Categorising the past: lessons from the archaeological resource assessment for Yorkshire

This article will consider the implications of the Yorkshire regional assessment for how we categorise, analyse and synthesise the past. It argues that we must transcend the existing frameworks, especially their chronological elements, if we are to fully engage with the evidence currently at our disposal, and do so in a way which takes account of all of its lacunae and limitations, yet details and potentials. This has implications not only for the UK, but for problems facing archaeologists across the world: how to organise, within a coherent framework, the rapidly accumulating masses of data generated by developer-led archaeology and its international equivalents in cultural resource management, and how to forge a stronger relationship between the academic and curatorial spheres of archaeological endeavour.