The Archaeological Imagination

Archaeology is a way of acting and thinkingabout what is left of the pastabout the temporality of what remains about material and temporal processes towhich peo... » 

Archaeology is a way of acting and thinkingabout what is left of the pastabout the temporality of what remains about material and temporal processes towhich people and their goods are subject about the processes of order andentropy of making consuming and discarding at the heart of human experience.These elements and the practices that archaeologists follow to uncover themis the essence of the archaeological imagination. In this extended essayrenowned archaeological theorist Michael Shanks offers his colleagues andstudents a window on this imaginative world of past and present and thecreative role archaeology can play in uncovering it analyzing it andinterpreting it. «