ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the object stories to discuss how archaeologists encounter, nurture, and write about artefacts with which they become personally connected. The stories tell of excitement and fallibility, objective analysis and informed imagination, frivolous yet serious, and ways in which archaeologist and artefact become entangled. Archaeologists work closely with materials in the course of excavation, in ways that make them highly attentive to the possibilities of both the narrative capabilities of objects, and the limits to the capacity of matter to produce theoretical insights. The archaeologist often views situated experiences of archaeological work as frivolous and, therefore, other' to orthodoxies of expertise and authority. Typically archaeologists find artefacts whilst undertaking excavations or field survey or whilst examining institutional collections. The artefacts provoke searches for new knowledge, but in all of their library and Internet searches, the sensual and emotive endure.
