While it is certainly the case that Indigenous Australians have suffered the consequences of being treated in an objectifying and derogatory fashion during the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries by archaeologists and others, they were not mere observers of the creation of a 65,000-year narrative of their history that has become important in the modern story of Australia. Rather, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians were involved in illuminating knowledge of Australia's deep history from at least as early as the 1830s. This story has not been told up to now. By examining the extent of early Indigenous involvement in the development of Australian archaeology, this paper demonstrates that far from archaeological research having been something simply imposed upon Aboriginal people, their intellectual property has been critical in all stages of its development. At a time when serious gaps are being identified in the ways the history of Australian archaeology has been presented, it is an urgent task to insert this hidden history of Indigenous involvement in Australia's archaeology. Reading 'against the grain', we seek to bring to the fore the role of Aboriginal interlocutors whose opinions and expertise were constantly sought by early archaeologists grappling with establishing archaeological frameworks to understand the deep history of a continent. Deconstructing the current master narratives of the history of Australian archaeology will have significant ramifications for how the discipline is taught and practiced, and for the general public's appreciation of the role of Indigenous Australians in shaping the nation's history.

The Australian Research Council (ARC) Laureate Project, The Collective Biography of Archaeology in the Pacific or 'CBAP' was funded between 2015-2020 and, due to COVID disruptions, associated events continued until the end of 2022. Some of the initial aims included: to create a sub-field of the history of Pacific archaeology; to redefine the development of Australian archaeology within its wider Oceanic context; to re-discover the contribution of both French and German scholars; to recover the considerable amount of archaeological excavation that took place in the Pacific from the 1870s until WWII; to re-conceptualise the perennial issue of trans-Oceanic cultural contacts; to redress the neglect of the role of Indigenous Pacific scholars and of women in archaeology; and to re-engage with descendant communities in the light of our research and its findings. The paper discusses the project's results in light of these and other emerging aims during the last seven years. It also provides a comprehensive bibliography of publications by the Project's main contributors.

Histories of archaeology have, in the last decade, widened their scope of analysis. As Archaeology is seen as a network of practitioners, practices, ideas, institutions, and other elements, the possibilities for discourses on invisible elements in its historiography are increasingly surfacing. The present article strives toward an integrated History of Archaeology, uniting human and non-human elements. Tools and instruments bridge the gap between both, and will thus be analyzed, from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day (c. 120 years). For this purpose, 17 archaeological fieldwork manuals were selected. The tools and instruments were grouped in several distinct assemblages, reflecting their characteristics and roles during fieldwork. With this empirical data, some considerations on how tools and instruments are used, viewed, and discarded are offered. Ultimately, we will ponder how post-anthropocentric and anthropocentric histories of archaeology can enrich themselves, thus striving to open new research horizons for the discipline.

Since the publication of the second edition of Bruce G. Trigger's A History of Archaeological Thought in 2006, scholars have produced a negligible number of histories of archaeology. This scarcity contrasts with the considerable amount of historical works on more regionally-and temporally-restricted contexts. With reference to the English-speaking literature, I suggest in this paper that there is a pressing need for new and pluriversal histories of archaeology that connect past and present. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, archaeology has gone through an intense transformation. For instance, during the past twenty years, archaeologists have been concerned with a number of ethical issues, have extensively collaborated with different kind of communities (especially Indigenous), and have reformulated the relationship between theory and practice. It is not only that historians need to incorporate these (and other) developments into our disciplinary history, they also need to rewrite that history with reference to our changing present.

The brief foray proposed here into the archives of French ethnologist, technologist and prehistorian André Leroi-Gourhan (1911–1986) focusses on the proof-correcting process of the very last page of his doctoral thesis, published in 1946. The changing state of these proofs and the additions he penned to them, as made perceptible in the illustrations provided, serves me to highlight three interconnected aspects of history-of-archaeology investigations: the interest of archives-based biographical studies, the links between the history and the theory of archaeology, and, last but not least, the material and ‘intellectual technologies’ involved in the production of knowledge. Résumé La brève excursion proposée ici dans les archives de l’ethnologue, technologue et préhistorien André Leroi-Gourhan (1911–1986) aborde spécifiquement la correction des épreuves de la toute dernière page de sa thèse de doctorat, publiée en 1946. Les différents états de ces jeux d’épreuves et les ajouts qu’il y a apportés, telles que perceptibles dans les images qui illustrent cet article, me servent à aborder trois aspects interconnectés de la recherche en histoire de l’archéologie: l’intérêt que présentent études biographiques à partir de fonds d’archives, les liens entre l’histoire et la théorie de l’archéologie, et enfin les dimensions matérielles des ‘technologies intellectuelles’ impliquées dans la production du savoir.   Mots clefs: André Leroi-Gourhan; histoire de l’archéologie; théorie en archéologie; fond d’archives; histoire du livre; Protat Frères; ‘technologies intellectuelles’; culture matérielle; chaîne opératoire

