It has been exactly 40 years since the publication of one of the earliest ARC issues: Volume 2:1 Archaeology and the Public (1983), emerged from a Theoretical Archaeology Group conference put on by Mike Parker Pearson and others in 1982. Our publication likewise has strong theoretical underpinnings. Archaeology as a discipline has never been more concerned with its positionality within public discourses and its relativity to different segments of the publics. This is because the Information Age has brought with it new challenges with respect to what defines public spaces and who are accepted as authorities in these spaces (Stephens et al 2023). By pluralising the ‘public’ in our volume title, Archaeology and the PublicS, we hope to demonstrate and highlight the multivocality and diversity inherent in the public – and the opportunities and challenges that come with this diversity.