The Future of Archaeology

edited by T. Douglas Price and Gary M. Feinman

Book cover: The Future of Archaeology

Extent: 200 pages

Publisher: Eliot Werner Publications

Subjects: Anthropology, World Archaeology

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(September 2025)

ISBN: 9798991226493

Price: $32.95

In stock

PDF (Published)

(September 2025)

ISBN: 9798992569919

Price: $23.99

In recent decades an expanding cadre of archaeologists has embarked to the field and laboratories. Their endeavors have sparked the collection of troves of data about worldwide pasts at multiple scales from the molecular to the macroregional. Investigation has been amplified by new technologies including computers, satellite imagery, mass spectrometry, and sequencers for ancient DNA. As information-rich findings are rapidly being deciphered, it is clear that the temporal depth and global breadth of archaeological discoveries are sufficiently rich to inform us regarding key contemporary issues–sustainability, inequality, governance, well-being, and heritage. Ernest Hooten once described archaeologists as “the senile playboys of science rooting in the rubbish heaps of antiquity.” Although Hooten’s view of archaeology as an esoteric discipline remains intact in some quarters, clearly times have changed–and in this volume a diverse suite of archaeologists marshal their thoughts regarding the current state and future of the discipline.

  • Edited by Gary M. Feinman
  • Edited by T Douglas Price

I believe that each reader will take away at least one particular jewel from reading this volume. The authors’ writing styles are different, but the editors have helped them coalesce into an afternoon’s easy read. Taken as a whole, the volume’s authors offer insights influenced by their sub-disciplinary and geographical perceptions on archaeology as it exists today – an archaeology not only influencing its various regions and regional populations, but one equally influenced by those same two items.

— Joe Watkins, Archaeological and Cultural Education Consultants