Top 9 Biographies in Archaeology

1. Digging through Darkness

South African archaeologist Carmel Schrire's inventive personal memoir, subtitled, "Chronicles of an Archaeologist."

2. Finding the Walls of Troy

Susan Heuck Allen's book describing the relationship of Heinrich Schliemann and Frank Calvert, discoverers of Troy.

3. Grahame Clarke: An Intellectual Life of an Archaeologist

A new biography by Brian Fagan of archaeologist Grahame Clark provides a tremendously enlightening glimpse into the roots of scientific archaeology, and thus the inborn biases that professionals all wrestle with today.

4. The Land of Prehistory

Alice Beck Kehoe's history of American archaeology as a science.

5. Conversations with Lew Binford

Subtitled "Drafting the New Archaeology," this transcript of a conversation between Paula L. W. Sabloff and Lewis Binford, provides a unique glimpse into the skull of the fellow known as the Father of the New Archaeology.

6. Bandelier: The Life and Adventures of Adolph Bandelier

A biography of archaeologist-adventurer Adolph Bandelier awakens some deep-seated longing for a rich life, fraught with disaster and success.

7. Dead Men Do Tell Tales

A memoir of 1930s adventurer/archaeologist Byron Khun de Prorok in Ethiopia.

8. Warrior Women

A compelling report of Jeannine Davis-Kimball's search for powerful women at the edges of history, beginning with her study of women warriors and priestesses in Kazakhstan and ultimately leading to the theme of women's hidden roles in Greece, Ireland, China, and Turkey. The book includes more than a bit of autobiography, as Davis-Kimball travels around the world, looking at mummies, talking to researchers, and suffering the agonies of fieldwork.

9. Amelia Earhart's Shoes

Written by members of TIGHAR Thomas F. King, Randall Jacobson, Karen Ramey Burns, and Kenton Spading, Amelia Earhart's Shoes reports new research on the 1937 disappearance of the famous woman aviator, including archaeology on an island in the republic of Kiribati.