Ok, this is just cool. As some of you may know, I started off studying archaeology before I turned to the dark side and took up cultural anthropology. I have to say that studies in archaeology have never completely left me. In fact, I think that my predilections lie somewhere between the two fields, and I think that's a good thing. For me, trying to look at contemporary places, spaces, and objects through an archaeological perspective is tremendously fascinating and useful. Think about places like football stadiums--tons of interesting ways to look at the social, political, and spatial implications of such seemingly everyday structures. Anyway, I just came across a post over on Michael E. Smith's site "Wide Urban World" that's fantastic. It's a guest post by one of his students, Yui Kamoda, that applies an archaeological urban planning analysis to the campus of ASU. Check it out. Great stuff. When I see work like this it reaffirms my belief that cultural anthropology has a lot to gain from paying attention to archaeological perspectives (and the reverse is true as well, IMO).
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