Down to Earth Archaeology collects sixteen archaeological papers by Professor William Y. Adams chosen by the author, who added introductory commentary to each. These articles were written at various times during his lengthy and productive academic career for different purposes and for different audiences. Most of those selected had been previously published only in a limited way, either as conference proceedings or contributions to various Festschriften, and as such he wanted to enable them to reach a wider readership than they had originally. He described this collection as his ‘dernières pensées’.
The essays encompass a wide range of topics, from reflections upon the successes, failures and lessons learned from the UNESCO International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia in the 1960s, in which Bill was very much a leading figure and which he was uniquely positioned to critique, to discussions and criticisms of the theoretical framework of ‘New’ or ‘Processual Archaeology’ and its application of ‘scientific’ methods. Other papers included here are seminal works discussing the ideological concepts of typology and classification and their practical application to archaeological excavations, notably his own major excavations conducted at the large Nubian cityscapes of Meinarti, Kulubnarti and Qasr Ibrim, and the ceramic kilns at Faras.
H 290 x W 205 mm
244 pages
29 figures, 23 plates, 1 map (colour throughout)
Published May 2022
ISBN
Hardback: 9781803272290
Digital: 9781803272306
Contents
Acknowledgements ;
List of Plates ;
List of Figures ;
Map ;
Editor’s Preface – Julie R. Anderson ;
Preface – Genesis of a Maverick ;
PERSPECTIVES ;
1. Three Questions for the Archaeologist (1992) ;
2. Science and Ethics in Rescue Archaeology (1984) ;
3. Three Perspectives on the Past: The Historian, The Art Historian, and The Prehistorian (1987) ;
STRATEGY ;
4. Strategy of Salvage Archaeology (1973) ;
5. Organizational Problems in International Salvage Archaeology (1968) ;
6. Ends and Means in Large-Scale Excavations: Meinarti, Kulubnarti, and Qasr Ibrim (1995) ;
CLASSIFICATION ;
7. Principles and Pragmatics of Pottery Classification: Some Lessons from Nubia (1975) ;
8. Archaeological Classification: Theory Versus Practice (1988) ;
9. Purpose and Scientific Concept Formation (1987) ;
DATING ;
10. From Pottery to History: The Dating of Archaeological Deposits by Ceramic Statistics (1989) ;
11. Times, Types, and Sites: The Interrelationship of Ceramic Chronology and Typology (1987) ;
CERAMICS ;
12. The Archaeologist and The Ceramologist (1981) ;
13. On the Argument from Ceramics to History: A Challenge Based on Evidence from Medieval Nubia (1979) ;
INTERPRETATION ;
14. On Migration and Diffusion as Rival Paradigms (1978) ;
15. Paradigms in Sudan Archaeology (1981) ;
16. The Archaeologist as Detective (1973)
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