2007-05-06 Dig this

In the Preface to this excellent little book, the author says his intention is to give the reader a taste of the subject and to help students decide if they want to study archaeology at University. It performs those tasks admirably. It quite rightly provides a very broad overview rather than going deeply into specific topics, but manages to cram in loads of interesting facts along the way. The tone is jocular, and sometimes the humour is rather forced ("Relative dating does not mean going out with your cousin") but for the most part it works, and Bill Tidy's cartoons are well up to standard.

Bahn is pretty harsh with some modern archaeological notions, and objectivity toward his peers is clearly not a priority with him, but I don't think this seriously distorts what he has to say.

I do not know of a better short introduction to the subject than this book. Following this, you might want to read Egyptology, another excellent entry in the same series.