Session I: Ritual and Religion

Session Chair:Samantha Leggett

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Archaeology is often preoccupied with the tangible aspects of human existence in the past, but increasingly archaeological investigation is focussing on the more ephemeral and intangible aspects of human experience. Whilst ritual and religion belong to this intangible sphere they have often been treated as the former – the eternal archaeological joke of “it’s ritual”. This session is inspired by the 2011 Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion which combines methodology, theory and practice throughout time and place to investigate these issues in a multi-scalar way.

This session hopes to address the bigger underlying questions and intricacies of the intangible and supernatural element in archaeology – what are the differences between ritual and religion? How can we detect and study these things in the archaeological record? Can archaeologists only study the impact of practice rather than the beliefs behind these actions? This can encompass but is not limited to studies of religious places and landscapes, ritual objects and art, ecclesiastical persons (monks, nuns etc.), religious conversion or dissolution, burial practices and their links to belief, theorising religions in the past, the interplay between religious texts and archaeology, orthopraxy versus orthodoxy, and the materiality of religion. Interdisciplinary and multi-proxy approaches are particularly encouraged, with submissions focussing on prehistoric periods through to contemporary belief systems and major World Religions being sought to promote global comparison and discussion.

A Situation of Interactions: The funerary world during Iron Age Mallorca

Margalida Coll Sabater • University of the Balearic Island

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The late Iron Age of Mallorca- also known as Postalayotic (c.550-123 BC)- can be defined as the culmination of social, architectonical and funerary processes that started at the beginning of the 8th Century BC. At the same time, new behaviours, rituals and practices are noticed during the Postalayotic period. We should also consider that the 5th and 4th century BC is when the indigenous communities in Mallorca have more relations with external peoples, especially those living in Ebusus (Ibiza)- the Ebusitanos or Punic people. 

My PhD study will focus on these interactions between external peoples and the mallorcan indigenous communities starting from the funerary point of view, analyzing the materials found in burials as well as the rituals themselves and how new foreign materials were incorporated, reinterpreted and how the ancient traditions changed, evolved or remained static. To this end I will apply Postcolonial concepts to this reality in order to try to give a positive role to a society that has mostly been seen as passive and inferior to Punic society. 

In this paper, in a preliminary way, I will explore these concepts as they relate to my ongoing research. I will also explain the main results I achieved in my first year of work.

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A Grave with a View: Using topographical and visual categorization to understand the significance and ritual character of gallery graves in the greater Gothenburg area

John Evan Skole • University of Gothenburg

 

This presentation uses landscape categorization to discuss the ritual role the megaliths played in Late Neolithic society. Using both on-site as well as indirect survey techniques, topographical and visual observations were used to discover new characteristics of gallery graves and revisit old interpretations. Two topographical categories were discovered to dominate the data set. The dissimilar characteristics of these two categories suggest a far more varied ritual use for gallery graves than previously thought. Furthermore, sightlines from graves are shown to follow patterns based on direction, rather than focus on particular points in the landscape. Newly realized regional differences in grave landscape character point to local differences in ritual practice, despite similar burial methods. This new information allows for new interpretations to be posed over just what role gallery graves played at the end of the Stone Age, as well as the varied characteristics of the ritual significance of these sites. 

 

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Drops of Amethyst: Exploring the religious and social significance of the amethyst bead in 7th century England and Sweden

Markus Nylén • University of Gothenburg

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In the 6th century AD, women in Germanic Europe began wearing drop-shaped beads of purple amethyst. The beads originated in Byzantine workshops in the eastern Mediterranean, and after Byzantine aristocratic fashion, women usually wore them as part of exquisite necklaces. In the middle of the 7th century these drop-shaped beads reached Anglo-Saxon England and eastern Sweden. The amethyst bead has not received much attention in academic research and are usually merely discussed as one of several Byzantine luxury imports used in female jewellery among the social elite. However, a closer examination of the archeological and the historical record suggests that these beads may have served an additional purpose, beyond just the aesthetic. 

The appearance of amethyst beads in England in the 7th century coincides with the conversion-period, during which the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms converted to Christianity. Graves containing amethyst beads are often located in Christian conversion-period cemeteries and beads have been found together with Christian objects such as intaglios depicting the Virgin Mary. Drawing on biblical passages on certain gemstones like the amethyst, early Christian scholars interpreted them as symbols of Christian virtues. Venerable Bede allegorically associated the amethyst with the drinking of wine at the Last Supper, and perhaps the amethyst bead served as a ritual meditative device during the Holy Communion. While any links to Christian practices are absent in the archeological record in Sweden, find circumstances and associated grave goods suggest amethyst beads had a specific purpose in society. They are never found in more than one grave at each cemetery implying that wearing it was the privilege of a select few important women. Additionally, several graves contained rare beads of silver. A similar association between silver and amethyst beads is seen in some Kentish cemeteries indicating possible contacts between women from Christian Kent and eastern Sweden. 

The Game of Senet in Mortuary Contexts on Bronze Age Cyprus: An Early Drinking Game or an Envoy of the Dead?

