Abstract

In this paper, I suggest that many of the challenges faced by emerging indigenous archaeologies parallel those encountered by ethnoarchaeology. Archaeology once eagerly anticipated the new perspectives that it assumed ethnoarchaeology would bring to archaeological interpretation. However, as ethnographic knowledge increasingly challenged many of the core tropes of archaeology's conceptual models, some archaeologists began to critique ethnoarchaeology for what it saw as the production of cautionary tales and trivial knowledge. I argue that at the core of this dispute is a fundamental misunderstanding about the role of "source-side" research in archaeological interpretation and suggest ways that both ethnoarchaeological and indigenous perspectives can contribute to a robust archaeological enterprise.