The Politics of Archaeology and Identity in a Global Context

One of the most controversial topics in archaeology is the relationship between archaeology and nationalism: how issues of ethnicity, cultural identity, nationalism, and politics affect the study of the past. This volume demonstrates that if the discipline of archaeology may be defined as the interaction of present and past in the study of material evidence, the interpretation of such evidence is greatly dependent on who is doing the analysis and for what reasons, be they political, personal, academic, or economic ones. The eight papers in this collection, with their variety of approaches and diverse geographical scope, including Albania, Central and North America, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, and Turkey, are a contribution to the ongoing discussion of archaeology and the construction of identity and how modern archaeology can aid humanity in the search for its past and present identities.