The relationship between archaeology and science has not always been an easy one; archaeology, it appears, has abused science, rarely asking it the right questions. That is the premise of this interesting and very readable look at the great opportunities that exist if archaeologists, and this book does make some enormous generalisations, stopped being so obsessed with material objects and focused instead on why people in the past made the technological choices that they did. Why, for instance, do archaeologists draw most of their conclusions about past lives from cemeteries and gravegoods? The lively discussion is built around a number of case studies in which a range of scientific techniques were used, such as Neolithic pottery and an Iron Age forge on the Isle of Man, a Bronze Age furnace in the eastern Alps, Aegean obsidian, the provenance of metals in the Aegean as well as a section on dating techniques. A variety of analytical techniques are discussed, all in layman's terms, accompanied by explanatory diagrams and lots of photographs. This book makes interesting reading and never takes itself too seriously
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