THE CRAFT OF ARCHAEOLOGY

The idea of archaeology as craft challenges the separation of reasonin g and execution that characterizes the field today. The Arts and Craft s Movement of the late nineteenth century established craftwork as an aesthetic of opposition. We establish craft in a Marxian critique of a lienated labor, and we propose a unified practice of hand, heart, and mind for archaeology. The debates engendered by postprocessual archaeo logy have firmly situated archaeology in the present as a cultural and political practice. Many, however, still do not know how to work with these ideas. We argue that a resolution to this dilemma lies in think ing of archaeology as a craft. This resolution does not provide a meth od, or a cookbook, for the practice of archaeology, as indeed the core of our argument is that attempts as such standardization lie at the h eart of the alienation of archaeology. Rather, we wish to consider arc haeology as a mode of cultural production, a unified method practiced by archaeologist, ''client'' public, and contemporary society.