"Making Archaeology Happen" Reviewed

European Journal of Archaeology, 2013

AP: Online Journal in Public Archaeology, 2016

Routledge, 2013

This book is intended to change the way we understand archaeology, the way it works, and its recent history. Offered are seventeen conversations among some of its notable contemporary figures, edited and with a commentary. They reveal an understanding of archaeology that runs counter to most text book accounts, delving deeply into the questions that have come to fascinate archaeologists over the last forty years or so, those that concern major events in human history such as the origins of agriculture and the state, and questions about the way archaeologists go about their work. Many of the conversations highlight quite intensely held personal insight into what motivates us to pursue archaeology, what makes archaeologists tick; some may even be termed outrageous in the light they shed on the way archaeological institutions operate – excavation teams, professional associations, university departments. Something of an oral history, this is a finely focused study of a creative science, a collection of bold statements that reveal the human face of archaeology in our contemporary interest in the material remains of the past.

The journal is open to international research submitted by individual scholars as well as by interdisciplinary teams, and especially wishes to promote work by junior researchers and new and innovative projects. Challenging research themes can be explored in dedicated issues, and theoretical approaches are welcomed. Book reviews and review articles further screen the pulse of the field.

Antiquity, 2019

Current archaeological practice in the UK and elsewhere focuses on the collection of empirical data. While scholars have proposed theoretical advances in field techniques, very few of these methods have been adopted in commercial archaeology. A combination of increased time pressure on development projects and the conservatism of the sector contribute to challenging times for archaeological practice. Additional complexity is introduced by large-scale infrastructure projects unsuited to standardised field techniques. This article explores these issues, calling for a flexible, consultative approach to project design and implementation, to ensure the longevity of both archaeology and the archaeological profession.

In A. González-Ruibal (ed.): Reclaiming Archaeology: beyond the tropes of Modernity., 2013

Archaeology has been an important source of metaphors for some of the key intellectuals of the 20 th century , including philosophers, writers, art historians and historians: Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, Alois Riegl, Michel Foucault or George Bataille to mention but a few. Some of them resorted to archaeological metaphors in a very explicit way (Freud, Foucault), others more unconsciously (Husserl or Heidegger: Edgeworth 2006), but, in any case, the allure of the archaeological is very present in the making of modern thought. However, this power of archaeology has also turned against archaeology, because the discipline has been dealt with perfunctorily as a mere provider of metaphors that other intellectuals have exploited (Olsen 2010: 2), often in more fruitful ways. Not surprisingly, if one searches the word "archaeology" in Google Scholar, the first three results refer to Foucault's work, not to "real" archaeology-which is ironic, because the book is actually a rejection of classical archaeological tropes (such as origins and depth).

2013

Bill Rathje, Michael Shanks and Chris Witmore in conversation with Lewis Binford, Victor Buchli, John Cherry, Meg Conkey, George Cowgill, Ian Hodder, Kristian Kristiansen, Mark Leone, Randy McGuire, Adrian Praetzellis, Mary Praetzellis, Colin Renfrew, Mike Schiffer, Alain Schnapp, Ruth Tringham, Patty Jo Watson, Alison Wylie.