Activating archaeology: Robert McCormick Adams and how the past can help solve the problems of today

Can we use the past to improve the present and plan better futures? What is the purpose of archaeological knowledge? To whom do we feel ourselves accountable? What can we learn from past episodes of archaeologists grappling with these same questions? In light of recent claims regarding the value of archaeology for solving the most pressing problems of our day, it is worth revisiting times in our own history when archaeologists were enlisted in attempts to instrumentalize the past to address contemporary concerns. The case of Robert McCormick Adams and his trailblazing full-coverage survey research in Iraq and Iran between 1956 and 1962 clearly demonstrates the possibilities and pitfalls of such efforts. Adams’s commentaries on this fieldwork—particularly the reflections on the purpose and impact of archaeological research it provoked—have consequential ramifications for our disciplinary practice now and going forward.