Colleen Morgan over at Middle Savagery has a great post about contemporary material remains. Read it! For me, this brings up a really important discussion about interpretation--what can we learn from material remains? What is impossible to know? Looking at contemporary material remains--whether the contents of your kitchen or a massive junkyard--can be really informative and fascinating. That's why I think an archaeological approach is not only relevant when it comes to the past, but also the present. We are all surrounded by material objects (cars, clothes, silverware, Christmas cards, airports, computers, photographs, toothpicks, handguns, etc), and we invest meaning in these objects. At the same time, some might argue, those very objects invest meaning in us.
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