1. science
2. social science
3. history
4. archaeology

30TH ANNIVERSARY
XV NORDIC TAG 2015
16-18TH APRIL IN COPENHAGEN
CONFERENCES.SAXO.KU.DK/NORDIC-TAG-2015
FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN
30TH ANNIVERSARY XV NORDIC TAG 2015 16-­‐18TH APRIL IN COPENHAGEN THE NEXT 30 YEARS IN THEORETICAL ARCHAEOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN – THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES KAREN BLIXENS VEJ 4, 2300 KØBENHAVN S. THE SAXO-­‐INSTITUTE THE DEPARTMENT OF CROSS-­‐CULTURAL AND REGIONAL STUDIES (TORS) CONFERENCES.SAXO.KU.DK/NORDIC-­‐TAG-­‐2015 Contents:
Conference program
1
Parallel session program
2
Session papers:
15
Household, History and Archaeology
15
Lost Paths
- Post-Humanism in Archaeology and Bioarchaeology
19
The Digital Future of Archaeology
21
Archaeology outside the correlationist circle
25
Archaeology in the environmental humanities
28
Archaeology and Language
- and the future of archaeo-linguistic studies
31
Transmission of knowledge in crafts
- aspects of learning within prehistoric communities
40
Crossing Over:
From Multidisciplinary to Interdisciplinary Archaeological Theory and Practice
45
The Future of Searching for the Origins
- theoretical implications and challenges in archaeology
50
Experimental Archaeology
- theories behind practice
52
Nordic Heritage Studies
- THE NEXT 30 YEARS
56
Technologies of Disposal:
The archaeology of waste, burial and removal
59
Conflict Archaeology and the Practice Approach
63
Fortifications in Late Iron Age Northern Europe:
an artefact of terminology or a valid subject of research?
67
Bog Bodies
70
What did the Romans collect?
A study into material culture and world structuring
73
Room/Dates
23.0.50
Thursday 16/4
morning
Registration
9-10.30
Panel discussion
10.30-12.30
Thursday 16/4
afternoon
Friday 17/4
morning
Friday 17/4
afternoon
Saturday 18/4
morning
Saturday 18/4
Afternoon
Possibility of late registration outside room 23.0.50
22.0.11
Household, History
and Archaeology
Archaeology and
Language – and the
future of archaeolinguistic studies
Archaeology and
Language – and the
future of archaeolinguistic studies
Archaeology and
Language – and the
future of archaeolinguistic studies
Archaeology and
Language – and the
future of archaeolinguistic studies
27.0.09
Lost Paths - PostHumanism in
Archaeology and
Bioarchaeology
Transmission of
knowledge in crafts
– aspects of learning
within prehistoric
communities
Transmission of
knowledge in crafts
– aspects of learning
within prehistoric
communities
Technologies of
Disposal: The
archaeology of
waste, burial and
removal
Technologies of
Disposal: The
archaeology of
waste, burial and
removal
The Digital Future
of Archaeology
Crossing Over: From
Multidisciplinary to
Interdisciplinary
Archaeological
Theory and Practice
Crossing Over: From
Multidisciplinary to
Interdisciplinary
Archaeological
Theory and Practice
Conflict
Archaeology and
the Practice
Approach
Conflict
Archaeology and
the Practice
Approach
27.0.47
Archaeology
outside the
correlationist circle
The Future of
Searching for the
Origins
– theoretical
implications and
challenges in
archaeology
Nordic Heritage
Studies - THE NEXT
30 YEARS
27.0.49
Archaeology in the
environmental
humanities
Experimental
Archaeology theories behind
practice
Experimental
Archaeology theories behind
practice
27.0.17
Fortifications in
Late Iron Age
Northern Europe:
an artefact of
terminology or a
valid subject of
research?
Bog Bodies –
excavating,
analyzing, curating
and displaying well
preserved human
remains from NW
Europe
What did the
Romans collect? A
study into material
culture and world
structuring
Parallel session program
Day 1 – Thursday 16/4
Household, History and Archaeology
Room 22.0.11 | Page 15
13.30-15.30
Aura Piccioni: Household religion in archaic Italy
Ivan Balic & Gunilla Gardelin: The concept of households not only an instrument in
archaeological analysis of urban life
Lars Ersgård: Household in change
Catriona Mackie: Houses and Households of the Isle of Lewis in the 19th and early 20th
centuries
15.30-16.00
Coffee break
16.00-17.30
Liisa Seppänen: How many households were there? Defining and discussing the
households in the medieval and post-medieval urban context
Panu Savolainen: The mess in the house(hold) – How domestic space represents social
structures?
Göran Tagesson: House and Household – an archaeological approach
Dag Lindström: Living, sleeping, eating, and working. Houses and households in early
modern Swedish towns
Day 1 – Thursday 16/4
Lost Paths – Post-Humanism in Archaeology and Bioarchaeology
Room 27.0.09 | Page 19
14.00-15.30
Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir: Post-humanist culture and ideas
Joe W. Walser III: Osteological, environmental and genetic discourses in disability in
historical Iceland
15.30-16.00
Coffee break
2
16.00-17.30
Elin Ahlin Sundman: Medieval masculinities: Disciplining the body
Oscar Jacobsson: Nature in Motion – A multi-theoretical approach to posthuman
landscape interpretation
Day 1 – Thursday 16/4
The Digital Future of Archaeology
Room 27.0.17 | Page 21
14.00-14.10
Bodil Petersson & Isto Huvila: Introduction
14.10-14.30
Isto Huvila: Tale of two archaeologies or change and persistence of (digital) information
work practices
14.30-14.50
Kevin Wooldridge: ‘Over my dead bodies’ – Implementation and resistance to
archaeological digitization in Norway and the UK
14.50-15.10
Minik Arne Grønkjær: Digital Archaeology and Archaeological Theory – “New Archaeology”
Version 2.0?
15.10-15.30
Fredrik Gunnarsson & Nicholas Nilsson: Digital eyes – Challenges with implementation of
digital tools in contract archaeology
15.30-16.00
Coffee break
16.00-16.20
Bodil Petersson & Carolina Larsson: Digital Pasts – Re-creating pasts in museum settings as
architecture or flesh and blood?
16.20-16.40
Aki Hakonen & Ville Hakamäki: Critical evaluation of digitization and digital measurement
tools in cairn studies and elsewhere
16.40-17.00
Jane Jansen: Speeding up documentation practises in Gamlestaden Gothenburg
17.00-17.20
Serap Kusu: 3D Visualization of Urartuian Buildings on Virtual Platform
17.20-17.30
Concluding discussion
3
Day 1 – Thursday 16/4
Archaeology outside the Correlationist Circle
Room 27.0.47 | Page 25
14.00-14.30
Johan Normark: Black Swans, intra-worldly advents, and rogue objects: Unexpected events
and archaeology
14.30-15.00
Per Cornell: Time and process in archaeology
15.00-15.30
Irene Garcia Rovira: What is an archaeological object? Reflections on the inference of social
processes
15.30-16.00
Coffee break
16.00-16.30
Monika Stobiecka: The need for introducing Object-Oriented-Ontology into archaeological
museum
16.30-17.00
Artur Ribeiro: Mereological problems: Challenges to OOO in archaeology
17.00-17.30
Rafael Millán Pascual: Grey Ontologies: What remains when nothing remains
Day 1 – Thursday 16/4
Archaeology in the Environmental Humanities
Room 27.0.49 | Page 28
14.00-14.30
Felix Riede: climate|culture|catastrophe – towards palaeoenvironmental humanities
14.30-15.00
Christina Fredengren: Earth as heritage and multi-agent artefact
15.00-15.30
Alison Klevnäs: Archaeology and consumerism
15.30-16.00
Coffee break
16.00-16.30
Ulla Odgaard: Differing Concepts
16.30-17.00
Katarina Botwid: Craft and Climate
17.00-17.30
General discussion
4
Day 2 – Friday 17/4
Archaeology and Language – and the Future of Archaeo-Linguistic
Studies, part 1
Room 22.0.11 | Page 31
9.00-10.30
Laura Wright: On the house name Sunnyside in England and Scotland
Michael Lerche Nielsen: Place-names and archaeology
Klavs Randsborg: Latin & Lies – Readings of Early Literary Sources on the North
10.30-11.00
Coffee break
11.00-12.30
Marika Mägi: Language in action: two modes in overseas communication in the Viking Age
Eastern Baltic
Ulrika Rosendahl: Medieval encounters – language and settlement during the Swedish
colonization of Southern Finland
Paula Kouki, Annukka Debenjak, Marika Luhtala, Terhi Ainiala & Mika Lavento: Maritime
Helsinki – reconstructing the settlement history of Helsinki archipelago by means of
toponomastic and archaeological research
12.30-14.00
Lunch break
14.00-15.30
Martin Goldberg: Early Medieval ‘Celtic’ art
Debora Moretti: Ancient Witches and Modern Folktales in the Archaeological Records of
Northern Italy
Mark Clendon: Hierarchy and architecture in Old Europe
15.30-16.00
Coffee break
16.00-17.00
Jeffrey Lee Benjamin: An Archaeology of Air
Anna Berge: Reexamining the linguistic prehistory of Aleut
5
Day 2 – Friday 17/4
Transmission of Knowledge in Crafts – Aspects of Learning within
Prehistoric Communities
Room 27.0.09 | Page 40
09.00-09.10
Mikkel Sørensen: Welcome and introduction to the session
09.10-09.35
Harald Bentz Høgseth: Apprentice and habitus; how craftsmen dance with their tools
09.35-10.00
Thomas Dhoop & Juan Pablo Olaberria: Storing and Communicating Hull-Shapes in
Northwest Europe
10.00-10.25
Jens Ipsen: Habitus: The sociocultural field of the individual
10.30-11.00
Coffee break
11.05-11.30
Sandra Coullenot: Blocks, spades and coffee breaks: the knowledge of how to build with
turf
11.30-11.55
Elizabeth Pascal: Finding out how to learn: The transmission of pottery making in Vanuatu
11.55-12.20
Katarina Botwid: Skilled children in ceramic craft – Artisanal interpretation of a Bronze Age
pot from the Bronze Age site of Pryssgården in the south-east of Sweden
12.30-14.00
Lunch break
14.05-14.30
Karen Povlsen: Craft transmission and the beginning of a new tradition – the introduction
of ceramics in the Mesolithic Ertebølle Culture
14.30-14.55
Anders Högberg & Peter Gärdenfors: Learning to knapp. Levels of teaching in early stone
knapping and their implications for the evolution of human cognitive capacities
14.55-15.20
Lasse Sørensen: Knowledge exchanges of agrarian practices between indigenous huntergatherers and immigrating farmers in southern Scandinavia during the late 5th and early
4th millennium BC
15.30-16.00
Coffee break
16.05-16.30
Pia Wistoft Nielsen: Bone implements in the Near East – Moving from one tradition to
another
16.30-17.05
Morten Ravn: Panel discussion
6
Day 2 – Friday 17/4
Crossing over – From Multidisciplinary to Interdisciplinary
Archaeological Theory and Practice
Room 27.0.17 | Page 45
9.00-10.30
Gabriella Rodrigues: Archaeology besides interdisciplinarity: how the history of the
discipline can help Archaeology out of its identity crisis?
Torill Christine Lindstrøm & Ezra Zubrow: From Multi- and Inter- to Trans-Disciplinary
Archaeology
Sébastien Manem: The evolution of ceramic traditions: a multidisciplinary approach based
on the chaîne opératoire concept and a phylogenetic approach
10.30-11.00
Coffee break
11.00-12.30
Kathryn M. Hudson: Finding the Foundations of Meaning: Interdisciplinary Approaches to
the Study of Ancient Imagery Systems
Karen Niskanen: Neolithic Cliff Paintings in Finland as Territorial Boundaries
Dorian Knight: Fragmentation and Ruin: Archaeological Sensibility within the Art Museum
Storeroom
12.30-14.00
Lunch break
14.00-15.30
Heide W. Nørgaard: Bronze Age metalcraft, craftspeople and analytical workshops: an
interdisciplinary approach to investigate craft
Michał Gilewski: Understanding the relationships between modern and pre-Columbian
Maya Agriculture. Examples from the Southern Chiapas and the Southern Guatemala
John S. Henderson: Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Archaeology: Juxtaposition or
Fusion?
15.30-16.00
Coffee break
16.00-17.00
Frigga Kruse: Practice makes perfect – advancing historical ecology in the Arctic
Jens Fog Jensen: Multidisciplinary, undisciplined and interdisciplinary experiences from the
High Arctic
7
Day 2 – Friday 17/4
The Future of Searching for the Origins – Theoretical Implications and
Challenges in Archaeology
Room 27.0.47 | Page 50
9.00-10.30
Anders Högberg: Thinking about origin in archaeology and heritage management. Borders
and boundaries in a pluralistic society
Asta Mønsted: The Origin of the Inuit Indigeneity
Day 2 – Friday 17/4
Nordic Heritage Studies
Room 27.0.47 | Page 56
14.00-14.30
Brit Solli: Things are Back! Beyond Critical Heritage Discourse, a Reactionary View.
Opponent: Nibal Muhusen
14.30-15.00
Anette Kjærulf Andersen: The role and relevance of archaeology – Media discourses,
archaeological potential and utilization. Opponent: Andreas Bonde Hansen
15.00-15.30
Johanna Enqvist: The New Heritage: a Missing Link Between Archaeology and Society?
Opponent: Brit Solli
15.30-16.00
Coffee break
16.00-16.30
Andreas Bonde Hansen: What heritage consumers don’t know they want – Subconsciousness and mentalities in heritage tourism. Opponent: Anders Högberg
16.30-17.00
Anders Högberg: Why do so many talk about history but so few about the future?
Opponent: Tim Flohr Sørensen
17.00-17.30
Open discussion
8
Day 2 – Friday 17/4
Experimental Archaeology – Theories behind Practice
Room 27.0.49 | Page 52
9.00-10.30
Roksana Chowaniec: Tell me and I will forget; show me and I may remember; involve me
and I will understand – an experimental archaeology as an education method
Claus Sørensen: Experiencing or Experimenting - bridging the Gap between Enthusiasts and
Scholars
Rune M.G. Pommer: The relational experiment
10.30-11.00
Coffee break
11.00-12.30
Romina Laurito: Testing ancient textile tools in Southern Etruria (Central Italy).
Experimental archeology vs. experience of archaeology
Agata Ulanowska: Experimental approach to ergonomics of textile production – prospects
and limitations
Małgorzata Siennicka: Textile production in prehistoric Greece: how can we use
experimental archaeology?
12.30-14.00
Lunch break
14.00-15.30
Santa Jansone: Baltic dress in Late Iron Age – assumptions, experiments and practice
Nickie Kühnel: The sound of Archaeology - Atmospheric experiments
Jonas Holm Jæger: The next 30 years in experimental archaeology - towards an
experimental forensic archaeology
9
Day 3 – Saturday 18/4
Archaeology and Language – and the Future of Archaeo-Linguistic
Studies, part 2
Room 22.0.11 | Page 31
9.00-10.30
Rosa-Maria Worm Danbo: A Study of the Major Sound Changes in the GreaterCh’olanTzeltalan Branch of the Mayan Language Family and Their Applications to Maya
Epigraphy
Kathryn M. Hudson: (Re)Considering the Archaeo-Linguistics of Southeastern Mesoamerica
Kate Bellamy: Investigating interactions between West Mexico and the Andes using the
lexicon of metallurgy
10.30-11.00
Coffee break
11.00-12.30
Koen Bostoen, Bernard Clist, Pierre de Maret, Gilles-Maurice de Schryver: Linguistic and
archaeological perspectives on population dynamics in the Lower Congo: Matches and
mismatches
George van Driem: Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics: Rice and People in the Eastern
Himalayan Corridor
Johanna Nichols: Domestication and language spreads in early northern Eurasia
12.30-14.00
Lunch break
14.00-15.30
Birgit Anette Olsen: The Indo-European Vocabulary of Sheep, Wool and Textile Production
Wolfgang Haak, Iosif Lazaridis, Nick Patterson, Johannes Krause, David Anthony, Alan
Cooper, Kurt Werner Alt, David Reich: Late Neolithic migration from the steppe as a likely
source for Indo-European languages in Europe
Hans-Jürgen Bandelt: Early spread of Indo-European languages through interdemic
socioeconomic networks: a cautionary note
15.30-16.00
Coffee break
16.00-16.30
Bjarne Simmelkjær Sandgaard Hansen: Teaching Archaeo-linguistics
Guus Kroonen & Rune Iversen: Summing-up
10
Day 3 – Saturday 18/4
Technologies of Disposal – the Archaeology of Waste, Burial and
removal
Room 27.0.09 | Page 59
9.00-9.15
Vivi Lena Andersen & Tim Flohr Sørensen: Introduction: Getting wasted in the archaeology
of trash
9.15-9.40
Charlotte Rimstad: From Foot to Moat: The biography of knitted stockings
9.40-10.05
Arvi Haak: Disposal of Rubbish in Medieval Tartu: Deposition, data and practises
10.05-10.30
Inga Merkyte: Pits and Pitfalls: Approaching disposal in the past
10.30-11.00
Coffee break
11.00-11.25
Mathias Paul Bjørnevad Jensen: Simple Waste or Ritualised Place? Reassessing South
Scandinavian Mesolithic refuse areas and kitchen middens
11.25-11.50
Vivi Lena Andersen: An Urban Space Out of Place: Uncovering a landfill in 18th-century
Copenhagen
11.50-12.15
Sian Anthony: Between the Body and the Place: The practices that allow changes in
processing the materiality of the dead
12.15-12.30
Plenary discussion
12.30-14.00
Lunch break
14.00-14.25
Þóra Pétursdóttir: Wrack Zone Archaeology: The heritage of stranded things
14.25-14.50
Marc Adam Henchel: Ruins in the Age of Oil: The Abandoned Villages of Northern Qatar
14.50-15.15
Tim Flohr Sørensen: Keeping Up Disappearances: Acts of removal in marginal Denmark
15.15-15.30
Plenary discussion
15.30-16.00
Coffee break
16.00-
Discussion
11
Day 3 – Saturday 18/4
Conflict Archaeology and the Practice Approach
Room 27.0.17 | Page 63
09.30-10.00
Rolf W. Fabricius: Welcome and Introductory Remarks
10.00-10.30
Melanie Giles: Weapons Burials and the performance of violence in Iron Age Britain
10.30-11.00
Coffee break
11.00-11.30
Fred Hocker: Understanding the performance and effect of 17th-century artillery: the Vasa
24-pounder
11.30-12:00
Rune Pommer: Traces of war
12:00-12.30
Rolf W. Fabricius: Towards an Archaeology of Boarding: Naval Hand-to-Hand Combat
Tactics of Northwestern Europe in the 16th Century
12.30-14.00
Lunch break
14:00-14:30
Jesper Olsen: Studies in Battlefield Archaeology: Theoretical, practical and methodological
consideration in connections with investigations of the Battle of Nyborg (1659)
14:30-15.00
Francesco Tiboni: From the War from the Sea to the War on the Sea
15.00-15.30
Marcus Hjulhammar: West goes East. East goes West. The Conflict at Sea 1713-1721
between Sweden and Russia
15.30-16.00
Coffee break
16.00-16.30
Louise Ströbeck: Contexts, Conflicts, Consequences
16.30-17.00
Claes Pettersson: “Olof Larsson told me some fiddle-faddle about the Danes having made
inroads into Småland...” (King Erik XIV in his diary on October 31st, 1567)
17.00-17.30
Rolf W. Fabricius: Closing remarks
12
Day 3 – Saturday 18/4
Fortifications in Late Iron Age Northern Europe – an Artefact of
Terminology or a Valid Subject of Research?
