Originally published in 1943, this book presents a study regarding the nature of prehistoric archaeology. The text discusses the common division of prehistoric human development into the Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, drawing attention to the value of this system and its potential limitations. Detailed textual notes are included throughout. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in archaeology and prehistoric man.

Objects generate time; time does not generate or change objects. That is the central thesis of this book by the philosopher Graham Harman and the archaeologist Christopher Witmore, who defend radical positions in their respective fields. Against a current and pervasive conviction that reality consists of an unceasing flux – a view associated in philosophy with New Materialism – object-oriented ontology asserts that objects of all varieties are the bedrock of reality from which time emerges. And against the narrative convictions of time as the course of historical events, the objects and encounters associated with archaeology push back against the very temporal delimitations which defined the field and its objects ever since its professionalization in the nineteenth century. In a study ranging from the ruins of ancient Corinth, Mycenae, and Troy to debates over time from Aristotle and al-Ash‘ari through Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead, the authors draw on alternative conceptions of time as retroactive, percolating, topological, cyclical, and generational, as consisting of countercurrents or of a surface tension between objects and their own qualities. Objects Untimely invites us to reconsider the modern notion of objects as inert matter serving as a receptacle for human categories.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1970.

The essays collected together in this volume were written in honour of Professor Christopher Hawkes, in recognition of his stature as an international scholar and his generosity in encouraging the work of others. The collection consists of a closely-knit group of studies, and includes contributions from continental scholars. The topics covered range from links between the Mycenaean and Greek worlds, European body-armour, firedogs in Iron Age Britain to Bronzes in Hungary. Originally published in 1971.

This engaging work uses key discoveries, events, people, techniques, and controversies to give the general reader a rich history of archaeology from its beginnings in the 16th century to the present. The history of archaeology leads from the musty collections of dilettante antiquarians to high-tech science. The book identifies three major developmental periods—Birth of Archaeology (16th–18th centuries), Archaeology of Origins and Empires (19th century), and World Archaeology (20th century). An introductory essay acquaints the reader with the essence of the science for each period. The short entries comprising the balance of the book expand on the themes introduced in the essays. Organized around personalities, techniques, controversies, and conflicts, the encyclopedia brings to life the history of archaeology. It broadens the general reader's knowledge by detailing the professional significance of widely known discoveries while introducing to wider knowledge obscure but important moments in archaeology. Archaeology is replete with the visionaries and swashbucklers of popular myth; it is also filled with careful and dedicated scientists.

Archaeology in the past century has seen a major shift from theoretical frameworks that treat the remains of past societies as static snapshots of particular moments in time to interpretations that prioritize change and variability. Though established analytical concepts, such as typology, remain key parts of the archaeologist’s investigative toolkit, data-gathering strategies and interpretative frameworks have become infused progressively with the concept that archaeology is living, in the sense of both the objects of study and the discipline as a whole. The significance for the field is that researchers across the world are integrating ideas informed by relational epistemologies and mutually constructive ontologies into their work from the initial stage of project design all the way down to post-excavation interpretation. This volume showcases examples of such work, highlighting the utility of these ideas to exploring material both old and new. The illuminating research and novel explanations presented contribute to resolving long-standing problems in regional archaeologies across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and Oceania. In this way, this volume reinvigorates approaches taken towards older material but also acts as a springboard for future innovative discussions of theory in archaeology and related disciplines.