Dear Friends,
It is a great puzzle how disciplines stop being old, and new versions appear. With what merits, is a burning question?
Take ethnoarchaeology for instance. When did this discipline disappear and indigenous archaeology take its place? Indigenous archaeology, an epithet emerging from Australia mainly, is a new intervention into archaeology.
Through Internet sources, it seems, that the aim here is to develop a sensitized archaeological practice in tribal or indigenous areas; a feature so far lacking in the standard practice of ethnoarchaeology.
Writing from the Indian Indian context. I would say that there are some finer distinctions to be made in this emerging field.
In the Australian context the divide between a predominantly white population and the aboriginal is obvious and evident.
When we stretch this paradigm to cover such archaeology in non-western countries, the line gets blurred – colour and ethnicty-wise.
Give this some thought. More another day.