Juuli Ahola • Uppsala University

 

The Egyptian board game senet formed a function in Egyptian mortuary contexts during the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (2494-2181 BC). Through trading and traveling the game began to spread to areas outside of Egypt, and came to Cyprus during the Early Bronze Age, with earliest Cypriot-made senet boards dating to about 2000 BC. Several hundred senet boards have been found on Cyprus, but their function and social context in the Cypriot society is unclear. In Egypt senet was used in both secular and religious intent through the span of three thousand years. On Cyprus senetwas played in a variety of contexts, yet with so far ambiguous indications of connections to religious and/or ritual activities. In fact, the terms ritual and religious are crucial in uncovering the possible connections. Furthermore, the topic is examined by keeping in mind the fluidity and possible overlap of religious and secular contexts.

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Rituals and traditions are repeatedly performed actions, but for distinct reasons. Gaming is a social tradition, which has been proven to facilitate social situations much like alcohol. It has a bridging function, where social areas are easier to cross. In Egyptian and Cypriot funerary contexts, some senet games are both for the living and the dead, and the game thereby breaks down barriers between two worlds, bridging the liminal spheres. The possible aspect of recreational tradition must therefore be considered, too.

By studying Egyptian and Cypriot versions of senet, the terms religious and secular, as well as ritual and tradition, need to be further discussed. This paper attempts to initiate this discussion and inspire further research on senet by discussing terminology and laying the groundwork for future studies. Ultimately, this outset of research on the Cypriot senet reveals new aspects of the Bronze Age Cypriot social sphere and beliefs.

 

Mystery Cults in Greece: The Space of Secret Rituals

Tommaso Serafini • University of Rome, ‘Sapienza’

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The research of my Master thesis analyzes the mystery cults in Greece from the origins to the Late Classical period and in particular the places of the rituals. Ancient terminology offers several definitions: mystèria, teletài, òrgia, initia. Some features distinguish mysteries from other cults: level of secrecy, initiation and a specific spiritual involvement. Initiates are not a closed minority group. In contrast, the mysteries are open to a wide audience and they also address the people ‘excluded’ from the pòlis and the Olympic cults: foreigners, slaves, women. Roots of mystery cults traced back to the Greek spirituality of Geometric and Archaic period. The mysteries resemble ‘rites of passage’ and they seem to be residual of ancient tribal initiation. The mysteries arise from a combination of factors: requirement of social inclusion, eschatological perspective of salvation, agricultural magic and mythical stories of ‘suffering’ deities. The main mysteries are cults of Demeter and Kore, Kabeiroi, Dionysus and Orphism. Some of these cults (Dionysus and Orphism) took place outdoors, not in archaeologically visible places; whereas other cults (Demeter and Kore, Kabeiroi) occurred in stable, architecturally evolved sanctuaries. Hence, for the reconstruction of ritual dynamics, in the first case we rely solely on literary and epigraphic sources; while, in the second case, we can also study the places of worship, e.g. the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore in Eleusis, the Kabirion of Chloi (Lemnos), the Kabirion of Thebes and the sanctuary of the Great Gods in Samothrace. The research outlines a synthesis of the ‘mysteries’ phenomenon, with particular attention to the organization and management of sacred space and to the buildings used for initiation (telestèria). The aim is to link description and analysis of archaeological data with functional and cognitive comprehension and interpretation of places, buildings, objects and ritual activities

 

Ancient Thessaly: Locating the dark cult remains of a prehistoric day

Konstantina Karpeti • Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

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The large Thessalian plain is the birthplace of the Greek myths. Thessaly, a land full of powerful states during the historical times, mainly due to its strategic place between north and south Greece and famous for its horse breeding, was the center of worship of two rather dark deities, Enodia and Thavlios Zeus. Enodia, a local deity came to reconcile characteristics and even identify with deities such as Hecate, Artemis and Demetra and generally the Underwold. Thavlios Zeus, on the other hand, was a rather primitive and bloodthirsty worship of Zeus, according to which the god was seeking vengeance, punishing murderers. Through this paper, the worship of those deities shall be explored both though the classical literate and archeological remains. Furthermore, an exploration of how such dark cults could have contributed to the reasons and manifestations of Thessaly’s famous (Goethe’s Faust is a prime example), up to the twenty first century, “witches”.

 

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Session II: Cultural Heritage in a Digital Age

Bryony Smerdon

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This session aims to bring together research which explores the place of cultural heritage and archaeology in an increasingly digital world. Although technology has long played an important role in the collection and dissemination of archaeological data, recent advancements in the application of digital approaches have resulted in the realization of a new theoretical realm: a digital archaeology. This progression does not only represent the increased use of computers within the study of archaeology, but also the potential of progressive digital techniques such as online archives, 3D modelling and printing, high-resolution visualisation and imaging software, or real-time surveying programmes.

