I have to disagree with you. Without making an impassioned defense of a field of study I have lost all serious interest in, I think that archaeology is a very worthwhile endeavor. Anthropology aims to understand who we are, how we do and have coped with our world. It aims at a very real interest in simply understanding ourselves and our past. Archaeology is fragmentary by nature, agreed. But I dont think it is mere idle curiousity. No more than History, at least. ;)
But I have since lost my love of the field, though I still get a hankering once in a while to go back out "in the field." My interest in anthropology simply did not correspond to the interest of the discipline. Archaeology is, arguably in my opinion, atheoretical. It is also fraught with all the dangers of academic politics, which is frankly unbearable to me. I dont regret the experience, or the contribution to my understanding of the world, and I certainly must disagree that it is a mistake to be taken seriously. IMHO. |