The article presents the pioneering research conducted in Poland in the field of ethnoarchaeology just before and immediately after the Second World War. The use of this method was pioneered by W. Hołubowicz. The article shows how ethnoarchaeology spread to other research centres in later years. A novelty in the research was the search for solutions in ethnographic materials. It made it possible to study production techniques and ways of using products. Currently, it is used in studies about architecture, workshops, and various classes of monuments. Research on monuments allows us to determine the traces of production and use of items. The described method contributed significantly to the refinement of knowledge about the everyday life of ancient people.

Flinders Petrie’s first two seasons in Hawara, between 1888 and 1889, and their subsequent exhibitions in London, were arguably pivotal for the career of the British archaeologist. They also provide a wealth of documentation in his own hand to better <em>understand</em> the man. But to better <em>critique</em> him, this paper aims to reassess Petrie’s mindset, field work, and results in Hawara, first by the standards he began to craft for himself in the field, before briefly taking a modern perspective to complete the critical picture. To evaluate Petrie’s work by his own ambition, what could be more appropriate than to take him at his word? In the seminal <em>Methods &amp; Aims in Archaeology</em> of 1904, he would neatly set out his vision and the practicalities for the discipline. This assessment proffers to proceed along the original processual chapters of the book to examine how Petrie’s practices in Hawara in 1888–1889 already pioneer the theory he would consolidate 15 years later, while incorporating the latest research views. The main sources for this review are, by order of relevance, threefold: first, his original hand-written documentation from two so-called ‘Journals’ collected from letters, eight excavation ‘Notebooks’ and three ‘Day Diaries’; second, his publications for both seasons; and third, his autobiographical pieces. It appears that the ‘Father of Egyptian Archaeology’ did not entirely live up to his nascent ambition, leaving a contentious legacy to this day. The urge of the ‘salvage man’, trapped in contradictions, produced good results for the time but may also have led him astray in terms of aims and methods.

The British Museum archive preserves hundreds of letters sent by antiquities dealers based in Baghdad who regularly wrote to sell archaeological artefacts to the department of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities (the former name of today’s Middle East collection) in the late 19th century. These documents, largely understudied for the information they contain about the antiquities trade in this period, are invaluable not only because they preserve the stories of the men and women who were involved in this trade, but also because they record the details of their smuggling operations. In their letters to curators, antiquities dealers openly discussed the methods they used to circumvent the Ottoman authorities’ exportation ban of archaeological artefacts adopted in 1884. Although dealers did not shy away from writing about their operations, they did however refrain from disclosing how they passed their collections through customs undetected. Despite this absence, such stories (while rare) do survive. One of the most explicit is preserved in documents related to the British Museum’s purchase of 186 cuneiform tablets from a Baghdad-based broker named Elias Gejou in 1896, who hid the artefacts he sent in bags of aniseed. To present this rare example of a ploy to deceive, this article retraces the events and relationships that enabled Elias Gejou’s smuggling. The aim of this case study is to illustrate how investigating antiquities dealers’ letters in the British Museum archive can enrich our understanding of the manner in which Iraq’s tangible cultural heritage was dispersed across the globe.

The article presents two unpublished letters from Maltese archaeologists (Giovanni Gatt Said and Paolo Bellanti) to Giovanni Battista de Rossi and Alfred Louis Delattre, the most important early Christian archaeologists of the Mediterranean in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The two texts have recently been discovered in the Vatican Library and in the Archive of the Missionaries of Africa in Rome respectively. Both deal with topics of great importance for Maltese Christian archaeology: St Paul’s Grotto in Rabat and the evolution of Christian underground tombs and Christian lamps. The two authors appealed to two authorities in the field of scientific research at the time to allow Maltese archaeological research to advance. These letters are presented here with the full text and critical commentary, with the aim of using them as good examples to contribute to the reconstruction of the history of Christian archaeological research on the island, and to understand the role of their authors in the reconstruction of the problematic past of the Church of Malta.