Life-writing in the History of Archaeology

Life-writing in the History of Archaeology
Author: Gabriel Moshenska
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 430
Release: 2023-07-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1800084501

Life-writing is a vital part of the history of archaeology, and a growing field of scholarship within the discipline. The lives of archaeologists are entangled with histories of museums and collections, developments in science and scholarship, and narratives of nationalism and colonialism into the present. In recent years life-writing has played an important role in the surge of new research in the history of archaeology, including ground-breaking studies of discipline formation, institutionalisation, and social and intellectual networks. Sources such as diaries, wills, film, and the growing body of digital records are powerful tools for highlighting the contributions of hitherto marginalised archaeological lives including many pioneering women, hired labourers and other ‘hidden hands’. This book brings together critical perspectives on life-writing in the history of archaeology from leading figures in the field. These include studies of archive formation and use, the concept of ‘dig-writing’ as a distinctive genre of archaeological creativity, and reviews of new sources for already well-known lives. Several chapters reflect on the experience of life-writing, review the historiography of the field, and assess the intellectual value and significance of life-writing as a genre. Together, they work to problematise underlying assumptions about this genre, foregrounding methodology, social theory, ethics and other practice-focused frameworks in conscious tension with previous practices.

Life-Writing in the History of Archaeology

Life-Writing in the History of Archaeology
Author: Clare Lewis
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-03-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781800084520

A study of life-writing as a vital part of the history of archaeology and a growing field of scholarship within the discipline. Travels and adventures of the "great archaeologists" have generated centuries worth of bestselling books that, in turn, have shaped the public perception of archaeology. The lives of archaeologists are entangled with histories of museums and collections, developments in science and scholarship, and narratives of nationalism and colonialism into the present. In recent years, life-writing has played an important role in the surge of new research in the history of archaeology, including ground-breaking studies of discipline formation, institutionalization, and social and intellectual networks. Sources such as diaries, wills, film, and the growing body of digital records are powerful tools for highlighting the contributions of hitherto marginalized archaeological lives including many pioneering women, hired laborers, and other "hidden hands." This book brings together critical perspectives on life-writing in the history of archaeology from leading figures in the field. These include studies of archive formation and use, the concept of "dig-writing" as a distinctive genre of archaeological creativity, and reviews of new sources for already well-known lives. Several chapters reflect on the experience of life-writing, review the historiography of the field, and assess the intellectual value and significance of life-writing as a genre. Together, they work to problematize underlying assumptions about this genre, foregrounding methodology, social theory, ethics, and other practice-focused frameworks in conscious tension with previous practices.

A Classical Archaeologist's Life: the Story So Far

A Classical Archaeologist's Life: the Story So Far
Author: John Boardman
Publisher: Archaeopress Archaeology
Total Pages:
Release: 2020-07-23
Genre:
ISBN: 9781789693430

A Classical Archaeologists's Life: The Story so Far shows that a scholar's life is not all scholarship, though much of this book is devoted to the writing of books and, especially, travel to classical and other lands. Boardman is a Londoner, born in Ilford and attending school in Essex (Chigwell). His teenage years were spent often in air raid shelters rather than with 'mates' (all evacuated). There are distinctive 'aunties', the rituals of daily life in a London suburb. The non-scholarly figures live large in this account of his life, marriage, children, new houses. At Cambridge he learned about classical archaeology as a necessary addition to reading Homer and Demosthenes, even being obliged to recite the latter. And those were the days of Bertrand Russell's lectures in a university reawakening after the war. Thence to the British School at Athens to learn about excavation (Smyrna, Knossos, later Libya). His return from Greece was to Oxford, not Cambridge, at first in the Ashmolean Museum, then as Reader and Professor. A spell in New York gives an account of the city before the troubles, when Petula Clark's Down Town was dominant. There is much here to reflect on university life and teaching, and on the reasons for and problems with the writing of his many books (some 40), with reflection on the university, colleges and their ways. Travels are well documented - a notable trip through Pakistan and China, in Persia, Egypt, Turkey - with comment on what he saw and experienced beyond archaeology. A lecture tour in Australia provides comment beyond the academic. He visited Israel often, lecturing and publishing for the Bible Lands Museum. Several tours in the USA took him to most of their museums and universities as well many other sights, from glaciers to alligators.This book is a mixture of scholarly reminiscence, reflection on family life, travelogue, and critique of classical scholarship (not all archaeological) worldwide, illustrated with pictures of travels, friends, home life, and, for a historian, a reflection on experiences of over 90 years.

