Archaeology is in crisis. Spatial turns, material turns and the ontological turn have directed the discipline away from its hard-won battle to find humanity in the past. Meanwhile, popularised science, camouflaged as archaeology, produces shock headlines built on ancient DNA that reduce humanity’s most intriguing historical problems to two-dimensional caricatures. Today archaeology finds itself less able than ever to proclaim its relevance to the modern world.

This volume foregrounds the relevance of the scholarship of John Barrett to this crisis. Twenty-four writers representing three generations of archaeologists scrutinise the current turmoil in the discipline and highlight the resolutions that may be found through Barrett’s analytical framework. Topics include archaeology and the senses, the continuing problem of the archaeological record, practice, discourse, and agency, reorienting archaeological field practice, the question of different expressions of human diversity, and material ecologies. Understanding archaeology as both a universal and highly specific discipline, case-studies range from the Aegean to Orkney, and encompass Anatolia, Korea, Romania, United Kingdom and the very nature of the Universe itself. This critical examination of John Barrett’s contribution to archaeology is simultaneously a response to his urgent call to arms to reorient archaeology in the service of humanity.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• List of tables
• List of figures
• Preface
• The archaeology of John C. Barrett
  • 1. (Re)placing humanity? Responses to the crisis in archaeology : Michael J. Boyd and Roger C.P. Doonan
  • 2. Bibliography of John C. Barrett
• Prehistory in transition
  • 3. The late Neolithic midden in Orkney: decay, assemblages and the efficacy of unwanted things : Jane Downes and Colin Richards
  • 4. In what way is one dead for an Eneolithic tell community? The construction of the dead body’s presence at Căscioarele-Ostrovel (Romania) : Alexandra Ion
  • 5. Conceptualising wealth and value in the Bronze Age : Christopher Tilley
  • 6. An assemblage of Early Bronze Age metalwork from the Scottish Highlands: Dail na Caraidh in retrospect : Richard Bradley
• Fields of discourse and an archaeology of inhabitation
  • 7. ‘Contextual archaeology’ revisited: reflections on archaeology, assemblages and semiotics : ZoË Crossland
  • 8. Making the past human: history, archaeology and myth : Martial Staub
  • 9. What future for archaeology’s past? : Krysti Damilati and Giorgos Vavouranakis
  • 10. Fragments from Minoan Crete: social practice at the EM IIA–MM IB (2650–1875 BCE) Court Building at Knossos : Ilse Schoep
  • 11. Cemeteries of discourse: re-inhabiting a social arena : Mark S. Peters
  • 12. Towards an ‘archaeology of the conditions of possibility’ : Ilhong Ko
  • 13. ‘Fields of discourse’ revisited: a Simondonian perspective : Despina Catapoti and Maria Relaki
• Practice and record
  • 14. ‘Ode to a treethrow’ and other reflexive thoughts: multivocal engagements at Heathrow airport : Catriona Gibson
  • 15. Project design and implementation: reflections on Framework : Michael J. Boyd with Colin Renfrew
  • 16. From fields of discourse to fields of sensoriality: rethinking the archaeological record : Yannis Hamilakis
  • 17. Critical discourse and creative labours: learning and teaching archaeology with John C. Barrett : Brian Boyd
• Material ecologies and forms of humanness
  • 18. Bio-socio-material entanglements: archaeology and the extended evolutionary synthesis : Ian Hodder
  • 19. To love is to nourish: a thermodynamic perspective on practice and perception : Roger C.P. Doonan
  • 20. Is the universe sentient? What implications might this have for archaeology? : Chris Gosden and Mark Pollard
• Perspective
  • 21. Agency and life : Andrew Meirion Jones