Room 27.0.47 | Page 67
9.00-9.30
Ingrid Ystgaard: Qualified guessing and empirical data: Hill forts in Norway
9.30-10.00
Kristo Siig: Hillforts and territories – a case study from Estonia using the Xtent algorithm
10.00-10.30
Michael Olausson: Hilltop sites, enclosures, and the political geography of the Lake
Mälaren region
10.30-11.00
Coffee break
11.00-11.30
Svante Fischer: The Ringforts of Öland – Intelligent Design or Evolution?
11.30-12.00
Jonas Christensen: Hillforts as fortified refuges
12.00-12.30
Discussion
Day 3 – Saturday 18/4
What did the Romans Collect? A Study into Material Culture and World
Structuring
Room 27.0.47 | Page 73
14.00-15.30
Jane Fejfer: Introduction
Kristine Bülow Clausen: The collection and appropriation of Egyptian art in Rome:
materialities and meanings
Christina L.J. Hildebrandt: The sculpture from the Bath of Caracalla in Rome: an ancient
Roman collection?
15.30-16.00
Coffee break
16.00-17.30
Liv Carøe
Lærke Maria Andersen Funder: Late Roman sculpture collections: motivations and practice
Stella Skaltsa: Cicero’s attitude towards collecting ornamenta γυμνασιώδη: Roman
responses to the visual space of the Hellenistic gymnasium
13
Day 3 – Saturday 18/4
Bog Bodies – Excavating, Analyzing, Curating and Displaying Well
Preserved Human Remains from NW Europe
Room 27.0.49 | Page 70
9.00-10.30
Karin Johanneson: Bog bodies and bog pots – Iron Age bog bodies as rituals
Pernille Pantman: Mummies versus skeletons
Pikne Kama: The Rabivere bog body: an accidental death, murder victim or result of
traditional behaviour?
10.30-11.00
Coffee break
11.00-12.30
Christina Fredengren: The Becoming Bog Body
Melanie Giles: Worsley Man: new analysis of a UK ‘cold case’ bog body
12.30-14.00
Lunch break
14.00-15.30
Ole Nielson: Reflections on the challenges of caring for Tollund Man, the display methods,
and the meaning of this bog body to a local community
Pauline Asingh: Redisplaying Grauballe Man
Eamonn Kelly: The Irish Bog Body project – new finds and new ideas
14
Session papers
Household, History and Archaeology
Organizers: Dag Lindström, University of Uppsala & Göran Tagesson, National Heritage Board, Linköping,
Sweden ([email protected])
The household is commonly identified as a fundamental element of social organization in past times. This is
also a field where the combination of material culture and written text is both rewarding and, in fact,
necessary. Archaeologists as well as historians have collected massive amounts of empirical observations
concerning houses and households, and they have developed theoretical approaches, but they have not
very often collaborated systematically on these matters. Nevertheless, this is a field where the benefits of
cooperation between archaeology and history, material culture and written texts, are obvious. It is also a
field where methods and theoretical approaches have developed rapidly during recent years. Much new
empirical evidence has also been added.
Theoretical discussions as well as analyses based on empirical observations now tend to take place in
dynamic intersections where the household is understood as much more, and sometimes even as
something much different from a specific social structure. New approaches tend to combine social
organization and agency with spatial and material dimensions. The household as a unit for organizing
property, production and consumption is confronted with the household as ideology, discourse and
manifestation.
Within the disciplines of social, economic and cultural history a lively discussion is now taking place
concerning households in relation to social practice, space and material culture. The introduction of
concepts like ‘the open house’ (Eibach) is one of many examples of interpretations where the household is
analyzed as a varied, flexible, dynamic, permeable and open social organization, which also very much
relates to space and materiality.
In historical archaeology, the household has since long, as well, been a major concept when discussing both
spatial and material culture. Lately, studies concerning the early modern period has increased rapidly, and
thus making possible very close household analysis in multidisciplinary studies. This makes possible new
perspectives; emphasizing the complex structure of households, household, gender and agency, household
cycles and family history as well as alternative models of households (Beaudry 1999).
In our session we would like to welcome contributions discussing the household both from theoretical and
from methodological and empirical points of view. The main focus is how to develop the analyses and
understanding of households in past times, as for example thorough deeper cooperation between history
and archaeology.
ABSTRACTS
Household religion in archaic Italy
Speaker: Aura Piccioni, Regensburg University ([email protected])
Sacra privata, domestic cults, were spread in all antiquity: this means that not only by the Romans was
present this use, but also by Etruscans and ancient Greeks. The period that here is in centre of our attention
is the archaic, of which we have many examples, like Massa Marittima, Roselle, Veii, Caere and Murlo in
Tuscany, Rome, Acquarossa and Ficana in Latium, Torre di Satriano, Elea and Conversano in South Italy.
Difficult to interpret are the so-called “palaces”, like the above-mentioned Murlo and Acquarossa, home of
rich people, that unified many functions, from the domestic to the social and political ones.
Another question is also constituted by who took part to these sacra privata, already discussed by some
scholars, who also interrogate themselves about the subdivision of the spaces in a house and of the roles of
15
men and women: could slaves participate to a domestic sacrifice, like the ancient idea of familia seems to
suggest, or not? And what was the role of women? It is also useful to compare different cultures and rituals
of the same time, i.e. 6th-5th centuries B.C., in order to understand better expressions of worship before the
Romans.
The concept of households not only an instrument in archaeological analysis of urban life
Speakers: Ivan Balic & Gunilla Gardelin, Kulturen, Lund, Sweden ([email protected])
The concept of households not only an instrument in archaeological analysis of urban life
Depending on the approach words like stability and alteration can receive different meanings. The physical
evidence that archaeologists examine often represents alterations. Within archaeology the focus therefore
often has been on the changes rather than on the usage of a space. To be able to write a history as close to
people as possible we want to focus on their everyday life, meaning the continuance between the changes.
According to our approach the household is defined by the continuance and the shift of continuance marks
a change of household.
One approach to get closer to peoples everyday life in a city is to define and analyze space. Environments
consist of spaces on different levels. The landscape can be defined as one space, the city or village and lots
as others. The environments have been created by human beings and are therefore socially and culturally
influenced.
The knowledge of the conditions of the household can be deepened through different analyses. The
exchange of knowledge between archaeologists, archaeobotanists and osteologists has enabled a joint
interpretation and communication towards a richer cultural history.
Household in change
Speaker: Lars Ersgård, University of Lund, Sweden ([email protected])
The general problem of this speech is the relation between the household and the great decisive
changes of preindustrial society. My example here is the late medieval crisis (1350-1500 AD) and
its impact on the single household. How did the the latter respond to the profound decline of the
14th and 15th centuries in the wake of the Black Death? How did the inhabitants of the household
change the everyday life in the time of the crisis an what further societal implications did such
changes have in the longer term?
The empirical point of departure is three archaeologically investigated farmsteads in three
different provinces of southern Sweden, all of them surviving the time of the crisis. Representing
varying cultural and environmental contexts, these sites enable a study of different ”survival
strategies” on the household level and the impact of such strategies on the late medieval society
as a whole.
Houses and Households of the Isle of Lewis in the 19th and early 20th centuries
Speaker: Catriona Mackie, Isle of Man College of Further and Higher Education, United Kingdom
([email protected])
This paper examines the tenant houses and households of the Isle of Lewis, the most northerly of the
Scottish Hebridean islands, during the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the early 19th century, houses in rural
Lewis were built by the tenants themselves, using locally available materials such as stone, turf, and thatch.
Cattle were housed under the same roof, and ancillary units, such as barns and porches, were often
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appended to the house and were accessible from within it. Developments during the course of the 19 th and
20th centuries saw an increase in house size, increased segregation of space within the house, the
introduction of new housing features such as chimneys and windows, and more extensive use of
furnishings and interior decoration.
Using a variety of documentary sources, and drawing on oral history where relevant, this paper takes an
integrative view of houses and households, viewing changes to the house as an important indicator of
socio-cultural change and changing relationships within the house. The houses are examined against a
backdrop of changing demographics, legislation, and social and economic change.
How many households were there? Defining and discussing the households in the medieval and
post-medieval urban context
Speaker: Liisa Seppänen, Dept. of archaeology, Turku University, Finland ([email protected])
Having studied the buildings, constructions and housing culture of the medieval Turku I have often been
confronted with the question how many households and people were there and who were these people. It
is a simple question, which is very tricky to answer in the absence of adequate and specific historical and
archaeological record.
Concrete evidence of the past activities in the form of houses, plots and finds offers a basis for
understanding the everyday life of the people and their activities. However, tracing the households calls for
wider understanding of culturally constructed physical and social environment, domestic and occupational
relations as well as hierarchies of power, wealth and economy. In this paper, I am discussing the concept of
household in medieval and post-medieval urban context and charting the research challenges and
possibilities offered by the study of the households for my case study of Turku in Finland.
The mess in the house(hold) – How domestic space represents social structures?
Speaker: Panu Savolainen, University of Turku, dept. of history ([email protected])
Both historians and archaeologists have contemplated the double-edged nature of the household as a
“real” element of social organization and on the other hand as documentary and historiographical concept.
A key issue, linking the conceptual, social and material aspects of household is the spatial organization of
domesticity. Traditionally the material and spatial aspects of houses and households have been explored
mainly by archeologists, while historians have taken care of the demographic analyses. However, these
angles to the very same phenomena seldom get to touch to complement each other. The key elements to
understand the concept, linking archaeological and historical data, are space and place: how a certain
documentary unit may be linked to a certain plot of land or built space? The concept of a common dwelling
has been claimed as a central factor of a household.
My paper examines the premises to define household from an interdisciplinary scope that focuses on
space, with a case study from 18th century Turku. With empirical material that enlightens demographical,
architectural and material record, the concept household may be analyzed simultaneously from its spatial,
material and demographical aspects. The source-pluralism and the multidisciplinary scope clarify the nature
of household as a social, spatial and conceptual entity.
House and Household – an archaeological approach
Speaker: Göran Tagesson, National Historical Museums, Linköping, Sweden ([email protected])
The household is commonly identified as a fundamental element of social organization in past times. In
archaeology, the household has often been regarded as an essential level of research, in order to bridge the
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gap between grand theories of cultural change and the practical archaeology on the ground. Theoretical
discussions as well as analyses based on empirical observations now tend to take place in dynamic
intersections where the household is understood as much more, and sometimes even as something much
different from a specific social structure. New approaches tend to combine social organization and agency
with spatial and material dimensions. The household as a unit for organizing property, production and
consumption is confronted with the household as ideology, discourse and manifestation. The relationship
between the physical house and the household as a social unit is no longer evident and has to be discussed.
In my paper I will discuss the possibilities to combine a vast bulk of archaeologically documented urban
buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries in Kalmar, Jönköping and Linköping with detailed accounts of the
households, the owners and the residents. The relations between the changing social structures of the
households will be analyzed in comparison with the building structures within a theoretical framework of
actors and agency. The main focus is how to develop the analyses and understanding of households as
function and structure in past times, and the relationship between houses and households, as for example
through deeper cooperation between history and archaeology.
Living, sleeping, eating, and working. Houses and households in early modern Swedish towns
Speaker: Dag Lindström, Dpt. of History. Uppsala University, Sweden ([email protected])
This paper discusses the organization of households in early modern Swedish towns. Information on cohabitation drawn from written sources is combined with findings about the material structure of houses
and work places, mainly from the towns Linköping and Kalmar and with a focus on the 18th century.
The household has been identified as a fundamental unit of early modern social organization, and
households have often been understood as well defined units structuring living, sleeping, eating, working
and other social activities in accordance with a coherent and uniform order. Recently a more open
approach has been suggested, and the findings presented in this paper support openness and variation as
fundamental dimensions of urban household organization in early modern Sweden. In accordance, this
paper will present both empirical observations and reflections on the household as an analytical concept in
the analyses of early modern social organization.
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Lost Paths - Post-Humanism in Archaeology and Bioarchaeology
Organizers: Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir, University of Iceland and National Museum of Iceland ([email protected]) & Joe
W. Walser III, University of Iceland and Durham University ([email protected])
Post-humanism is an emergent response to humanist ideologies that focus on the human self as the center
of the natural world. Not only has the relationship between humans and their environment repeatedly
been approached as a nature-culture binary dichotomy in archaeological research, but likewise in
evolutionary medicine were it has been suggested that pathogens have evolved and adapted in response to
human interventions, including the human bodies allergic and disease fighting responses. While it is clear
that pathogens adapt to the many ways in which humans fend them off, it can from a post-humanistic
perspective be argued that the ongoing development of the human condition is similarly dependent upon
our adaptations to pathogenic organisms. Post-humanism diverges from such dualistic perspective by
placing the humans as an interactive part of the natural world. By using archaeological research and
scientific analyses, this session intends to examine human agency as an interactive part of the natural
environment. Research on humans, animals, microorganisms and environments from a post-humanistic
perspective are warmly welcome but with the aim to use the broad perspective of post-humanism to
critique and develop less human-centric interpretations and ideologies regarding biology and cultural
theory.
ABSTRACTS
Post-humanist culture and ideas
Speaker: Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir, University of Iceland and National Museum of Iceland ([email protected])
The endeavour of post-humanism is to move beyond humans as being the central mechanism of the world.
By de-centralising humanity, post-humanism acknowledges the complex encountering between humans,
non-humans and their environment. This approach therefore renounces even the ideas of binary
oppositions, such as nature vs. culture, human vs. machine, man vs. woman, religious vs. everyday life, and
highlights instead their multitude and constant interactions. In this lecture, a general presentation of posthumanist culture and ideas will be given as an introduction to the other lectures in this session but with
examples taken from the archaeological record.
Osteological, environmental and genetic discourses in disability in historical Iceland
Speaker: Joe W. Walser III, University of Iceland and Durham University ([email protected])
Disability exists as a range of dynamic human differences that are biologically, socially and spatially
configured. Disability is a non-objective and volatile social destruction that does necessarily begin with a
biological condition. Likewise, biological impairments do not always result in disability and non-impaired
individuals may become disabled due to social or environmental conditions. Impairment is a “limitation of
function” that cannot be substantially altered or corrected by standard interventions, but disability
depends on circumstance. An individual may experience a condition completely differently than another
individual with the same condition.
This project explores disability as a social construct, from a post-humanistic perspective. This research
discusses health and “quality of life” as being shaped by cultural agency and the environment in historical
Iceland. Using aDNA and osteological analyses of archaeological human skeletal remains from throughout
the country and across time periods, the identification of conditions that lead to impairments will be
juxtaposed with the social and environmental conditions that often result in “disability.” Can we infer
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disability using archaeological science and osteological analysis? What can we say about the social function
of individuals living in historical Iceland who may have been considered disabled today?
Medieval masculinities: Disciplining the body
Speaker: Elin Ahlin Sundman, University of Iceland ([email protected])
The nature and culture of the human body is hard to separate, for instance in the division of sex and
gender. Humans have tried to discipline the naturalness of the body, sometimes intentionally, sometimes
without intending or even being aware of it. In the medieval religious orders, rules surrounded the feeding,
clothing etc of the body. In many ways this was opposed to secular ideals and lifestyle, and creating a
monastic body, denied of carnal pleasures like sexual activities or excessive eating, drinking and sleeping.
To exercise self-control and discipline the body and mind was generally desirable, but in religious orders it
was particularly important. The body internalizes the habits of movement, posture, action etc., and the
skeleton adapts to this, creating a mutual cultural and natural body. In the lecture, the monastic versus the
secular body will be discussed with references to the human remains from two monastic sites –
Skriðuklaustur in Iceland and Västerås in Sweden. The focus will be on fasting and abstinence from food.
