archaeological archetypes Daily Telegraph | News | Ice Maiden triggers mother of all disputes in Siberia This story has it all. High in the Altai mountains of southern Siberia, where Shamans still practise their ancient rites and most people are descended from Asiatic nomads, there is a whiff of revolt in the air. Local officials,…
archaeological sensibility
archaeological character and subculture
The BBC call him a cross between James Bond, Graham Greene and Indiana Jones. Patrick Leigh Fermor, at 89, is now Sir Patrick. Truly a wonderful writer. A personal anecdote. Setting – the British School at Athens, 1990. Homebase of the British archaeological community in Greece. I was there to continue my research into the…
craft is cool … and archaeological
Guardian UK – Observer article on craft as art Grayson Perry – A Tradition of Bitterness, 2002 “What folk culture goes on in these Barratt homes: deceit, divorce and suicide in Merrie England …” These days craft is cool. After all it was a potter, Grayson Perry, who won the Turner Prize in December. It…
memory, heritage, things and a sense of who we are
BBC magazine article today on the nostalgia business – it is big and growing. BMW’s new Mini – after the 60s icon – is very popular here in northern California. Raleigh’s 1970s “chopper” bicycle was relaunched last month. Now some people have a problem with all this – because they see nostalgia as some kind…
Archaeologists with attitude
Colin Renfrew in Stanford. Here to join me and Bill Rathje in a conversation about archaeology, for our book Archaeologists with Attitude. Gave a fascinating talk this evening – “The Sapient Paradox: cognitive archaeology from institutional facts to material realities”. He sketched out his interest in what he called material engagements – how people get…
Modernism/modernity – an archaeological glossary
Winding up the paper with Bill Rathje and David Platt on the perfume of garbage. Here is something I wrote for the introduction to the special issue of Modernism/Modernity. We have outlined what may be called the duplicity of the archaeological object and have tracked aspects of some archaeological modernisms that work upon this duplicity,…