The Archaeological Imagination

My book, The Archaeological Imagination, long in gestation, will soon be out from Mitch Allen’s Left Coast Press – [Link] This week in Götegorg, I have been sharing some of its stories. Set in the borders between England and Scotland, I explore the roots of so many of our contemporary attitudes towards the past. The…

creative spaces

I have just received a copy of Make space: How to set the stage for creative collaboration, from Stanford d.school’s Scott Doorley and Scott Witthoft – [Link] It is about the wonderful environment of the Peterson Building, home of the d.school, how it came to look the way it does, with its customized fittings, studios,…

Olivier – Le sombre abîme du temps

Laurent Olivier’s wonderful book Le sombre abîme du temps has just appeared in translation (as The dark abyss of time: memory and archaeology) – [Link] Laurent offers profound elaboration of the fundamental insight that the past is all around us, before us, in material traces, that presence is filled with the past, that the future…

graveyards and a sentimental education

I can’t help hanging around the dead. On a visit to Walter Scott’s grave in the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey. Some extraordinary gravestones. Early to mid 18th century. I have been talking with Bianca (Carpeneti) and Chris (Lowman) about a true education of the sentiments – as envisaged by Rousseau – so much more appropriately…