Iron Marshalltowns of the Balkans — Ethnography of an Archaeological Community

Archaeology is an investigation into human affairs as reflected in artifacts, and archaeologists participate in the formation of the notions of the past, our origins and identities, founding their inferences upon the vestiges of material culture. On the other hand, archaeologists in their practice inevitably use specific artifacts, in this manner forming their own set of materialculture, itself also a possible subject to investigation by archaeological means and tools. This challenging and “tantalizing possibility” of “turning of our methods back on to ourselves may offer a fresh angle in the ongoing reconsiderations of the craft of archaeology.