Archaeologists in Print

Archaeologists in Print
Author: Amara Thornton
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2018-06-25
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1787352579

Archaeologists in Print is a history of popular publishing in archaeology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a pivotal period of expansion and development in both archaeology and publishing. It examines how British archaeologists produced books and popular periodical articles for a non-scholarly audience, and explores the rise in archaeologists’ public visibility. Notably, it analyses women’s experiences in archaeology alongside better known male contemporaries as shown in their books and archives. In the background of this narrative is the history of Britain’s imperial expansion and contraction, and the evolution of modern tourism in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. Archaeologists exploited these factors to gain public and financial support and interest, and build and maintain a reading public for their work, supported by the seasonal nature of excavation and tourism. Reinforcing these publishing activities through personal appearances in the lecture hall, exhibition space and site tour, and in new media – film, radio and television – archaeologists shaped public understanding of archaeology. It was spadework, scripted. The image of the archaeologist as adventurous explorer of foreign lands, part spy, part foreigner, eternally alluring, solidified during this period. That legacy continues, undimmed, today. Praise for Archaeologists in Print This beautifully written book will be valued by all kinds of readers: you don't need to be an archaeologist to enjoy the contents, which take you through different publishing histories of archaeological texts and the authors who wrote them. From the productive partnership of travel guide with archaeological interest, to the women who feature so often in the history of archaeological publishing, via closer analysis of the impact of John Murray, Macmillan and Co, and Penguin, this volume excavates layers of fascinating facts that reveal much of the wider culture of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The prose is clear and the stories compulsive: Thornton brings to life a cast of people whose passion for their profession lives again in these pages. Warning: the final chapter, on Archaeological Fictions, will fill your to-be-read list with stacks of new titles to investigate! This is a highly readable, accessible exploration into the dynamic relationships between academic authors, publishers, and readers. It is, in addition, an exemplar of how academic research can attract a wide general readership, as well as a more specialised one: a stellar combination of rigorous scholarship with lucid, pacy prose. Highly recommended!' Samantha Rayner, Director of UCL Centre for Publishing; Deputy Head of Department and Director of Studies, Department of Information Studies, UCL

The Archaeology of Daily Life

The Archaeology of Daily Life
Author: David A. Fiensy
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2021-01-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1532673078

Have you ever wondered what it was like to live in the past? Did they experience reality in a much different way than we do now with our media, our fast travel, our fast food, and our leisure? Do you especially think about what it might have been like to have lived in Bible times? What would your childhood have been like? How would you have chosen a marriage partner? How would you probably have made a living? What sort of house would you have lived in? What diseases would have threatened your daily existence? How long would you have lived? How would you have practiced your religion? These are a few of the intriguing questions answered by this study. The book takes you on a journey into the past to view daily life through the lenses of not only texts but archaeological finds. The information from the past is also filtered through ethnographic studies of more contemporaneous, yet traditional, societies in the Middle East. The result is a presentation that may surprise you-even shock you-at times, but always will interest you.

Key Concepts in Public Archaeology

Key Concepts in Public Archaeology
Author: Gabriel Moshenska
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2017-09-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1911576445

This book provides a broad overview of the key concepts in public archaeology, a research field that examines the relationship between archaeology and the public, in both theoretical and practical terms. While based on the long-standing programme of undergraduate and graduate teaching in public archaeology at UCL’s renowned Institute of Archaeology, the book also takes into account the growth of scholarship from around the world and seeks to clarify what exactly ‘public archaeology’ is by promoting an inclusive, socially and politically engaged vision of the discipline. Written for students and practitioners, the individual chapters provide textbook-level introductions to the themes, theories and controversies that connect archaeology to wider society, from the trade in illicit antiquities to the use of digital media in public engagement, and point readers to the most relevant case studies and learning resources to aid their further study. This book was produced as part of JISC's Institution as e-Textbook Publisher project. Find out more at https://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/institution-as-e-textbook-publisher Praise for Key Concepts in Archaeology 'Littered throughout with concise and well-chosen case studies, Key Concepts in Public Archaeology could become essential reading for undergraduates and is a welcome reminder of where archaeology sits in UK society today.' British Archaeology

Misadventures in Archaeology

Misadventures in Archaeology
Author: Carolyn D. Dillian
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2020-03-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1949057054

