“You can release all kinds of demons lurking inside you when you are allowed to burn down a house, or attack a colleague with a bronze sword, bash hell out of a piece of stone, or smear cowdung over a wall or klin, and call it ‘Science’.” ( )

One should never be satisfied with an existing scenario - true scientists constantly question and return to their earlier conclusions, to check them again. Don't rest on your laurels, because laurels rapidly wither and die.

An insightful but short summary not just of archaeology itself but its methods and theories, its different fields and subjects as well as its history and its social and political aspects and impacts. In ten chapters, Bahn goes over everything from the origins and development of archaeology, the different theories and methods that make up the archaeology field as well as aspects such as minorities and relation to the public and society.

To be quite honest, my highlighter was hard at work during my read. Bahn has managed to put together not only an educational but often humorous introduction to archaeology. Granted, I'm currently on my second year as an Archaeology major, but I did think it was successful in the task of being a short, summarised introduction while also not being simple, or one-sided. Then again, Bahn knows what he's doing by now.

I know the books in the series are written by different authors and are bound to be very different, this one really did make me excited to read more of them; and feeling like they're definitely both fun and educational. ( )

This book exemplifies what a “very short introduction“ should be: take a complex and extensive topic & provide a comprehensive, jargon-free and illuminating overview. The author shares his passion for the topic while clearly pointing out the pitfalls & problems the field of archaeology faces. His quirky humor & clear language make reading this book a pleasure. Highly recommended. ( )

A very good short introduction to archaeology by Paul Bahn who seems to have been extremely industrious at writing introductions and introductory textbooks to archaeology. In a hundred pages and ten chapters, enriched by cartoons, Bahn conveys the main ideas and approaches of archaeology. What I would have liked to be discussed was the relationship between archaeology, anthropology and history. Archaeology, more and more, is providing a scientific layer for anthropology and history. Given the increasing specialization in techniques and methods, should they continue to be placed under the label archaeology or distributed as auxiliary science to the other disciplines? ( )

A very entertaining, quick read which only took me a couple of hours. There were one or two spots where the relentless puns got a bit too much, but on the whole it was an enjoyable snapshot survey of what present day archaeology covers. ( )