Such technologies have undoubtedly aided the discovery, study and preservation of cultural heritage, and have helped to make archaeological material accessible to the wider public. However, these approaches also present new and unique challenges to world heritage. We must ask what the responsibilities (and irresponsibilities) of archaeology are at a time when virtual realities precede over physical ones.  How can technology successfully be applied to the study of the human past, present, and future? Is the field of digital archaeology sustainable, and how can we continue to safeguard digital heritage in the future?

 

A Sami past. Messages of museums and the role of archaeology. 

Mathilde van den Berg • University of Groningen

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“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.” 

            -George Orwell in his dystopian novel 1984.

 

One important aspect of the fight for cultural survival is the issue of who has control over the past. The construction of the cultural past is partly influenced by the material past, which influences the perception on the cultural present and thus future. Only recently it has become recognized that museums do not only reflect knowledge (Merriman, 1999: 4). Rather, museums are active social agents in the production of knowledge and the communication of ideas (Moser 2010).

The Sami are the indigenous people of northern Fennoscandia, and mostly associated with reindeer herding. Although contemporary Sami are highly integrated into the societies of the nation states they live in, still today there are remaining controversies regarding the general acceptance of the identify of the Sami and their cultural expression (Spangen et al. 2015). In this presentation I probe how contemporary majority and Sami museums convey information or knowledge about the Sami past, with a special focus on the role of archaeology. More precisely, the question that I will explore is: To what extent is archaeology as used in contemporary museums a suitable medium to convey information about the Sami past and Sami identity? It was found that the majority museums and the Sami museums convey both corresponding and contrasting messages through their use of archaeology, or, through the lack of archaeological material in their exhibitions that are linked to the Sami. In the majority museums archaeology is used in a peripheral manner regarding the Sami, conveying that their culture is static and has a lack of time-depth. The Sami museums do use more archaeology in their exhibitons and stress time-depth through suggesting a continuity between the prehistoric population in the region and the contemporary Sami. However, they are also represented as a culturally static reindeer-herding community through which the Sami community calls upon distinctiveness. 

It depends on the message that the Sami want to tell about themselves whether archaeology is a suitable medium or not. This message will largely depend on the Sami’s current social and political situation, for the stories that are told in the museums are more a reflection of a contemporary social perception.

 

Towards Multiculturalism:

A Space Syntax Analysis Approach to the Palaces of Assyria and Western Iran

Xosé L. Hermoso-Buxán • University College London

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In the First Millennium BCE we can see a trend towards a more syncretic and increasingly multicultural and universalistic society in the Ancient Near East. This is visible in multiple aspects of society and material culture, including iconography, jewellery, urbanism or architecture.

This paper will present and compare the preliminary results of the Space Syntax Analysis of the Royal Palace of Sargon at Dur Shakurrin (Khorsabad) in the Assyrian heartland, the palaces at Godin Tepe and Tepe Nush-i Jan in Media (NW Iran) and the Achaemenid palace of Darius I in Persepolis (SW Iran). Space syntax goes beyond traditional formal approaches to the analysis of the architecture of palaces, normally based on typological classifications, and offers new information based on the assumption that architecture is used to encode social information which, in turn, affects human behaviour. 

This type of analysis will allow us to ascertain whether similarities and differeces in architectural typologies between Assyria and the neighbouring territories of Media and Southwestern Iran also extend on to spatial organisation -that is, permeability, integration, interaction, centrality of movement, control of inner space and privacy-, which might indicate that the impact of the interactions between this neighbouring regions trascends the sphere of material culture and reflects the development of new patterns of thought and social organisation, parallel to the wider developments observed in Near Eastern Society in the First Millennium BCE.

 

Digital technologies and cultural heritage: A view from the Near East          

David Johnston • University of York

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The Near East is a geopolitical region with cultural sequences that span from the Palaeolithic to the Islamic periods. These cultural sequences, pieced together from archaeological remains, are under threat now more than ever. Due to increased violence and armed conflict in recent years, the region is experiencing a cultural heritage crisis. This paper assesses four responses to this crisis: site documentation and monitoring, raising awareness, restoration and reconstruction, and mitigation. The common thread throughout the different responses is the adoption of both established and emerging technologies. Digital technologies connect heritage professionals in places of conflict with international colleagues and institutions, leading to more comprehensive data collection, increased connectivity, and interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as improving the protection of cultural heritage at risk. However, archaeological remains can be placed at even greater risk if their location, and value, become public knowledge. Heritage professionals must move forward with cautious optimism, weighing the benefits of digital technologies against the potential harm they can cause.

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Session III:Making People, Making History:

Perspectives on Childhood and Learning

Kevin Kay and Jess Thompson

Societies’ ways of passing down the trappings of social personhood through generations – technologies and knowledge, religious beliefs, gender, social relations, and the like – form a crucial link between time-scales in archaeological interpretation. On the one hand, attending to learning, knowledge, and identity transmission demands a careful exploration of the ‘ethnographic’ time-scale of human experience in the past. On the other hand, the way knowledge and identity are taught and learned helps to determine how societies change, how they meet new circumstances, and how they remain inflexible or regular over centuries and millennia. In this view, child-rearing, teaching, and apprenticeship are not niche concerns in archaeology, but rather, the very medium of historical change.

