Abstract

The archaeological body is dead to us. Forensic studies of skeletal remains and studies where the body’s materials stand as a proxy for the body itself are the closest the discipline comes to the lived embodied experience. In archaeologies of the contemporary, however, sites are frequently characterized by their closeness to lived experience. The closeness and familiarity of the contemporary past lies precisely in our bodily experience of it, and the proximity to us of others for whom it is memory, part of life. In addressing the industrial/postindustrial transition, this chapter tracks influences on and of the body as the way we work has changed. It proposes a more careful consideration of the human body in contemporary archaeology, and conceives of the body as an archaeological site in its own right, in interdependent relationships with the non-corporeal matter of our archaeological studies.