Memory and understanding are often at odds with documented reality, often assuming the character of stories and myths which reveal more about social and political relations, identity, and hopes and hatreds than any purely factual account would provide. This is the essence of psychoarchaeology, and why it has become our single most important tool in these investigations.

 

Although psychoarchaelogy has become an accepted academic specialty only in recent years, as an offshoot or subset of psychogeography, it is Freud who is credited with having invented the term, famously comparing the human psyche, with its many strata, visible and invisible, old and new, but all exerting an palpable influence, to Rome. The meanings we seek center on invention and imagination, however, and this has led us to seek a purer, more authentic psychoarchaelogy with which to confront it.