Introduction: Museum Archaeology

This chapter outlines the rationale for a volume devoted to Museum Archaeology and argues that it is the concept of ‘archaeological context’ that provides a disciplinary centre. This entails a shift from curation of single objects to the curation of relationships among objects, archives, fieldsites, and people. Museum Archaeology can and should be a critical awareness of the histories and agencies that form assemblages, a reflexive practice for ongoing archaeological documentation and analysis, and a responsive, sensitive, and community-engaged approach to interpretation and access. How these principles are developed through the volume is presented here, alongside a summary of the seven themed sections: (1) collecting, categorizing, and challenging histories; (2) contemporary agencies of curation and communities of practice; (3) the spaces and places of museums; (4) alternative materialities: beyond finds; (5) fieldwork in the museum; (6) exhibitionary cultures; an