Abstract:

We live in a state of increasing vulnerability, real and imagined. For calm and understanding, around the world individuals and communities employ materials to reflect on, share, and treat traumas of different scales. Our desire to overcome difficulty and to circumvent self-estrangement influences us to engage materials and motivates us to be “archaeologists”. These tendencies suggest that “medical archaeology” - concerned with health, anxiety, trauma, coping, treatment, healing, and sanity - soon will arise as a core sub-practice in academic archaeology.

Author: Jonathan Walz