David Maxwell’s office at Simon Fraser University could easily be mistaken for a dorm room. The walls are plastered with antique beer signs, which, when turned on, illuminate the small space in a neon glow. Beer cans are lined up like trophies on top of the bookcase and prop up archaeology textbooks. Maxwell is not just an avid collector of breweriana; he’s also the world’s foremost—and probably only—archaeological scholar of beer cans. For most people, archaeology conjures images of timeworn tombs and temples. But archaeologists have long relied on garbage,…
