The Archaeological Imagination

Description

Archaeology is a way of acting and thinking—about what is left of the past, about the temporality of what remains, about material and temporal processes to which people and their goods are subject, about the processes of order and entropy, of making, consuming and discarding at the heart of human experience. These elements, and the practices that archaeologists follow to uncover them, is the essence of the archaeological imagination. In this extended essay, renowned archaeological theorist Michael Shanks offers his colleagues and students a window on this imaginative world of past and present and the creative role archaeology can play in uncovering it, analyzing it, and interpreting it. Cover Half Title Dedication Title Copyright Contents List of Illustrations Introduction 1. We Are All Archaeologists Now 2. Debatable Lands A Northern Stage Relics and Witnesses Durat Opus Vatum The Antiquary Roman Boots Itinerary and Natural History The Living and the Dead Media, Representation, and Mise-en-Scène Topology and Time Collectors and Conservators 3. An Archaeological Narratology 4. The Archaeological Imagination References Index About the Author