A Companion to Archaeology features essays from 27 of the worlds leading authorities on different types of archaeology that aim to define the field and describe what it means to be an archaeologist. * Shows that contemporary archaeology is an astonishingly broad activity, with many contrasting specializations and ways of approaching the material record of past societies. * Includes essays by experts in reading the past through art, linguistics, or the built environment, and by professionals who present the past through heritage management and museums. * Introduces the reader to a range of archaeologists: those who devote themselves to the philosophy of archaeology, those who see archaeology as politics or anthropology, and those who contend that the essence of the discipline is a hard science.
List of Figures. List of Contributors. Acknowledgments. Introduction (John Bintliff). Part I: Thinking About Archaeology. 1. Analytical Archaeology (Stephen Shennan). 2. The Great Dark Book: Archaeology, Experience and Interpretation (Julian Thomas). Part II: Current Themes and Novel Departures. 3. Archaeology and the Genetic Revolution (Martin Jones). 4. Archaeology and Language: Methods and Issues (Roger Blench). 5. The Archaeology of Gender (M. L. S. Sorensen). 6. Archaeology and Social Theory (Matthew Johnson). 7. Materiality, Space, Time and Outcome (Roland Fletcher). 8. Archaeological Perspectives on Local Communities (Fokke Gerritsen). 9. Archaeology and Technology (Kevin Greene). 10. Time, Structure and Agency: the Annales, Emergent Complexity and Archaeology (John Bintliff). Part III: Major Traditions in Archaeology in Contemporary Perspective. 11. Archaeological Dating (J.A.J. Gowlett). 12. Chronology of the Human Narrative (J.A.J. Gowlett). 13. Archaeology and Indigenous Peoples: Attitudes Towards Power in Ancient Oaxaca (Maarten Jansen). 14. Classical Archaeology (Ian Morris). 15. The Archaeologies of Recent History: Historical, Post-Medieval, and Modern World (Charles E. Orser, Jr.). 16. Animal Bones and Plant Remains (Peter Rowley-Conwy). 17. Ecology in Archaeology: From Cognition to Action (Fekri A. Hassan). 18. The Archaeology of Landscape (T.J. Wilkinson). 19. Archaeology and Art (Raymond Corbey, Robert Layton and Jeremy Tanner). 20. Putting Infinity up on Trial: A Consideration of the Role of Scientific Thinking in Future Archaeologies (A.M. Pollard). 21. Experiencing Archaeological Fieldwork (John Bintliff). Part IV: Archaeology and the Public. 22. Public archaeology: A European Perspective (Timothy Darvill). 23. Persistent Dilemmas in American Cultural Resource Management (Joseph A. Tainter). 24. Museum Studies (Linda Ellis). 25. Relating Anthropology and Archaeology (Michael Rowlands). 26. Archaeology and Politics (Michael Shanks). 27. Archaeology and Green Issues (Martin Bell). Index.