The Death of Prehistory
PETER R. SCHMIDT & STEPHEN A. MROZOWSKIpassé. That prehistory may have outlived its usefulness as a concept has
been anticipated by its increasingly depleted vitality as a way of conceptualizing and representing the past. The literature has been hinting
towards a lingering passing since Kent Lightfoot’s milestone essay
(1995), often referenced in this book for his keen insights into the
harm and difficulties of labelling prehistory in the experiences of North
America First Nations. Our contributors to this volume came together
with a common concern: we bear witness to the harm the prehistory label
visited upon the Other, vast numbers of indigenous peoples in the
Americas, Africa, and Asia who today are trying to reclaim histories
erased or denied through the application of ‘prehistory’. That label
signifies alterity and the absence of history and its making of identity.
Rae Gould and Joseph Aguilar in this volume both write from a firstperson native perspective, more than mere witnesses to the disjunction
of their histories by prehistory. Indeed, part of their reason for entering
the academy was to bring their standpoint into scholarship in hopes of
shaping a future without prehistory