Archaeology for Today and Tomorrow explores how cutting-edge archaeological theories have implications not only for how we study the past but also how we think about and prepare for the future.
Ranging from how we understand migration or political leadership to how we think about violence or ecological crisis, the book argues that archaeology should embrace a “future-oriented” attitude. Behind the traditional archaeological gaze on the past is a unique and useful collection of skills, tools, and orientations for rethinking the present and future. Further, it asserts that archaeological theory is not only vital for how we conduct our work as archaeologists and how we create narratives about the past but also for how we think about the broader world in the present and, crucially, how we envision and shape the future. Each of the chapters in the book links theoretical approaches and global archaeological case studies to a specific contemporary issue. It examines such issues as human movement, violence, human and non-human relations, the Anthropocene, and fake news to showcase the critical contributions that archaeology, and archaeological theory, can make to shaping the world of tomorrow.
An ideal book for courses on archaeology in the modern world and public archaeology, it will also appeal to archaeology students and researchers in general and all those in related disciplines interested in areas of critical contemporary concern.
Author Biography:
Craig N. Cipolla is Mellon Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Tufts University. Before moving to Massachusetts, he was Curator and Vettoretto Chair of North American Archaeology at the Royal Ontario Museum and Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. Author of Becoming Brothertown, Archaeological Theory in the New Millennium (with Oliver J. T. Harris, Routledge), and Archaeological Theory in Dialogue (with Rachel J. Crellin, Lindsay Montgomery, Oliver J. T. Harris, and Sophie Moore, Routledge), his research interests include collaborative Indigenous archaeology, historical archaeology, and archaeological theory. He currently directs the Mohegan Archaeological Field School in collaboration with the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut.
Rachel J. Crellin is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Leicester. She is the author of Change and Archaeology (2020, Routledge) and a co-author of Archaeological Theory in Dialogue (with Craig N. Cipolla, Lindsay Montgomery, Oliver J. T. Harris, and Sophie Moore, 2021, Routledge). Her research interests center on archaeological theory, especially posthumanist feminism and new materialism, Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain and Ireland, and metalwork wear analysis. She currently co-directs the Round Mounds of the Isle of Man fieldwork project and the Leverhulme-funded project A New History of Bronze.
Oliver J. T. Harris is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Leicester. He is the author of Assembling Past Worlds (Routledge) and the co-author of Archaeological Theory in the New Millennium (with Craig N. Cipolla, Routledge), Archaeological Theory in Dialogue (with Rachel J. Crellin, Craig N. Cipolla, Lindsay Montgomery, and Sophie Moore, Routledge), and The Body in History (with John Robb, CUP). He is interested in archaeological theory, the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, and the Neolithic and Bronze Age of Britain and Ireland. He co-directs fieldwork on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, western Scotland.
