Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice

Citation

Renfrew, C., Bahn, P., & DeMarrais, E. (2024). Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice (9th ed.). Thames & Hudson.

Chapter Summary

Context and Argument

Colin Renfrew, Disney Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at Cambridge and former Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, and Paul Bahn, author of many books on archaeology and cave art, wrote the earlier editions of this textbook. For the ninth edition (2024; 672 pages, with several hundred colour and black-and-white illustrations) they were joined by Elizabeth DeMarrais, a Cambridge specialist in archaeological theory and the archaeology of the Americas. The book's distinctive structure, which the publisher stresses, is that each chapter opens with a question archaeologists ask: where, when, how societies were organised, what people ate, what they thought, why things changed. According to the publishers, the new edition adds recent discoveries and field and laboratory methods; new theoretical sections on Indigenous archaeology, ontology, postcolonial theory and historical archaeology; sections on intangible cultural heritage and the changing role of museums; broader coverage of identity, ethnicity and the archaeology of the modern world; and closer attention to the contributions of women, people of colour and Indigenous communities. The fifteen chapters can be read in three groups: the framework of archaeology (Chapters 1–4), the questions it asks (Chapters 5–12), and archaeology in practice and in the world (Chapters 13–15).

Chapter 1: The Searchers: The History of Archaeology

The book opens with the history of the discipline and the people who shaped it. In this edition the publisher highlights the inclusion of women archaeologists and archaeologists of colour in the narrative.

Chapter 2: What is Left? The Variety of the Evidence

This chapter considers the variety of material evidence that survives from the past, the starting point for every later method.

Chapter 3: Where? Survey and Excavation of Sites and Features

How archaeologists find and investigate sites and features, through survey and excavation.

Chapter 4: When? Dating Methods and Chronology

Methods of relative and absolute dating and the building of chronologies.

Chapters 5–6: How Were Societies Organized? Social Archaeology; What Was the Environment? Environmental Archaeology

Chapter 5 asks how past societies were organised and how social structure can be inferred from material remains. Chapter 6 reconstructs past environments and their relationship with human communities.

Chapters 7–8: What Did They Eat? Subsistence and Diet; How Did They Make and Use Tools? Technology and Material Culture

Chapter 7 deals with how people obtained food and what they ate. Chapter 8 covers technology and material culture: how tools and other artefacts were made and used.

Chapters 9–10: What Contact Did They Have? Trade and Exchange; What Did They Think? Cognition, Art, and Religion

Chapter 9 examines contact between communities through trade and exchange. Chapter 10 turns to cognitive archaeology: past thought, art and religion.

Chapter 11: Who Were They? What Were They Like? The Bioarchaeology of People

The study of human remains to learn about past people themselves.

Chapter 12: Why Did Things Change? Explanation in Archaeology

The book's main theory chapter, on how archaeologists explain change. The publishers indicate that the new theoretical material of this edition, from ontologies to Indigenous archaeology and postcolonial theory, belongs to the book's treatment of theory.

Chapter 13: Archaeology in Action: Five Case Studies

Five worked case studies show the methods and questions of the earlier chapters applied to real projects.

Chapter 14: Whose Past? Archaeology and the Public

Questions of ownership, interpretation and public engagement with the past.

Chapter 15: The Future of the Past: How to Manage the Heritage?

The management and protection of the archaeological heritage; according to the publisher, the edition adds material on safeguarding intangible cultural heritage and on the changing role of museums.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–4: The Framework

• Archaeological evidence: the range of material that survives from the past, which determines what can be known.
• Survey and excavation: the two main ways of locating and investigating sites and features.
• Dating and chronology: methods for placing evidence in time and building sequences.

Chapters 5–11: The Questions

• Social archaeology: inferring the organisation of past societies from material remains.
• Environmental archaeology: reconstructing past environments and human interaction with them.
• Subsistence and diet: how people obtained and consumed food.
• Technology and material culture: how artefacts were made and used.
• Trade and exchange: contact and the movement of goods between communities.
• Cognitive archaeology: the study of past thought, art and religion.
• Bioarchaeology: the study of human remains.

Chapters 12–15: Explanation and Practice

• Explanation in archaeology: theories of why societies changed, with new sections on Indigenous archaeology, ontology and postcolonial theory.
• Public archaeology: the question of whose past archaeology studies and presents.
• Heritage management: protecting and managing the archaeological record, including intangible heritage.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Organised around questions. Chapters 3–12 are each framed as a question (where, when, how organised, what eaten, what thought, why change), so method is always tied to a purpose. The publishers present this structure as the book's distinctive approach.
• Comprehensive coverage in one volume. Fifteen chapters run from the history of the discipline through every main branch of method and interpretation to case studies, public archaeology and heritage management. A quotation from Minerva magazine on the publisher's listing calls the book as indispensable to an archaeology student as a trowel.
• Updated perspective. The ninth edition adds a co-author with expertise in the Americas and in theory, new theoretical sections (Indigenous archaeology, ontology, postcolonial theory, historical archaeology) and wider attention to identity, ethnicity, the modern world and the people historically left out of the discipline's story.
• Heavily illustrated and supported. The book carries several hundred illustrations, and the US publisher, Norton, provides an instructor's manual, test bank, lecture slides and an accompanying Active Archaeology Notebook for students.

Limitations

• Size. At 672 pages this is a reference-scale textbook; Bahn's own Very Short Introduction calls an earlier edition "brick-like". It is not designed to be read straight through in a single term.
• Theory concentrated in one chapter. Explanation is gathered in Chapter 12 after the methods chapters, so students who need a sustained introduction to theoretical debates will want a dedicated theory book alongside it.
• Different packages by market. The British paperback (ISBN 9780500297094) and the North American package distributed by Norton (ISBN 9780500849989, with ebook and notebook) are sold separately; students should check which version and supporting materials their course uses.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the main textbook for the archaeology course. Paul Bahn's Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction, by one of the same authors, covers the same ground (history, dating, technology, diet, cognition, society, explanation, the public and the future of the past) in about 120 pages and makes an ideal first read before tackling this volume. Durrani and Fagan's In the Beginning is a comparable long-running introductory textbook with a global perspective; students can use whichever their course assigns and consult the other for alternative examples.

For theory, Matthew Johnson's Archaeological Theory: An Introduction is the natural companion to Chapter 12, explaining the schools from the New Archaeology onward in plain language. Bruce Trigger's A History of Archaeological Thought extends Chapter 1 into a full intellectual history, and Hodder and Hutson's Reading the Past develops the interpretive approaches in depth. These are better read after the core chapters of this book.

How to Use This Book

The book assumes no previous study of archaeology. It suits first-year students in archaeology and anthropology and readers from history, geography or the earth sciences.

• Start with the framework: Chapters 1–4 (history, evidence, survey and excavation, dating) are the foundation for everything else and should be read first, ideally before any fieldwork or laboratory module.
• Then follow your course's themes: Chapters 5–11 can be read in any order according to the topics taught; each is built around its own question.
• Read Chapter 12 with a theory book: pair it with Johnson's Archaeological Theory.
• Use Chapter 13 as a test: the five case studies show how the methods combine; try to identify which chapters' techniques each project uses.
• Ethics and heritage: Chapters 14–15 support seminars on public archaeology, museums and heritage management.

Use the illustrations and examples as material for essays, and, if your course uses the North American package, work through the Active Archaeology Notebook exercises alongside the chapters.