A Companion to Archaeology

by Bintliff, John; Earle, Timothu; Peebles, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9781405149792
• ISBN10: 1405149795
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-02-23
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Archaeology is a subject of much popular interest, with devotees ranging from armchair enthusiasts to tourists to serious academics. This Companion features essays from 27 of the worldrs"s leading authorities on different types of archaeology and aims to define the field and describe what it means to be an archaeologist. It shows that contemporary archaeology is an astonishingly broad activity, with many contrasting specializations and ways of approaching the material record of past societies. The volume introduces readers to a range of archaeologists: those who devote themselves to the philosophy or the sociology of archaeology, those who see archaeology as politics or as anthropology, and those who contend that the essence of the discipline is a hard science. Among these experts are those who read the past through art, linguistics, or the built environment, and those professionals who present the past to the public through heritage management and museums.

Author Biography

John Bintliff is Professor of Classical and Mediterranean Archaeology at Leiden University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	x
List of Contributors	xiv
Acknowledgments	xvi
Introduction	xvii
John Bintliff
Part I Thinking About Archaeology	1	(36)
1 Analytical Archaeology	3	(18)
Stephen Shennan
2 The Great Dark Book: Archaeology, Experience, and Interpretation	21	(18)
Julian Thomas
Part II Current Themes and Novel Departures	37	(158)
3 Archaeology and the Genetic Revolution	39	(13)
Martin Jones
4 Archaeology and Language: Methods and Issues	52	(23)
Roger Blench
5 The Archaeology of Gender	75	(17)
M.L.S. Sørensen
6 Archaeology and Social Theory	92	(18)
Matthew Johnson
7 Materiality, Space, Time, and Outcome	110	(31)
Roland Fletcher
8 Archaeological Perspectives on Local Communities	141	(14)
Fokke Gerritsen
9 Archaeology and Technology	155	(19)
Kevin Greene
10 Time, Structure, and Agency: The Annales, Emergent Complexity, and Archaeology	174	(21)
John Bintliff
Part III Major Traditions in Archaeology in Contemporary Perspective	195	(212)
11 Archaeological Dating	197	(9)
J.A.J. Gowlett
12 Chronology and the Human Narrative	206	(29)
J.A.J. Gowlett
13 Archaeology and Indigenous Peoples: Attitudes Towards Power in Ancient Oaxaca	235	(18)
Maarten Jansen
14 Classical Archaeology	253	(19)
Ian Morris
15 The Archaeologies of Recent History: Historical, Post-Medieval, and Modern-World	272	(19)
Charles E. Orser, Jr.
16 Animal Bones and Plant Remains	291	(20)
Peter Rowley-Conwy
17 Ecology in Archaeology: From Cognition to Action	311	(23)
Fekri A. Hassan
18 The Archaeology of Landscape	334	(23)
T.J. Wilkinson
19 Archaeology and Art	357	(23)
Raymond Corbey, Robert Layton, and Jeremy Tanner
20 Putting Infinity Up On Trial: A Consideration of the Role of Scientific Thinking in Future Archaeologies	380	(17)
A.M. Pollard
21 Experiencing Archaeological Fieldwork	397	(10)
John Bintliff
Part IV Archaeology and the Public	407	(125)
22 Public Archaeology: A European Perspective	409	(26)
Timothy Darvill
23 Persistent Dilemmas in American Cultural Resource Management	435	(19)
Joseph A. Tainter
24 Museum Studies	454	(19)
Linda Ellis
25 Relating Anthropology and Archaeology	473	(17)
Michael Rowlands
26 Archaeology and Politics	490	(19)
Michael Shanks
27 Archaeology and Green Issues	509	(23)
Martin Bell
Index	532