Can osteological methods and isotope analysis identify bodies following monastic rules of diet, or are they
no different from other bodies?
Nature in Motion – A multi-theoretical approach to posthuman landscape interpretation
Speaker: Oscar Jacobsson, Historical Archaeology, Lund University ( [email protected])
This paper examines how the complexities of human/nature interaction can be further illuminated in
landscape archaeological and historical research. While past landscape studies have often been either
theoretically single-minded or theoretically unaware, in a post-humanocentric context it is important to use
theoretical and methodological tools which question and problematize the relationship between humanity
and nature in the traditional archaeological discourse. While the landscape has often been the object of
generalisation, this paper argues that the landscape must be seen as a complex object of study, in which
nature and culture is intimately entwined. By illuminating the cultural aspects of nature as well as the
natural aspects of culture, this complexity can be more clearly defined.
This is exemplified through the study of the historical relationship between human society and large river
systems in South-Western Sweden, using a multi-theoretical approach. In applying multi-faceted
philosophical and theoretical concepts modelled for specific studies the contrasts, individualities and
structural patterns of landscape interaction can be analysed in a less humanocentric manner. This gives
further implications not only to archaeological research, but also to a wider range of related disciplines.
20
The Digital Future of Archaeology
Organizers: Bodil Petersson, Linnaeus University ([email protected]) & Isto Huvila, Åbo Akademi,
School of Business and Economics/ALM
In recent years, the sway of digital technologies and the influence ‘the digital’ has had upon almost every
aspect of archaeology has become a fact. This is true for documentation as well as for analysis, research
and presentation. As in the rest of society, digitization has become the fact of the matter very often
celebrated as both part of and important for any "future" perspectives. But what is "future" from the
perspective of digitization? Is it access, overview, analysis, new perspectives, new modes of presenting
archaeology, or what? When thinking of interpreting archaeology, what impact does digitization have on
the understanding of archaeology as a knowledge domain? How is digitization in itself affecting the
knowledge base of archaeology? More - of what? More - of the same? More - of new stuff? The aim of this
session is to critically elucidate how digitization affects archaeology as a knowledge domain within which
the subject is filtered through digital systems often not built by, but rather adapted or appropriated by
archaeologists for their purposes. We welcome papers on the present-day practice, future perspectives and
historic views on the subject of archaeology and its adaptation to new digital contexts.
ABSTRACTS
Tale of two archaeologies or change and persistence of (digital) information work practices
Speaker: Isto Huvila, Department of ALM, Uppsala University, Sweden and Information and knowledge
Management, Åbo Akademi, Finland
The rapid digitisation of workflows and information process in archaeology has lead to a paradoxical
situation. Even if the large majority of all documents are produced digitally, the management of what is
known of archaeological sites and archaeology is still largely managed using both non-digital storage
artefacts and non-digital ways of working (e.g. Huvila, 2006, 2009; Davidović, 2009). The major paradox is
that the digitisation of working methods and tools does not mean that the resulting workflows would be
oriented towards production of digital information, or that the digital outcomes of the work would be
compatible with how these outcomes are generally used. What can be observed is a partly slow and partly
rapid asynchronous change of information work in the different parts of the archaeological information
process. The uneven (quasi)paradigmatic evolution in the work practices has lead to discontinuities in the
continuum of archaeological information and the evolution of archaeological work.
The aim of this presentation is to discuss the implications of the digitisation of information work practices
in archaeology and their implications to the production and use (usability) of archaeological information
and knowledge. The presentation proposes that after a long period of small-scale pioneering experiments,
the relatively rapid adoption of digital documentation and information processing tools (including digital
measurement instruments, digital photography and database applications) as a part of routine
archaeological fieldwork and the inertia and partly incompatible changes in data management and reuse
practices have lead to a situation in which the production, use and management of information do not
necessarily meet and can lead to representational gaps (Cronin and Weingart, 2007) on the level of microlevel information practices even if there would be a macro-level consensus on the premises and aims of the
archaeological work. From the perspective of the Rogers’ theory of the diffusion of innovations (Rogers,
1983), the adoption of the ’digital’ in archaeological work can be described as a game of interference and
convergence of quasi-simultaneous and ensuing processes of the diffusion of digital innovations
throughout the different episodes of archaeological work. At the same time, archaeological work and its
relation to its diverse informational infrastructures can be described in Pickeringian terms as a mangle of
practice (Pickering, 1995), an emergent process within which human practices and non-human artefacts
mutually shape each other. The relative open-endedness of archaeological reasoning means that its
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absorptive capacity (Zahra and George, 2002) remains high but does imply that incompatible information
work practices could not emerge as a significant barrier and source of frustration.
References
Cronin, M. A. and L. R. Weingart (2007, July). Representational Gaps, Information Processing, and Conflict in
Functionally Diverse Teams. The Academy of Management Review 32(3), 761–773.
Davidović, A. (2009). Praktiken archäologischer Wissensproduktion – Eine kul- turanthropologische
Wissenschaftsforschung. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.
Huvila, I. (2006). The ecology of information work – A case study of bridging archaeological work and virtual
reality based knowledge organisation. Åbo: Åbo Akademi University Press. Diss. Åbo Akademi University.
Huvila, I. (2009). Ecological framework of information interactions and inform- ation infrastructures. Journal
of Information Science 35(6), 695–708.
Pickering, A. (1995). The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Rogers, E. M. (1983). Diffusion of innovations. New York; London: Free Press.
Zahra, S. A. and G. George (2002, April). Absorptive Capacity: A Re- view, Reconceptualization, and
Extension. The Academy of Management Review 27(2), 185–203.
‘Over my dead bodies’ – Implementation and resistance to archaeological digitization in Norway
and the UK
Speaker: Kevin Wooldridge, Lowestoft, UK
My 2013 Masters dissertation examined the implementation of ‘digital archaeology’ in the UK and Norway
in the period 1999 to 2013 (with particular reference to the use of the Swedish Intrasis GIS system as a
means of primary data capture in both countries). The dissertation included chapters detailing the
processes behind the implementation of archaeological digitization and the presentation and summary of a
survey that had sought the views of archaeologists on the merits, or otherwise, of the affects that
digitization was having on archaeology as both professional and academic practice. My dissertation
concluded that whilst a seamless process of digitization from data-capture through to publication and
archive (once described by Gary Lock as the ‘Holy Grail’ of archaeological computing) is possible, it needs to
be accessible to all and embraced by all sectors of the archaeological discipline. This paper will present
details of the data that lay behind that conclusion and present the proposition to the session for further
discussion.
Digital Archaeology and Archaeological Theory – “New Archaeology” Version 2.0?
Speaker: Minik Arne Grønkjær, University of Copenhagen ([email protected])
Is the future consistent with the past – or is the past consistent with the future? Digital archaeology seems
to be posing more questions than answers as I endeavor through the tangible and intangible theoretical
and methodological aspects of processes unfolding and growing in cultivation of ideas and prospects. The
arbitrarily road of digital archaeology seems to be moving in the directions of positivist and objectified
fields of revolution and yet I pose some opposing questions. Is it possible to gain new and different views of
culture process through, i.e. ontology and atmosphere theory, combined with digital scopes of virtual
reality and 3D visualization?
If we are to bridge the gap between humanities – and natural sciences we have to do it in orderly fashion. A
fashion of a holistic digital archaeology equilibrated by both object and relational knowledge, challenging
“the old world order” or the fast-forwarded new practices.
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Digital eyes – Challenges with implementation of digital tools in contract archaeology
Speakers: Fredrik Gunnarsson & Nicholas Nilsson, Department of Museum Archaeology, Kalmar County
Museum, Sweden
Since the dawn of archaeology not many changes have occurred regarding field documentation
methods. In recent decades however, digital tools have gradually gained ground both within university
research but lately also within contract archaeology. Now It´s time to discard of pen and paper and instead
work with mobile digital devices in the field. How does this affect the contract archaeology and the
archaeologists within this field? The advantages with adapting a digital workflow within contract
archaeology are many since you gain better efficiency and the quality of the documentation can be assured
in real-time. But is there any downside of the digital implementation? Do we have to think in new ways of
working in terms of archaeological methods, and thereby also problematize the theoretical approach? In
this paper the challenges of a paperless archaeology will be problematized.
Digital Pasts – Re-creating pasts in museum settings as architecture or flesh and blood?
Speakers: Bodil Petersson, Department of Cultural Sciences, Linnaeus University, Sweden & Carolina
Larsson, Humanities Lab, Lund University, Sweden
Working with digital communication and solutions in archaeological museum environments is a question of
advanced communication. From the early digital appearance in museum settings in general in the 1980:s
where IBM screens were put up and caught interest just because it was a new technique formerly unknown
in these environments, the communication means has now transformed into an array of communication
modes based on texts, pictures, films, animations, 3D representations and reconstructions, and interactive
game solutions. In our paper we will consider the transformation and use of different technologies through
time, and how it affects the visitor's view of the past today and even tomorrow when it comes to either
very thorough and detailed visual reconstruction or more schematic representations. We will also elucidate
the concept of "uncanny valley" in relation to digital representations in museum settings.
Critical evaluation of digitization and digital measurement tools in cairn studies and elsewhere
Speakers: Aki Hakonen & Ville Hakamäki, Archaeology, University of Oulu, Finland
Digitization is an ever increasing trend in archaeology. Every new application has to seek its place in the
varying scale of research, from documentation to interpretation. This paper explores the practical use of
different digital applications in archaeological research and their possibilities. The applications include Real
Time Kinematic GPS, aerial LIDAR, terrestrial laser scanning and selected computer software solutions used
for post-processing the acquired data. These are evaluated mainly by applying them on an Iron Age cairn
site, Kirnuvaara, in Finnish coastal Lapland. This case study is compared to previous studies conducted by
the authors. Benefits and problems deriving from practical use and relating to digitization are discussed.
The paper shows how archaeologists can benefit from the widening use of digital measurement tools and
research in digital environments, presents future scenarios for archaeology and assesses the
methodological costs of digitization.
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Speeding up documentation practises in Gamlestaden Gothenburg
Speaker: Jane Jansen, Publishing and Technology, Contract Archaeology Service, National Historical
Museums, Sweden
This paper will present the documentation process at the excavation site of the medieval town Nya Lödöse
in Gothenburg. For the first time the National Historical Museums in Sweden is undertaking a completely
digital documentation through the use of the database- and GIS-software Intrasis and the creation of
orthophoto and 3D models using the method Structure from motion. The digital equipment used is total
stations, tablets, laptops and digital cameras. The news in the digital documentation process is that all
archaeologists can record their observations directly in the database during fieldwork. The other specialists
such as find specialists, conservators and palaeo ecologists can record in the same database at a field office
or their own office in another town or country. This will give the field archaeologist a complete overview of
the contexts excavated and all records. One of the greater benefits with this process is that less time is
spent on recording as paperwork no longer exists. Another advantage is that the field archaeologist gets a
better overview and can spend more time on archaeology and interpretation.
3D Visualization of Urartuian Buildings on Virtual Platform
Speaker: Serap Kusu, Department of History, Ancient History, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey
Most Urartuian ruins have been destroyed partly or fully. These ruins, once having had an architectural
shape and function, intrigued many specialists, and their original appearance have been wondered; thus
these ruins have been attempted to be reconstructed in the light of scientific data. This process, having
started first with pen and paper, have evolved into 3D models and spaces, where once can virtually wander
around. In this framework, the destroyed parts of Urartuian temple complex, palace, warehouse, manor,
and defensive walls found in Altıntepe Excavations in Erzincan, Turkey have been reconstructed on virtual
platform. The modelling, coating, and rendering processes of the Urartuian building ruins have been
explained, and data used for planning of the shapes and sizes of 3D building models have been specified.
As a result, the key features, construction materials, and sizes of Urartuian architecture have been shown.
Thus, this is an important contribution for understanding and defining the Urartuian architecture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geuSAGZdDuE
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Archaeology outside the correlationist circle
Organizer: Johan Normark, University of Gothenburg ([email protected])
Correlationism is a term that describes the position where subject and object never can be thought of
separately, they are always correlated with each other. Speculative Realism (SR) is an umbrella term for
various attempts to break with this correlate. So far it is the Object-Oriented Ontologies (OOO) that have
had greatest impact outside philosophy. Some of the strengths with OOO are that they take a stand against
reductions of objects to processes and networks. Objects are not exhausted by these relations, they are
existent in their own right. Time and space are the result of objects and not the opposite. Rather than
inserting objects into an anthropocentric narrative, objects are the starting point of a multiscalar view
where all processes occur inside objects.
Being a discipline focused on objects archaeology could not just make use of these ideas but also elaborate
on them and put them into operational use. Concepts like vicarious causation, alien phenomenology,
gravity, bright objects, incorporeal machines, hyperobjects, etc. change the way archaeological objects can
be treated and understood. This session invites contributors to discuss how OOO and SR can be useful for
archaeological studies
ABSTRACTS
Black Swans, intra-worldly advents, and rogue objects: Unexpected events and archaeology
Speaker: Johan Normark, Department of Historical studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Archaeology is often concerned with long-term continuity, routines and traditions that maintain culture.
Some “revolutions” (Neolithic and urban) have been proposed when change was more rapid (relatively
speaking) and profound. Literature on collapse mirrors these approaches but with negative consequences.
Collapses are short-term processes when disruption occurs in various magnitudes. The now popular
resilience theories smooth over these disruptions by inserting the actual collapse into a predefined
adaptive cycle that always stays within the average limit set up for each cycle. A narrative fallacy is set up
where the impact caused by outliers and unexpected events are explained away. However, no theory is
“complete” if they cannot make room for random events. Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan is a concept that deals
with such issues. In SR and OOO the issue of unexpected events has also been addressed by Quentin
Meillassoux’s intra-Worldly advents and Levi Bryant’s rogue objects. In this paper I shall discuss the
significance of these three concepts. I shall use the Maya collapse and the Spanish conquest of the Yucatan
peninsula as the main archaeological examples of random events and objects that brought about new
worlds.
Time and process in archaeology
Speaker: Per Cornell, Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
The last decades have produced challenging new approaches in social theory and philosophy, in which
space and matter play an important role. There are notable differences among such proposals, which
include, among others, Sojas spatial turn, Latourian actor-network theory, Posthuman approaches and
Object Oriented Ontology. These new discussions can open new and productive possibilities for
archaeology, but the debate within the discipline, with few exceptions, has been a question of passive
reception, rather than productive development. In this paper, I suggest an approach in which time and
process are key concepts. I will depart from simple reflections on Harman, Barad and Haraway, and the
subtle changes in their approaches. Further, I address Badiou’s concept of world, revisit de Beauvoir, Sartre
and Derrida, and ponder at Marx concept of process. Looking at time as a set of different, though linked,
phenomena, which can productively be studied separately, and discussing the concept of process, a
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possible approach for archaeology will be sketched. In this approach, the general is still a relevant concept.
But at the same time the theoretical notion of a possibility of an encounter with alterity, the previously
unknown, is not a priori excluded. The theoretical argument will be supplemented by archaeological
arguments on built environment, which I am presently working on.
What is an archaeological object? Reflections on the inference of social processes
Speaker: Irene Garcia Rovira, Department of archaeology, University of Manchester
ANT and assemblage theory have been central in the redefinition of past social processes. These bodies of
theory have been key to displacing the centrality given to human beings in social dynamics. They have also
been central in breaking with the successive and ordered nature in which the past is presented by
archaeologists, and have given explanations of structural change in terms of emergence. These
developments have occurred through approaching this topic ontologically.
In this talk, I want to displace the discussion to consider the ways in which past social processes are
inferred in archaeology. In doing so, I suggest that in our advantaged position, archaeologists observe social
processes as elements which are akin to objects other than those of lived experience. Following from this
proposition, I wish to explore the ways in which OOO can be used to redefine what an archaeological object
is.
The need for introducing Object-Oriented-Ontology into archaeological museum
Speaker: Monika Stobiecka, "Artes Liberales" Department, University of Warsaw, Poland
Intensive acquisition of artifacts from the excavations in the nineteenth century permanently determined
the approach to archaeological objects. Expansive penetration of Mediterranean and the development of
national European archaeologies in the era of Romanticism contributed to the creation of powerful and
impressive collections presented in museums. The value of the presented objects rarely witnessed their
context. Most of the lovers of antiquity focused above all on the artistic side of discovered artifacts.
Antiquities were presented in a way determined by aesthetics, regardless to their primary functions.
Despite the passage of time, it seems that this paradigm is, mostly, still valid. Appalling lack of
reflection on the archaeological object as a thing, as a functional object, as a testimony of past human
activities or as an element in a relationship with a man, draws attention especially in the archaeological
museums.
The basic diversion for two types of exhibitions (P. Vergo) – aesthetic and functional – shows that
mostly, the meaning of archaeological object is shallower by the construction of an exhibition. In my
presentation I will try to show, why OOO and speculative realism should be the theoretical bases for
creating a valuable archaeological exhibitions.
Mereological problems: Challenges to OOO in archaeology
Speaker: Artur Ribeiro, Graduate School of Human Development in Landscape, University of Kiel, Germany
Graham Harman’s OOO is one of the many stances that has risen during the ontological turn of the human
sciences in the last decades. Most of these new ontological proposals are based on simple, specious, or
speculative forms of realism and several of them are posited on the independent existence of objects.
However, these ontologies fail to move away from some overly essentialist forms of conceptualization of
object and thus remain primarily a form of correlationism itself. The result is ontology that sees the
universe as an object that contains objects within itself which in turn contains even more objects within
itself. This is called the mereological problem in traditional metaphysics and many continental philosophers
have failed to address how objects can also be empty spaces that contain other objects ad infinitum. The
OOO has simply dismissed this problem as a non-issue through what Graham Harman calls ‘mereological
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isolation’. The lack of a proper mereological scheme and discussion in OOO has been holding speculative
realism back – if objects are said to simply exist, speculative realism stops being speculative, if objects are
said to not exist, speculative realism becomes nihilist. This talk aims to address these contradictions,
suggest an alternative, and discuss the implications of OOO in archaeology.
