Far From Equilibrium: An Archaeology of Energy, Life and Humanity

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.
About the Author: Michael Boyd (born 8th January 1970) is a Senior Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. His main research interests lie in the archaeology of death and in the prehistoric Aegean, where he has worked in the Peloponnese and Cyclades. He is co-director of current excavations on Keros and co-editor of the Keros publications series. He has published a book on Mycenaean funerary practices, and is co-editing a volume on funerary archaeology, Staging Death, and another on the origins of play and ritual. He has worked widely in Greece and Bulgaria.
About the Author: Roger Doonan is an archaeologist at Archaeological Research Services Limited, Sheffield. His research interests lie in Eurasian prehistory with an emphasis on craft practice as understood through innovative field methods. He has previously worked for English Heritage and held positions at the Universities of Bournemouth and Sheffield.