Archaeology is Rubbish: A Beginner's Guide Book

Cast as the story of an imaginary dig in a suburban garden that expands to include the site of what is to be a new "Tesbury's" supermarket, Archaeology Is Rubbish takes readers through all the processes involved in a modern excavation and gives answers to some of the questions most frequently asked of archaeologists. The fictional exploits of Indiana Jones and the lives of 19th century adventurers like Heinrich Schliemann, the man who dug up Troy and Mycenae, may give the impression that the archaeologist's life is one of glamour and excitement in faraway places. Tony Robinson and Mick Aston themselves, dashing hither and yon in a race against time in the Time Team TV series, may add to the sense that archaeology is one moment of high drama followed by another. In fact, as they know, and their book proclaims, archaeology is largely rubbish. The material on which archaeologists work is usually the waste discarded by generation after generation, from Stone Age tool-makers and Roman housewives to Tudor carpenters and Victorian factory workers. This rubbish has its own stories to tell and Robinson and Aston's book is an engaging account of how archaeologists unearth those stories. The authors manage to cover a lot of territory in a 200-page book--from the dating of finds and the use of geophysics to Anglo-Saxon jewellery and Roman mosaics--and they do so in a way that proves archaeology can not only be rubbish but also a lot of fun. --Nick RennisonRead More