Teaching and Learning the Archaeology of the Contemporary Era

Teaching and Learning the Archaeology of the Contemporary Era
Author: Gabriel Moshenska
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2023-12-14
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1350335657

The tools and techniques of archaeology were designed for the study of past people and societies, but for more than a century a growing number of archaeologists have turned these same tools to the study of the modern world. This book offers an overview of these pioneering practices through a specifically pedagogical lens, fostering an appreciation of the diversity and distinctiveness of contemporary archaeology and providing an evidence base for course proposals and curriculum design. Although research in the field is well established and vibrant, making critical contributions to wider debates around issues such as homelessness, migration and the refugee crisis, and legacies of war and conflict, the teaching of contemporary archaeology in universities has until recently been relatively limited in comparison. This selection of carefully curated case studies from as far afield as Orkney, Iran and the USA is intended as a resource and an inspiration for both teachers and students, presenting a set of tools and practices to borrow, modify and apply in new contexts. It demonstrates how interdisciplinarity, practical work and radical pedagogies are of value not only for archaeology, but also for fields such as history, geography and anthropology, and suggests new ways in which we can examine our 20th- and 21st-century existence and shape our collective future.

An Archaeology of the Contemporary Era

An Archaeology of the Contemporary Era
Author: Alfredo Gonzalez-Ruibal
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2018-12-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 042980699X

An Archaeology of the Contemporary Era approaches the contemporary age, between the late nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, as an archaeological period defined by specific material processes. It reflects on the theory and practice of the archaeology of the contemporary past from epistemological, political, ethical and aesthetic viewpoints, and characterises the present based on archaeological traces from the spatial, temporal and material excesses that define it. The materiality of our era, the book argues, and particularly its ruins and rubbish, reveals something profound, original and disturbing about humanity. This is the first attempt at describing the contemporary era from an archaeological point of view. Global in scope, the book brings together case studies from every continent and considers sources from peripheral and rarely considered traditions, meanwhile engaging in an interdisciplinary dialogue with philosophy, anthropology, history and geography. An Archaeology of the Contemporary Era will be essential reading for students and practitioners of the archaeology of the contemporary past, historical archaeology and archaeological theory. It will also be of interest to anybody concerned with globalisation, modernity and the Anthropocene.

The Oxford Handbook of Public Archaeology

The Oxford Handbook of Public Archaeology
Author: Robin Skeates
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 752
Release: 2012-01-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0191612502

The Oxford Handbook of Public Archaeology seeks to reappraise the place of archaeology in the contemporary world by providing a series of essays that critically engage with both old and current debates in the field of public archaeology. Divided into four distinct sections and drawing across disciplines in this dynamic field, the volume aims to evaluate the range of research strategies and methods used in archaeological heritage and museum studies, identify and contribute to key contemporary debates, critically explore the history of archaeological resource management, and question the fundamental principles and practices through which the archaeological past is understood and used today.

How Students Understand the Past

How Students Understand the Past
Author: M. Elaine Davis
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2005
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780759100435

History and archaeology education is highly valued among modern societies that seek to educate their youth about the past. Yet these areas have been_for the most part_slow to employ the latest advances in education theory and practice. Former classroom teacher and science education specialist M. Elaine Davis presents an informed and useful text that demonstrates the importance of contemporary learning theory and educational research to the development of effective programs in both formal and informal history and archaeology education. Chapters cover teaching and history education theory, and apply this to various case studies and program examples. This text will prove a much-valued tool for school teachers, museum educators, archaeologists, and historians_challenging and aiding educators to assess and improve their respective programs.

Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past

Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past
Author: Victor Buchli
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2002-01-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134571380

Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past turns what is usually seen as a method for investigating the distant past onto the present. In doing so, it reveals fresh ways of looking both at ourselves and modern society as well as the discipline of archaeology. This volume represents the most recent research in this area and examines a variety of contexts including: * Art Deco * landfills * miner strikes * college fraternities * an abandoned council house.

The Routledge Handbook of Gender Archaeology

The Routledge Handbook of Gender Archaeology
Author: Marianne Moen
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 602
Release: 2024-12-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 104025537X

This volume presents a comprehensive overview of gender archaeology, both theory and practice, and contributes a substantial and definitive reference work by bringing together state-of-the-art research, theoretical overviews, and the latest debates in the field. Responding to the shifts in the theoretical landscape and the societal and political frameworks within which we produce our knowledge, chapters create both a solid theoretical baseline which help readers grasp the significance of gender in archaeology as well as offer perspectives on how to engender produced knowledge about the past. In line with recent focus on the shortcomings of gender and archaeological representation, chapters also detangle academic discourse and popular representations in order to present novel ways of successfully negotiating the pitfalls of gendered ideas about past behaviours. By encouraging novel ways of integrating theoretical perspectives with scrutiny of gender stereotypes, original empirical examinations of identity markers and behaviours, and re-examinations of static representations of identities through new lenses, such as intersectional perspectives, personhood, and materiality debates, the volume is theoretically rich and will simultaneously provide a necessary benchmark for future archaeological discourses. Finally, it will incorporate perspectives from researchers with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints to provide a truly comprehensive overview. It will not shy away from engaging with politically contentious issues surrounding knowledge production but will include perspectives from researchers whose focus is less on feminist critiques and more on gender and identities. Thus, the volume bridges the two most prominent directions currently discernible within the focus area, namely, feminist re-examinations on the one hand and research focused more on bodily practice and gendered experiences on the other. The Routledge Handbook of Gender Archaeology is an invaluable resource for students and researchers in gender archaeology as well as gender studies more widely.

