Timothy J. Scarlett expressed an idea that I have been concerned with
for a couple of years now.  I found that one of the most inspiring
works, which addresses this need to bridge the gaps and heal the wounds
between the disparate archaeologies, may be found in Shanks and McGuire's
paper on archaeology as "craft" (American Antiquity 61(1):75-88, 1996).
At least for me, I found this idea very consoling as well as productive
since it moves the would-be divisions into one stream focusing entirely
on practice.  As they write "We will look at archaeology as a human
activity that potentially links human emotions, needs, and desires with
theory and technical reasoning to form a unified practice, a 'craft of
archaeology'"(76).  While this article does not hold all of the answers,
as our big friend in *Sling Blade* notes, "I reckon theers parts I din
understand int", I think its a step in the right direction.  For as Shanks
and McGuire note, "...good archaeology has always been craft."
 
 
Timothy J. Scarlett wrote:
 
>
>Hello everyone,
>
>I am pleased to see so many people are tired of the unproductive
>dichotomizing in archaeology.   I hope that it has run its course.
>The interesting question seems to me now to be of another variety-
>now that we have so many rich and diverse theoretical perspectives, should
>we be concerned with creating a new synthesis that will tie these ideas
>together?  I for one do not think that a synthesis is required, but we do
>need to consider how the various intellectual systems relate to one
>another- hegemony, ecohistory, ethnogenesis, etc.  We should work to
>understand how people in society act within all of these simultaneous
>configurations of cultural reality.
>
>Anyway, I have been rather excited by the commentary in the new reader by
>Preucel and Hodder:
>
>Preucel, Robert W. and Ian Hodder
>1996    Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: a reader.  Blackwell
>        Publishers Ltd, Cambridge, MA.
>
>My best to all,
>Tim Scarlett