An anthropology of absence: Commentary

Abstract

Archaeologists are accustomed to responding to absence, to reading the spaces and bygone traces of materials and practices, as well as assembling the social worlds of people now departed. The often haunting fragmentary remains that are bequeathed to us, the palimpsest and the void itself - plus the material and immaterial methodologies employed to interpret and revivify the past - are often more telling and carry greater psychical weight, than dealing with the myriad intact artifacts that have endured. © 2010 Springer-Verlag New York.