This session invites any papers focusing on learning, childhood, and personal development in archaeology and heritage studies, but especially asks contributors to consider the link between ways of learning/developing and social change. Papers may consider diverse kinds of evidence and cover any time period, from deep prehistory to the effect of learning and development on technologies, politics and heritage in modern times.

A Children’s World? Neanderthal Children and Queer Theory

Sophie Jorgensen-Rideout • University of York

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Archaeology is becoming increasingly concerned with matters of personhood, the creation of people, and how we learn. Despite the importance of childhood to this area, in terms of development and socialisation, it has still been chronically understudied compared to other ages. In discussions of making people we are automatically discussing an immature stage of development, and yet archaeology remains focused on “prime age” adults. It is stated that this bias is due to preservation as well as interests of adult archaeologists. Children are not thought to be economically or culturally interesting, immature in every sense.

It is to challenge this belief, and the subsequent marginalisation, that queer theory offers up fresh possibility. By using queer theory we can elucidate the identity and social role of children, in a world separate to the adult world, rejecting definition through adult analogy. Unfortunately, queer theory in relation to childhood is still underutilised, in part due to the outdated association of the queer with the sexual. This discomfort, speaks simultaneously of the disconnect between the child and adult world, but also of the need to use queer theory, to bring the identity of children into discussion.

This work will present a queer theory critique regarding the construction and maintenance of personhood in Neanderthal children. By examining and increasing our understanding of the individual (or not) elements of personhood in Neanderthal children we can move outwards to how their societies would have seen them. This holds potential for understanding knowledge transmission between adults and children, as well as interpersonal relationships.

Research into these areas has predominantly relied on ethnographic comparisons and lithic evidence, with a lack of research linking these areas. This work will provide a more holistic view of identity in Neanderthal children by linking these areas through using Queer theory.

 

#YouOnlyDigOnce? Archaeology by, with, and for young people

Emma Densham • University College London
 

Archaeology as an academic discipline has remained exclusive almost since its inception. Many members of the public, of all ages, still lack any good understanding of what archaeology is, and why it is important. With the scrapping of the Archaeology A-Level, young people have now lost their only avenue to learning about archaeology through mainstream compulsory education; young people must look outside of their schools to access archaeological knowledge, and must be self-motivated to do so. Archaeologists have a duty to the public in general, and young people in particular, to facilitate the understanding and ownership of our shared heritage. 

In this paper, I will present the outcomes of two projects that worked with young adults, which ran in London in June and July 2017. The first project was a continuation of a long-standing partnership between the Institute of Archaeology UCL, a local archaeological society, and a secondary school in North-West London. The second project was a collaboration between the Institute of Archaeology UCL, and Islington Museum: although the excavations ran for two weeks, I will focus on the second week, during which we worked with the Youth Offenders’ Service, to provide an activity for reparations. 

These two case studies highlight the potential for archaeology to be used as a tool in both academic teaching, and rehabilitative therapies and community projects. I will examine their aims, methodologies, and outcomes as they relate to different demographics, with particular focus on how these projects encouraged the young people involved to confront and think about their identity in a changing, globalised society.

 

Living in a Material World: The archaeology of object attachment

Taryn Bell • University of York

 

While the emotional significance of objects is widely accepted in the modern world, it has long been neglected in archaeological analyses of material culture. Emotion studies in general are not a particularly popular area of study among the humanities, so this is not altogether surprising. Nevertheless, insights from recent work in psychology and neuroscience clearly demonstrate a relationship between material culture and emotional development. Emotional attachments to objects are not a side-effect of modern materialistic values, but are rooted in human biology and have a long evolutionary history. Object attachment affects a broad range of behaviours, particularly our capacities for empathy and exploration, and helps humans to adapt to changing circumstances. It is, therefore, a vital area of study for anyone wishing to understand personal development and social change.

This paper will look at the importance of objects as facilitators of both personal emotional development and our sense of self. It will discuss the benefits of attachment objects in a prehistoric setting, while drawing on the results of a recent public survey at the University of York focusing on modern object attachment. Material culture shapes who we are and how we behave; we cannot understand it fully, nor can we understand humans, without analysing object attachment.

 

Session IV: Environments and People

Chair: Petros Chatzimpaloglou

Modern archaeological research is not restricted to sites and monuments, but expands much further. This includes the location of sites, the surrounding landscape and the natural resources (e.g. rock, water and soil) of the area. Landscape-focused archaeology provides key information about sites and the relationship between ecosystems and human societies in the past. Moreover, it gives insight into how people comprehended, used and altered the world around them on a larger, more holistic scale than site based research does. This allows archaeologists to gain a better understanding of the technology, material culture and the mindset of the individual in time and space. Finally, landscape studies can outline very large-scale patterns in the movement of people and things, such as: trade and material exchange networks and the mobility of human populations.

Adding to that, it would be interesting to investigate the impact of the environment on the urbanization process of societies. Focusing on the interaction of people, resources and ideas between sites and their surroundings, cities and their rural neighborhoods, and finally between societies and their larger geopolitical worlds.

