Race and practice in archaeological interpretation

by Charles E. Orser

"Scholars who investigate race - a label based upon real or perceived physical differences - realize that they face a formidable task. The concept has been contested and condoned, debated and denied throughout modern history. Presented with a full understanding of the complexity of the issue, Race and Practice in Archaeological Interpretation concentrates on the archaeological analysis of race and how race is determined in the archaeological record." "The author reviews past archaeological usages of race, including a case study from early nineteenth-century Ireland, and explores the ways race was used to form ideas about the Mound Builders, the Celts, and Atlantis. He concludes with a proposal that historical archaeology - cast as modern-world archaeology - should take the lead in the archaeological analysis of race because its purview is the recent past, that period during which our conceptions of race developed."--Jacket.