As my time in Turkey comes to an end, I’d like to reflect briefly on why archaeology is worth doing. It’s not patently obvious that we should care about archaeology. Why bother with the stuff of the past when we have enough to deal with in the present? My answer to this question – why archaeology? – is in large part shaped by what I think archaeology is. In my last post I argued that we should view archaeology as a way of telling stories about the people of the past. This view leads me to suggest that archaeology is worth doing because it helps to restore dignity and agency to the people of the past.
Telling the stories of the people of the past through archaeology helps us see them as humans with agency and dignity, as opposed to mere historical characters which only inhabit textbooks. Knowing how people lived their lives, even if their lives were normal, even mundane, restores to them their full humanity. These people, though now long past, lived lives equal in value to our own. As such, their lives are equally worth investigating as those in the present, simply because they were just as human as we are. This understanding helps us to see them as people with agency – people who made decisions that mattered, people who lived lives that weren’t totally determined by their historical period. For me, helping people in the present see that the lives of people in the past were in large part just like our own, and possessed of the same human dignity and value, is eminently worthwhile.