This session seeks to expand the purview of archaeology by considering the various factors at play in a landscape or regional scale: the impact of complex environments on humans and vice versa. We invite presentations related to any of the above themes, and indeed any new and fresh ideas about the archaeological study of people in their wider environment.

 

Sculpting New Bodies and Minds: 

Material Engagement, Cycladic Figurines and Fractal Adaptive Cycles

Alexander Aston • University of Oxford   
 

Utilising Material Engagement Theory, this paper argues that Cycladic figurines mediated transformations in social cognition as a response to anthropogenic changes in the environment. The occupation of the Cyclades during the Late Neolithic can be understood as an intensive period of ecosystem engineering and niche construction. A steady pattern of infilling indicates that ecological changes and growing demographic pressures began to stress the resiliency of Neolithic communities. Archaeological evidence for the Cycladic Neolithic-Bronze Age transition fits well with models of adaptive cycles of growth, conservation, disruption and reorganisation in complex systems. Transformations in settlement patterns in the prehistoric Cyclades correspond closely with these dynamics. Moreover, the emergence, distribution and growth of Cycladic sculpting traditions in the Early Bronze Age mirror this process. This paper argues that human-induced changes to the flows of energy and matter in the Cycladic environment exerted novel pressures upon social organisation. The reconfiguration of subsistence practices and settlement patterns during the Neolithic-Bronze Age transition indicate a significant redistribution of pressures exerted upon social cognition. The appearance of Cycladic figurines in conjunction with the reorganisation of the landscape indicates that the sculptures played a critical role in mediating these social transformations. Considering recent finds on Keros, the figurines functioned to help organise relationships across the islands. The growth of Cycladic sculpting, when considered within the context of environmental change, social storage networks and long range voyaging, can be understood as crucial scaffolding through which social cognition developed. Overtime, as this paper will illustrate, this evolution of form enabled the organisation of Cycladic communities on a regional scale.

 

The Rock Art Hidden in a Shifting Landscape

Fredrik Gustavsson • University of Gothenburg

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In April, 2016, 24 students from the archaeological students’ assembly of Gothenburg (GAST), and four rock art experts undertook the fieldwork stage of a project that had been planned for a long time. The project`s aim was to record rock art in the southern part of the Swedish province of Bohuslän, which is just North of Gothenburg. The primary tool for finding the rock art panels was through the use of GISmaps crafted from the theory of rock art distribution that was presented in docent Johan Lings dissertation Elevated Rock Art (2008). The surveying strategy targeted panels which were in close proximity to the contour of the prehistoric shoreline. The areas around known Bronze Age landmarks, such as cairns, were also targeted. We felt optimistic, expecting to find a few ship reliefs, as well as the common cup markings along the cliffs of what is now farm land. 3 000 years ago this was an archipelago, likely teeming with maritime activity. What we found superseded all our expectations. A total of 9 new rock art panels were discovered, along with 5 new additions to already registered panels. 13 of the new discoveries were cup marks, with the most significant being a panel that was home to a total of 134 previously unknown petroglyphs. There were 2 figurative petroglyphs, one depicting a pair of feet belonging to someone standing right next to the shoreline; and a very rare so-called oxhide ingot. The oxhide ingot was only the fourth to be found in Sweden, which can be compared to circa 10 000 ships known in the province of Bohuslän alone. It is likely to represent the standardised copper ingot produced en masse in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time. Our primary means of recording the panels was through the use of photogrammetry. The importance of the findings of the first rock art survey has helped give us the backing that we needed to fund further expeditions throughout Bronze Age Sweden. You are all welcome to tag along.

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Is It Always Climate Change? Finding a cause for reforestation during the turbulent Migration Period (4th-6th century) in the northern Netherlands.
Wilmer Koster • Utrecht University

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Pollen records spanning the Neolithic and onwards show the increased interference of humans with their natural environment due to the introduction of agriculture. This is evidenced by decreased rates of tree pollen, while the abundance of herbaceous and heath taxa increases and the appearance of cereals. This is a general trend that happens all over Europe. During the Migration Period (~4th-6th century AD), however, there is temporary reforestation which lasts up to 300 years. In this period, the climate becomes cold and wet, the Western Roman Empire collapses and subsequently many settlements are abandoned, and the Justinian plague spreads all over Europe (346-352). 

     To understand the relative importance of these three factors and their influence on vegetation development, it is important to map regional differences in vegetation on a large scale. Pollen data for two new study sites (two lakes, the Mekelermeer and the Esmeer) will be used, in combination with pollen records retrieved from archives, to show large-scale vegetation development during the Migration Period. The study area is Drenthe, a province of the Netherlands, which was chosen for its abundance and concentration of undisturbed pollen records, because it has been researched extensively in the past, and because it is situated at the border of the Roman Empire. 

     Results show that tree-pollen increases for a period of 100 years, with no sudden drop in the amount of cereal-pollen, suggesting that no single event caused reforestation, such as a plague pandemic. Furthermore, climate deterioration is not the single cause either, because there is regrowth of tree species intolerant of frost and stagnant water (beech) or species that need good drainage (elm, hornbeam). Despite the many local differences, the general trend in Drenthe seems to be that forest regrowth happened either on arable land or pastures, due to temporary abandonment of settlements.

