Overview

Archaeology at Home takes a deep dive into the entanglements between humans and their things. It explores the notion that things themselves “remember” when left by “their” people and illustrates how the integration of humans and things involves connections running all the way from the present into deep time. Combining methods from contemporary and deep-time archaeology and balancing scholarly archaeology with personal narrative, Hein Bjerck presents three case studies of homes all intimately known to him — the home of his father after his abrupt passing, the home of his uncle that was lost in a fire, and a Stone Age home he excavated many years ago. This evocative approach to archaeologies of memory will be appreciated by professional archaeologists, and by general readers who are drawn to the study of the past and the things that connect us with it.

Full Product Details

9781800500730

Table of Contents

Reviews

A majestic work, full of experiment and sensuous detail. Equally haunting, melancholic, and amusing: a narrative tour-de-force. Hein Bjerck writes with a unique voice, evoking place, people, and emotion with affect seldom, if ever, found in archaeological or historic text. Part love-letter to his father, uncle, and his own past, part meditation on objects, things, memory, humanity, relationships, and the passage of time, Archaeology at Home exceeds the boundaries of any one discipline. An instant classic. Professor Doug Bailey, Department of Anthropology, San Francisco State University In 1790, a young writer locked himself at home to study the wonders of what lay closest by. The resulting account, 'A Journey Around My Room', now holds renewed significance following two years of a Pandemic confining many of us to home. During my confinement, I started to wonder what an excavation of my own life might reveal - what I might learn about myself that I hadn't otherwise realised. But my entangled domestic mess remains untouched, for now. I am therefore both envious and admiring of Archaeology at Home, an eloquent and close encounter which stands as a modern day 'Journey', not around a room but of a life, or lives to be precise. The work is unashamedly and unmistakably an archaeology book, reflecting on people's stories told through the itineraries of material objects, places and landscape. In a unique and highly readable account, the author reveals what all archaeologists know but others may not - that archaeologists make the best story-tellers and that our stories will be contemporary and they can be deeply intimate. And aren't those stories always the best?! Professor John Schofield, Archaeology, University of York

A majestic work, full of experiment and sensuous detail. Equally haunting, melancholic, and amusing: a narrative tour-de-force. Hein Bjerck writes with a unique voice, evoking place, people, and emotion with affect seldom, if ever, found in archaeological or historic text. Part love-letter to his father, uncle, and his own past, part meditation on objects, things, memory, humanity, relationships, and the passage of time, Archaeology at Home exceeds the boundaries of any one discipline. An instant classic. Professor Doug Bailey, Department of Anthropology, San Francisco State University In 1790, a young writer locked himself at home to study the wonders of what lay closest by. The resulting account, 'A Journey Around My Room', now holds renewed significance following two years of a Pandemic confining many of us to home. During my confinement, I started to wonder what an excavation of my own life might reveal - what I might learn about myself that I hadn't otherwise realised. But my entangled domestic mess remains untouched, for now. I am therefore both envious and admiring of Archaeology at Home, an eloquent and close encounter which stands as a modern day 'Journey', not around a room but of a life, or lives to be precise. The work is unashamedly and unmistakably an archaeology book, reflecting on people's stories told through the itineraries of material objects, places and landscape. In a unique and highly readable account, the author reveals what all archaeologists know but others may not - that archaeologists make the best story-tellers and that our stories will be contemporary and they can be deeply intimate. And aren't those stories always the best?! Professor John Schofield, Archaeology, University of York

Author Information

Hein B. Bjerck is professor in archaeology (research and teaching) at the NTNU University Museum in Trondheim. His research is focussed on early marine foraging (Marine Ventures project), and large scale excavation projects (Ormen Lange project). Bjerck is also involved in research on the recent past, and project member in Ruin Memories, After Discourse and Objects Matter.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available