Grey Ontologies: What remains when nothing remains
Speaker: Rafael Millán Pascual, Departamento de Geografía, Prehistoria y Arqueología, Basque Country
University, Spain
As a metaphor, archaeology plays a deconstructive and even negative device. After excavating and
researching something seems to remain, while it is actually rather difficult to affirm that conclusion. The
ontological turn has been presented as the opportunity to construct positive narratives and active relations
between objects and ourselves. The problem is that this interpretation seems to reduce this ontological
turn to heuristic terms. What remains is no other than the opportunity to delimit the main character of our
present relation with materiality. Archaeology, after all, is also an approach questioning obscured and
naturalized discourses, which mediate and hide those very relations. I propose a revision of the main
political insertions of material ontologies as a good approach to disclose our current archaeological and
social situation.
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Archaeology in the environmental humanities
Alison Klevnäs, Stockholm University ([email protected]) & Christina Fredengren, Stockholm
University
“The Anthropocene” has been suggested as a name for the period in which human beings became the main
movers affecting the earth’s ecosystems, and in which human actions have caused environmental
degradation at a global scale. But when did this period begin? Did such extreme human impact start only
during the industrial revolution, or is it based in practices that go as far back as the Neolithic period or even
beyond? Archaeology is uniquely positioned to provide deep time perspectives on the place of humans in
the natural world, and thus to contribute to the growing academic field of the environmental humanities.
The central question in this session is: what can those of us that work with archaeology or heritage studies
contribute with to environmental humanism, sustainability and resilience issues? Should environmental
humanism alter how archaeology and heritage studies work?
The session will gather research in the form of archaeological and heritage case studies that deal, for
example, with the use of energy, human-animal relations, waste and recycling, water and wetlands. It aims
to revitalize the field of environmental archaeology and feed into wider debate on environmental
humanism.
ABSTRACTS
climate|culture|catastrophe – towards palaeoenvironmental humanities
Speaker: Felix Riede, Department of Archaeology, Aarhus University Moesgård, Denmark
([email protected], www.c3net.au.dk)
Using past extreme environmental events as a heuristic platform for linking archaeological data to
contemporary environmental concerns, this presentation argues that archaeology is in a unique position to
spearhead the development of what I term palaeoenvironmental humanities. Eschewing the often
conceptually opaque approaches of mainstream environmental humanism, this palaeo-version is (literally)
earth-bound, builds a natural bridge to the environmental sciences, but insists on a fresh twist of
historicity, materiality and landscapism. The very definition of the term Anthropocene – closely linked to
the environmental humanities movement – is loaded not only with strictly scientific notions about the role
of humans in contemporary ecosystems, but also with moral implications. Recently, a chronological
extension has been suggested, the Palaeoanthropocene, a term aimed to underlining the antiquity of
human engagement with and impact on local/global environments. If archaeologists accept a serious
engagement with the Palaeoanthropocene and thus with the academic and political debate about climate
change, they cannot easily escape the responsibility of ethical engagement either. Might this be ushering in
a new period of broader societal relevance for archaeology where archaeological heritage is not merely
seen as a passive victim of climate change but as a resource for historically informed evidence-based
decision making?
Earth as heritage and multi-agent artefact
Speaker: Christina Fredengren, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University
([email protected])
This project deals with earth and particularly soil, as living ecologies with long histories. Soil is often seen as
a natural formation, but could at the same time be argued to be a cultural artefact of concern to heritage
policy. Both soil science and heritage studies are lively fields of research and a pressing matter in the
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sustainability debate is how to deal with soil preservation and development. As argued in the 2014
book Soil as World Heritage, we have not only passed peak oil, but also peak soil.
This paper will analyse soil heritage through the lens of the new materialist post-humanities, investigating
how matter comes to matter. Instead of focusing on soil as the result of human farming practices and
sediment formation, this study will map soil as a series of multi-temporal and relational networks where a
number of different agents and practices co-work to form fertile soil. This analysis will deal with soil from a
selection of excavated archaeological contexts to investigate what action capacities soil from different
places and different times provides. The soil analysis will be used as a starting point for a discussion on soil
ethics of three stakeholder categories: ecologically-aware middle class, small farmers and risk-capitalists. Of
particular importance to this project is to ask questions about what actors are drawn upon in their soil
ethics, compared to those present in the soil analysis, what conflicts arise, to whom are we responsible
when it comes to caring for soil: past, present or future generations, the planet or life in general? The black
soils of Russia are placed on the tentative list for World Heritage. Our research will draw on case studies in
Södermanland, but the results will have international applicability. By providing a novel way of dealing with
nature: culture heritage, this project will relate to the arguments of world heritage and provide alternative
ways to approach, value and care for heritage landscapes. It will also reflect on earth as an active material
in Bronze and Iron Age contexts.
Archaeology and consumerism
Speaker: Alison Klevnäs, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University
([email protected])
Over-consumption, of both material resources and energy, is one of today’s biggest environmental
challenges. This paper focuses on the dramatic and exponential increase in material possessions, especially
in wealthy nations, in recent decades. Now that archaeology is widely recognized as investigating not only
past societies, but human-material relations more broadly, what does archaeology have to say about this
most salient feature of our present relationship with material goods – their dramatically increasing
volumes?
This paper will explore several ways in which archaeology has unconsciously adopted and contributed to a
consumerist mentality. In particular it will show that museum displays tend to present a meta-narrative of
the human past in which increasing numbers of material possessions are closely equated with progress and
development. More generally, and despite longstanding theoretical critique, archaeological interpretations
frequently still make direct connections between wealth and power, without exploring the nature and basis
of either concept.
Could archaeology make a more positive contribution? Can it find ways to provoke new thinking, frame
new questions about our relationship with possessions, and challenge current norms? One contribution we
may be able to make is to current debates on different forms of ownership, including shared and circular
economies.
Differing Concepts
Speaker: Ulla Odgaard, SILA – Arctic Centre, National Museum of Denmark ([email protected])
Based on studies of prehistoric, historic and contemporary caribou hunting in Western Greenland, this
paper will discuss different concepts of hunting rights and ethics, and how they relate to the concept of
“sustainability”.
Lately, a team of 252 researchers published a report “Arctic Biodiversity Assessment”, pointing out that
Greenland is a severe case of overharvesting of game animals, and the hunters are accused of wasting the
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meat. We, however, had a very different experience in a camp of modern caribou hunters, where the ideal
of “nothing is wasted” is cherished.
A similar contradiction seemed to be found in the archaeological material. At many ancient camps we were
able to discover bone patterns reflecting the ideal of “nothing is wasted”; at other sites however, the bone
pattern showed that a lot of meat had been wasted.
Did they have differing hunting ethics in the past, and is there a link from the past to the dilemmas of
today?
Craft and Climate
Speaker: Katarina Botwid, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University
([email protected])
The question of craftspeople and their role in prehistory has been discussed in many different ways and
from different theoretical perspectives. I will approach the question from an artisanal perspective, using
archaeological interpretations of ceramics.
In ceramic artefacts we have the possibility to see the actual impact on the artefact itself in the form of
imprints from artisans performing. My paper will highlight interesting connections between ceramic craft
and climate. Interpretations of ceramic craft are seldom discussed together with analyses of environmental
impact. I will show how an artisanal perspective can shed light on questions concerning climate influences
in manufacturing processes.
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Archaeology and Language – and the future of archaeo-linguistic studies
Organizers: Guus Kroonen, University of Copenhagen ([email protected]) & Rune Iversen, University of
Copenhagen ([email protected])
This session invites papers that, in one way or the other, combine linguistics and archaeology in order to
gain new knowledge on past societies. Linguistics and archaeology have a long research history in common
that, among other things, includes place-name research, the recovery and decipherment of inscriptions in
archaeological contexts, and studies on the spread of languages and languages families, most prominently
the Indo-European group.
However, the unfavourable combination of culture historical theory, archaeological cultures, migrating
peoples and search for the proto Indo-European homeland (Urheimat) that took place in the late 19th and
early 20th century paused further studies on archaeology and language. For many archaeologists language
is simply not an issue to consider, even when dealing with, for example, long-distance contact networks,
formations of states and empires, ethnicity/identity and other social aspects of past societies.
In recent decades, scholars such as Colin Renfrew, James P. Mallory, Kristian Kristiansen and David W.
Anthony, have shown how studies on archaeology and language can be combined avoiding the culturehistorical approach of earlier generations. Moreover, advances in archaeo-genetics are now starting to
yield tangible results, showing that cultural innovations can indeed often be linked with the movement of
people, and therefore potentially also with the spread of language.
The questions we would like to raise in this session concerns the future for ‘archaeo-linguistic’ research,
what can we learn from each other and what kinds of research questions are in particular suitable for
future integrated studies? The main goal of this session is to present new and ongoing studies that combine
aspects of archaeology and linguistics, theoretical perspectives on the field of archaeo-linguistics and,
hopefully, encourage new fruitful studies on archaeology and language.
ABSTRACTS:
PART ONE (Friday the 17th)
On the house-name Sunnyside in England and Scotland
Speaker: Laura Wright, University of Cambridge
House-names are under-studied from a sociolinguistic point of view, even though houses tell us about the
social standing of the original owners in terms of date, wealth, region and social aspiration. This may be
because there are no convenient databases of house-names, either historically or in the present day, and
so tracking specific names involves considerable archive searching and contextualisation. Here, for
example, is a typical newspaper report: the top twenty house-names in the UK Halifax (a building society,
or mortgage-lending company) House Name Survey of 2003 - with no indication as to whereabouts in the
UK, how many names surveyed, whether new names or already given, and so of little use to historical
linguists (although historical linguists will note the nostalgic, rural semantic fields):
1. The Cottage, 2. Rose Cottage, 3. The Bungalow, 4. The Coach House, 5. Orchard House, 6. The Lodge,
7. Woodlands, 8. The Old School House, 9. Ivy Cottage, 10. The Willows, 11. The Barn, 12. The Old Rectory,
13. Hillside, 14. Hillcrest, 15. The Croft, 16. The Old Vicarage, 17. Sunnyside, 18. Orchard Cottage, 19. Yew
Tree Cottage, 20. The Laurels
I focus here on no. 17, the house-name Sunnyside, which turns out to have a surprisingly long history and
wide geographical reach. There are currently over 14000 hits for Sunnyside in the UK postal database, and
it occurs elsewhere in the Anglophone world. There were none in England (that I can trace) pre-1859, but
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there were over a hundred in Scotland, going back (in written texts, that is) to the early sixteenth
century. Earlier Scottish legal texts make it clear that dividing up farms according to the 'solarem' (sunny)
and 'umbralem' (shadow) parts was usual practice in those specific parts of Scotland which correlate to
Scandinavian settlement names. I suggest that a historical Sunnyside steading is evidence for earlier
'solskifte' land-division in Scotland. Solskifte land-division is known to have been practiced in prehistoric
Scandinavia; I will present what I have learnt about it, and hope to learn more.
Place-names and archaeology
Speaker: Michael Lerche Nielsen, Copenhagen University
Settlement names and field names provide a good starting point for landscape and settlement history and
in some cases place-names might even point to locations of archaeological interest. Naturally place-names
which have been coined and accumulated over centuries serve many other purposes than just pointing to
ancient cultural activities, such as religious practice, transport and infrastructure, military organization,
manufacture of cloth, iron production etc. Settlement names are often datable and they can often be
compared with the distribution pattern for a whole group of place-names, thus pointing to regional society
patterns. The paper will sum up recent research on the subject and add case stories on the settlement
name Starup and field names containing the word Snekke-.
“LATIN & LIES” - Readings of Early Literary Sources on the North
Speaker: Klavs Randsborg, University of Copenhagen
The early literary sources to the history of the North are re-evaluated. With a few exceptions the Classical
sources are ill informed about the overall region; place-names and names of nations was largely made up in
“barbarized” Latin to sound convincing. In turn, such constructions gave rise to local misconceptions, e.g.
“Danes” stemming from Latin for “animal tail” (a description of Kattegat and the Baltic). Nevertheless, new
information of ancient place-names in the North (and the Baltic) is also gained, some quite surprising. The
web of European communication in Antiquity/later Prehistory was largely by military means. New studies
of the Cimbri: likely no links with the North – have also been undertaken, as well as of the bog-bodies:
killed hostages? The challenges are to both Danish and Swedish traditional national history. The new
readings are juxtaposed by modern archaeological knowledge, and carried on into the Viking Age with a
stress on developments on the Danish Islands, the core of later Denmark since the Bronze Age (Skåne being
a marginal area, and even Jylland: Viking Age Jelling a center of “coup generals”).
Languages in action: two modes in overseas communication in the Viking Age Eastern Baltic
Speaker: Marika Mägi, Tallinn University
The speech concentrates on cultural interaction between Eastern Scandinavian and Eastern Baltic societies
600-1000 AD where, according to the archaeological evidence, two strongly different kind of
communication can be distinguished. The demarcation line seems to run according to language families –
Baltic Finnic languages in the northern, and Baltic languages in the southern half of the region.
The pre-Viking and Viking Age Scandinavian colonies are only known from the southern half of the Eastern
Baltic, Couronia and Samland. These, however, remain geographically isolated phenomena - Scandinavian
influence outside the certain areas was very limited. The northern half of the Eastern Baltic, on the other
hand, can be characterised as shared culture sphere, a mode of cultural interaction pointedly called
“colonisation without colonies”. Archaeologically it is indicated by adoption of artefactual material, as well
as presumably ideological cultural norms inside a certain sector of society: the warrior sphere.
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What might have been the role of languages in these processes? The speech presents the few data that we
posses about personal and place names in the Eastern Baltic, with a special focus on their connection with
Scandinavia.
Medieval encounters – language and settlement during the Swedish colonization of Southern
Finland
Speaker: Ulrika Rosendahl, Helsinki University
In the 13th century the area that today is known as Finland became a part of the kingdom of Sweden.
During this expansion the kingdom established power in the whole country, but actual Swedish colonisation
seem to only have existed in the coastal areas. Traditionally it has been thought that these areas were
uninhabited during the late Iron Age, and would thus have been empty when the colonists arrived. This
explanation also reflect a political wish to explain the contemporary situation of Finland’s two language
groups, originating a peaceful colonisation process in the past. Recent studies in linguistic, archaeological
and palaebotanical material have, however, shown that the theory of an uninhibited coastline must be
questioned. This opens up for a new perspective on the encounter of the Finnish-speaking and the
Swedish-speaking language groups in the coastal areas of Finland. This study aims to understand the
interaction that took place between these groups of people studying the settlement pattern in Espoo,
Southern Finland.
Maritime Helsinki - reconstructing the settlement history of Helsinki archipelago by means of
toponomastic and archaeological research
Speakers: Paula Kouki, Annukka Debenjak, Marika Luhtala, Terhi Ainiala, Mika Lavento, University of
Helsinki
One way of approaching the language of past populations is the study of toponomastics, which has a long
tradition in Nordic archaeology. Coastal Finland, with its successive settlement by speakers of Finnish and
Swedish, lends itself well to this type of study.
Maritime Helsinki is a project started in 2014 as a joint effort of the units of Finnish Language and
Archaeology at the University of Helsinki. The aim is to study in depth the little-known settlement history of
Helsinki archipelago using toponomastics, historical documents, and archaeological fieldwork.
Most of the present-day Helsinki archipelago rose from the waves at the end of the Neolithic period. The
current research concentrates on recognising the temporal stratigraphy of Finnish and Swedish toponyms,
datable by linguistic features and historical documents, as well as on locating the archaeological remains
reflecting the consecutive phases of settling the archipelago, which have received little attention so far.
To ensure the effective transfer of information and to avoid the pitfalls of misunderstandings and overinterpretation, linguists and archaeologists are working side by side. This paper presents the results of the
preliminary research done in 2014, as well as outlines our future prospects and courses for research.
Early Medieval 'Celtic' art
Speaker: Martin Goldberg, Scottish National Museum
Two strands, language and art, are key connections in one of the major paradigms of European prehistory
and early history. The languages that have been designated as Celtic by modern scholars since the 18th
century have their roots in the Iron Age (at least), but it is in the Early Medieval period that we have a
substantial amount of evidence and where we see the origins of the modern Celtic nations of Scotland
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Ireland and Wales. The art-styles that are referred to as La Tène in Iron Age Europe have also been traced
through to the Early Medieval period where these same people of what was to become Ireland Wales and
Scotland decorated certain objects with what has been referred to as 'Ultimate La Tène' style. There has
been much debate about 'Celtic' identity in prehistoric Britain and Ireland but this paper will focus on the
early Medieval period where evidence for both language and art allows us to approach these debates in
new ways.
Ancient Witches and Modern Folktales in the Archaeological Records of Northern Italy
Speaker: Debora Moretti, Bristol University
Right before and during the great European Witch Hunt between 1450 and 1750, some trials’ documents of
Piedmont in northern Italy presented tales of very peculiar witches. These “witches” were women who
would fly across the night sky to join a Lady and her Society of spirits and dead people. Some scholars have
interpreted these tales as the reminiscence of an ancient folkloric substratum characterized by shamanic
elements of Celtic or Germanic origins (Ginzburg 1989; Pócs 1999). Moving forward in time to modern Italy,
hundreds of folktales from some areas of the Piedmont region in Northern Italy feature the masca (pl.
masche). This word means “dark spirit, shadow of the dead” but also indicate a specific type of witch
connected with ecstasies, animal metamorphosis and journeys to the land of the dead. The same shamanic
elements identified in the early modern north Italian witches trials.
