From Stonehenge to Las Vegas

Cornelius Holtorf (born 1968) is assistant professor in the Institute of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Lund, Sweden. He gained his doctoral degree from the University of Wales with a study of the life history of megalithic monuments in Northeast Germany. After stints as an academic teacher and researcher at the University of Wales (Lampeter), Goteborg, and Cambridge, and a two-year Marie Curie Fellowship at the Swedish National Heritage Board in Stockhom, he moved to his current post at Lund. His research interests include the portrayal of archaeology in popular culture, excavations investigating the life history of megaliths at Monte da Igreja in southern Portugal, and the archaeology of zoos. He is the author of many academic papers and the 'living' electronic monograph Monumental Past(2000-2004), and coeditor of Archaeology and Folklore (1999) and Philosophy and Archaeological Practice (2000).

From Stonehenge to Las Vegas: archaeology as popular culture is a playful examination of the intersection between past and present...[it is] a great roadmap by which one can, in Benjaminesque fashion, get productively lost and hopefully take a few people along for the ride.

• 1 Archaeology and popular culture2 Below the surface3 The archaeologist in the field4 Interpreting traces5 Past meanings6 Contemporaneous meanings7 Authenticity8 The past as renewable resource9 Archaeo-appeal