In the late nineteenth century, Charles Conrad Abbott, a medical doctor and self-taught archaeologist, gained notoriety for his theories on early humans. He believed in an American Paleolithic, represented by an early Ice Age occupation of the New World that paralleled that of Europe, a popular scientific topic at the time. He attempted to prove that the Trenton gravels—glacial outwash deposits near the Delaware River—contained evidence of an early, primitive population that pre-dated Native Americans. His theories were ultimately overturned in acrimonious public debate with government scientists, most notably William Henry Holmes of the Smithsonian Institution. His experience—and the rise and fall of his scientific reputation—paralleled a major shift in the field toward an increasing professionalization of archaeology (and science as a whole). This is the first biography of Charles Conrad Abbott to address his archaeological research beyond the Paleolithic debate, including his early attempts at historical archaeology on Burlington Island in the Delaware River, and prehistoric Middle Woodland collections made throughout his lifetime at Three Beeches in New Jersey, now the Abbott Farm National Historic Landmark. It also delves into his modestly successful career as a nature writer. As an archaeologist, he held a position with the Peabody Museum at Harvard University and was the first curator of the American Section at the Penn Museum. He also attempted to create a museum of American archaeology at Princeton University. Through various sources including archival letters and diaries, this book provides the most complete picture of the quirky and curmudgeonly, C. C. Abbott.

A Brief History of Archaeology

A Brief History of Archaeology
Author: Nadia Durrani
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2016-06-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 131722020X

This short account of the discipline of archaeology tells of spectacular discoveries and the colorful lives of the archaeologists who made them, as well as of changing theories and current debates in the field. Spanning over two thousand years of history, the book details early digs as well as covering the development of archaeology as a multidisciplinary science, the modernization of meticulous excavation methods during the twentieth century, and the important discoveries that led to new ideas about the evolution of human societies. A Brief History of Archaeology is a vivid narrative that will engage readers who are new to the discipline, drawing on the authors’ extensive experience in the field and classroom. Early research at Stonehenge in Britain, burial mound excavations, and the exploration of Herculaneum and Pompeii culminate in the nineteenth century debates over human antiquity and the theory of evolution. The book then moves on to the discovery of the world’s pre-industrial civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Central America, the excavations at Troy and Mycenae, the Royal Burials at Ur, Iraq, and the dramatic finding of the pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922. The book concludes by considering recent sensational discoveries, such as the Lords of Sipán in Peru, and exploring the debates over processual and postprocessual theory which have intrigued archaeologists in the early 21st century. The second edition updates this respected introduction to one of the sciences’ most fascinating disciplines.

Writing the Lives of People and Things, AD 500-1700

Writing the Lives of People and Things, AD 500-1700
Author: Robert F.W. Smith
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2017-05-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134809220

Historical biography has a mixed reputation: at its best it can reveal much not only about an individual, but the wider context of their life and society; at worst it can result in a narrowly focused work of hagiography or condemnation. Yet in spite of its sometimes inferior status amongst academics, biography has remained a popular genre, and in recent years has developed into new and intriguing areas. As the essays in this volume reveal, scholars from an array of different disciplines have embraced what biography can offer them, expanding the remit of biography from people to things, tracing the 'life' of their chosen object from creation to use to disposal to rediscovery. The increasing concern with the physicality of manuscripts and books has also meant an awareness of and interest in the 'lives' of these forms of material culture. Historians have also become increasingly interested in groups of individuals resulting in prosopographical studies. A book on the diversity of biography is therefore very timely, exploring the multi-disciplinary application of historical biography in the period 500-1700. It presents fourteen case studies offering new approaches to historical biography, written by early-career researchers from backgrounds in archaeology, English, art, architectural history and history, demonstrating different approaches and techniques. Overall, the collection is a strong and united statement by a group of early-career researchers who insist on the vitality of biography as a central concern of historians across the disciplines of the humanities. Contributors believe that the 'life' is a fundamental medium of study for the medieval and early modern periods, and thus . bolsters the move back towards biography as a primary tool of medieval and early modern scholars, as well as a tool for future research for humanities scholars interested in biography.

WRITING ARCHAEOLOGY

WRITING ARCHAEOLOGY
Author: Brian Fagan
Publisher: Left Coast Press
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2006
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1598740059

America’s best-known popular author of archaeology distills decades of experience in this brief guide designed to help others wanting to broaden the audience for their work. Brian Fagan’s no nonsense approach explains how to get started writing, how to use the tools of experienced writers to make archaeology come alive for the general public, and how to get your work revised and finished. He also describes the process by which publishers decide to accept your work, and the track your publication will follow after it is accepted by a press. Dealing with several genres of popular publication—articles, columns, trade books and textbooks—Fagan shows both the differences and similarities in the writing and the publication processes. While speaking directly to those interested in penning for a broad public, Fagan’s sage advice on writing and publishing will be of great value to all archaeologists and their students.