A really nice biography of an archaeological site, July 17, 2005
Reviewer: Scott MacEachern (Brunswick, Maine)

I very much enjoyed Balter's book. I've been doing archaeology for 25 years and teaching methods and theory for almost 15 years. One thing that sort of grates in popular treatments of archaeological work is a focus on headline-grabbing -- big, spectacular pronouncements, with far too little attention paid to how the data were actually generated. And any attention to theory tends to to take one of two forms: Archaeology=Science or Archaeology=Indiana Jones.

Balter's book is different. For one thing, the topic is different, not Lucy or pre-Clovis or cave art or King Tut. The focus here is somewhat more subtle: not individual artefacts (although those can be pretty spectacular), but the question of how modern societies got to be that way, how we started to learn to live together in towns. Catal Höyük is one of the most important archaeological sites in the world, and it's nice to see it get its due. Second, the book focuses on the _biography_ of the site, the processes through which it was discovered and excavated and analysed through time, and that biography is always central in determining how archaeologists and the general public understand any site. We wouldn't be thinking about Catal Höyük in the way we do today without Mellart's work there, without the claims about urbanism and ritual and hierarchy that he made and even without the arguments about Mother Goddesses. Balter does an excellent job of writing the site's biography, and of telling us why, in fact, Catal Höyük is so important.

Third, Balter takes theory seriously. Lots of archaeologists hate theory, and most journalists are utterly, completely clueless on the topic. Balter has a pretty good understanding of theoretical developments in (English-speaking) archaeology since the 1960s, and he appreciates how important that theory is in the biography of Catal Höyük -- and in the biography of Ian Hodder, head of the project and the central figure in post-processualist theorising since the 1980s. (Archaeologists interested in post-processualism will probably find Balter's account of how Hodder's own theoretical leanings developed interesting in their own right: I know that I did.)

And fourth, Balter's account of the social aspect of excavation on the site is great. Archaeological projects are usually intensely social situations -- sometimes too much so -- unlike the more solitary work of cultural anthropologists. The goings-on in field camps often enter the folklore of the discipline, and again are part of the biography of the site. Digs _are_ 'Archaeology Camp' (sometimes in both senses of the latter word) and it's refreshing to see a realistic portrayal of how fieldwork happens on one of the biggest, most complex archaeological projects in the world.

This book is really excellent. I've been recommending it to acquaintances, not just as a book about Catal Höyük (although it's great coverage of that site) but as a book about how archaeology gets done.