Archaeology: An Introduction

✍ Scribed by Hannah Cobb, Kevin Greene, Tom Moore

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 536
• Edition: 6
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This fully updated sixth edition of a classic classroom text is essential reading for core courses in archaeology.

Archaeology: An Introduction explains how the subject emerged from an amateur pursuit in the eighteenth century into a serious discipline and explores changing trends in interpretation in recent decades. The authors convey the excitement of archaeology while helping readers to evaluate new discoveries by explaining the methods and theories that lie behind them. In addition to drawing upon examples and case studies from many regions of the world and periods of the past, the book incorporates the authors’ own fieldwork, research and teaching. It continues to include key reference and further reading sections to help new readers find their way through the ever-expanding range of archaeological publications and online sources as well as colour illustrations and boxed topic sections to increase comprehension.

Serving as an accessible and lucid textbook, and engaging students with contemporary issues, this book is designed to support students studying Archaeology at an introductory level.

New to the sixth edition:

Inclusion of the latest survey and imaging techniques, such as the use of drones and eXtended reality.
Updated material on developments in dating, DNA analysis, isotopes and population movement, including consideration of the ethical considerations of these techniques.
Coverage of new developments in archaeological theory, such as the material turn/ontological turn, and work on issues of equality, diversity and inclusion.
A whole new chapter covering archaeology in the present, including new sections on heritage and public archaeology, and an updated consideration of archaeology’s relationship with the climate crisis.
A revised glossary with over 200 new additions or updates.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
List of tables
Preface
Acknowledgements
Referencing
Glossary and index
1 The Idea of the Past
1.1 The intellectual history of archaeology
1.1.1 Archaeology and antiquarianism, prehistory and history
1.1.2 The problem of origins and time
1.2 The emergence of archaeological methods
1.2.1 A prehistoric concern for prehistory
1.2.2 Greece and Rome
1.2.3 Medieval attitudes to antiquity
1.2.4 From medieval humanism to the Renaissance
1.1 The past in the present: developing analogies with the Americas
1.2.5 Archaeology and the Enlightenment
1.2.6 Antiquarian fieldwork
1.2 William Camden (1551-1623)
1.2.7 Antiquarianism in the Americas
1.2.8 Touring, collecting and the origin of museums
1.3 Discovering the archaeology of North America: the Mounds of Ohio and Illinois
1.2.9 Science and Romanticism
1.3 The recognition and study of artefacts
1.3.1 Scandinavia and the Three-Age System
1.3.2 Typology
1.4 Recognising human origins
1.4.1 Evidence for human antiquity
1.4 The great societies: archaeology comes of age?
1.4.2 Catastrophists, uniformitarians and the impact of Darwin
1.5 From hunting to farming
1.5.1 World prehistory
1.6 The discovery of civilisations
1.6.1 Greece and Rome
1.6.2 Egypt and Mesopotamia
1.5 Plundering and collecting: Belzoni and Lord Elgin
1.6.3 The Aegean Bronze Age: Schliemann and Troy
1.6 Pioneer of Southwest Asian archaeology: Gertrude Bell
1.6.4 Greece and the Aegean: Evans and Knossos
1.6.5 India and Asia
1.6.6 Civilisations in the Americas
1.7 Achievements of early archaeology
1.7 V.Gordon Childe: twentieth-century archaeology begins to model the past
1.7.1 Excavation: the investigative technique of the future
