Professor Dawdy's keynote speech addresses some of the main challenges of the discipline in the 21st century. Archaeology should not be self-serving, and it can even become dangerous, a possible consequence of a quest for its usefulness. A possible solution would be to focus efforts on environmental archaeology. Looking for ancient sustainable agricultural practices, for example, in order to better inform contemporary human adaptations, would be a path to follow. According to Dawdy, this useful, futurist archaeology finds a public ready for such an endeavour.