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4 - The Archaeological Imagination

from Part I - Theoretical Perspectives on the Imagination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2020

By
Michael Shanks
Edited by
Anna Abraham
Anna Abraham
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
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Summary

The archaeological imagination is defined as a creative capacity mobilized when we experience traces and vestiges of the past, when we encounter, gather, classify, conserve and restore, when we work with such remains, collections, archives to deliver narratives, reconstructions, accounts, explanations, or whatever. Examples are given and features described of such archaeological experiences that reach far beyond the academic discipline: the dynamics of working creatively with what remains. The roots of the archaeological imagination are traced in three phases from the seventeenth century: challenges to traditional relationships with the past associated with field science; the empirical accumulation of material remains of the past; the expansion of the heritage industry in post–1970s globalization. Encompassing wide cultural valency, the archaeological imagination is argued to be a key aspect, relating to temporality and materiality, of contemporary cultural agency: our imaginative capacity to work with what remains in building future worlds.

Keywords

Archaeologymemoryimaginationagencynationalismideologymodernity
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination , pp. 47 - 63
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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