Archaeology and Development: A Difficult Dialogue

Archaeology and development are considered here from the point of view of the relevance of archaeological results to the problems of development, those being mainly questions of identity in this case. The weight of archaeological contribution is emphasized, as well as the basic problem caused by the association of the peoples' conceptions of their own history with the definitions provided by archaeology. In effect, here are two kinds of knowledge different by constitution: one scientific, the other not. This unavoidable fact, whether it occurs in historical syntheses or in ideological manipulations, must be taken into account by pluridisciplinary research.