Book Review of Archaeology and the Senses: Human Experience, Memory, and Affect, by Yannis Hamilakis

This book is a manifesto—prepare to be roused and challenged. Hamilakis claims that the discipline of archaeology must undergo radical changes and tackle head-on the difficult task of exploring the sensorial and affective dimensions of human experience. According to the author, a sensorial archaeology, one that aims to evoke, rather than to represent, sensorial, affective, and mnemonic experiences will be able to avoid a series of seemingly self-evident binary oppositions (e.g., subject vs. object or theory vs.