ABSTRACT
For the last 170 years or so the study of things has been close to a categorical imperative to archaeologists. No object was too small, too inconspicuous, fragmented or soiled to become a matter of archaeological concern. At times this was a very solitary and not very honourable assignment. The intellectual climate of the twentieth century barely nourished sincere academic engagement with objects and spurred internal disciplinary doubts about its social and cultural relevance. Nevertheless, the vast majority of archaeologists stubbornly carried out what they were best at: recovering and studying old things.
