you're taking notes like mad against a deadline with the bulldozers breathing down your back, and upwards of 20 people around you with their heads in the dirt busily troweling away in square holes; and a sun-burnt man in a beat-up pickup truck pulls up to your site, looks you square in the eye, and says, "So is this where my tax dollars are being wasted?" This book is for you.

Public Benefits of Archaeology, edited by Barbara Little, contains 23 papers on why archaeology is important to modern-day people, and how you as an archaeologist or as a member of the interested public can help to explain to others how useful learning about the past can be. Four sections segregate this book; Finding Common Ground (by way of introduction); Many Publics, Many Benefits (describing several ways in which the modern community interacts with the past); Learning from an Authentic Past (on ways in which to provide information that's authentic without being too detailed); and Promoting the Public Benefits of Archaeology (containing several inventive ways to get your message across).

Authors of these chapters include several very important American public archaeologists, including William Rathje, Adrian Praetzellis, Leigh Jenkins Kuwanwisiwma, Francis McManamon, Jeanne Moe, David Hurst Thomas, Terry Childs, Peter Young and Mitch Allen, and many others; and an epilogue by the doyen of American public archaeology, Brian Fagan.