Description
Book SynopsisAssembling Past Worlds draws on new materialism and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to explore the potential for a posthumanist archaeology.
Through specific empirical study, this book provides a detailed analysis of Neolithic Britain, a critical moment in the emergence of new ways of living, as well as new relationships between materials, people and new forms of architecture. It achieves two things. First, it identifies the major challenges that archaeology faces in the light of current theoretical shifts. New ideas place new demands on how we write and think about the past, sometimes in ways that can seem contradictory. This volume identifies seven major challenges that have emerged and sets out why they matter, why archaeology needs to engage with them and how they can be dealt with through an innovative theoretical approach. Second, it explores how this approach meets these challenges through an in-depth study of Neolithic Britain. It provides an insightf
Table of Contents
Part I: Assembling a Posthumanist Archaeology; 1. Assembling Past Worlds: An Introduction; 2. Seven Challenges for a Posthumanist Archaeology; 3. Fragments from Philosophy; Part II: Assembling Neolithic Britain; 4. What Were Neolithic Materials Capable of Becoming?; 5. What Could a Dead Neolithic Body Do?; 6. What Worlds did Neolithic Architecture Create?; Part III: Assembling Past Worlds; 7. Time, History and Memory: Towards an Ontography of the Neolithic; 8. Conclusion
