ABSTRACT

This is the first book-length study to explore the relationship between archaeology and modern thought, showing how philosophical ideas that developed in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries still dominate our approach to the material remains of ancient societies.

Addressing current debates from a new viewpoint, Archaeology and Modernity discusses the modern emphasis on method rather than ethics or meaning, our understanding of change in history and nature, the role of the nation-state in forming our views of the past, and contemporary notions of human individuality, the mind, and materiality.

chapter 2|5 pages

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE TENSIONS OF MODERNITY

chapter |15 pages

Modernity and its discontents

chapter 3|21 pages

THE TYRANNY OF METHOD

chapter |2 pages

Conclusion

chapter 4|18 pages

HISTORY AND NATURE

chapter 5|23 pages

NATION-STATES

chapter 6|4 pages

HUMANISM AND ‘THE INDIVIDUAL’

chapter |11 pages

Ethnographies of the person

chapter |5 pages

The Ice Man cometh

chapter 7|9 pages

DEPTHS AND SURFACES

chapter |13 pages

Archaeology, stratigraphy and depth

chapter 8|3 pages

MIND, PERCEPTION AND KNOWLEDGE

chapter |4 pages

Mind, matter and meaning

chapter |24 pages

Vision, perception and objectivity

chapter 9|8 pages

MATERIALITIES

chapter 10|6 pages

TOWARDS A COUNTER-MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY

Difference, ethics, dialogue, finitude

chapter |13 pages

Critiques of modernity

chapter |7 pages

The ethical relation and dialogue