The past and future of Indigenous archaeology: Global challenges, North American perspectives, Australian prospects1

Since childhood, I've been drawn to distant times and diverse cultures. This interest provided the impetus, and my parents the encouragement, to pursue a career as an archaeologist. It was a decision that I have never regretted, even though what anthropology is today, and how it is practiced, is very different from that which 1 was first exposed to just a few decades ago. As will become apparent, 1 view archaeology as an inseparable dimension of anthropology (and vice versa), reflecting the Boasian four-field model that is prevalent in North America. One mandate of anthropology, regardless of where it is practiced, is to document and interpret cultural diversity to obtain a deep understanding of what it is to be human-a slightly more sophisticated endeavor than my adolescent forays into National Geographic magazine. In this, we seek not only the Other, which has come to represent non-Western peoples whose lives and worldviews fall outside the realm of familiar experience, but also ourselves. As archaeologists, we are also required to seek representativeness, to ensure that our work encompasses, both methodologically and theoretically, the range of past human endeavor.