Although the etymology of the word masca is not clear, the more accepted hypothesis is that it is of
Lombard origins. In the Lombard dialect it seems to mean “ghost, dark spirit” but also “the dead wrapped
in a net to prevent it to rise again and harm the living” and it was also used as a synonymous for the Latin
strix/striga (Bonomo 1971).
The modern masca seems to be the survival of not only a linguistic archaism but also of an ancient folk
tradition. Can the use of linguistic and archaeological data collected from the Lombard settlements of the
Piedmont region help in explaining the possible survival of this tradition?
References
Bonomo, G., 1971, Caccia alle Streghe, Palumbo: Palermo
Ginzburg, C., 1989, Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath, The University of Chicago Press: Chicago
Pócs, E., 1999, Between the Living and the Dead, CEU Press: Budapest
Hierarchy and architecture in Old Europe
Speaker: Mark Clendon, University of Adelaide
Examination of linguistic, archaeological, ethnographic and textual sources enables us to construct
narratives of the past that go beyond culture history, resulting in plausible accounts of the kinds of social
structures and spatial arrangements that characterize the remote past. In this presentation the semantic
derivation of Old English brego/bregu ‘ruler, king’ and Old Icelandic bragr ‘prince, leader,’ both words
confined to poetical contexts by the time of their attestation, is examined with reference to an ultimate
origin in the Balkans, from an etymon that referred to a tell. From its economic and demographic origins in
the Neolithic Near East, the Old European Civilization inherited a system of enduring social inequality
displayed in its tells, as emblems of rank. Rather than the peaceful egalitarian society of previous accounts,
by considering a range of linguistic and archaeological sources the Old European Civilization may be shown
to have been densely populated, hierarchical and violent.
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An Archaeology of Air
Speaker: Jeff Benjamin, Columbia University
Words are recurring objects in a fluid. Archaeologists have suggested that they can be classified and studied
just like tangible artifacts (Deetz, Beaudry). An archaeology of spoken language is therefore an archaeology
of air, since speech-forms exist both as and in an archaeological matrix of air molecules. Just like the earth's
surface, upon which the effects of human activity are instantly visible, the outer limits of the archaeosphere
(Edgeworth) is a zone of externalization - where carbon dioxide and other invisible human waste
accumulates, including sounds; but when we try to address the simultaneity of concurrent sounds we run
into a problem: What is the auditory equivalent of a “glance”? A descriptive language for a functional
analysis of the peculiar sonic artifacts (sonifacts) known as “words” is sparse at best. Archaeoacousticians
and climatologists share a common zone of interest, albeit toward different goals. I would argue that an
archaeology of language can help to form an interdisciplinary synthesis. In this paper I will discuss the
historic and prehistoric materiality of sound and language - gleaned from antecedent archaeological and
linguistic literature - and present an argument for the contemplation of both linguistics and musicology as
partner disciplines of archaeology.
Reexamining the linguistic prehistory of Aleut
Speaker: Anna Berge, University of Alaska
Aleut is the only language in its branch of the Eskimo-Aleut language family. It is quite divergent from
Eskimo languages and is traditionally considered to have developed in isolation, both from Eskimo and
neighboring languages, until the Russians colonized the Aleutians in the 18th century (Bergsland 1986).
Many assumptions concerning, e.g. the time and place of the proposed split between the two branches of
the language family, features present in the proto-language, and subsequent independent developments,
have in the past been used to support interpretations of archaeological findings (e.g. Dumond 1965, 1979,
1984). These assumptions, based primarily on rather few and far from finished comparative studies, have
not yet been adequately reexamined in decades, despite the subsequent broadening of the field of
historical linguistics. Meanwhile, recent advances in the archaeology and genetic investigations of the Aleut
and a growing body of linguistic research all increasingly suggest extensive contact with neighboring groups
(Crawford, M.H. et al. 2010, inter alia, Leer 1991, Fortescue 1998, 2002, Berge 2012, 2014). In this paper,
therefore, I argue for the need for a comprehensive reexamination of the linguistic prehistory of Aleut.
PART TWO (Saturday the 18th)
A Study of the Major Sound Changes in the Greater-Ch’olan-Tzeltalan Branch of the Mayan
Language Family and Their Applications to Maya Epigraphy
Speaker: Rosa-Maria Worm Danbo
One of the greater ongoing points of discussion in Maya epigraphy regards the orthographic conventions
applied in the Classic Maya texts (c. 250-900/1100 AD). The phonological transparency of Maya
hieroglyphic writing constitutes a unique possibility of a close integration of the fields of epigraphy and
historical linguistics, yet partial disagreement among scholars concerns the use of historical linguistic data
and reconstruction of spelling rules. While several examples in the epigraphic corpus seem to contradict
existing models of sound change in the Greater Ch’olan-Tzeltalan branch of Mayan languages, several
examples in the linguistic corpus contradict existing models of reconstructed spelling rules in Classic Maya
writing. Using colonial and modern sources of lowland Mayan languages, I have reconstructed the
phonological inventory and a select vocabulary of proto-Greater-Ch’olan-Tzeltalan and proto-Ch’olan. By
examining if and how my results differ from the phonological inventory and vocabulary actually attested in
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Classic Maya texts, the present study constitutes an attempt at joining together Mayan linguistics and Maya
epigraphy in order to clarify and evaluate issues regarding key sound changes in lowland Mayan languages
and the validity of still debated hypotheses on orthographic conventions in Maya hieroglyphic writing.
(Re)Considering the Archaeo-Linguistics of Southeastern Mesoamerica
Speakers: Kathryn M. Hudson, University at Buffalo & John S. Henderson, Cornell University
The history of ‘archaeo-linguistic’ research in Mesoamerica has been fraught with forced correspondences
between the archaeological and linguistic data. A clear example can be found in the Xile Hypothesis, which
posits an ancestral Xinca-Lenca language in the highlands of southeastern Mesoamerica. Although this
territory corresponded roughly to the distributional patterns of regional material productions, no actual
linguistic evidence was considered and the correspondence between shared material culture and shared
language was assumed. Taking a critical review of this hypothesis as its starting point, this paper
reconsiders of how archaeology and linguistics can combine in studies of these territories. Material
distributions clearly suggest patterns of interaction and cultural affiliation; combining these patterns with
historical reconstructions of Xinca, Lenca, and neighboring languages – particularly those of the highland
Maya – has the potential to reveal how language factored into these processes. The site of Copán will
provide an illustrative example of the productivity of this revamped approach. Changes in ceramic
assemblages reflected changing affiliations and corresponded to shifts in political and social structures;
genetic evidence indicates the arrival of non-local people. The combination of these data with thoughtful
linguistic reconstructions can offer new insights into the complex realities of the ancient Mesoamerican
past.
Investigating interactions between West Mexico and the Andes using the lexicon of metallurgy
Speaker: Kate Bellamy, Leiden University
Of the archaeological evidence suggesting prolonged, meaningful interaction between the Andean region in
South America and West Mexico, metallurgy appears the most convincing. Metalworking technology and
knowledge seems to have been transferred from the former, and probably also from Colombia, via a mainly
maritime route starting around 600CE. Similarly, a number of linguistic studies (notably Swadesh, 1967)
have claimed a deep relationship between Quechua in the Andes and Purépecha in West Mexico, although
the lexical data provide insufficient evidence for this grouping to have gained general acceptance.
Nonetheless the archaeological record suggests that this is a link worth pursuing further.
In the absence of documentation dating from the pre-Columbian (pre-1500CE) period in both regions, we
must turn to alternative sources to try and uncover the linguistic and migratory past of these complex
societies. Through a comparative study of the lexical domain of metallurgy, its materials, processes and
tools, I am investigating whether the proposed contact can be further clarified. My study covers languages
spoken in the so-called ‘West Mexican Metalworking Zone’ (Hosler, 2009) and the known metalworking
regions in Central and South America, but with a focus on the language isolate Purépecha, the clearest
alleged recipient of the Andean technology.
References
Hosler, Dorothy. 2009. The Metallurgy of West Mexico: Revisited and revised, Journal of World Prehistory,
22: 185–212.
Swadesh, Morris. 1967. Lexicostatistic Classification, in Robert Wauchope and Norman A. McQuown (eds.),
The Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 5: Linguistics, Austin: University of Texas Press.
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Linguistic and archaeological perspectives on population dynamics in the Lower Congo: Matches
and mismatches
Speakers: Koen Bostoen, Bernard Clist, Pierre de Maret, Gilles-Maurice de Schryver, University of Ghent
The wider Lower Congo region of Central-Africa is home to the so-called ‘Kikongo language cluster (KLC)’, a
disparate continuum of closely related Bantu languages spreading over large parts of four neighbouring
countries, i.e. Angola including Cabinda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Republic of the
Congo and Gabon. Recent phylogenetic research has corroborated that this vast language group constitutes
a discrete clade within Western Bantu and that its centre of expansion is most likely situated to the northeast of the Lower Congo region (de Schryver et al. forthcoming). A recent interdisciplinary review of
evidence from biogeography, palynology, geology, historical linguistics and archaeology has in its turn
pointed out that a climate-induced opening of the Central-African forest block around 2500 BP – and not
agriculture as is widely believed – was probably responsible for the rapid southward expansion of Bantu
speech communities across the Equator (Bostoen et al. 2015). In this paper, we will have a closer look at
the possible correspondences between the archaeological record and linguistic data in order to assess
whether material cultural innovations can indeed be linked with the immigration of Bantu speech
communities into the Lower Congo region.
References
Bostoen, Koen, Bernard Clist, Charles Doumenge, Rebecca Grollemund, Jean-Marie Hombert, Joseph Koni
Muluwa & Jean Maley. 2015. "Middle to Late Holocene Paleoclimatic Change and the Early Bantu
Expansion in the Rain Forests of West Central-Africa". Current Anthropology 56
de Schryver, Gilles-Maurice, Rebecca Grollemund, Simon Branford & Koen Bostoen. forthcoming.
"Introducing a state-of-the-art phylogenetic classification of the Kikongo language cluster". Submitted
for publication in Africana Linguistica
Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics: Rice and People in the Eastern Himalayan Corridor
Speaker: George van Driem, University of Berne
Linguistic palaeontology permits the identification of two language families whose linguistic ancestors pose
the likeliest candidates for the original domesticators of rice, i.e. Hmong-Mien and Austroasiatic. In 2011,
the ancient Hmong-Mien were identified as the primary domesticators of Asian rice, and the ancient
Austroasiatics as the secondary domesticators. Rice genetic research falls short of identifying the precise
geographical locus of early rice cultivation, but narrows down the possible region of origin considerably.
Linguistic paleontological evidence unrelated to rice agriculture has also been adduced to support a
homeland for Austroasiatic somewhere within the vast region of the Eastern Himalayan corridor.
Epistemological problems have arisen for archaeobotanists because most candidate areas for early rice
cultivation as indicated by linguistic palaeontology and rice genetics remain archaeologically
uninvestigated. This vast region between the Lower Brahmapūtra, the Tenasserim and the Liángwáng Hills
also happens to be the likely homeland of cultivated taro, bananas and tea. Insights into ethnolinguistic
phylogeography from the vantage point of human population genetics provide yet another independent
window onto the past, enhancing our view and furnishing a sounder empirical basis for informed
conjecture.
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Domestication and language spreads in early northern Eurasia
Speaker: Johanna Nichols, University of California, Berkeley
Large-scale language spreading in Eurasia has generally been traced back to the Indo-European
expansion from the western steppe. However, what is known now about the mechanisms,
sociolinguistics, and linguistic geography of language spreads requires a separate large linguistic and
cultural spread from the vicinity of the northwestern Kazakh steppe starting at the early horizon of the
transition to food production there, approximately contemporaneous to or just before the beginning of
the IE expansion and continuing to the well-known Indo-Iranian Bronze Age expansion (which it in fact
absorbed and furthered). This paper lays out the spread model in full and presents linguistic evidence
(typological, etymological, geographical) that, just as Proto-Finno-Ugric was catalyst language at the
frontier of the Indo-Iranian spread, Proto-Uralic was catalyst or even main spreading language in the
early Kazakh-steppe spread. I raise specific archaeological-linguistic hypotheses for future work
elucidating language and ethnic origins across northern Eurasia, focusing especially on the far-flung
Danube, Altai, and Tien-Shan early migration targets; the age and importance of what has been called
the "Fur Road" north of the steppe; and what the model entails for the likelihood of IE-Uralic contact or
relatedness and the still earlier origins of both families.
The Indo-European Vocabulary of Sheep, Wool and Textile Production
Speaker: Birgit Anette Olsen, University of Copenhagen
In recent years the discussion about the origin of the Indo-Europeans has been dominated by two
competing views: some scholars assume that it was situated in Anatolia at least 9000 years ago, and that
the Indo-Europeans were the first to bring farming to Europe, while others have elaborated the theory of a
homeland on the steppes of South Russia and the Ukraine about three millenia later. From a linguistic point
of view the latter scenario is clearly the least problematic in so far as much of the common Indo-European
vocabulary apparently points to a considerably more advanced cultural stage than that of the earliest
farmers. In particular the rich, systematically corresponding semantic field of horses an wheeled vehicles is
difficult to explain away by parallel development or loans. The present paper will discuss a number of
potentially diagnostic linguistic details within the almost equally impressing inherited vocabulary of sheep,
wool, spinning and weaving, concluding that the Indo-Europeans, including the Anatolians, knew and
utilized the domesticated wooly sheep. Thus we would have one more vote in favour of the Pontic-Caspian
homeland theory.
Late Neolithic migration from the steppe as a likely source for Indo-European languages in
Europe
Speakers: Wolfgang Haak, Iosif Lazaridis, Nick Patterson, Johannes Krause, David Anthony, Alan Cooper,
Kurt Werner Alt and David Reich
We generated genome-wide ancient DNA data from 69 prehistoric Europeans by using an enrichment
method targeting 390,000 polymorphisms. This allowed us to obtain new insights about migrations in
Europe’s prehistory with implications for the spread of Indo-European language groups. At the beginning of
the Neolithic period in Europe, ~8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in
Germany, Hungary, and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited
by a distinctive population of eastern hunter-gatherers with high affinity to Paleolithic Siberians. During the
Middle Neolithic we observe a resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry throughout much of Europe, while
the contemporaneous Yamnaya herders of the Russian steppes shared ancestry with the preceding eastern
European hunter-gatherers and a different stream of Near Easterners. Western and Eastern Europe came
into contact ~4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Central Europe traced ~75%
38
of their ancestry to the Yamnaya. The steppe ancestry documents a massive (second) migration into Europe
from its eastern periphery, persisted in Bronze Age Europeans and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans.
These results provide support for the theory of a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European
languages of Europe.
Early spread of Indo-European languages through interdemic socioeconomic networks: a
cautionary note
Speaker: Hans-Jürgen Bandelt, University of Hamburg
Several contributions in archaeology and linguistics have stressed the socioeconomic transformation
associated with long-distance trade in metal (e.g. Kristiansen 2014, Gibson & D. S. Wodtko 2013). It is then
tempting to hypothesize the spread of a single language along such socioeconomic networks. Assuming
that the Bronze Age network had distinct or shifting centres over time, there are several scenarios possible,
so that there is an inherent uncertainty about the “urheimat” of Indo-European. Even an origin of early
Proto-Indo-European in the Carpathian basin towards the end of the Copper Age with subsequent centres
and spread zones further east could not be ruled out with certainty. While the Bell Beaker phenomenon
might have involved one or just few languages as well, its directional spread and timing does not suggest a
participation of Indo-European (contra some synthetical studies). Rather, in the wake of another climatic
crisis this network was reached, transformed, and eventually partly incorporated by the western branches
of the growing Indo-European network.
Teaching Archaeo-linguistics
Speaker: Bjarne Simmelkjær Sandgaard Hansen, University of Copenhagen
During autumn 2014, I coordinated a cross-disciplinary course – designated Roots of Europe and based
upon the general ideas and results of the research centre of the same name – at the University of
Copenhagen involving, i.a., the disciplines of comparative linguistics, archaeology and population genetics.
The course was taught by multiple lecturers from all around the world who all lectured on their specific
fields of expertise and was concluded by a panel discussion engaging, in principle, all the lecturers and
students of the course.
I will dedicate my presentation at the XV Nordic TAG 2015 to:
―
sharing my experiences as course coordinator on how both the students and the lecturers
benefited from the cross-disciplinary approach;
―
exemplifying how the general course setup facilitated the inclusion of new and yet unpublished
research material in the lectures, thus creating a high level of research based education;
―
addressing the question if this cross-disciplinary approach created any issues; and
―
discussing the further perspectives of teaching archaeo-linguistics at universities and the extent to
which such teaching may contribute to educating new researchers within this field of research.
References
Video podcasts of the lectures: http://rootsofeurope.ku.dk/streaming/e2014/rootsofeurope/.
39
Transmission of knowledge in crafts – aspects of learning within prehistoric
communities
Organizers: Morten Ravn, Viking Ship Museum Roskilde ([email protected]) & Mikkel Sørrensen, University of
Copenhagen
([email protected])
Knowledge is at the very core of society both in the past, today and in the future. Through knowledge, and
the ability of putting knowledge into action, people create both tangible and intangible constructions. Craft
traditions and tricks of the trade are transferred from one generation to another in a dialectic interaction
between the participating individuals and the norms, rules and other defining and delimiting structures
within the communities that these individuals share.
In this session we call for papers that deal with the transmission of knowledge in prehistoric and historic
communities of practice. We suggest that submitters focus in particular on craftsmanship as something
that is conducted by individuals, negotiated in performed actions and thus creating communities of practice
and identities. In this regard, learning is paramount.
