Since the 1980s, archaeology has been further embedded in a reinforced and accelerating capitalist ideology, namely neo-liberalism. Most archaeologists had no alternative but to adapt to it through concessions to the free-market economy and to the so-called mitigations taking place within development. However, it is now apparent that the ongoing global socio-ecological disaster we are facing cannot be reversed with compromises but rather with a radical engagement against the injunctions of competition and growth. I suggest that we must anticipate the necessary transformations of archaeology in the coming decades, before archaeology becomes a technical avatar of the neo-liberal dogma, or before its complete annihilation for being deemed ‘superfluous’ (Wurst 2019, 171) by the capitalist regime. In this paper, I will use the idea of ‘degrowth’ to propose a new paradigm for archaeology by applying the concepts of civil disobedience, voluntary simplicity, redistribution of means and the ethics of no-growth.

With the commemoration of World War I (WWI) under way, a preliminary stocktaking can be made of archaeological research into the physical remains of this war. The question is to what extent the perspective on the study of WWI heritage, and consequently the way in which archaeological research into WWI remains has been conducted, has evolved over the last ten years. Are relics from WWI seen as a legitimate subject of inquiry or does its archaeology as a discipline still strive for recognition? This paper deals with the practices surrounding WWI archaeology in Flanders, Belgium, as well as the (methodological) problems concerning the study of WWI archaeological remains, based on the reports resulting from fieldwork carried out by professional archaeologists.

Among the influences that have altered the nature of archaeology over the past two decades, two major trends are singled out for discussion here. The first is the emerging interest in understanding the subjective experiences and perceptions of life in the past. The second trend is the growing concern with making archaeology more meaningful and accessible to a wider public. Some of the characteristics of these two trends will be considered in turn. It is then argued that, although these two movements are generally considered as quite separate issues, they stem from shared social and historic roots. The recognition of the inseparability of these two areas of concern has far-reaching implications for the nature and role of future archaeological practice.

Photographs produced during archaeological fieldwork can be employed in shaping the nature of archaeological discourse in different parts of the world. Such photographs are material objects that at times show what written texts fail to say. The focus of this paper is on the photographs produced during archaeological surveys and excavations in British India between the last quarter of the 19th and middle of the 20th centuries.

The current renewal of interest in the history of archaeology can be explained in several ways, and notably in view of the extraordinary extension of the discipline's objects and methods. In the last decades, the most far-flung regions of the earth have been subjected to systematic exploration, radiometric dating techniques have continually improved, DNA studies have contributed to the transformations of biological anthropology, and indeed the very process of human evolution has heen cast in new light by the changing boundaries between humanity and animality. A natural science for many founding fathers of prehistory, a social science for those who emphasize its anthropological dimensions, archaeology has remained for others a historical discipline by virtue of its proximity to ancient languages and inscriptions. At one end of the spectrum, some archaeologists see themselves as specialists in material culture, able to deal with ohjects, both ancient and modern, as simultaneously technical and semiotic systems. At the other end, there are those who will only put their faith in the detailed approach of singular, particular cultures. To put the matter in extreme terms; it seems as if there existed a universalist archaeology standing in opposition to a plethora of incompatible and irreducible vernacular archaeologies.

‘The separation of theory and practice is not one that will easily be overcome by academic and philosophical critique, however necessary and important these are.’ (Shanks & Tilley 1992: xxii). Here a team of archaeologists address this difficult theme, in the light of their experiences under the flightpath of Heathrow Airport.