Academic Articles & Research Papers

Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

Archaeological theory an introduction

Contents: Preface: The contradictions of theory; common sense is not enough; The 'new archaeology'; Archaeology as a science; Testing, middle-range theory and ethnoarchaeology; Culture as a system; Looking at thoughts; Postprocessual and in...

Theory Building in Archaeology

Archaeology is a brand!: the meaning of archaeology in contemporary popular culture

What impact is there on the field to recognize that archaeology is a regular feature in daily life and popular culture? Based upon the study of England, Germany, Sweden and the USA, Cornelius Holtorf examines the commonalities and peculiari...

Archaeologies of Complexity

An up-to-date and critical analysis of how archaeologists study past societies, Archaeologies of Complexity addresses the nature of contemporary archaeology and the study of social change, and debates the transition from perceived simple, e...

Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy

This book is the only text devoted entirely to archaeological stratigraphy, a subject of fundamental importance to most studies in archaeology. The first edition appeared in 1979 as a result of the invention, by the author, of the Harris Ma...

Amazonian Archaeology

Amazonian archaeology has made major advances in recent decades, particularly in understanding coupled human environmental systems. Like other tropical forest regions, prehistoric social formations were long portrayed as small-scale, disper...

Archaeology Under Fire

Emotion in Archaeology

Despite the establishment of significant traditions of emotion research in many disciplines, there has been little discussion of the state and potential of the archaeological study of emotion. This paper aims to review archaeological approa...

The archaeology of death and burial

The archaeology of death and burial is central to our attempts to understand vanished societies. Through the remains of funerary rituals we learn not only about prehistoric people's attitudes toward death and the afterlife but also about th...

African Archaeology

Research in Africa is now accepted as an integral part of global archaeological studies. As well as providing archaeologists with the oldest material, Africa is also widely recognised as the birthplace of modern man and his characteristic c...

Symmetrical archaeology

Symmetry is an epistemological and ethical principle developed in the social study of scientific practice. This essay connects a symmetrical archaeology to major trends in the discipline since the 1960s and to key components of archaeologic...

Archaeology of Ancient Australia

This book is an introduction to the archaeology of Australia from prehistoric times to the eighteenth century AD. It is the only up-to-date textbook on the subject and is designed for undergraduate courses, based on the author's considerabl...

Archaeology

This bestselling book has firmly established itself as the most accessible guide to archaeology available. It features: * an explanation to the discovery and excavation of sites * a helpful outline of the major dating methods * clear explan...

What is community archaeology?

Community archaeology, understood as a distinctive set of practices within the wider discipline, is a relatively new development. Its most important distinguishing characteristic is the relinquishing of at least partial control of a project...

Ethnographic Archaeologies: Reflections on Stakeholders and Archaeological Practices

1 The Ethnographic Turn in Archaeology: Research Positioning and Reflexivity in Ethnographic Archaeologies 2 A Critical Assessment of Ethnography in Archaeology 3 A Dangerously Elusive Method: Disciplines, Histories, and the Limits of Refle...

Symbolic and Structural Archaeology

This volume presents a searching critique of the more traditional archaeological methodologies and interpretation strategies and lays down a firm philosophical and theoretical basis for symbolist and structuralist studies in archaeology. A ...

Understanding the Archaeological Record

This book explores the diverse understandings of the archaeological record in both historical and contemporary perspective, while also serving as a guide to reassessing current views. Gavin Lucas argues that archaeological theory has become...

Archaeologies of Colonialism

This book presents a theoretically informed, up-to-date study of interactions between indigenous peoples of Mediterranean France and Etruscan, Greek and Roman colonists during the first millennium B.C. Analyzing archaeological data and anci...

Archaeology as Human Ecology