Discovering Our Past: Brief Introduction to Archaeology - Softcover

Archaeological method and theory are covered comprehensively'at a reasonable level of detail'in under 300 pages.
Methods and theories are presented in the context of an ideal research plan.
The most authoritative and up-to-date analysis of the three major theoretical frameworks: cultural history, cultural process, and postprocessual approaches.
The text begins with descriptions of two dramatically significant archaeological events: the opening of a royal tomb at Sipan, Peru, and the looting of a Native American site at Slack Farm, Kentucky.
Illustrative examples and case studies that represent a temporal and geographic balance of both Old and New World sites.
Abundant student helps including maps of archaeological areas, extensive illustrations, chapter summaries, a guide to further reading at the end of each chapter, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index.
Chapter 3 has been recast and updated to include discussions of postprocessual archaeology and mentions of other approaches such as Marxist and feminist perspectives on archaeology.
Chapter 6 contains an expanded section on ecofacts, and soils and sediments.
Chapter 7 contains updated sections on dating.
Chapter 8 includes an expanded section on settlement archaeology that includes new research at Çatalhöyük and in Peru's Upper Mantaro Valley. The role of whole landscapes also figures prominently in this discussion.
Chapter 9 includes a new section that looks at the development of agriculture from multiple perspectives including the three major perspectives introduced in Chapter 3 (cultural history, cultural process, and post-processual).
Chapter 10 introduces a new section on the effects of nationalism, colonialism, and war. A discussion of the New York African Burial Ground is included in the section 'Working with Descendant Communities.'

Currently Professor of Anthropology at the University California, Riverside, Dr. Wendy Ashmore has archaeological research experience spanning more than 25 years. Her work includes field research at Quirigua in Guatemala, at Gualijoquito and Copan in Honduras, and most recently, at Zunantunich in Belize. Among her publications are edited volumes on Lowland Maya Settlement Patterns (1981), Household and Community in the Mesoamerican Past (with Richard Wilk, 1988), and Archaeolgies of Landscape: Contemporary Approaches (with A. Bernard Knapp, 1999).

Dr. Robert J. Sharer is Shoemaker Professor of Anthropology, and Curator of the American Section, at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia. He has over 30 years of research experience in the Maya area of Central America, including the directing of long term archaeological projects at Chalchuapa, El Salvador(1966-70), in the Alta Verapaz (1971-74) and at Quirigua, Guatemala (1974-79), and currently at Copan, Honduras, where he has directed the Early Copan Acropolis Program since 1989. In addition to articles, papers, and monographs reporting the results of this research, he is the author of several books about Maya civilization, including Quirigua: A Classic Maya Center and Its Sculpture (1990), The Ancient Maya (1994), and Everyday Life in Maya Civilization (1996).