Doomsday confessions

Abstract

I want to thank the commentators for their thoughtful and diverse responses. I was originally worried that my intentionally provocative sally was going to either scratch a bundle of raw nerves or go over like a wet firecracker. Instead, the replies were all over a very interesting global map (with perhaps a few reactions at either extreme). To quote Mark Pluciennik, one could say of the total array of responses that ‘where archaeologies might fit among such a constellation of uses and abuses is of course highly contextual and dependent on one's position in time, and space, and sociocultural and political situation’ (p. 153). I will not be so bold as to try to contextualize each author according to their national original, institutional setting or academic training and research interests, since I think the intelligent reader can see these glinting through the responses. Instead, I will take this opportunity to contextualize myself. Despite my calls for honesty in the paper, I have not been entirely honest about the genealogy and context of my opinions. In the course of my confessional, I will also enunciate those places where I am humbled by the knowledge and activities of the responders and, of course, where I think I have been misunderstood.