1.8 Guide to further reading
1.8.1 The intellectual history of archaeology
1.8.2 Archaeology and antiquarianism, prehistory and history
1.8.3 The emergence of archaeological methods
2 Discovery and Investigation
2.1 Sites or landscapes?
2.2 Field archaeology
2.2.1 Field survey
2.2.2 Fieldwalking
2.1 Sampling in landscape survey
2.2.3 Recording and topographic/earthwork surveying
2.2.4 Historic landscape and monument inventories
2.2.5 Underwater survey
2.3 Remote sensing
2.3.1 Airborne prospection
2.2 Cropmark formation
2.3 Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC)
2.4 Airborne topographic survey: lidar
2.3.2 Geophysical and geochemical surveying
2.5 Geophysical survey techniques
2.6 Geophysical survey responses
2.4 Geographical information systems (GIS)
2.7 GIS and predictive modelling: the location of Roman villas near Veii, Italy
2.5 Landscape archaeology
2.6 Conclusions
2.7 Guide to further reading
2.7.1 Historic Environment Records
2.7.2 Underwater survey
2.7.3 Remote sensing
2.7.4 Airborne prospection
2.7.5 Geophysical and geochemical surveying
2.7.6 Geographical information systems (GIS)
3 Excavation
3.1 The development of excavation techniques
3.1.1 The concept of stratification
3.1.2 General Pitt Rivers
3.1 Development of excavation techniques: Mortimer and Tessa Wheeler
3.1.3 Developments in the twentieth century
3.1.4 Mortimer and Tessa Wheeler
3.2 Trowelblazers
3.1.5 From keyhole trenches to open-area excavation
3.1.6 The future of excavation
3.3 Stratigraphic recording
3.2 The interpretation of stratification
3.2.1 Dating stratification
3.3 Planning an excavation
3.3.1 Excavation, ethics and theory
3.4 Responsibilities of excavators: selection of items from the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists’ code of conduct (October 2021 revisions)
3.3.2 Selection of a site
3.5 Changing research priorities: the example of Roman Britain
3.3.3 Developer-funded archaeology and the case study of planning policy in England
3.6 Planning and excavation: key definitions from the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF)
3.3.4 Background research
3.4 Excavation strategy
3.4.1 Forms of sites
3.4.2 Excavation in special conditions
3.4.3 Contexts and features
3.7 Positive features: section of Roman Ermin Street
3.8 Negative features: Iron Age storage pits
3.9 Surfaces: floor levels
3.4.4 Structures and materials
3.4.5 Standing buildings
3.4.6 Reconstruction
3.5 Records, archives and publication
3.5.1 Recording
3.5.2 Digital recording
3.5.3 Reflexive fieldwork
3.5.4 Publication and archiving the results
3.6 Guide to further reading
3.6.1 Online resources
3.6.2 Archaeological methods
3.6.3 Development of excavation techniques and archaeologists
4 Dating the Past
4.1 Background
4.2 Typology and cross-dating
4.2.1 Sequence dating and seriation
4.3 Historical dating
4.1 Using seriation: Native American sites in New York State
4.2 Which dating technique?
4.3.1 Applying historical dates to sites
4.4 Scientific dating techniques
4.4.1 Geological timescales
4.4.2 Climatostratigraphy
4.4.3 Varves
4.4.4 Palynostratigraphy
4.4.5 Dendrochronology
4.3 Alchester: dendrochronology in action
4.5 Absolute techniques
4.5.1 Radioactive decay
4.5.2 Radiocarbon dating
4.4 The first radiocarbon revolution: Willard Libby
4.5.3 Presenting and interpreting a radiocarbon date
4.5.4 The Bayesian radiocarbon revolution
4.5.5 Potassium-argon (40K/40Ar) and argon-argon dating (40Ar/39Ar)
4.5.6 Uranium-series dating
4.5.7 Fission-track dating
4.5.8 Tephrochronology
4.5 Vikings, fire and ice: the application of tephrochronology
4.5.9 Luminescence dating
4.6 Optical stimulated luminescence: Deaf Adder Gorge, Australia
4.5.10 Electron spin resonance (ESR)
