Down to Earth Archaeology collects sixteen archaeological papers by Professor William Y. Adams chosen by the author, who added introductory commentary to each. These articles were written at various times during his lengthy and productive academic career for different purposes and for different audiences. Most of those selected had been previously published only in a limited way, either as conference proceedings or contributions to various Festschriften, and as such he wanted to enable them to reach a wider readership than they had originally. He described this collection as his ‘dernières pensées’.