 

Peak Oil Anno Domini 1783: The remains of an environmental debate

Anton Larsson • University of Gothenburg

 

“As we drew near, the loveliest banks of wild flowers variegated the prospect, and promised to exhale odours to add to the sweetness of the air, the purity of which you could almost see, alas! not smell, for the putrefying herrings […] destroyed every other.” 

 

So wrote the British author Mary Wollstonecraft in 1796, as she travelled through the Swedish province of Bohuslän. The “putrefying herrings” she mentions were the result of decades-long political battle. The first environmental debate of Sweden began in the mid-18th century, when the hundreds of factories built across the country’s west coast following a boom in seasonal herring migrations spawned an intense fear of marine pollution. Fish stocks went into flux, sea levels changed, and harbours and anchorages shifted – all was blamed on industrial waste. Proto-ecological thought merged with mercantilist economics, facing off – in the tabloids of the time, private correspondence, parliamentary debates and royal edicts – with a new class of urban, Gothenburg-based free market capitalists. 

The looming threat of marine pollution, of a human impact on the subsurface landscape, won out in the end. The new class of industrialists was eventually forced to construct waste reservoirs, intended to contain the polluting refuse, by the mercantilist state. These complex, previously unexplored structures, known in Swedish as “grumsedammar”, are showcased in this presentation, using both the results of a prior Bachelor’s thesis and the preliminary findings of an upcoming Master’s thesis, which so far has resulted in the surveying of up to 40 until now entirely undocumented archaeological sites, including several well-preserved waste reservoirs.

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Insight of the Nomadic Cultural Inheritance and Transformation during Population Movement in the Eurasian Steppe in Prehistoric Times

Yunyun Yang • Uppsala University

 

Since the beginning of 20th century, scholars have found and discussed about the language of “Tocharian A” and “Tocharian B” in Tarim Basin in the northwest of China. Soon people have been being interested in defining whom Tocharian people were and where they came from. Some scholars are keen on combining skeletons in tombs along Kongque River in Tarim Basin, found and excavated from the end of 1970s to 2005, with so-called “Tocharian people”. However, there are no direct evidences to indicate these skeletons (dating from 1900 BC to 1400 BC) were related to Tocharian people who were active after 400 AD according to Chinese literature.  But a fun thing is the skeletons include European, Central and South Siberian, West and South Asian mitochondrial DNA. This result indicates prehistoric population movements in the Eurasian Steppe.  

What I am interested in are the cultural inheritance and transformation along the routes that ancient people travelled or migrated from Caucasus Mountains to Tarim Basin from the west to the east in Eurasia Steppe. There seemed to have two routes. One was from Caucasus north-eastward Kazakhstan, and South Siberia, finally going through the canyon of Tianshan Mountains till the north of Tarim basin; another one was from Caucasus south-eastward Iran, and Pakistan, finally along the side of Pamir Mountains entering the west of Tarim Basin. The first route has involved Andronovo culture (2100 – 900 BC) in Kazakhstan, Afanasievo culture (3300 – 2000 BC) in South Siberia and the Bronze culture along Kongque River (1900 – 1400 BC). I would question if there were cultural similarities and inheritance among the three cultures; what the three cultural environments were like, and if some environmental similarities led to such population movement happen along the north-eastward route; and during the population movement, how the nomadic culture were inherited or transformed.    

 

 

Session V: Bodies and Being(s)

Jess Thompson

 

Recent years have seen an increase in body-centred research and the destabilisation of Cartesian and humanist perspectives within the humanities and social sciences. It is increasingly recognised that bodies and other diverse material beings, be they animal, vegetable or mineral, are dynamic entities. They continually shift internally, externally, and in their power and place in relation to others. Although the materiality of human bodies themselves has remained essentially the same for thousands of years, bodies are inhabited, marked, clothed, used and treated in culturally-specific ways. Likewise, the ontological foundations of communities differ markedly across time and space.

The recent paradigm shift emerging from post-humanist thought and the ontological turn seeks to de-centre humans in the analysis of relationships between diverse beings. Reflections on what it means to “be” bodied and situated in the world, drawing on modern, ethnographic and archaeological evidence, continue to expose the multiplicity of understandings of the body and the self. There is, however, often a divide between those directly analysing the material evidence of bodies (osteologists and zooarchaeologists, for example) and those interpreting this evidence within a broader cultural and theoretical framework. This session aims to unite researchers from all arenas, to ask where archaeological theory is currently, and how we can unite theory and practice. Papers addressing the topics of bodies, beings and ontologies from broad perspectives are welcomed: funerary, figurative, textual, theoretical.

 

Waste Not?

