Social archaeology and the theatres of memory

Abstract

Archaeology is a study of ways in which we express ourselves through the things that we make and use, collect, discard and take for granted, all archaeology is social archaeology. And, because the past is always part of the present, social archaeology is closely concerned with the construction of memory. This has been particularly evident in representations of South Africa’s past during a time of extensive social transformation. Within a short span of time, the celebration of an enduring white domination has been superceded by the recollections of a dismantled apartheid. Material culture - the tangible traces of memory - plays a central part in this theatre of memory.