Book Cover; Title; Contents; List of figures; List of tables; Series preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Museum objects; The contextual analysis of symbolic meanings; Things ain't what they used to be; Objects as meaning; or narrating the past; Death's head, cherub, urn and willow; Behavioural interaction with objects; A view of functionalism; Culture as a system with subsystems; Theoretical archaeology: a reactionary view; A view from the bridge; Ivory for the sea woman: the symbolic attributes of a prehistoric technology; Interpreting material culture
Summary
Bringing together the most significant papers on the interpretation of objects and collections, this volume examines how people relate to material culture and why they collect things
Analysis
Museums Collections
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 336-337) and index