Learning processes have many different forms and consist of many different methods. However, some
basic elements are always present when knowledge is being transmitted between craftspeople in
prehistoric communities: The process is based on human-to-human interaction; hence it takes place in a
social context. The interactions are grounded in communities which embody a matrix of knowledge and
know-how about one or more practices. Furthermore these elements define and delimit social structures
specific for the communities. Moreover, the matrix of knowledge and know-how is often a long-lasting
cumulative construction, which frequently is referred to as a tradition. To help inspire submitters and to
focus the session we put forward some preliminary questions:
- How do we access the ways in which learning was performed including the methods and tools used in the
transmission of knowledge, in a prehistoric society?
- How did prehistoric individuals and communities relate to tradition? Was this a non-reflective process
where individuals followed tradition and preformed actions without consideration? Or did the individuals
constantly relate the traditional rules and guidelines to the present task at hand and thereby negotiated
the best practices?
- How do changes in conduct take place within prehistoric communities of practices? Some changes might
be isolated additions; others might be part of a set of profound technological and social innovations?
ABSTRACTS
Apprentice and habitus; how Craftsmen dances with their tools
Speaker: Harald Bentz Høgseth, Møre & Romsdal County Council, Norway
Language and body communicate are chains of abstractions which expresses experience and practice. We
have linguistic freedom when we manage to know and pronounce the words after a long period of training.
It is the same way with craftsmanship and other reflective practitioners. They are all dependent on
experience and “know how”: dexterity, knowing the methods and order of operations and understanding
the forms which are transmitted from one generation to another in a knowledge-based working
community. By transmission of knowledge through action the fundamental learning is imitating, copying
and reflecting with others.
The focus in this paper is concentrated upon the craftsman’s rhythm in the working process. When a
craftsman uses tools to work timbers he leaves traces in the surface consisting of particular patterns which
characterize the individual tool, almost like a signature. This enables us to explore in the archaeological
material, what kind of tools the ancient craftsman probably used and to transcribe the procedures and
techniques behind them.
40
Tool marks represent definitive parts of this knowledge and gives some perspectives about the connection
between the craftsman, materials, tools and working process – and the relationship between the
sequences of tool marks and the dynamics, rhythm and movement pattern behind them. The marks
express the practitioners flow and working rhythm. A flow not only based on the experience and
knowledge of the relation between materials, tools, techniques, and procedures, but also constructed on
exchanging knowledge and experience in a dynamic process where knowledge are learned, unfold and
developed in a social space. A process based on the interaction between individual, collective and tradition.
Storing and Communicating Hull-Shapes in Northwest Europe
Speakers: Thomas Dhoop & Juan Pablo Olaberria, University of Southampton
([email protected] & [email protected])
Before the 16th century, boats in central and northern Europe were built using overlapping planks. The
shape of their hull was created during the construction, while the frames were fitted after. Near the end of
the 16th century, boats with a smooth outer shell came into use. Their shape was fixed in the initial
construction of a frame skeleton onto which the hull planks were nailed after. To distinguish these two
approaches to building watercraft, Olof Hasslöf (1958) coined the terms shell and skeleton-construction.
From the beginning, this distinction entailed very different ways of thinking about boatbuilding and lead to
very different ideas about the ways in which knowledge was stored and communicated by shell and
skeleton builders.
Building on ideas presented in the authors’ recent publication on obtaining, storing and communicating
hull-shapes in the Viking Age (Dhoop & Olaberria 2015), this paper takes the next step forward. Drawing
from published ethnographic material, the authors compare methods of obtaining, storing and
communicating the shape of a hull in boatbuilding ‘by eye and rule’, using moulds and using pre-fabricated
frames. It is argued that there is a need for a more nuanced idea of the differences between the way shell
and skeleton-builders obtain, retain and transfer the three-dimensional shape of a hull.
References:
Dhoop, T. & Olaberria, O., 2015, Practical Knowledge in the Viking Age: the use of mental templates in
clinker shipbuilding. The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 44.1: 95-110.
Hasslöf, O., 1958, Carvel Construction Technique, Nature and Origin. Folkliv 1957-1958, 49-60.
Habitus: The sociocultural field of the individual
Speaker: Jens Ipsen, Independent Researcher, Denmark ([email protected])
The concept sociocultural field is briefly defined. The concept habitus is discussed at length. It originates
from the thinking of Piérre Bourdieu. Both will be seen in the light of the semiotics of Louis Hjelmslev.
Examples will be given from the Late Mesolithic and Late Bronze Age of Denmark. After that a study the
habitus Subneolithic dwellings in Eastern Finland, the role of habitus and daily rituals in these is mentioned.
By comparing two subneolithic sites there the role of habitus in foreign contacts is discussed. Finally, the
power of habitus in a changing environment and settlement pattern is discussed.
Blocks, spades and coffe breaks : the knowledge of how to build with turf
Speaker: Sandra Coullenot, Université Jean Monnet, Saint-Étienne
The Icelandic turhouse is a traditional construction which has adapted to human activities, from the
Landnám (ca. 871) to its abandonment in the first half of the XXth century. Built with turf, wood and
41
sometimes with stone foundations, this vernacular architecture-with-no-architect survives through a
sample of buildings mainly dating from the XIXth and XXth century. The aim of my ethnographic research is
to understand its signification as a recent Icelandic heritage. Both tangible (palpable but yet decaying turf
blocks…) and intangible (peculiar constructive knowledge), we can wonder how can we appropriate this
building technics nowadays ?
In this presentation, we will see that the knowledge of how to build with turf seems to be maintained by
the cultural institutions (.jóminjasafn Íslands, UNESCO...). Beside these formal discourses and mediations, it
exists an active apprenticeship where Icelanders and foreigners can learn how to repair old buildings
(Fornverkaskólinn…) or how to transmit the turf building savoir-faire (AAA i/o A workshop…). This courses,
given by farmers, builders, artists or architects, are given in association with some official institutions. The
transmission is made on the site (but also during coffe breaks) : it is verbal, non-verbal and vectorised with
the body. These experiences, that we will developp through some case studies, enables to use specific
tools, to renew ancestral movements, to contribute to the performance of an ordinary practice, and to
valorize a tradition.
Finding out how to learn: The transmission of pottery making in Vanuatu
Speaker: Elizabeth Pascal, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand ([email protected])
The title refers as much to my attempts to find out how the traditional craft of pottery making was passed
on as it does to the efforts of the NiVanuatu potters themselves. My ethnographic study of traditional
pottery makers and their kin on western Santo was originally undertaken in an attempt to answer the
question of how Pacific pottery making was perpetuated, abandoned and, in some cases, apparently
revived. I tackled the problem from several angles including ethnographic observation, historical
reconstruction and archaeological findings, as well as using the results of some other people’s work in
these and related fields. This approach revealed some unexpected diversities of pedagogy. Of the three
villages I focussed on, I was struck not only by the apparent decline of the craft in precisely the place it
should have been the strongest, but also by the apparent discrepancies between my observations and local
opinion about who could still make good pots. The paper follows my attempts to resolve the contradictions
between different sources and formulate a theory of learning that, as well as answering the specific
questions of my research, contributes to the wider discussion of pottery in Pacific prehistory.
Skilled children in ceramic craft – Artisanal interpretation of a Bronze Age pot from the Bronze
Age site of Pryssgården in the south-east of Sweden
Speaker: Katarina Botwid, University of Lund, Sweden ([email protected])
Conducted an artisanal interpretation of more than seven thousand ceramic finds in the extensive
Pryssgården material. I suggest that one of the partially reconstructed pots was manufactured by a
child. This medium--‐sized storage pot was made with skill requiring at least three years of
training. That this level of skill is present in a young individual makes this case study really
intriguing. The method presented here makes it clear that there are aspects of archaeological
ceramic artefacts that can only be assessed by a trained professional ceramist. Finally, the paper
discusses how an artisanal perspective can contribute to cooperation between professional
artisans and archaeologists which, if extended further, could lead to more detailed and complex
views of the past, especially when it comes to craft manufacturing in the context of situated
learning.
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Craft transmission and the beginning of a new tradition – the introduction of ceramics in the
Mesolithic Ertebølle Culture
Speaker: Karen Povlsen, The Historical Museum of Northern Jutland, Denmark
([email protected])
At around 4700 BC ceramics production was taken up in the Mesolithic Ertebølle Culture of the Western
Baltic. This new craft demanded changes in the Ertebølle ways of life. In addition new chains of craft
learning relationships entered into the cultural setting.
In order to address how the craft was transferred into the Ertebølle area, learning structures at the
different stages of ceramic production are used as a point of departure for a discussion. This deals with how
different characteristics of ceramics can contribute to understanding mechanisms of craft transmission.
It is proposed that important elements of the Ertebølle pottery tradition came from the east via Baltic
exchange networks. However the tradition was not directly transferred, and important changes were made
along the way.
Learning to knapp. Levels of teaching in early stone knapping and their implications for the
evolution of human cognitive capacities
Speakers: Anders Högberg, Linnaeus University, Sweden and University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
([email protected]) & Peter Gärdenfors, University of Lund and University of Stellenbosch, South
Africa ([email protected])
Teaching is present in all human societies. Even young children have a natural capability to teach. In
contrast, teaching within other species is very limited, if it exists at all.
There is a wide divergence between different disciplines concerning what is meant by teaching. At one
extreme one finds studies of animals, where teaching is given a behaviourist definition. At the other
extreme one finds ethnographic studies where teaching is defined as explicit verbal instruction. This span
indicates that there is not just one kind of teaching.
In this paper, we present a series of levels of teaching that require increasing amounts of cognitive and
communicate capacities on part of the teacher and the student. Since all levels are found among modern
humans and only the basic levels have been observed in other species, we hypothesize that the more
advanced levels have emerged during the evolution of the hominins.
We argue that some lithic technologies such as the Oldowan may have been learned involving low levels of
intentional teaching while others, such as Late Acheulean handaxe manufacture, could not have been
learnt without intentional teaching that includes communication of abstract concepts and patterns. By
bringing out the theoretical levels of cognitive and communicate complexity involved in knowledge
transmission, social learning and education processes, we hope to contribute to a new perspective on
human cognitive evolution.
Knowledge exchanges of agrarian practices between indigenous hunter-gatherers and
immigrating farmers in southern Scandinavia during the late 5 th and early 4th millennium BC
Speaker: Lasse Sørensen, National Museum of Denmark
In this paper it is argued that agriculture is a very complex technology, which takes a long time to learn,
thus making it very difficult for agrarian practices to spread as an idea. Instead, based on a detailed survey
43
of primary agrarian evidence and secondary evidence of material culture, it is suggested that the
expansions of agrarian practices in southern Scandinavia are associated with the migration of farmers.
These farmers had the right competences and the ability to teach the indigenous population about
agriculture by establishing communities of practice, thus supporting the theory of integrationism. The
engagement in these communities of practice would have changed the identity and material culture of the
immigrating farmers, as well as the indigenous hunter-gatherers, thus creating new agrarian societies,
which were interconnected with each other in a regional as well as larger European network.
Bone implements in the Near East – Moving from one tradition to another
Speaker: Pia Wistoft Nielsen, Independent researcher, Denmark ([email protected])
Research in bone implements from pre-historic sites from the Near East have traditionally focused primarily
on the shape and function of bone implements and establishing typologies for them. The consequence of
this long tradition is the elimination of lost possibility in obtaining substantial information about workshops, preparation of animal bones for tools and objects and transmission of knowledge as an ongoing
process on a daily basis.
Chaîne opératoire is one of the methods which aim to describe the choices made by the craft people and
how these choices reflect not only practical choices but similarities and differences in techniques in the
production of bone implements. Ad-hoc tools are often seen as requiring less skilled production
techniques, but these tools reflect knowledge of which bone part would require the least amount of work
applied to make a tool for a specific task.
Bone implements reflect the choices made by the craftspeople. These choices does not mainly reflect
practical choices, but also reflect the traditions, daily routines and the methods taught and learned by the
craftspeople.
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Crossing Over: From Multidisciplinary to Interdisciplinary Archaeological Theory
and
Practice
Organizers: Kathryn M. Hudson, University of Buffalo ([email protected]) & John S. Henderson, Cornell
University
([email protected])
Projects that mobilize theoretical approaches, thematic emphases, and analytical methods from different
disciplines have been an important part of archaeological practice, though they are often conceptually
differentiated from the disciplinary core. Recent years have witnessed an increase in the frequency and
visibility of research in this mode, and future work is likely to continue along the same trajectory. For the
most part, such research has been multidisciplinary rather than interdisciplinary: it has made use of
perspectives and methods grounded in many fields to contribute in important ways to agendas defined
solely by archaeology. Interdisciplinary approaches, however, should incorporate other theoretical
frameworks and questions in a way that gives equal weight to both archaeological and non-archaeological
perspectives and thus generates a more mutually enriching framework. This session seeks to explore the
potential of interdisciplinary research that can contribute to other disciplines as well as archaeology and
open theoretical and interpretive spaces that transcend conventional disciplinary boundaries. We invite
papers that consider the theoretical, methodological, analytical and interpretive potential of this kind of
interdisciplinarity and how it can shape the future of archaeology.
ABSTRACTS
Archaeology besides interdisciplinarity: how the history of the discipline can help Archaeology
out of its identity crisis?
Speaker: Gabriella Rodrigues
The history of archaeology is an essential tool to understand the many different theoretical and
methodological approaches since the beginnings of the discipline, including its correlation to the other
sciences. The study of the past is not the work of only archaeologists; an interdisciplinary approach could
offer a broader framework towards understanding the past. Although interdisciplinarity is gaining speedy
recognition, it could offer a challenge to Archaeology, a discipline that has been suffering from an identity
complex; treated either as a tool or as a source of metaphors for other disciplines. Interdisciplinarity
therefore, brings an epistemological issue, of the limits of interpretation of each discipline. What are the
borders to be transcended? How to preserve a certain unity of those many different disciplines in an
interdisciplinary framework? How to reclaim archaeology, besides interdisciplinarity? This paper intends to
discuss these and the other questions concerning the practice of archaeology, while studying its history.
From Multi- and Inter- to Trans-Disciplinary Archaeology
Speaker: Torill Christine Lindstrøm and Ezra Zubrow
Archaeology has long been multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary in praxis. Archaeologists’ tedious digging
out and preservation of ancient artifacts and physical remains from the past would hardly be more than
registrations without interpretations if it were not for the theoretical and methodological tools of other
disciplines. Archaeology is greatly aided by the “hard sciences” – such as physics, geology, glaciology,
botany, zoology, medicine, dentistry – and by the “soft sciences” such as history, history of art and
architecture, history of religion, anthropology, and even psychology. Approaches have been diverse:
(1) multidisciplinary -- research on a common problem-area with each discipline keeping within its own
area; (2) interdisciplinary: the integration of research and theory on a common research-question.
45
Archaeology is actually well versed in both. In the newest and most holistic approach, transdisciplinary,
theories and data are even more profoundly synthesized, and borders between the disciplines are
dissolved. These different crossing over disciplinary relations involve theoretical and interpretative
challenges, and are also connected to challenging methodological integrations, for instance various kinds of
mixed method research. Examples are given, particularly of transdisciplinary approaches, from areas as
different as Neolithic archaeology in Malta and classical Roman archaeology in Pompeii.
The evolution of ceramic traditions: a multidisciplinary approach based on the chaîne opératoire
concept and a phylogenetic approach
Speaker: Sébastien Manem
Apprenticeship requires several years in which the individual will acquire motor habits that will be difficult
to change thus contributing to the maintenance of technical traditions inside each social group. However,
transmitted from one generation to the next through apprenticeship networks, technical traditions are not
fixed on time. The evolution can be generated by invention(s) processed (or not) into innovation(s) within
the social group, or by exogenous processes, taking place beyond the apprenticeship networks with
horizontal transmissions. It is particularly difficult to understand, over a long timescale, how and from
which operative sequence(s) a particular invention is adopted by a society and then transmitted and
modified again from generation to generation inside each apprenticeship network. In biology, evolution is
based on a simple but fundamental principle: descent with modification. The genealogical history of a
group and the assumed relationship between ancestor and descendant – phylogeny – provide a relevant
framework. The invention is still studied in its relation to the heritage and lineage: the modification of the
descendants occurs from the ancestor. This contribution presents a method to model the evolution of
technical traditions based on phylogenetic trees and the chaîne opératoire of shaping and finishing
ceramics during the European Bronze Age.
Finding the Foundations of Meaning: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Ancient
Imagery Systems
Speaker: Kathryn M. Hudson
The study of ancient imagery systems is commonly rooted in analyses of the external form(s) of constituent
elements and their subsequent analysis through interpretive frames based on assumed cultural identities
or modern expectations of significance. Although these studies have produced a wealth of information
relating to the components of imagery systems, – particularly in situations with clear archaeological and
sociocultural provenience – their interpretive power is often limited. They allow for consideration of
variations in form and association and analyses of spatial distributions, interactions, and possible sociocultural significances; however, they offer limited information concerning the heritages, affiliations, and
emic identities of their creators. This has the effect of situating cultures in a context based solely on
interactions extant at the time of a composition’s creation and sidelining – intentionally or not – the much
broader issues of origin, cultural inheritance, and general cognitive or cultural relationships.
An alternate interdisciplinary approach focuses on the structural systems that governed and licensed
compositions rather than on the surface representations of their forms. It adopts a methodology that can
be viewed as an visual analogy of the kind of underlying structures posited by sign-based theories of
meaning generation and by generative and transformational grammarians; it thus combines archaeological
practice with analytical frameworks developed by linguistics and semiotics. Taking imagery from Honduras’
Ulúa Valley ceramics and Mexico’s Teotihuacán murals as its case studies, this paper will explore this
interdisciplinary methodology and consider its usefulness for studies of ceramic imagery. Although these
46
image systems are not reflective of any human language, they are nonetheless governed by underlying
structuring systems that can provide useful information on the cultural associations and identities of their
creators.
