Mapping a New Museum seeks to rethink the museum's role in today's politically conscious world. Presenting a selection of innovative projects that have taken place in Latin America over the last year, the book begins to map out possibilities for the future of the global museum. The projects featured within the pages of this book were all supported by The Santo Domingo Centre of Excellence for Latin American Research (SDCELAR) at the British Museum (BM), with the aim of making the BM's Latin American collections meaningful to communities in the region and others worldwide. These projects illustrate how communities manage cultural heritage and, taken together, they suggest that there is also no all-encompassing counter-narrative that can be used to "decolonise" museums. Reflecting on, and experimenting with, the ways that research happens within museum collections, the interdisciplinary collaborations described within these pages have used collections to tell stories that destabilise societal assumptions, whilst also proactively seeking out that which has historically been overlooked. The result is, the book argues, a research environment that challenges intellectual orthodoxy and values critical and alternative forms of knowledge. Mapping a New Museum contains English and Spanish versions of every chapter, which enables the book to put critical stress on the self-referentiality of Anglophone literature in the field of museum anthropology. The book will be essential reading for students, scholars and museum practitioners working around the world.

Mapping a New Museum seeks to rethink the museum's role in today's politically conscious world. Presenting a selection of innovative projects that have taken place in Latin America over the last year, the book begins to map out possibilities for the future of the global museum. The projects featured within the pages of this book were all supported by The Santo Domingo Centre of Excellence for Latin American Research (SDCELAR) at the British Museum (BM), with the aim of making the BM's Latin American collections meaningful to communities in the region and others worldwide. These projects illustrate how communities manage cultural heritage and, taken together, they suggest that there is also no all-encompassing counter-narrative that can be used to "decolonise" museums. Reflecting on, and experimenting with, the ways that research happens within museum collections, the interdisciplinary collaborations described within these pages have used collections to tell stories that destabilise societal assumptions, whilst also proactively seeking out that which has historically been overlooked. The result is, the book argues, a research environment that challenges intellectual orthodoxy and values critical and alternative forms of knowledge. Mapping a New Museum contains English and Spanish versions of every chapter, which enables the book to put critical stress on the self-referentiality of Anglophone literature in the field of museum anthropology. The book will be essential reading for students, scholars and museum practitioners working around the world.

'The exhibition is now over, but the splendid book lives on.' 'A delightful, very readable eyecandy dive in the history of the cultures of Peru' 'An excellent book as you would expect from the British Museum, and a delight to dive into.' -- Sacred Hoop Magazine, March 2022 The environments of the Central Andean region in Peru, South America, are some of the most geographically rich and diverse in the world. This publication highlights the history, beliefs and cultural achievements of the different peoples who lived in these remarkable landscapes from 1500 BC to the arrival of Europeans in the 1500s, and the importance of their legacy up until today. Over thousands of years, the people of the Andes have approached agriculture, economy, gender, power and belief in fascinating ways. Many archaeological sites in Peru are uniquely preserved, and the book discusses key examples with a thematic and geographical approach. The vibrant and varied material depicted includes ceramics, colourful textiles, golden objects and wooden carvings, drawn from the British Museum and museums and collections in Peru and beyond. When juxtaposed with breathtaking photography of archaeological sites and landscapes, they reveal new narratives about the country's rich history.

The Arctic, often imagined as one of the most inhospitable places on earth, has been inhabited for nearly 30,000 years. The various communities that call the region home have found ingenious ways to harness and celebrate their environment, and to co-exist with its wildlife. Today, man-made climate change is transforming the region at an unprecedented rate, bringing with it a new set of challenges. Arctic: culture and climate explores the history of the Circumpolar North and its peoples through the lens of climate change and weather, drawing on a wealth of objects, artworks and voices - from past and present - to show how Arctic Peoples and their cultural traditions have continued to thrive amid both social and environmental change

This title explores the application of a selected number of newly emerging methods and techniques.During the past few decades, Caribbean scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have increasingly developed and employed new methods and techniques for the study of archaeological materials. The aim of earlier research in the Caribbean was mainly to define typologies on the basis of pottery and lithic assemblages leading to the establishment of chronological charts for the region, and it was not until the 1980s that the use of technological and functional analyses of artifacts became widespread. The 1990s saw a veritable boom in this field, introducing innovative methods and techniques for analyzing artifacts and human skeletal remains. Innovative approaches included microscopic use-wear analysis, starch residue and phytolith analysis, stable isotope analysis, experimental research, ethnoarchaeological studies, geochemical analyses, and DNA studies.The purpose of this volume is to describe these new methods and techniques in the study of archaeological materials from the Caribbean and to assess possible avenues of mutual benefit and integration. Each of these approaches is illustrated by a case study. These studies benefited from a diverse array of experience and the international background of the researchers from Canada, the Netherlands, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Martinique, Italy, Mexico, Dominican Republic, England, and the United States.

Archaeologists have long encountered evidence of natural disasters through excavation and stratigraphy. In Surviving Sudden Environmental Change, case studies examine how eight different past human communities--ranging from Arctic to equatorial regions, from tropical rainforests to desert interiors, and from deep prehistory to living memory--faced, and coped with, such dangers. Many disasters originate from a force of nature, such as an earthquake, cyclone, tsunami, volcanic eruption, drought, or flood. But that is only half of the story; decisions of people and their particular cultural lifeways are the rest. Sociocultural factors are essential in understanding risk, impact, resilience, reactions, and recoveries from massive sudden environmental changes. By using deep-time perspectives provided by interdisciplinary approaches, this book provides a rich temporal background to the human experience of environmental hazards and disasters. In addition, each chapter is followed by an abstract summarizing the important implications for today's management practices and providing recommendations for policy makers. Publication supported in part by the National Science Foundation.