A Reply to "What is Public Archaeology?"

Abstract

However, if we are able to understand the demand for archaeological commodities (a dif- ficult task indeed!), this generates questions about how supply meets this demand. What is archaeology’s role in meeting the public’s demand? Should we simply tailor production to meet that demand or do we have our own ‘expert’ agenda? Do we take advantage, or exploit, the public’s demand to satisfy internal aims, such as Wheeler’s sale of archaeological mate- rial and informational commodities to help fund his excavations and promote his work? In this regard, public archaeology can have a clear role in providing a theoretical and practical framework for the archaeology ‘industry’ in the relationship of supply and demand. By defining public archaeology as ‘that part of the discipline concerned with studying and critiquing the process of production and consumption of archaeological commodities’ it throws into sharp contrast the need to understand how and why the public consume ar- chaeology and how archaeology reacts to that demand. I would argue that a data driven ap- proach is key to the first of these tasks while a theoretical framework must be developed for the second. This approach positions public archaeology firmly between supply and demand of archaeological commodities and between the archaeological ‘industry’ and the public it ultimately serves.