Abstract:

Abstract The article discusses the archaeological value of the heritage of the recent past taking a certain gold ring as a case study. The artefact provides a context for the analysis of two issues concerning the archaeological study of the recent past. The first issue concerns the perception of contemporary archaeology as a practice of memory rather than a history of past communities. The other issue is a discussion of so-called family archaeology as a research perspective where archaeologists explore their own past and family roots. The aim is to present archaeology as a valuable method of discovering, analysing, and restoring social and material memories of the near past.

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