Forum: The Past Not as Prelude

Contemporary trends in mass media communication indicate serious confusion in the public consciousness about the nature of science and the status of evidential reasoning. Archaeologists, in an effort to make esoteric research programs interesting to the public, have contributed to this problem by providing over-simplified stories and “lessons from the past” based on sketchy evidence and mystified analysis. How archaeologists present the past has important implications for the future of archaeology as a discipline, but also for the future of the planet if we continue to patronize the public and oversimplify what archaeological data show about the ramifications of sociopolitical change.