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From Stonehenge to Las Vegas: Archaeology

Holtorf, Cornelius J.

Archaeology and history permeate places in our contemporary world, and minds, that would have been impossible to conceive of a hundred years ago, but what is it that we want from it. Do we want to be educated, bombarded with facts about the past, or are we looking for something much more meaningful to our everyday lives? From Stonehenge to Las Vegas is Cornelius Holtorfs journey to find an answer to this question, to discover why archaeology remains so popular and seemingly relevant to todays society, and what role it performs. In doing so he inevitably questions the role of archaeologists, and those that purport to bridge the gulf between the past and present, asking whether they are building on a vast database of knowledge about the past or whether archaeology as a science has become archaeology as popular culture. This book is for everyone who is interested in the past and wants to discover why they visit museums and ancient sites, why they watch Indiana Jones and Lara Croft with a longing to be like them, why they feel the need to travel to distant places to immerse themselves in the history of other cultures and whether archaeology is not so much about the past, but about how we remember and use it. 185p, b/w figs (AltaMira 2005)

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