Ayodhya, Archaeology, and Identity.

The article focuses on the role archeology and archaeologists should play in a situation in which the past is used to support identity claims in the present. According to the authors, the applicability of the past to the present is apparent in many facets of daily life. Whether ethnic, national, religious, or other aspects, the past is a means through which individual characteristics can be formed and reinforced in the present. With this contention, the past plays a legitimating role for present groups by permitting them to delineate their roots into earlier times.