A History of Archaeological Thought

Bruce G. Trigger is James McGill Professor in the Department of Anthropology at McGill University. He received his PhD from Yale University and has carried out archaeological research in Egypt and the Sudan. His interests include the comparative study of early civilizations, the history of archaeology, and archaeological and anthropological theory. He has received various scholarly awards, including the prestigious Prix Léon Gérin from the Quebec government, for his sustained contributions to the social sciences. He is an honorary fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and an honorary member of the Prehistoric Society (UK). His numerous books include the first edition of A History of Archaeological Thought (Cambridge 1989), The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, Volume 1 (Cambridge 1996), co-edited with Wilcomb E. Washburn, and Understanding Early Civilizations (Cambridge 2003).

Preface to the second edition; 1. Studying the history of archaeology; 2. Classical and other text-based archaeologies; 3. Antiquarianism without texts; 4. The beginnings of prehistoric archaeology; 5. Evolutionary archaeology; 6. Culture-historical archaeology; 7. Early functional-processual archaeology; 8. Processualism and postprocessualism; 9. Pragmatic synthesis; 10. The relevance of archaeology; Bibliographical essay.