Shabeena Saikia
(India)
Developing country’s dilemma in deciding to spend funds in archaeology and allied archaeological pursuits continues to harm the field. The tug of war between the academics and the financial executive always takes place at times of deciding finances but finally ends up as a one sided game showing up executive sides haviour. There is no awareness towards archaeology education and the question of glamorous jobs in the field is a never to occur a situation. The North East India, although potentially a sound area in terms of archaeology, researches in pure archaeology is seldom taken up. It is always as a mixture with ethnology to give more acceptability to the research. The future of archaeology is bleak in these areas. In Assam State, in the last 20 years not a single archaeologist has been recruited in his field. Many took up profession in accounts, school teachers’ job of teaching sociology. This is the state of affair and the situation is akin to many developing countries. In a recent happening, Rs 13 crore was sanctioned for preservation of archaeological heritage sites in the State of Assam which was finally utilised for purposes other than for which it was sanctioned. Computer technology in the State flourished – many architectural firms have been using archaeological software’s but none for archaeology.
The present paper is devoted to bring up some hard facts of archaeology in the region and will examine the hypothesis that Archaeology will survive amidst all odds in this region and will catch up with the richer region in technology manipulation.