Neolithic Cliff Paintings in Finland as Territorial Boundaries
Speaker: Karen Niskanen
In this paper, I present findings from an investigation into the question of the cliff paintings in Finland as
evidence of territorial behavior by hunter-gatherers in response to demographic stress. The theoretical
approach is one in which the distribution and function of the cliff painting sites is the focus, a departure
from the traditional emphasis on the interpretation of images. Whereas mobile art tends to be found in
low-density communities, the prevalence of parietal art increases in aggregated community areas with
higher population densities, where there is more competition for resources and more need to enforce
social and spatial boundaries. The art legitimizes a group’s territorial rights to property and resources, and
communicates the territorial boundaries clear to other groups. Spatial analysis is used in this study to
identify the cliff painting sites which are situated in more densely or more sparsely populated areas,
shedding light on how territorial boundaries reflect and communicate neolithization and increasing social
complexity.
Fragmentation and Ruin: Archaeological Sensibility within the Art Museum Storeroom
Speaker: Dorian Knight
On November 28th 2008, British writer Angelica Garnett donated a collection of approximately 8000 works
on paper and canvas to The Charleston Trust. This archive that makes up what is now termed ‘the Angelica
Garnett Gift’ is astonishing in scope, comprising sketches, sketchbooks, designs and paintings that
document the artistic careers and private lives of renowned Bloomsbury artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa
Bell. The paper will focus on how an archive of art can be ‘performed’ through the application of
archaeological methodologies and processes as a means of shedding new light on this unique collection.
This paper can be understood as part of several recent trends within archaeological theory. This includes
archaeology of the recent past that explores current cultural spaces and cultural practices. This is with the
aim, as noted by Rodney Harrison, ‘to make the familiar past “unfamiliar” by exploring its hidden, forgotten
and abject qualities and utilizing the powerful rhetoric of archaeological discovery in the retrieval of recent
memories through the study of present-day material culture.’ Likewise within recent years, scholars have
stressed the current intimacy between art and archaeology; for example, the recent collaborative volume
edited by Ian Russell and Andrew Cochrane explores the parallel vision of ‘artists as makers of new worlds
and archaeologists as makers of past worlds’
In particular, I will focus on the aesthetics of archaeological middens and rubbish piles as a means of
exploring the active engagement with the materiality of objects that defines the artistic practices of Bell
and Grant.
Bronze Age metalcraft, craftspeople and analytical workshops: an interdisciplinary approach to
investigate craft
Speaker: Heide W. Nørgaard
The debates surrounding the identification of craftspeople, craft-working areas and craft traditions have
dominated the scholarship of prehistoric material culture in Europe for over a century. Here, research has
47
focused upon one or two approaches towards the objects as for example within a typo-chronological
approach or a pure technical.
Within this analysis an exceptionally wide range of approaches was used to identify the craftsman and
his/her area of influence within the material culture of the Nordic Bronze Age. Through a composite of
analyses (identification and documentation of tool marks and production traces by high-resolution
photography, metallography, experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology) and a detailed evaluation
of these traces (on the basis of sociological, psychological and archaeological craft theory studies) a novelty
in North European Bronze Age research has been created.
The outcome is a detailed characterization of the metal craft of the Nordic Bronze Age (1500-1100BC).
Detailed operational sequences of the manufacturing and decoration allowed to identify individual
craftspeople and analytical workshops without necessarily having to determine the actual location of
production activities in settlements. The analysis draws up an image of a significantly more diverse
technical repertoire than previously presented in the literature.
Understanding the relationships between modern and pre-Columbian Maya Agriculture.
Examples from the Southern Chiapas and the Southern Guatemala
Speaker: Michał Gilewski
The presentation discusses the agricultural practices of the indigenous population of the Southern
Guatemala and the Southern Chiapas. These groups are known for great diversity and sophistication in
modern agricultural practices. Little is known about this in regard to past societies of the region.
The complexity of these practices and their relation with pre-Columbian religion and ideology provides new
possible perspectives for archaeological research. Interpreting the remains of ancient Maya agriculture is
typically, a step in more or less general demographic modeling of past societies. The practices are
reconstructed by simple back-casting ethnographic and geographic observations into past despite
anthropological research suggests that in the post-conquest periods the earlier mentioned societies were
subject to extensive transformations. Only certain cultural continuities seem to have existed.
The paper examines the possibility of using archaeological information to understand the history of
traditional agricultural knowledge and practice. What can be also subjected to scrutiny is agriculture’s role
in shaping individual experience and thinking, as well as collective beliefs and ideologies. I suggest that
future studies of ancient Maya agriculture may advance the understanding of ancient cognitive processes
and traditional agriculture and contribute to development studies. Agriculture should also be considered a
part of intangible cultural heritage.
Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Archaeology: Juxtaposition or Fusion?
Speaker: John S. Henderson
Archaeological research that makes use of theoretical perspectives and analytical methods drawn from
different disciplines is not a novelty. During the last several decades, research in this mode has increased in
frequency and the representation of multiple disciplines has become almost a sine qua non of creative
research design. For the most part, such research has been cross-disciplinary or multidisciplinary in that it
has made use of perspectives and methods grounded in many fields to contribute to agendas defined solely
by archaeology. In contrast, archaeological projects in which the goals of the research involved the
48
perspectives of fields other than archaeology and in which the research was designed to contribute to the
research agendas of those fields are rare. Truly interdisciplinary archaeological research should incorporate
other theoretical frameworks and questions in a way that gives equal weight to archaeological and nonarchaeological perspectives. This paper characterizes this kind of interdisciplinary research by examining
the uses of questions, perspectives, and methods drawn from fields other than archaeology in research
projects in several parts of the world, with particular focus on the lower Ulúa valley region of Honduras. It
explores the potential of this kind of research to transcend conventional disciplinary boundaries and to
contribute to other disciplines as well as to archaeology.
Practice makes perfect – advancing historical ecology in the Arctic
Speaker: Frigga Kruse
Arctic fieldwork presents researchers with considerable environmental and organizational challenges.
Whilst multidisciplinary approaches go a long way in addressing theoretical and thematic issues,
interdisciplinarity is often a practical matter of pooling intellectual and financial resources to maximize
methodological, analytical, and interpretative efforts. Yet, practicing interdisciplinarity takes practice: how
can it be achieved?
The 4th International Polar Year (2007-8) was the first of its kind to embrace the social sciences, including
archaeology, in an attempt to build bridges between the polar disciplines. Since then, the author has
completed a multidisciplinary project on the industrial archaeology of Spitsbergen (Svalbard) and is
currently multidisciplinarily investigating 400 years of natural-resource exploitation on the Arctic
archipelago. In 2014, she participated in a naval and scientific expedition to Jan Mayen, which exposed
many organizational difficulties whilst giving important insights into other scientific agendas. In 2015, she
will take part in a scientific expedition to Edgeøya, which will provide an opportunity for interdisciplinary
sampling and analysis in search for the human impact on Arctic palaeoecosystems. Many valuable lessons
have already been learned, and the potential for polar historical archaeology is growing, even if other
disciplines do not yet stop to think what archaeology can do for them. The author imagines they will
nonetheless welcome an ecological baseline at the time of human arrival in Svalbard.
Multidisciplinary, undisciplined and interdisciplinary experiences from the High Arctic
Speaker: Jens Fog Jensen
I will discuss and compare interdisciplinary experiences from two projects: 1) ‘The Expedition to the end of
The world’ (http://expeditionthemovie.dk/dk/) a film/science/art disemmation focused project from 2011
and 2) Now, the North water project (http://now.ku.dk/) entangling biology anthropology and archaeology
in a synthesis on the resources and whereabouts of human beings around the North Water polynya in
Northwest Greenland. I will focus on specific experiences to exemplify some of the evergreen issues of
making sense in ‘interdisciplinary spaces’: object vs. subject, disciplinary vs. undisciplined. Along this
discussion I will draw parallels to historical examples of inter- and multidisciplinary exploration of the
Arctic, and round up with more mundane issues of loss of control and power and last but not least the
organization of universities and research institutions and their associated financial pipelines.
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The Future of Searching for the Origins – theoretical implications and challenges in
archaeology
Organizers: Asta Mønsted, University of Copenhagen ([email protected]), Ann Sølvia Lydersen
Jacobsen, University of Aberdeen ([email protected]), Rannvá Sørensen
([email protected]) & Poul Erik Lindelof ([email protected])
The initial introduction to the sessions, and the first session will be held by one of the members from NAAG
Asta Mønsted. As part of the session an excursion will be held in the Ethnographic collection at the National
Museum, where there will be opportunity for discussion. Participants will have to sign-up for the excursion.
Our aim is to discuss the way archaeology address questions of origins, the often implicit discourses that
set the framework for how we approach origins, and why we are somewhat obsessed with origins. What is
meant by the term “to originate”? What is original? In our search for origins, how do we prioritise? Why do
we feel a need to search for the origins of cultures?
Theoretical issues that could have relevance for this session:
1) What are the theoretical qualifications and implications for identifying “the native“?
2) What meaning lies in the term ‘origin’? And who has the right to determine the origin of cultures?
3) What is the relation between the written/oral sources and the archaeological evidence?
4) Has the search for origins changed and in which direction is it heading?
5) What are the political aspects of archaeological origins? How is and will archaeological research be used
in nation building? Can the political implications in archaeological studies be ignored?
ABSTRACTS
Thinking about origin in archaeology and heritage management. Borders and boundaries in a
pluralistic society
Speaker: Anders Högberg, Linnaeus University ([email protected])
The last 10 years have seen an increasing awareness within archaeology and the heritage sector on
questions on identity and heritage as a political issue within a pluralistic society. This has of course
influenced the way these professions addresses and works with these issues. Central in this work is how
origin is understood.
In a recently conducted study I have analyzed how Swedish archaeology and the heritage sector has
worked with issues on origin, identity and heritage management in a multicultural plural society over ten
years (2002-2012).
Based on results from this study I will discuss how these professions understand, deals with and work with
heritage as a definition of origin: How is cultural identity understood in relation to heritage and
multiculturalism? How is an understanding of the dynamics between the local, regional, national and supranational demonstrated when contemporary boarders and boundaries are putted into question by various
processes of globalization?
By comparing results from the Swedish case-study with global questions on heritage and identity I
will draw conclusions on issues on heritage politics, practices and narratives which crystallize as
urgent for archaeology and the heritage sector, and suggest a way to theoretical re-think origin
within the praxis of heritage management.
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The Origin of the Inuit Indigeneity
Speaker: Asta Mønsted, Copenhagen University
As Inuits of the Arctic, the people of Greenland are an indigenous peoples. Indigeneity is highly dependent
on the term of origin – but how is origin to be understood, and why has it been (and still is) so interesting to
discuss? In this presentation the theoretical discussions will first and foremost be tied to Greenland and the
Greenlandic Inuits where from different perspectives of the term origin will be presented.
• Etymologically, how is 'origin' and 'originality' to be understood?
• How did ethnographers and archaeologists of the Arctics understand originality?
• Can archaeologists learn through other disciplines in the search of the origin of people of the past?
The presentation is linked to an optional visit for a limited number to two Arctic exhibitions at the National
Museum of Denmark where the presenter will demonstrate the theories in practice.
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Experimental Archaeology - theories behind practice
Eva Andersson Strand, University of Copenhagen ([email protected]) & Henriette Lyngstrøm,
University of Copenhagen ([email protected])
Practical experiments, or activities that would nowadays be called experimental archaeology, has a long
tradition in Scandinavia - almost as old as archaeology itself. But it was not until the 1960s and 1970s,
however, that a proper theoretical background for experiments was considered and developed. Through
the 1980s, 1990’s and 2000s, the focus changed in archaeology in general and new types of questions were
asked. And new questions were followed by new types of experiments. But has the theoretical background
for experiments changed? And what new theories, methodologies and perspectives might influence the
field in the future?
The main idea of this session is to provoke further theoretical debate within experimental archaeology. We
would like to discuss the theories behind the practice today and explore in which direction theories might
develop in the future.
We especially encourage MA and PhD students, as well as post-docs and younger scholars to participate
and to foster creative and wide-ranging debates.
ABSTRACTS
Tell me and I will forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I will understand – an
experimental archaeology as an education method
Speaker: Roksana Chowaniec, Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw, Poland
([email protected])
Psychologists distinguish two types of knowledge: declarative and procedural knowledge and the
archaeologists trust that during a ‘learning by archaeological experiments’, a public obtains both kinds of
knowledge; however, it seems to us, that the practical one dominates. To follow the best know practices in
didactic field, it has been known for some time already that the best learning comes from empiricism – that
is experience, thanks to which information is remembered and absorbed much better. As Cicero put it,
Experience is the best teacher, so as an education method experience allows faster acquisition of the
presented information; gives an opportunity to touch the past in an unconventional way and stirs up
further interest in history and archaeology. And at first glance, a comparison of different education
methods strongly verifies the experimental archaeology as one of the most promising and effective means
of bringing results of archaeological research. However, if we have a closer look at it from a scientific and
pedagogical standpoint, matters no longer seems so obvious.
Experiencing or Experimenting - bridging the Gab between Enthusiasts and Scholars
Speaker: Claus Sørensen, Østfyns Museer
The military aspects of history are to be considered among modern times most popular themes, generating
a huge interest from the public. Re-enactment events, cultural mediation (demonstration in a museum or
institution context) demonstrations draw more and more attention and have become common
everywhere.
In the last few decades, amateur study groups have started to appear all over the world – focusing on recreating the lost European martial arts. Many of these groups focus on a “hands on” approach, thus
bringing practical experience and observation to enlighten their interpretation of the source material.
However, most of the time, they do not establish inquiries based on scientific research, nor do they follow
methodologies that allow for a critical analyses of the findings or observations. Doing such is a complicated
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object of research, since it consists of a lost embodied knowledge that is hardly traceable in written or
figured documents, nor directly found in the related material culture. This paper will therefore proposes
and discuss ideas on how to bridge the gap between enthusiasts and scholars, since the value of their
embodied knowledge, acquired by practice, is of tremendous value for scientific inquiries and scientific
experimentation. It will also address such practices in the context of modern day acceptance of
experimental (or experiential) processes and their value for research purposes or restoration of an
historical praxis. The goal is therefore to sketch relevant methodological and theoretical elements suitable
for a multidisciplinary approach to these studies.
The relational experiment
Speaker: Rune MG. Pommer, University of Copenhagen ([email protected])
In experimental archaeology today, you have three different kinds of approaches. The controlled
experiment, which has its roots in the processuel archaeology, the contextual experiment, which has its
basis in the post-processuel archaeology and the phenomenological experiment, which arose from
phenomenology. The different experiments concentrate on different aspects of the archaeological
problems, but by doing so, they are limiting themselves. In this paper I will present a new approach to the
archaeological experiment, by combining the main aspects from each of the three previous archaeological
experimental approaches. By combining the main aspects, materiality from the controlled experiment,
functionality from the contextual experiment and effects from the phenomenological experiment, into a
single model, I will be able to approach all of the same archaeological problems, but without the
experiment loses its attachment to the archaeological objects or reflective results which enable us to
approach more complex questions. The object will get its meaning in a network of relations, why I believe
that it is relations between the three aspects, materiality, functionality and the effect that we will find our
results in the archaeological experiment.
Testing ancient textile tools in Southern Etruria (Central Italy).Experimental archaeology vs.
experience of archaeology
Speaker: Romina Laurito ([email protected])
The debate on the experimental archaeology versus the experience of archaeology is quite heated and
living in Italy. Experience of archaeology, storytelling and historical re-enactment are the latest trends.
Experts and non-expert enthusiasts are often involved in experimental activities as well as in experience of
archaeology and re-enacting. This is creating confusion and treating everything in the same way.
My paper is part of this panel discussion. It will be divided in two parts. I will start the paper with the recent
practical experiments carried out at La Sapienza University of Rome in collaboration with the National
Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome to understand the function of some pre-Etruscan and Etruscan
textile tools (10th-5th century BCE). The focus will be our adopted theoretical approach.
The second part will be dedicated to the experiences of archaeology, as a mean to disseminate and
communicate knowledge. The recent experiences/events held at the Villa Giulia Museum will be used as
examples.
Experimental approach to ergonomics of textile production – prospects and limitations
Speaker: Agata Ulanowska, Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw, Poland
([email protected])
Experimental archaeology has been recently acknowledged as a valuable and explanatory tool in the
research on prehistoric textile production. The three main approaches to archaeological experimenting,
such as: replication/reconstruction of preserved textiles and cloths, explaining production methods and
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reconstructing all consecutive steps of the chaîne opératoire of textile manufacturing and, finally, analyzing
the functionality of textile tools are commonly applied. Tests examining physico-chemical processes, such
as wear marks on textiles or decomposition of fabrics in the soil may be added as a fourth, purely scientific
and laboratory controlled approach.
In my research on the textile production in the Bronze Age Greece I use experimental archaeology yet as a
didactic tool, performing series of documented weaving tests of exploratory/experiential character with
students of the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw.
My paper will focus on the archaeological experiments as possible instruments for the explanation of social
aspects of past textile production with their obvious limitations resulting from the archaeological evidence.
Specifically the question of the ergonomics of work will be issued in terms of its organization, time,
engagement inputs, as well as its communality, comfort and possible pleasantness.
Textile production in prehistoric Greece: how can we use experimental archaeology?
