Abstract
The archaeology of the 20th century has been studied since the 1960s, but it is only more recently that explicit theoretical and methodological issues have been explored by the wider archaeological profession. This paper explores some of those issues in the contexts of developer-funded archaeology and community archaeology. Ways in which the archaeology of the more recent past may both help and hinder the discipline are considered, together with the relevance of archaeology to society at large.
Acknowledgements
I am extremely grateful to Marilyn Palmer for inviting me to contribute to the session at the AIA Conference in Essex from which this paper is derived. Thanks to John Powell, Gerry Wait and Adam Stanford for permission to reproduce Figures 2, 4 and 5 respectively. I would also like to thank Anna Badcock, James Dixon, Emma Dwyer, Jonathan Finch, Dan Hicks, Rachael Kiddey, Mike Nevell, Sefryn Penrose, John Schofield, James Symonds and Sophie Watson for a variety of conversations about contemporary and recent archaeology over many years.