Communicating the Past in the Digital Age

Communicating the Past in the Digital Age
Author: Sebastian Hageneuer
Publisher: Ubiquity Press
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2020-02-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1911529862

Recent developments in the field of archaeology are not only progressing archaeological fieldwork but also changing the way we practise and present archaeology today. As these digital technologies are being used more and more every day on excavations or in museums, this also means that we must change the way we approach teaching and communicating archaeology as a discipline. The communication of archaeology is an often neglected but ever more important part of the profession. Instead of traditional lectures and museum displays, we can interact with the past in various ways. Students of archaeology today need to learn and understand these technologies, but can on the other hand also profit from them in creative ways of teaching and learning. The same holds true for visitors to a museum. This volume presents the outcome of a two-day international symposium on digital methods in teaching and learning in archaeology held at the University of Cologne in October 2018 addressing exactly this topic. Specialists from around the world share their views on the newest developments in the field of archaeology and the way we teach these with the help of archaeogaming, augmented and virtual reality, 3D reconstruction and many more. Thirteen chapters cover different approaches to teaching and learning archaeology in universities and museums and offer insights into modern-day ways to communicate the past in a digital age.

The First Black Archaeologist

The First Black Archaeologist
Author: John W.I. Lee
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-12-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0197579019

An inspiring portrait of an overlooked pioneer in Black history and American archaeology The First Black Archaeologist reveals the untold story of a pioneering African American classical scholar, teacher, community leader, and missionary. Born into slavery in rural Georgia, John Wesley Gilbert (1863-1923) gained national prominence in the early 1900s, but his accomplishments are little known today. Using evidence from archives across the U.S. and Europe, from contemporary publications, and from newly discovered documents, this book chronicles, for the first time, Gilbert's remarkable journey. As we follow Gilbert from the segregated public schools of Augusta, Georgia, to the lecture halls of Brown University, to his hiring as the first black faculty member of Augusta's Paine Institute, and through his travels in Greece, western Europe, and the Belgian Congo, we learn about the development of African American intellectual and religious culture, and about the enormous achievements of an entire generation of black students and educators. Readers interested in the early development of American archaeology in Greece will find an entirely new perspective here, as Gilbert was one of the first Americans of any race to do archaeological work in Greece. Those interested in African American history and culture will gain an invaluable new perspective on a leading yet hidden figure of the late 1800s and early 1900s, whose life and work touched many different aspects of the African American experience.

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World
Author: Paul Graves-Brown
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 852
Release: 2013-10-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0191663948

It has been clear for many years that the ways in which archaeology is practised have been a direct product of a particular set of social, cultural, and historical circumstances - archaeology is always carried out in the present. More recently, however, many have begun to consider how archaeological techniques might be used to reflect more directly on the contemporary world itself: how we might undertake archaeologies of, as well as in the present. This Handbook is the first comprehensive survey of an exciting and rapidly expanding sub-field and provides an authoritative overview of the newly emerging focus on the archaeology of the present and recent past. In addition to detailed archaeological case studies, it includes essays by scholars working on the relationships of different disciplines to the archaeology of the contemporary world, including anthropology, psychology, philosophy, historical geography, science and technology studies, communications and media, ethnoarchaeology, forensic archaeology, sociology, film, performance, and contemporary art. This volume seeks to explore the boundaries of an emerging sub-discipline, to develop a tool-kit of concepts and methods which are applicable to this new field, and to suggest important future trajectories for research. It makes a significant intervention by drawing together scholars working on a broad range of themes, approaches, methods, and case studies from diverse contexts in different parts of the world, which have not previously been considered collectively.

Material Evidence

Material Evidence
Author: Robert Chapman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2014-12-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317576233

How do archaeologists make effective use of physical traces and material culture as repositories of evidence? Material Evidence takes a resolutely case-based approach to this question, exploring instances of exemplary practice, key challenges, instructive failures, and innovative developments in the use of archaeological data as evidence. The goal is to bring to the surface the wisdom of practice, teasing out norms of archaeological reasoning from evidence. Archaeologists make compelling use of an enormously diverse range of material evidence, from garbage dumps to monuments, from finely crafted artifacts rich with cultural significance to the detritus of everyday life and the inadvertent transformation of landscapes over the long term. Each contributor to Material Evidence identifies a particular type of evidence with which they grapple and considers, with reference to concrete examples, how archaeologists construct evidential claims, critically assess them, and bring them to bear on pivotal questions about the cultural past. Historians, cultural anthropologists, philosophers, and science studies scholars are increasingly interested in working with material things as objects of inquiry and as evidence – and they acknowledge on all sides just how challenging this is. One of the central messages of the book is that close analysis of archaeological best practice can yield constructive guidelines for practice that have much to offer archaeologists and those in related fields.