It has been clear for many years that the ways in which archaeology is practised have always been a direct product of a particular set of social, cultural, and historical circumstances - archaeology is always carried out in the present. More recently however, many have begun to consider how archaeological methodologies and techniques might be used to reflect more directly on the contemporary world itself; how we might undertake archaeologies of, as well as in the present. This Handbook is the first comprehensive survey of an exciting and rapidly expanding sub-field and provides an authoritative overview of this newly emerging focus on the archaeology of the present and recent past.

In addition to detailed archaeological case studies, it includes essays by scholars working in adjacent fields on the relationship of different disciplines to the archaeology of the contemporary world, including anthropology, psychology, philosophy, sociology, historical geography, science and technology studies, communications and media studies, ethnoarchaeology, forensic archaeology, sociology, film studies, and performance studies/contemporary art practices. This volume seeks to explore the boundaries of an emerging sub-discipline, to develop a tool-kit of concepts and methods which are applicable to this new sub-field, and to suggest important future trajectories for research. It makes a significant intervention in drawing together scholars working on a broad range of themes, approaches, methods, and case studies from diverse contexts in different parts of the world, which have not previously been considered collectively.

Paul Graves-Brown's profile page

Rodney Harrison's profile page

Angela Piccini's profile page

Paul Graves-Brown is an independent scholar living in Wales. In addition to the edited volume Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture (2000), he has published widely on topics as diverse as the Sex Pistols and the Kalashnikov AK47. Rodney Harrison is a Lecturer in Museum and Heritage Studies at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He is currently Chair of the Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory (CHAT) Group. He is the author (with John Schofield) of After Modernity: Archaeological Approaches to the Contemporary Past (OUP, 2010). Angela Piccini is a Senior Lecturer in Screen Media at the School of Arts, University of Bristol. She co-founded the Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory (CHAT) Group with Dan Hicks, and sits on the Committee for Audio-Visual Scholarship and Practice in Archaeology (CASPAR). She publishes on place, materiality, and screen media.