THE FAMILIAR PAST?

The popular perception of archaeologists as people who dig up things from the prehistoric or classical world is being challenged. Archaeology, as the study of physical remains of the human past, includes the Victorian workhouse as well as the Bronze Age axe. This collection surveys material culture from 1500 to the present day and demonstrates how its study can bring a new understanding to what we think of as the familiar past. The Familiar Past? draws together current interpretative work in Britain, explicitly influenced by recent methodological and theoretical developments. Fourteen case studies include discussion of issues such as the origins of modernity in urban contexts, the historical anthropology of food, the social and spatial construction of country houses, the social history of a workhouse site, changes in memorial forms and inscriptions, and the archaeological treatment of gardens.