Abstract

In organizing a plenary session to mark the Quincentennial at the 1992 Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, our aim was not to provide a summary or review of archaeological research bearing on our understanding of "Columbian consequences." Rather, we sought speakers who could raise forward-looking questions about the sociopolitical entanglements and consequences of archaeology considered as, itself, part of the legacy of contact. The papers that follow, by Vine Deloria, Jalil Sued-Badillo, and Brackette F. Williams, all take up these issues and draw out implications for future practice; this introduction provides something of a rationale for the session that brought these authors together.