The juniper tree. A conversation with Michael B. Schiffer and Randall H. McGuire

Abstract What are the circumstances through which we become archaeologists? In April 2018, Rui Gomes Coelho met with his former adviser, Randall H. McGuire, and his adviser’s adviser, Michael B. Schiffer, for a conversation about the reasons why they became interested in archaeology, about mentorship and about how they connect their experiences to broader social questions. This conversation is an affective reflection that crosses the emergence of behavioural archaeology, Marxist archaeology, the postprocessual turn and the context that shaped the origins of the archaeology of the recent past.