Archaeologists are synonymous with artifacts. With artifacts we construct stories concerning past lives and livelihoods, yet we rarely write of deeply personal encounters or of the way the lives of objects and our lives become enmeshed. In this volume, 23 archaeologists each tell an intimate story of their experience and entanglement with an evocative artifact. Artifacts range from a New Britain obsidian tool to an abandoned Viking toy boat, the marble finger of a classical Greek statue and ordinary pottery fragments from Roman England and Polynesia. Other tales cover contemporary objects, including a toothpick, bell, door, and the blueprint for a 1970s motorcar. These creative stories are self-consciously personal; they derive from real world encounter viewed through the peculiarities and material intimacy of archaeological practice. This text can be used in undergraduate and graduate courses focused on archaeological interpretation and theory, as well as on material culture and story-telling.

Chapter 1 Encounter, Engagement, and Object Stories, Steve Brown, Ursula Frederick, Anne Clarke; Chapter 2, Janet D. Spector; Chapter 3 On Toothpicks and Elephants, Alexandra Kelly; Chapter 4 Walking Straight Through Places and Times, Allison Mickel; Chapter 5 Marooned! The Old People, a Dolphin, and a Model Canoe, Anne Clarke; Chapter 6 Shalimar, Denis Byrne; Chapter 7, Emma Waterton; Chapter 8 Tradition and Inventiveness, Giovanna Vitelli; Chapter 9 A Voyage of Discovery, Harold Mytum; Chapter 10 A Steely Gaze, Heather Law Pezzarossi; Chapter 11 A Cake of Spinifex Resin, Heidi T. Pitman; Chapter 12 Can, Door, Heritage, John Giblin; Chapter 13 Pointing to the Past, Lesley A. Beaumont; Chapter 14 The Reality of Whales, Lynette Russell; Chapter 15, Paul Irish; Chapter 16 Transformative Material, Transformative Object, Rachel Crellin; Chapter 17 The Prosaic Platter, Ralph Mills; Chapter 18 The Claw: A Song of Electrons, Robert Maxwell; Chapter 19 Reflections and Connections, Robin Torrence; Chapter 20 Dido and the Basket, Ruth Tringham; Chapter 21 A Neolithic House with Two Hearths at Osanni, South Korea, Sarah Milledge Nelson; Chapter 22 Naughtiness on the Mission, Steve Brown; Chapter 23 The Materiality of Plainware Pottery in Polynesia, Tom Sapienza; Chapter 24 Man with Hat and Pipe, Tracy Ireland; Chapter 25 Enter Sandman, Ursula Frederick; Chapter 26 Naming Our Love, Jane Lydon;