ABSTRACT
For the last 15 years or so the ‘mobility turn’ in the social sciences has addressed questions of mobility and movement. This chapter will present the ways that archaeology has examined movement from the perspectives of past migrations, trade and exchange, seasonal mobilities and transhumance, embodiment and the sciences of trace using aDNA and isotopes. The conclusion is that most movement in archaeology is used as a proxy to discuss others matters, such as the provenance of a culture; or to make comment on the status of a society or community. However, there is much of value to take forwards. But to do this effectively, the chapter looks at how the archaeological record is conceived and the processes by which living things become archaeological. By resetting the existing approaches to movement in archaeology, this chapter begins the assembly of the parts it needs to build a new direction to movement that keeps it animated and dynamic. With this knowledge, the ‘mobility turn’ is assessed, looking at what makes archaeology distinct and where opportunities exist. The intention for the rest of the book is outlined with the aim to bring human-scale movement to the foreground so that it lies at the centre of archaeology’s investigations into the archaeological record.
