100 Years of Archaeology at the University of Michigan : Essays on the Past, Present, and Future of the Discipline

Abstract

The University of Michigan has been at the forefront of archaeological research for more than 100 years, since 1922, when the Museum of Anthropology (now the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology) was established on the Ann Arbor campus. The goal of its curators for many decades was to create a research and teaching program that emphasized methodological rigor in the analysis of archaeological materials, attempting to solve grand questions about human behavior through fieldwork, collections, and laboratory work. About fifty years ago, the Museum's emphasis shifted to developing archaeological theory when a new generation of curators with processualist leanings made Ann Arbor a testing ground for the so-called New Archaeology.

Now, archaeology stands at a crossroads. Some archaeologists refer to the death of archaeological theory. Others stake out opposed camps of generalists and particularists. At U-M, as at many other universities, the past decade has seen a new commitment to collaborative archaeology, working with descendant communities and acknowledging the discipline's roots in colonialism and extraction.

In 2022, to celebrate a century of existence, the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology (UMMAA) hosted an international conference to explore possibilities for a middle way: an archaeology for the next 100 years, combining humanistic and scientific approaches, which allows for both agents and systems, description and explanation, science and heritage. This volume is meant to be a snapshot of that conference and this moment in the development of the discipline. Included are most of the papers and posters presented, as well as photographs of the panels and the proceedings.