Presentation of the thematic volume Archeology and Garbage Studies

Abstract

The thematic volume Archeology and Garbage Studies brings to the fore what we could call Lixology, using the English neologism Garbology/Garbologia. Garbage, when defined as remains, discarded, abandoned things, usually with contents that are closely linked to everyday life, is a precious vestige for Archeology. Finding a pocket of rubbish in a preserved stratigraphic context is one of the best finds that archaeological research can offer anyone excavating a site. With the expansion of an archeology more concerned with the genealogy of socio-environmental problems that plague life across the planet, the archaeological interest in garbage has resurfaced and with it new looks at William Rathje's classics and the use of archeology in public policies, as well as as it has been increasingly common to refer to authors whose different theoretical-methodological perspectives come together in what has been called the archeology of the contemporary past, the recent past or the present.