Aidan O'Sullivan - Böcker

The Oxford Handbook of Wetland Archaeology is the most comprehensive survey of global wetland archaeology ever published. Well known for the spectacular quality of its surviving evidence, from both an archaeological and environmental perspective, wetland archaeology enables scholars to investigate and reconstruct past people's dwellings, landscapes, material culture, and daily lives in great detail. Through concise essays written by some of the world's leading scholars in the field, this Handbook describes the key principles, methodologies, and revealing results of past and present archaeological investigations of wetland environments. The volume provides unique insights into past human interactions with lakes, bogs, rivers, and coastal marshlands across the world from prehistory to modern times. Opening with a detailed introduction by the editors, the Handbook is divided into seven parts and contains 54 essays and over 230 photographs, figures, maps, and graphs.

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. Wetland archaeology has provided some of the most exciting discoveries in world archaeology, from bog bodies in northern Europe, to prehistoric and medieval wetland dwellings in central and western Europe, New Zealand, Japan and the Pacific Northwest. Arguably, however, the amount of evidence from these sites and the need for intense multidisciplinary scientific analysis, allied to a general tendency towards empiricist research, has led to wetland archaeology being isolated from current theoretical debates. "Rethinking Wetland Archaeology" shows how wetland studies can be contextualised within broader geographical, cultural and theoretical frameworks. It discusses how wetland archaeological discoveries can be understood in terms of past people's perception and understanding of landscape, which was not only a source of economic benefit, but a storehouse of, and a metaphor for, cultural values and beliefs.It argues that archaeologists interested in the temporal rhythms of life, and in cultural biographies of place and objects, should look again at the astonishingly detailed narratives produced by wetland archaeology. Finally, it considers the past and future role of wetland archaeologists in contemporary political and social discourses.