Summary:

This series of short volumes, each devoted to a theme which is the subject of contemporary debate in archaeology, ranges from issues in theory and method to aspects of world archaeology.The central question this book seeks to explore is this: Are we trying to reconstruct a past in our own image, chained solely to our own unacknowledged emotional, intellectual, and philosophical traditions, or should we attempt to look beyond this at the fundamental concepts we often take for granted, but which if recognised as constructs of the relatively recent past, might begin to allow us to acknowledge our limitations and potentially more profitably engage with archaeological evidence in various ways.The end result is not another nihilist offering based upon a post-modernist collapsed perspective, but rather a considered approach, which, if anything, is ultimately positivist in tone, owing a debt, if anything, to the philosophical outlooks of critical realism.This is a critical yet positive approach to how contemporary conceptual outlooks, if unacknowledged, can seriously influence our understanding of the past. It is an exploration and evaluation of conceptual categories, of great significance
 

Antiquity Recovered: The Legacy of Pompeii and Herculaneum Author: Victoria Gardner: Jon Seydl ISBN: 9780892368723 Regular Price: £40.00 Web price: £40.00 ($84.40 / €61.80)    new - Getty Trust Publications, 2007 304pp, 50 colour and 70 bandw illustrations, Hardback,   Summary: Ever since they were first discovered and explored in 1709, the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum have excited the historical imagination of the West. "Antiquity Recovered" presents thirteen diverse essays that trace how perceptions of the past have changed over the course of three centuries of excavations. The essays range in subject from a reassessment of the contents of the library at Herculaneum's Villa of the Papyri, to the symbolic appearance of the ancient world in such classic films as Roberto Rossellini's "Voyage in Italy" and Jean-Luc Godard's "Contempt".   The Limits of Settlement Growth: A Theoretical Outline - New Studies in Archaeology Series. Author: Fletcher, R ISBN: 9780521038102 Regular Price: £27.99 Web price: £27.99 ($59.06 / €43.24)    new - Cambirdge University Press 2007, 301pp, 45 figs, 3 tables, 6 halftones, 48 graphs, paperback,   Summary: In this study Roland Fletcher argues that the built environment becomes a constraint on the long-term development of a settlement. It is costly to move settlements, or to demolish and rebuild from scratch, so the initial layout and buildings, and the forms of communication that result, may come to shackle further development and also to place constraints on social and political change. Using this theoretical framework, Dr Fletcher reviews worldwide settlement growth over the past 15,000 years, and concludes with a major discussion of the great transformations of human settlements - from mobile to sedentary, sedentary to urban, and urban to industrial. This book is an ambitious contribution to archaeological theory, and the questions it raises also have implications for the future of urban settlement.