Questioning the Past in North America

The biggest problems of North American archaeology involve historical relationships that played out simultaneously on large and small scales. Such relationships undergird how we might partition the continent. The effects of particular places, practices, encounters, events, and people on local history always matter, but the extent to which they affect large-scale networks, change global climate, or reach a mass audience clearly makes them even more significant historically, if not also relevant to understanding historical changes in other parts of the world. With this in mind, this article identifies several overlapping research foci that will define North American archaeology into the future.