Touching the void: The gap between trowel and meaning (original) (raw)

Journal of Urban Archaeology 2: The Backfill

Journal of Urban Archaeology 2, 2020

We have been thrilled to feel the warm welcome given by readers across the world to these humble pages, which we are honoured (but of course!) to share alongside the oh-so-important and posh Journal of Urbane Archaeology. Here at The Backfill, we are simply happy to serve. I know I, personally, am not in the least bothered that my office is only half as big as that of our distinguished colleagues at JUA, or that my table is two inches smaller than that of Mr Sid E. Dweller. After all, we know only too well that what starts at the bottom of a site is most likely to end at the top of the heap! Until that happy time, we at The Backfill will always provide a home for unsifted facts and be ready with a cheerful throw away comment! We hope you enjoy sharing our load with us.

Journal of Urban Archaeology 3: The Backfill

Journal of Urban Archaeology 3, 2021

This edition marks the first anniversary of a journal that has changed the face of archaeological publishing! Readers across the world have cheered at our bold new periodical, and we are both proud and humble. But if by happy chance the success of The Backfill has also helped our urbane little sister, the Journal of Urban Archaeology (which we allow to share our cover) to achieve some small measure of recognition, we can only be happy. Family is everything, as we know, and The Backfill would be the last to snub a fellow journal so littered with scraps and loose ends. Success, as I have also learned, comes with responsibility, and I assume my new position of role model with great spirit. As regular readers will know, our former editorial office space left much to be desired, but I write this editorial for the first time from new and far more fitting facilities, having taken over the former office of my colleague, Mr Dweller. Two inches of desk space makes a real difference — but so, too, does the knowledge of having finally eschewed the glass ceiling. Yes, we prove once again that The Backfill is indeed the place to spread your talent.

Urban Archaeology: A Selected Bibliography

North American Archaeologist, 1983

In compiling this bibliography, we have consciously, if somewhat unsystematiccally, limited our universe to works dealing with archaeology in large com munities, omitting references to work in smaller towns and villages. We have also set our southern geographical boundary at the Rio Grande, including only examples from the United States and Canada. Finally, we have decided to omit references to manuscripts, papers delivered at meetings, and short progress reports appearing in the "current research" sections of publications such as Historical Archaeology and the Newsletter of the Society for Historical Archae ology, though we know that information about some important work is avail able only in these forms. We have, however, included citations of reports pre pared for clients or government agencies, when we believe that these can be obtained by researchers with reasonable effort. Even with these constraints, the final list is too long, and the allotted space too short, to permit adequate annotation. Instead, we have endeavored to facil itate use of the bibliography by preparing a subject index, in which works which contain particularly full or otherwise useful references to the chosen subjects can be identified by the numbers which precede the authors' names in the alphabetically arranged master list of publications.

"Definitions and Comparisons in Urban Archaeology" (2020)

Journal of Urban Archaeology, 2020

I discuss two key issues for the analysis of early urban settlements: definitions, and comparative analysis. There is no 'best' definition of terms like city or urban. These are not empirical descriptions of the archaeological record; they are theoretical terms whose definition should match the research goals and questions of a study. Most archaeological definitions of city and urban use combinations of six dimensions of variability: size, functions, urban life/society, form, meaning, and growth. I then review seven reasons for archaeologists to pursue comparative analysis of past cities. Comparative analysis is necessary if we are to move beyond descriptions of individual cities to build an explanatory science of urbanism in the past.