Inside/Outside, Upside Down: Including Archaeologists in Communities

As social scientists, archaeologists have specialized ideas about what "community'' entails. But the concept resonates well beyond the scholarly realm. What did "community'' mean to the people whose lives we study? What does it mean to the groups with which we engage in the present? The answers to these questions have implications for the legitimacy of archaeologists' claims to engage in "community archaeology.'' Here, the author uses period texts-newspapers-and focus group data to explore the contours of "community'' as understood at two sites with active community archaeology programs.