Archaeology of Spiritualities

Abstract

Academic anthologies devoted to the archaeology of religion, ritual, and the sacred are nothing new. Since the 1991 publication of Sacred and Profane, we have seen such volumes as Archaeology and World Religion (2001), The Archaeology of Ritual (2007), and Cult in Context (2007) shine light on the various ways in which archaeologists can interpret the cosmological world views and ritual praxes of past societies. Archaeology of Spiritualities represents the latest foray into this fascinating topic, edited by three scholars with differing expertise; Rountree is a social anthropologist at New Zealand’s Massey University, while Christine Morris is a classical archaeologist at Ireland’s Trinity College, Dublin, and Alan A.D. Pearfield is a Minoan archaeologist at University College Dublin (UCD). Published in Springer’s “One World Archaeology” series, the book has its origins in a session of the Sixth World Archaeological Congress (WAC), held at UCD in 2008, which was organised by the trio alongside the University of Tanna’s Tõnno Junuks.