For centuries, the goal of archaeologists was to document and describe material artifacts, and at best to make inferences about the origins and evolution of human culture and about prehistoric and historic societies. During the 1960s, however, a number of young, primarily American archaeologists, including William Longacre, rebelled against this simplistic approach. Wanting to do more than just describe, Longacre and others believed that genuine explanations could be achieved by changing the direction, scope, and methodology of the field. What resulted was the New Archaeology, which blended scientific method and anthropology. It urged those working in the field to formulate hypotheses, derive conclusions deductively and, most important, to test them. While, over time the New Archaeology has had its critics, one point remains irrefutable: archaeology will never return to what has since been called its Òstate of innocence.Ó In this collection of twelve new chapters, four generations of Longacre protŽgŽs show how they are building upon and developing but also modifying the theoretical paradigm that remains at the core of Americanist archaeology. The contributions focus on six themes prominent in LongacreÕs career: the intellectual history of the field in the late twentieth century, archaeological methodology, analogical inference, ethnoarchaeology, cultural evolution, and reconstructing ancient society. More than a comprehensive overview of the ideas developed by one of the most influential scholars in the field, however, Archaeological Anthropology makes stimulating contributions to contemporary research. The contributors do not unequivocally endorse LongacreÕs ideas; they challenge them and expand beyond them, making this volume a fitting tribute to a man whose robust research and teaching career continues to resonate.

This volume assesses the real achievements of archaeology in increasing an understanding of the past. Without rejecting the insights either of traditional or more recent approaches, it considers the issues raised in current claims and controversies about what is appropriate theory for archaeology. The first section looks at the process of theory building and at the sources of the ideas employed. The following studies examine questions such as the interplay between expectation and evidence in ideas of human origins, social role and material practice in the formation of the archaeological record, and how the rise of states should be conceptualised; further papers cover issues of ethnoarchaeology, visual symbols, and conflicting claims to ownership of the past. The conclusion is that archaeologists need to be equally wary of naive positivism in the guise of scientific procedure, and of speculation about the unrecorded intentions of prehistoric actors.

The last 20 years have witnessed a proliferation of new approaches in archaeolog ical data recovery, analysis, and theory building that incorporate both new forms of information and new methods for investigating them. The growing importance of survey has meant an expansion of the spatial realm of traditional archaeological data recovery and analysis from its traditional focus on specific locations on the landscape-archaeological sites-to the incorporation of data both on-site and off-site from across extensive regions. Evolving survey methods have led to experiments with nonsite and distributional data recovery as well as the critical evaluation of the definition and role of archaeological sites in data recovery and analysis. In both survey and excavation, the geomorphological analysis of land scapes has become increasingly important in the analysis of archaeological ma terials. Ethnoarchaeology-the use of ethnography to sharpen archaeological understanding of cultural and natural formation processes-has concentrated study on the formation processes underlying the content and structure of archae ological deposits. These actualistic studies consider patterns of deposition at the site level and the material results of human organization at the regional scale. Ethnoarchaeological approaches have also affected research in theoretical ways by expanding investigation into the nature and organization of systems of land use per se, thus providing direction for further study of the material results of those systems.

A general introduction to archeogaming describing the intersection of archaeology and video games and applying archaeological method and theory into understanding game-spaces. “[T]he author’s clarity of style makes it accessible to all readers, with or without an archaeological background. Moreover, his personal anecdotes and gameplay experiences with different game titles, from which his ideas often develop, make it very enjoyable reading.”—Antiquity Video games exemplify contemporary material objects, resources, and spaces that people use to define their culture. Video games also serve as archaeological sites in the traditional sense as a place, in which evidence of past activity is preserved and has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology, and which represents a part of the archaeological record. From the introduction: Archaeogaming, broadly defined, is the archaeology both in and of digital games... As will be described in the following chapters, digital games are archaeological sites, landscapes, and artifacts, and the game-spaces held within those media can also be understood archaeologically as digital built environments containing their own material culture... Archaeogaming does not limit its study to those video games that are set in the past or that are treated as “historical games,” nor does it focus solely on the exploration and analysis of ruins or of other built environments that appear in the world of the game. Any video game—from Pac-Man to Super Meat Boy—can be studied archaeologically.

This handbook gathers original, authoritative articles from leading archaeologists to compile the latest thinking about archaeological theory. The authors provide a comprehensive picture of the theoretical foundations by which archaeologists contextualize and analyze their archaeological data. Student readers will also gain a sense of the immense power that theory has for building interpretations of the past, while recognizing the wonderful archaeological traditions that created it. An extensive bibliography is included. This volume is the single most important reference for current information on contemporary archaeological theories.