6th July 2005, 11:28 PM
Me neither- indigenous Americans perhaps! Sea-surgeon-like your politics. The earliest peoples to live in the UK were in my opinion-non white. I would also argue that many non-whites were here a long time before most "British" families were. The concept of people chosing archaeology that has a direct relation to themselves (clumsy-I`m knackered, you know wot I mean) is an interesting one. Are we in some way attempting to understand/identify who we are? With a predominantly white archaeological profession, are we not hideously guilty of presenting a white history? As Dino pointed out, the perceptions of a people outside of our grasp of the "norm" (Cree medicine man) have a superb ability to force us to see with new eyes. The crux of my question really is this...how do we as a profession/academic endeavour encourage participation of ethnic minorities? Without a wider bandwidth, we run the risk of whitewashing history.