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The Once and Future Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Charles R. Cobb*
Affiliation:
Florida Museum of Natural History, P.O. Box 117800, Gainesville, Florida 32611 (cobb403490@gmail.com)

Abstract

The Forum article “Grand Challenges for Archaeology” (Kintigh et al. 2014) defines a number of leading research topics derived from a crowd-sourcing report and parsed by a panel of archaeologists. The questions focus on scientific subjects with high funding potential, amenable to addressing contemporary problems. Although the grand challenges put forth do represent many of the key issues being pursued by archaeologists today, I argue that they will impact a more limited audience than envisioned by the authors due to their emphasis on transhistorical processes and their lack of emphasis on the larger social and political implications of our research.

Resumen

Resumen

El artículo del Foro “Desafíos Grandes para la Arqueología” (Kintigh et al. 2014) define un número de tópicos de investigación que se derivaron de un informe que utilizó colaboración abierta distribuida (o crowdsourcing) y fue analizado por un panel de arqueólogos. Las preguntas se enfocan en temas científicos con alto potencial de financiación y propensos a tratar problemas contemporáneos. Aunque los desafíos grandes adelantados representan muchos de los temas claves seguidos por los arqueólogos hoy en día, sostengo que impactarán una audiencia más limitada de lo previsto por los autores dado su enfoque en procesos transhistóricos y su falta de enfoque en las implicaciones sociales y políticas mayores de nuestras investigaciones.

Type
Forum
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2014

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