The Futures of Our Pasts: Ethical Implications of Collecting Antiquities in the Twenty-first Century (A School for Advanced Research Resident Scholar Book) - Softcover

Michael A. Adler is an assistant professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University and the director of archaeology field programs at SMU's Fort Burgwin Research Center near Taos, New Mexico.

The Futures of Our Pasts explores the finely nuanced margins that separate stewardship from ownership, provenience from provenance key concepts when it comes to understanding the politicization of our collective history. By largely transcending legalities, this free-ranging interchange addresses the deeper ethical foundations of appropriate and inappropriate avenues of managing ancient cultural objects. Readers should expect little consensus here beyond a universal condemnation of unrestrained looting and destruction, this is a conversation about still-contested ground. Does the world actually share a common human heritage populated by antiquities and other cultural objects from remote eras? Can (and should) global preservation initiatives transcend national boundaries and interests? The Futures of Our Pasts provides a timely and measured contribution to this increasingly shrill conversation. --David Hurst Thomas, Curator of North American Archaeology, American Museum of Natural History

The Futures of Our Pasts tackles a timely and vitally important topic: the legal, ethical, social, and political dimensions of the antiquities market. Although this topic is buttressed by an extensive literature, all too often it is only one side speaking out (or against) the other. Not so with this balanced examination. --Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Curator of Anthropology, Denver Museum of Nature and Science