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This review surveys studies of men and masculinities in anthropology and ethnography from other disciplines, as well as theoretical frameworks and debates among anthropologists and other relevant scholars in the field. It also aims to assess developments in these studies since an earlier Annual Review of Anthropology article was published on this subject. By considering the ethnographic boom in men and masculinities studies across the globe since 2000, increasingly authored by anthropologists from the Global South, this review considers anthropology's singular contributions topically and conceptually—for example, masculinity and militarism, men and public health, gender inequalities, and trans* social movements—including through innovative research in biological and linguistic anthropology and archaeology. Throughout, this article reflects on the extent to which anthropologists have moved (and if they should have moved) beyond the study of women or men to instead explore gender, sex, and sexuality of humans and nonhuman animals in less binary frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeologists have long been interested in contemporary material culture, but only recently has a dedicated subfield of archaeology of the contemporary world begun to emerge. Although it is concerned mainly with the archaeology of the early to mid-twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in its explicit acknowledgment of the contemporary archaeological record as multi-temporal, the subfield is not defined by a focus on a specific time period so much as a particular disposition toward time, material things, the archaeological process, and its politics. This article considers how the subfield might be characterized by its approaches to particular sources and its current and emerging thematic foci. A significant point of debate concerns the role of archaeology as a discipline through which to explore ongoing, contemporary sociomaterial practices-is archaeology purely concerned with the abandoned and the ruined, or can it also provide a means by which to engage with and illuminate ongoing, contemporary, and future sociomaterial practices? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeologists have long been interested in contemporary material culture, but only recently has a dedicated subfield of archaeology of the contemporary world begun to emerge. Although it is concerned mainly with the archaeology of the early to mid-twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in its explicit acknowledgment of the contemporary archaeological record as multitemporal, the subfield is not defined by a focus on a specific time period so much as a particular disposition toward time, material things, the archaeological process, and its politics. This article considers how the subfield might be characterized by its approaches to particular sources and its current and emerging thematic foci. A significant point of debate concerns the role of archaeology as a discipline through which to explore ongoing, contemporary sociomaterial practices—is archaeology purely concerned with the abandoned and the ruined, or can it also provide a means by which to engage with and illuminate ongoing, contemporary, and future sociomaterial practices? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses inhabiting a transgressive and generative interdisciplinary space, in this instance at the nexus of linguistics, anthropology, and psychology.

Having begun graduate work in anthropology and prehistoric archaeology at a time (early 1950s) and place (University of Chicago) where the two were closely linked, I subsequently participated in work devoted to early agricultural economies in Western Asia and Eastern North America; to the relations among archaeology, history, and science; and to the place of anthropological archaeology in the contemporary world. In this article I discuss my personal experiences within each of these areas of endeavor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers the contribution of taphonomy to archaeological studies of human origins. Archaeological evidence is more abundant in the Great Rift Valley in eastern Africa where archaeological sites are located along ancient lake and stream margins. The taphonomic approach is most effective when ancient archaeological patterns are analyzed and interpreted in relation to modern analogs in which relevant cause and effect relationships are known from direct observations. Studies of modern analogs include ethnoarchaeological research on modern humans.

The article examines the relationships between society, culture and the built environment. The built environment is an abstract concept used to describe the products of human building activity. It refers to any physical alteration of the natural environment through construction by human beings. It includes built forms created by humans to shelter, define and protect activity and spaces that are defined and bounded. Included in the discussion are early theories on built environment, ethnographic traditions, architectural interest, social organization, household studies and ethnoarchaeological studies, political economy of space and the theory of structuration.

The article examines the potential of linear programming applications in archaeology. The literature explores the methodological and theoretical problems and issues in linear programming analysis of archaeological phenomena. It also presents a demonstration of how linear programming fits within the context of research trends in archaeology and discusses the problems concerning the quality of available quantitative data as well as other optimization methods used by economists and operations researchers which may be of value in the archaeological analysis of decision making.