4.6 Derivative techniques
4.6.1 Protein and amino acid diagenesis dating
4.6.2 Obsidian hydration dating
4.6.3 Archaeomagnetic dating
4.7 The authenticity of artefacts
4.8 Conclusions
4.7 Dating an archaeological excavation
4.9 Guide to further reading
5 Archaeological Science
5.1 The nature of science
5.2 The environment
5.3 Climate
5.1 Climate and the human past
5.4 The geosphere
5.4.1 Geology
5.4.2 Soils
5.5 The biosphere
5.5.1 Plants
5.2 Small but vital: plant and animal remains recovered by means of flotation
5.3 Domestication of maize in the Americas
5.5.2 Animals
5.4 Charting animal domestication
5.5 Ceramics and food remains: gas chromatography
5.5.3 Fish
5.5.4 Shells: archaeomalacology
5.5.5 Insects and other invertebrates
5.6 Humans
5.6.1 Burials
5.6 Human remains and evidence of warfare: Towton Moor
5.6.2 Palaeopathology and evidence from human remains
5.7 DNA and disease: the archaeology of tuberculosis
5.6.3 Diet
5.6.4 Movement and migration
5.8 Movement and migration: Bronze Age Beaker burials
5.9 Isola Sacra: diet and migration in Ancient Rome
5.6.5 Genetics and DNA
5.7 Artefacts and raw materials
5.7.1 Methods of examination and analysis
5.7.2 Stone
5.7.3 Ceramics
5.7.4 Metals
5.8 Conservation
5.8.1 Ancient objects
5.10 Roman coins
5.8.2 Historic buildings and archaeological sites
5.9 Statistics
5.10 Experimental archaeology
5.11 Experimental archaeology
5.10.1 Artefacts
5.10.2 Sites and structures
5.11 Conclusion
5.12 Guide to further reading
6 Making Sense of the Past
6.1 What is archaeological theory?
6.1 Archaeological theory and changing perspectives
6.1.1 Social evolution
6.1.2 Culture history
6.2 Nationalism and archaeology
6.2 Towards processual archaeology
6.2.1 The New Archaeology
6.3 Reconstructing past societies: hierarchies, heterarchies and social complexity
6.2.2 Ethnoarchaeology and Middle Range Theory
6.3 Towards postprocessual archaeology
6.3.1 Postprocessualism
6.3.2 Reflexive thinking
6.3.3 Modernity, modernism and postmodernism
6.4 Phenomenology: postprocessualism and landscape archaeology
6.4 Interpretive archaeology
6.4.1 Agency, structuration and habitus
6.4.2 Archaeologies of identity
6.4.3 Artefacts: biographies, materiality, fragmentation and personhood
6.5 Archaeological theory in the new millennium
6.5.1 Entanglement
6.5.2 Actor-network theory and symmetrical archaeology
6.5.3 Assemblages and new materialism
6.5.4 Perspectivism and posthumanism
6.6 Conclusion: pasts, presents and futures of archaeological theory
6.7 Guide to further reading
7 The Past in the Present and the Future
7.1 Where is archaeology at the beginning of the twenty-first century?
7.1.1 Too much information?
7.1 Are all visions of the past equal? Pseudo-archaeology
7.2 Archaeology and the public
7.2.1 Heritage management: controlling the present by means of the past?
7.2.2 Archaeology and the State
7.2 Heritage management: state protection
7.3 Tourism and heritage: Kenilworth Castle
7.2.3 Public archaeology
7.4 Community co-production of heritage: the ‘ACCORD project’
7.2.4 Heritage management and heritage practice: the case of Stonehenge
7.3 Archaeology, museums and antiquities
7.3.1 Museums: from art galleries to experience and activism
7.3.2 The antiquities trade
7.5 Lost treasures of Iraq: war and cultural heritage
7.6 Archaeology and ethics: the case of human remains
7.4 Archaeology and the future
7.4.1 Modelling the future and defining the Anthropocene
7.4.2 Archaeology and climate crisis
7.4.3 Heritage futures
7.7 Heritage futures: The future of nuclear waste
7.5 Conclusion: past, present, future and you
7.8 A passport to the past: archaeological skills passports and continuous professional development
7.6 Guide to further reading
Glossary
Bibliography
Index