Spanish poet Julio Martínez Mesanza wrote: “I only want to return to the trenches, to the trenches where I have never been… I only want to return to the sadness of the Western front, which is my sadness” I share the feelings of Martínez Mesanza each time I work in a site from the Spanish…
contemporary archaeology
unearthed exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts
unearthed exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts © Andy Crouch 2010. To access an on-line version of the Gallery Guide, please follow this link: http://issuu.com/sainsburycentreforvisualarts/docs/unearthed_galleryguide unearthed, a major new exhibition featuring prehistoric figurines from Japan, Romania, Macedonia, Albania, and the UK, opens at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia,…
Archaeologists should grapple with the anthropocene too…
In its complex reflexivities, its multiple feedback loops, and its inextricable entanglement of nature and culture, the anthropocene is a geological epoch like no other. The difficult task of understanding it should not be left entirely to biochemists, geologists, climatologists and other natural scientists. Archaeologists should grapple with the anthropocene too…..
Yes we can! But so what? Some observations on contemporary archaeology
James Symonds (University of Oulu, Finland) For more than 150 years archaeology has had a clear purpose, to sketch out the topography of the past from the pinnacle of the present. Like the traveller’s gaze in Shelley’s Ozymandius, archaeologists have lingered over fragments from ancient times, evoking feelings of wonder, irony, and loss. Archaeological research…
Fields of artifacts: archaeology of contemporary scientific discovery
The times when artifacts come to light – the moments of discovery as it were – are crucial moments in that they precipitate discussion and argument amongst scientists about what is real and what is not, what is natural and what is artificial, how the artifacts got to be there, how to interpret them, and what to do about them.
Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory Conference 2009
John M. Chenoweth (UC Berkeley) From October 16 to 18, participants met at Keble College, Oxford, for the 2009 CHAT conference. Over 30 papers engaged with the theme “Modern Materials: the archaeology of things from the early modern, modern, and contemporary world.” Both participants and subjects of discussion were wide ranging. While many came from…