Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Introduction: A Fortress of Indestructible Leftovers
1. Throwaway Living
2. Archaeologies of Garbage
3. Cleanliness and Godliness
4. Dirty Work
5. Things Left Behind
6. Anamorphic Archaeology
Conclusion: A Weakness in Our Imaginations?
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Sarah Newman is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago.

Reviews

“Newman uses an archaeological lens to pose deep questions for our understanding of human waste management, including our very definitions of what constitutes ‘waste’: the result is a timely and original intervention that will resonate across disciplines and offer fresh perspectives on contemporary environmentalist movements.”
*David Wengrow, coauthor of The Dawn of Everything*

“‘Trash talk’ at its finest, this epic and engaging book reimagines how we should think about both the history of archaeology and our present-day pollution crisis. Destabilizing taken-for-granted assumptions about garbage, Unmaking Waste excavates multiple understandings of trash and time across centuries of Mesoamerican, European, and Euroamerican history.”
*Byron Hamann, author of The Invention of the Colonial Americas*

"Newman provides an excellent historiography of how the discipline has approached and interpreted discarded materials using a northern European-based, capitalist economic paradigm. One of her main points is that research across all cultures in the present and past has been underscored by capitalism’s expectations, goals, and problems. To challenge this, she turns to Mesoamerica as a space to analyze pre-European exchanges through to the present. The result is a fascinating history of material culture use, from precontact to modern times, which provides alternative models for dealing with trash."
*Choice*