A Re-Examination of Neanderthal Hunting Strategies and their Relationships with Animals

Erica Cleghorn-Priestley • University of York

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Neanderthals have retained a poor reputation despite research that has revealed the overwhelming similarity between human and Neanderthal genomes. Furthermore, zooarchaeology continues to portray human-animal relationships in terms of nutrition, where animals are portrayed as passive players in an anthropogenic world. This interpretation has recently been criticised by Overton and Hamilakis (2013), who advocate for social zooarchaeologies in which other ontologies, not just the Cartesian concept of dualism, must be engaged in order to understand the importance of relationships with animals in a given culture.

These two critiques are encapsulated within White et al. (2016): Shoot First, Ask Questions Later. This paper concludes that Neanderthals were remarkable tacticians who used their landscape in order to ambush and slaughter whole herds, using their knowledge of the animals’ social ethologies in order to trap them. Rather than processing every carcass, they selected only the meatiest parts and left the rest to rot. This interpretation portrays Neanderthals as superficially uneconomical hunters, forced to hunt in this fashion, and who viewed animals only as resources to be exploited. However, other “ritual” evidence from the Middle Palaeolithic suggests that they had a deeply-rooted connection that went beyond the functional realm.

This presentation will illustrate the taphonomic data at each of the five sites and compare them to two ethnographies in order to explore the cosmological worldviews which ultimately influence hunting practices within their societies.  Hunting practices within one of these animistic societies are not necessarily viewed as wasteful but help with the regeneration of animals’ souls. Furthermore, the corporeal boundaries between hunter and prey are blurred, thus serving as a useful analogy here in order to reconsider zooarchaeological interpretations of the Middle Palaeolithic. This research thus joins zooarchaeology and anthropology in order to formulate new, alternative explanations about Neanderthal worldviews.

 

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The Extended Body: Manifestations of Identity in the Palaeolithic

Isobel Wisher • University of York

 

The biographies of objects and materials are inherently the biographies of people; the two are entangled (Hodder 2011). They have the potential to reveal information about their minds, their personalities, and their identities. Yet objects and materials are frequently considered with regard to their functionality, rather than the individual that produced them. 

This has resulted in a dichotomy between material and being within archaeology, with the two rarely considered as indistinguishable. This unnecessary theoretical division has resulted in interpretations of the material record becoming limited, with archaeologists experiencing a difficulty in accessing the individual. This issue is most prominent in the Palaeolithic, where the effects of preservation further limit the available evidence of individual’s behaviour. 

However, through seeking to access identities, individualism, and personhood through artefacts, one can unlock information about individuals, even when the wealth of evidence is lacking. This research will aim to do this through the perspective of the ‘extended body’, derived from the ‘extended mind’ theory (Clark and Chalmers 1998); materials in the archaeological record are manifestations of an individual’s identity. Evidence of manifestations of identity will focus on artistic and symbolic behaviours in the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, and I will contrast the extent Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) perform this behaviour. Further, I will explore the intentionality behind the creation of material manifestations of identity, through discussing potential psychological factors behind expressing oneself through materials. This approach will provide a unique insight into the way our ancestors embodied themselves in objects and materials, and thus how they perceived their own bodies in relation to their own world.

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A critical exploration of gender assignment to burial goods

in the European Mesolithic and Neolithic

Jessica Bates • University of Yor

 

Since the infancy of archaeological interpretation, archaeologists have utilized the burial record as evidence for how people in the past interacted with one another. Grave goods have frequently been relied upon to define and understand the bodies present in prehistoric societies due to the taphonimical issues with ancient skeletal remains. However, this research presents unequivocal evidence that there is no direct correlation between biological sex and the type of grave goods found with the body at four European Mesolithic and Neolithic sites. A re-evaluation of the burial data from 424 graves across the four sites of Vedbæk, Skateholm I, Skateholm II and Zvejnieki suggests that the assumption of gendered burial goods is not a true reflection of the burial patterns present at these sites. 

The results from this research suggest that contrary to earlier interpretations, the communities present at the four sites were non-gendered and therefore, the choice of burial goods within the graves was being guided by something other than the sex of the individuals. Previous interpretations of the sites that implemented heteronormative gender roles as an accurate understanding of burial goods, are misleading and detrimental to future research. The relationship between the body and the burial items cannot be seen as purely functional, but instead symbolic and representative of ideological relationships. 

Therefore, this presentation will discuss the findings of the study in the hope of clearly demonstrating the fundamental issues that arise when there is a divide between the methodological and the theoretical in the study of funerary practices. New areas of research at the sites will also be considered in the hope of forging a more reconciled approach between theory and practice in prehistoric archaeology.

