Time in Archaeology, Time Perspectivism Revisited

Edited by Simon Holdaway and LuAnn Wandsnider

In archaeology, time is used to convey a wide range of meanings with common usage in just a couple of senses. Thus, we students of time must devote considerable time to establishing the timing of past events, the lapse of time, and learning about times past.

The point of departure for this volume lies in the post-tumultuous times of Processual Archaeology, in the 1970s and 1980s, when Geoff Bailey, Lewis Binford, David Clarke, Robert Dunnell, Robert Foley, and Michael Schiffer, among others, initiated a deconstruction of time as used in archaeology. Here, the authors further this deconstruction.

Time in Archaeology was originally convened as an electronic symposium held at the Society of American Archaeology meetings in 2003. The result is a tightly focused group of papers that provide both a historical background to the development of the ideas of time perspectivism as well as a range of case studies that illustrate where scholars have taken the ideas. This book demonstrates the importance of concepts of time with excellent discussions and perspectives from twelve scholars working in vastly different arenas. It is a rigorous examination of the assumptions we make and the impacts of those assumptions. After reading this you may never think about time in quite the same way.

SIMON HOLDAWAY is associate professor of archaeology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He also serves as co-director of the Western New South Wales Archaeological Programme. He is the author of A Record in Stone: The Study of Australia’s Flaked Stone Artefacts.

LUANN WANDSNIDER is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is coeditor of Space, Time, and Archaeological Landscapes.

CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE
Philip J. Arnold III, Loyola University
Geoff Bailey, University of York
Mathew A. Dooley, University of Wisconsin–River Falls
Patricia Fanning, Macquarie University
Simon Holdaway, University of Auckland
Josara de Lange, La Trobe University
Tim Murray, La Trobe University
Ed Rhodes, Manchester Metropolitan University
Michael J. Shott, University of Akron
Nicola Stern, La Trobe University
Alan P. Sullivan III, University of Cincinnati

Praises and Reviews
“After reading this book I will never think of time in the same way. . . . This book is really important [and] will become a classic reference.”
—Julie Stein, University of Washington