an extract from a new book on the archaeology of rivers and other flows of materials. It argues that rivers are as susceptible to archaeological and historical analysis as more solid parts of landscapes are.
Author: Matt Edgeworth
Northern conversations
The CHAT Conference at the University of Aberdeen, November 12th-14th, 2010 Union Square from the Citadel, Aberdeen. Photo taken by Lyn Mcleod and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license. The Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory Conference (CHAT for short) takes a different guise wherever it goes. This year it was…
Archaeologists should grapple with the anthropocene too…
In its complex reflexivities, its multiple feedback loops, and its inextricable entanglement of nature and culture, the anthropocene is a geological epoch like no other. The difficult task of understanding it should not be left entirely to biochemists, geologists, climatologists and other natural scientists. Archaeologists should grapple with the anthropocene too…..
Fields of artifacts: archaeology of contemporary scientific discovery
The times when artifacts come to light – the moments of discovery as it were – are crucial moments in that they precipitate discussion and argument amongst scientists about what is real and what is not, what is natural and what is artificial, how the artifacts got to be there, how to interpret them, and what to do about them.
The Earth After Us
Ever wondered what will survive, millions of years hence, of our railway networks, skyscrapers, motorways and rubbish dumps? What about trains and cars, or smaller artefacts like mobile phones and ballpoint pens? Such are the questions which the book poses. In this review of The Earth After Us by Jan Zalasiewicz I consider briefly some of the implications this book has for contemporary archaeology.
Rivers as artifacts
This paper starts with the question: can rivers usefully be studied as artifacts? The question may raise an eyebrow or two. For the most part rivers tend to be regarded as more or less natural features of a landscape or townscape. Even in the midst of towns – bordered by buildings on both sides –…