 

Informal Interment in Neolithic Europe:

An advanced taphonomic approach to human and animal co-mingled fragmentary burials 

Leah Damman • University of Cambridge

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Fragmented, co-mingled assemblages of human and animal bones are common in archaeological deposits, particularly in prehistoric contexts across Europe and the British Isles. My study argues that standard approaches to studying human remains in these contexts yields an incomplete understanding of the burial context and its cultural values; and that the application of zooarchaeology techniques can contribute a more complex understanding of the human material found in these contexts. Utilising human osteology and zooarchaeology approaches, and combining these with specialised methods such as the Zonation Method, Archaeothanatology, and ZooMS will allow for the identification (particularly of bone fragments), recording and analysing of human and animal material at a more detailed and complete level than previously. Consequently this will enable a much greater understanding of the relative peri-mortem, depositional and post-depositional histories of human and animal remains in these complex deposits. Focusing my study on assemblages that are co-mingled and where the bone breaks and any cut marks appear on both human and animal remains, enables my study to be two-fold. At one level I’ll be furthering taphonomic study and identification of all bone fragments by using a combined methodology and more refined parameters; on another level this in-depth analysis will enable the human bones to be examined without the automatic assumptions traditionally associated with whether they are human remains. If co-mingled human and animal bones found interred with the same/similar bone treatment were examined with the same approach (rather than being separated and analysed with different assumptions) this could provide broader and more complete results; and may generate alternative ideas to conventional assumptions.

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Why the Long Face? Horse Headdresses of the Frozen Tombs of Siberia and their Relation to Ownership and Territoriality 

Anna-Elisa Stümpel • University of Groningen

                            

Commonly referred to as ‘Scythians’ in literary sources, the archaeological record of these Eurasian nomads shows a vast diversity across the regions once occupied by them, which ranged from Central Inner Asia to the Eastern European Steppes, suggesting a differentiation into local groups. An uniting element between these local deviations is the appreciation of their horses, which is reflected in their burial customs: either horse equipment or the animals themselves were buried alongside their owners, together with their other worldly belongings. Amongst others, this behaviour can be observed in five large burial mounds located in Pazyryk Valley, South Siberia, belonging to the archaeological group of the Pazyryk Scythians. These five large burial mounds, or kurgans, are assumed to have belonged to the elite, the clan chiefs respectively. Within these burials, various well-preserved horse corpses were found together with their complete riding outfits, some even with headdresses, next to the human burials. In this paper, I will argue that the motifs chosen for the riding outfits and headdresses are indicative of a territorial organisation and that especially the horses wearing the headdresses acted as dynamic territorial markers, based on theories put forward by Sykes (2014), instead of being mere accessories for carrying out rituals. In addition, these headdresses were fashioned individually for each clan, which disposed of an specific inventory of motifs. Therefore, rather than for ritualistic purposes, the headdresses displayed the coat of arms of each clan and, moreover, the motifs of the riding gear were assembled according to the inventory of each clan. This would mean that the horses carried not only humans but also meaning in the cultural Scythian landscape.

 

Dental Archaeology: The way to the athlete’s stomach

Caitlan Smith • University of St. Andrews

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Ancient critics of ancient Greek athletes often attacked the diet of ‘professional’ athletes. Stating athletes were ‘slaves to their stomachs’ (Euripides, Autolykos, frag. 282) and ‘pigs’ (Galen, Exercise with the Small Ball) from their gluttonous and meat-loving appetites (Athenaeus, Gastronomers 10.412-415A). However, when the diet of athletes is examined in the light of modern sports science, it becomes clear that athletes needed a more meat-heavy diet to supply the necessary proteins essential in muscle growth and maintaining balanced testosterone and other hormone levels that apply to sports performance. Findings in dental archaeology have provided new insights into this research. Scholarship from Michael (2014) and Keenlyside (2008) highlight the potential dietary difference between males and females. Such as in sites like Apollonia, that have a gymnasium, and arguably, an athletic community. 

This paper aims to highlight the use of dental archaeology beyond its worth in identifying peoples and diets of the ancient world. It will be shown its further capabilities when combined, interdisciplinary, with modern medical science, in an attempt provide new perspectives on the ancient athletic world.

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The Other Body: An Exploration of Violence and Ritual in Multiple Burials across Viking Age Scandinavia and the Insular World

Claire Ratican • University of Cambridge

 

Multiple burials are a common feature of the Viking Age cultural landscape of the North Sea region and archaeological investigation has yielded a wealth of spectacular multiple burials in Scandinavia and the British Isles. However, previous definitions and interpretations of Viking multiple burials have been overly simplistic and restrictive and they have often been investigated as a narrow subcategory of funerary practice preoccupied with the ‘sinister’ or violent treatment of those interred, such as the binding, mutilation, prone burial and possible live burial of numerous individuals. As a result, their interpretation has been heavily laden with concepts of deviancy and otherness, as well as biased assumptions regarding gender and social status. The corpus of Viking Age multiple burials in Scandinavia and the British Isles has not been explored as a whole, and until such time, very little can be said of the functional and symbolic elements of this burial practice, which may challenge the sensationalistic stereotypes of Viking-age funerary ritual.

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Round Table Session: Learning through Archaeology

Chair: Kevin Kay

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Panellists:

• Rachel Ballantyne (Environmental Co-ordinator, Cambridge Archaeological Unit)

• Benjamin Hinson (Assistant Curator, Middle East Section, Victoria & Albert Museum)

• Alexandra Ion (Marie-Skłodowska Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow, McDonaldInstitute for Archaeological Research)

• Rachel King (Lecturer in Cultural Heritage Studies, University College London)

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