Speaker: Małgorzata Siennicka, The Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Textile Research
SAXO Institute, University of Copenhagen ([email protected])
Experimental archaeology has a long tradition, and it has recently become an important and even
inevitable tool in the study of prehistoric textile production. This is true especially in those cases where
textiles are hardly ever preserved because of disadvantageous conditions of preservation, e.g. in prehistoric
Greece. For archaeologists working with textile tools like spindle whorls and loom weights, or analysing
imprints of textiles, mats and baskets in clay, the results of experimental tests are crucial for a better
comprehension of the whole process of textile production, from preparing fibre for spinning, through
spinning with spindle whorls, weaving with various types of looms, to using textiles and cloths. While using
a range of available experimental tests performed by experienced archaeologists, textile technicians, or
other experts, we occasionally find ourselves facing a problem of contradictory results, opinions, and
conclusions regarding the methods, the execution of the experiments and, in general, the production of
prehistoric textiles. Therefore, we must ask ourselves what exactly we expect from experimental
archaeology – in this case in the field of textile production – and what questions we should ask to receive
answers appropriate for our studies. New theories and methodologies, and especially the rapidly increasing
knowledge of ancient textile techniques and production, add significantly both to new textile experiments
and to our understanding of the crucial prehistoric craft of fabric making. In this paper various results of
experimental tests will be discussed with respect to textile production in Bronze Age Greece.
Baltic dress in Late Iron Age – assumptions, experiments and practice
Speaker: Santa Jansone
The role of dress is one of the most important as it holds a lot of information about its wearer. In historic
and ethnographic literature dress has long been recognized as an indicator of group affinity. Within the
group, dress is one of the most important ways to indicate the rank or status of the wearer. There are a lot
of information out there on Baltic dress, but not all can be regarded reliable.
The aim of this paper is to compare some of scientific reconstructions with the available knowledge from
graves and analyse how they can be compared and what are biggest flaws during doing this. Which
assumptions and maybe even prejudices can influence such conclusions. Also some of the practical
experience while wearing different reconstructions has been analysed and demonstrated (by means of
photos). Included in paper is also poll results on practical aspects collected from different people, while
wearing different reconstructions- in some case even different reconstructions of one costume.
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The sound of Archaeology – Atmospheric experiments
Speaker: Nickie Kühnel ([email protected])
A few years ago I performed an experiment, a reconstruction of the earliest form of the
bowed lyre. It was a classical experiment. I collected all the important data, made typologies,
examined its history and observed which archaeological remains were left. It was next
to none. Music instruments actually rarely have any archaeologically evidence to speak of. In spite of this;
instruments are reconstructed from all time periods for various reasons. In experimental archaeology it is
important to disseminate what we find, but how do we disseminate a group such as music instruments?
The problem is not showing how it looked like, or how it was made, or which tools were used for it.
Well, maybe it is. Though the true problem is the sound of it. How did an instrument sound in the past?
Music is something, which is as varying as the form of jewellery through time, except
music isn’t visible. It is a cultural phenomenon, an object of atmosphere. But how can we experiment or
disseminate such? Maybe this will acquire a whole new sort experiment, experiments of atmosphere or
cultural phenomenon. Can we experiment upon something as diffuse as this? And how would it be
done? And what could we expect to gain from this?
The next 30 years in experimental archaeology - towards an experimental forensic archaeology
Speaker: Jonas Holm Jæger, University of Copenhagen ([email protected])
Traditionally, experimental archaeology has sought to answer questions about our past, such as why we
built longhouses like we did and what it was like to live in them, how we made our pottery and clothes, or
how a specific tool was used. As archaeology is ever evolving, and more than ever, bridging the gap
between humanities and the natural sciences, experimental archaeology should follow suit.
For the past few decades, archaeologists have more and more often aided in the investigation of war
crimes, through the excavation and registration of mass graves. This has led to the establishment of
forensic archaeology as an archaeological sub-discipline. Even so, the use of experimental archaeology in
this discipline is almost completely absent in the literature. Through experimentation, there is a huge
potential to study taphonomy and formation processes as well as improving excavation methodologies.
Therefore, I would like to discuss, how and why experimental archaeology might prove very useful in a nontraditional archaeological setting.
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Nordic Heritage Studies - THE NEXT 30 YEARS
Organizer: Andreas Bonde Hansen, Museum Vestsjælland/ University of Copenhagen
([email protected])
It has been thirty years since David Lowenthal launched The Past Is a Foreign Country (1985) and Heritage
Studies, as we know it today, became a reality. Heritage Studies has widely been an archaeological
phenomenon in Northern Europe and Nordic archaeologists has influenced heritage theory and practice
around the world.
The Heritage studies paradigm has been dominated by post-colonial critique, new museology and social
constructivism. Moreover, terms like sustainability, inclusive heritage and negotiation has been key
subjects the heritage discussion. Most of these terms and theories are widely a product of the heritage
practice discussion as it looked a generation ago.
In this session, we ask whether this paradigm will remain or what movements will replace it. Furthermore,
we wish to discuss the archaeological influence on heritage mediation and utilisation in the nearest future.
Thus, this session will contain discussions on tourism, didactics, heritage politics, etc.
We aim to cover a full day session. Presenters will have 15 minutes for their presentation. In relation, there
will be 10 minutes discussion with a selected opponent, after each presentation.
ABSTRACTS
«Things are Back! Beyond Critical Heritage Discourse, a Reactionary View»
Speaker: Brit Solli, NTNU University museum, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim
The ‘linguistic turn’ in humanities and social sciences has had a huge impact on both archaeology and
heritage studies since ca 1980. Self-proclaimed “Critical Heritage Studies” proposes “an active move away
from site – and artefact-based definitions of heritage…”.
Statements like “all heritage is intangible heritage” and “anything can become meaningful heritage”, and,
furthermore, that “heritage must be created from ‘below’” have been popular in academic heritage studies
during the last 20 years.
A critique is raised both against the anti-essentialist view that heritage always is socially constructed and
that heritage always must be created from below.
The role and relevance of archaeology
Media discourses, archaeological potential and utilization
Speaker: Anette Kjærulf Andersen, Danish Agency for Culture
The perception of archaeology in society, as reflected in the media discourses, is key to understanding what
archaeology is and can be. Often public discourses concerning archaeology are underestimated by
archaeologists. Our academic insights cause us to discredit newspaper articles about archaeological
discoveries. To the majority of the population the discourses represented in the newspapers is the truth
about archaeology. Discourses construct truths. Using critical discourse analysis on newspaper articles it is
possible to deconstruct the discourses. On the basis of articles from an entire year from five Danish
newspapers a number of interesting things was learned about the perception of archaeology, excavations
and the archaeological heritage; about the public interest in archaeology; and about how the purpose of
archeology is being represented. On this basis we can begin to discuss the potential of archaeology in
modern-day society, and how we can utilize that potential.
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The New Heritage: a Missing Link Between Archaeology and Society?
Speaker: Johanna Enqvist, University of Helsinki/Doctoral Programme for History and Cultural
Heritage/Archaeology FINLAND
The redefinition and re-theorisation of ‘heritage’ is one of the main objectives of the emerging discipline of
critical heritage studies. The criticism of the conventional conceptions and the institutional framework
reproducing them also concerns the process of defining heritage. The claimed exclusion in this process
applies not merely to indigenous people and other minorities, but to all local communities or members of
society who have been left out of the evaluation and decision-making concerning environments, places or
objects meaningful to them. Critical examination of authorised conceptions and ideologies in the
intersecting fields of heritage management and academic archaeology could advance the rethinking of
archaeology’s role in the heritage process, or in society for that matter. A ‘democratisation’ of heritage,
that is, insights into community participation and social inclusion, the New Heritage, could establish a link
between archaeology and the well-being of people. This requires the concepts of heritage, archaeology and
heritage management to be distinguished and understood as key elements of self-contained but
overlapping realms, which can be analysed by conceptualising them as discourses. Endorsing participatory
approaches and open access to knowledge about heritage is another important aspect of furthering the
emergence of pluralist, multivoiced and inclusive understandings of heritage.
What heritage consumers don’t know they want
Sub-consciousness and mentalities in heritage tourism
Speaker: Andreas Bonde Hansen, Museum Vestsjælland/University of Copenhagen
All over the world, the commercial potential of heritage and archaeology, has gained increased attention
within the past three decades. This, both in practice and in research – especially in the context of postindustrial regional development. In this field, archaeology emerges with visitor studies, tourism studies and
museology. This movement in heritage studies attracts much attention at the moment. In Nordic countries,
not all regions are equally success full when it comes to the utilization of heritage. In Denmark, for
example, regional efforts on increased heritage industry tend to fail, where e.g. Sweden tend to be more
success full. For the Danish case, the described situation is very problematic since heritage in some regions
are considered the main resource of development. The reason for the Danish failure could be found in the
field methods. These tend to suffer from lack of data critique and interpretation. Thus, the sub-conscious
aspects of the types of experiences the heritage tourists requests, are never detected. Moreover, the
heritage tourism discourse in Denmark tend to have very little focus on the perception of the specific
material objects. Thus, the very specific attributes and narratives, and how these touches the mentalities of
tourism masses, has been neglected. This presentation argues that a shift from mediation oriented studies
towards atmosphere and history culture can benefit the heritage tourism development, and explain why it
is still the rather ‘traditional’ monuments, which are the most visited in Europe. In relation, this
presentation suggests a shift from an Anglo-Saxon inspired paradigm to a more continental paradigm,
where emotions linked to specific material objects is favored upon meta-pedagogics and non-critical visitor
studies. Furthermore, the presentation wishes to draw attention to ‘best practice’ examples from Sweden
and Germany, and exemplify how these can be used in future reflections.
Why do so many talk about history but so few about the future?
Speaker: Anders Högberg, Linnaeus University
Heritage management is a futuristic practice motivated by the desire to preserve the remains of the past
for the benefit of future generations. It is based on a conservation ethos; the assumption that future
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generations will value what we leave for them, so that we effectively will become ‘good ancestors for
future generations’.
Policy documents justifying the conservation ethos expresses core values in phrases like ‘preservation for
posterity’, ‘hand on to future generations’ and ‘stewardship for tomorrow’s generations’. Archaeological
heritage according to the conservation ethos is said to consist of valuable, original sites of the past that
must be preserved so that future generations can study and enjoy them, too.
But, there has never been much substantive critical discussion within heritage studies on what we can
know about the future heritage we are creating, trying to understand critically or are managing. Which
future generations are actually addressed? Will these future generations benefit from our caretaking of
heritage? Ironically, a critical understanding of heritage within current theoretical debates usually considers
the past and/or the present, although its practice mainly affects the future. What can we know about the
meaning, value and uses of heritage in the future and to what extent are the assumptions about the future
existing in heritage management realistic?
In this paper, I will address the notion of future consciousness within heritage studies and management and
propose a re-thought conservation ethos as a suggestion for the future.
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Technologies of Disposal: The archaeology of waste, burial and removal
Organizers: Vivi Lena Andersen, University of Copenhagen & Tim Flohr Sørensen, University of Copenhagen
([email protected])
Archaeological and anthropological studies of disposal have focused widely on disposal in terms of the
object being removed as defining notions of waste, excess, dirt, discard, pollution, refuse, ruin or ‘matter
out of place’, as famously phrased by Mary Douglas. However, it may be suggested that it is not necessarily
so much the classification of particular forms of anomalous matter that define waste, but maybe instead
the practices circumscribing acts of abandoning or removing stuff. As such, disposal is a technology for
allowing objects (whether human or non-human) to pass from one state of being to another, centred on
qualities of transformation, transition and transience. This session invites papers addressing technologies of
disposal by exploring the interstice between ‘ordinary object’ and ‘discard’, or the borderline processes
that occur before an object is turned into waste. And just as importantly, we are interested in papers
discussing places of disposal as cultural sites: what kinds of capital and contingency are nested in
repositories for suspended or discarded matter?
ABSTRACTS
From Foot to Moat: The biography of knitted stockings
Speaker: Charlotte Rimstad, University of Copenhagen ([email protected])
Archaeological excavations at the City Hall Square of Copenhagen have lately unearthed several knitted
stockings from the 17th C moat fills. The stockings are made of either wool or silk and although most are
fragmented, their fascinating biography is still accessible. The lives of the stockings can be followed from
production to use, reuse, repair and final discard in the moat, and the continuous appreciation of the
stockings’ – perhaps changing – owner is apparent all the way. Thus, some of the stockings have clear signs
of mending and repair, but others interestingly show very little wear. This paper deals with the question of
why some objects were suitable for reuse, while others apparently quickly passed from the state of
appreciation to the state of elimination – in spite of their seemingly good condition. How were stockings
used, how often did they change owner and why? How worn were the stockings, before they were turned
into garbage? And were there different rules of discard for different types of stocking? What fashion
statements had an impact on 17th century Copenhagen when it comes to hosiery?
Disposal of Rubbish in Medieval Tartu: Deposition, data and practises
Speaker: Arvi Haak, Tallinn University ([email protected])
Among the archaeological research in the medieval town of Tartu, Estonia, investigations of underground
wooden constructions for waste management (usually termed cess pits) hold a central place. The main
focus of research has been on the various (largely) intact finds from these constructions, in addition, data
on organising everyday life (or the unpleasant part of it) has been derived. The presentation aims to go
beyond the defining phase and discuss two main issues. Firstly, what practises were connected to the
formation, deposition and removal of the substance understood as waste in the medieval town and how
did such practices develop? Secondly, how exactly is the identity of the discarded objects transformed in
the process of waste deposition and what can be obtained regarding the processes of remembrance and
forgetting from analysing the data from these objects?
In addition to the theory of practice and garbage theory, the ideas proposed by Garrow (2012) and Jervis
(2014) in their contribution to Archaeological Dialogues will be utilised. The Tartu case will be tested in
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regard to the formation of the archaeological deposits, in order to cross check the data on processes of
interaction with waste to those derived from analysis of data from the surrounding area.
Pits and Pitfalls: Approaching disposal in the past
Speaker: Inga Merkyte, University of Copenhagen ([email protected])
Waste as an archaeological category has been widely used and abused due to its commonsense appeal. Still
nobody disputes that disposed matters are holding important keys to understanding life ways, in the past
as today (cf. the famous studies by Bill Rathje). I suggest perceiving waste in the broadest sense of the
term, i.e. as objects placed beyond domains of common use, regardless whether they are bi-products or
end-products of human action. Admittedly, I also wish to embrace the difficult category of ritual
depositions falling into a borderline zone with additional pitfalls. Thus it becomes highly relevant to discuss
the character, range and functioning of the technologies of disposal. While in general subscribing to M.
Thomson’s subdivision of cultural objects into the transient, durable, and rubbish (1979), I wish to
strengthen the interpretative toolkit by illuminating several other neglected variables, such as the issue of
ownership and ways of expressing the latter through commitment to the environment and to other people,
in addition to acknowledging the significance of memories nested in spatial affiliations of the people.
Inspiration derives from own ethno-archaeological research in Bénin, West Africa juxtaposed by case
studies from the Prehistory of Denmark, fortified by novel micro-archaeological studies.
Simple Waste or Ritualised Place? Reassessing South Scandinavian Mesolithic refuse areas and
kitchen middens
Speaker: Mathias Paul Bjørnevad Jensen, Aarhus University ([email protected])
In much of South Scandinavian Mesolithic research, refuse areas and middens have traditionally been
viewed largely as areas of simple waste disposal of domestic refuse. However, on the premise that
ritualised actions can be understood and identified as repeated, structured performative events, that may
have a functional value but surpass what is purely utilitarian, this paper seeks to reassess the perception of
these refuse areas and kitchen middens as highly ritualised culturally constructed locations. The ritualised
nature of these refuse areas can be identified by the repeated deposition of particular cultural remains
often in a highly structured manner. These ritualised depositions include not only the deposition of ‘special’
objects, as well as more mundane objects that have been placed in unusual positions or careful
arrangements and even hoards of flint and antler objects. By reinterpreting the evidence from a number of
South Scandinavian Mesolithic sites, this paper seeks to reassess our prior preconceptions of Mesolithic
refuse areas and kitchen middens as ritualised socially constructed contexts not as banal bi-products of
everyday life.
An Urban Space Out of Place: Uncovering a landfill in 18th-century Copenhagen
Speaker: Vivi Lena Andersen, Museum of Copenhagen and University of Copenhagen ([email protected])
After the discovery of an 18th-century landfill in Copenhagen in 2003, about 30 archaeological surveys have
been conducted in the same district. Not only due to the archaeological interest, but because many
buildings were in urgent need of new foundations - a decay linked to the past below ground. This district,
Frederiksstaden, is now known for its prominent mansions and the home of the Danish royal family, but its
former function as a landfill is rarely mentioned in the stories about the area. The existing sources show
that the tendency of “forgetting” this urban space of waste was also applicable in the 18 th century. From
studying the archaeological findings as well the geotechnical, written, cartographic, iconographic and
natural-scientific sources a nuanced understanding of the landfill and the waste management system is
reached. This paper will argue that the need for this landfill and waste management regulations seem to be
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connected to the development of a permanent settlement, the system of matriculation and ownership as
well as population growth, which include the fear of disease. Getting the citizens to adapt to the new
system was a long and challenging process including struggles between the legislative authorities and the
inhabitants of the city, which theoretically can be related to Douglas´ wording “matter out of place” (1966)
as well as the dynamic and relational dimension of Thompson´s Rubbish Theory (1979).
Between the Body and the Place: The practices that allow changes in processing the materiality
of the dead
Speaker: Sian Anthony, Lund University ([email protected])
In the late 18th century a new concept of landscape and natural environment was created which separated
them from human social life. The establishment of new cemeteries outside of urban communities played a
material role in this concept by expressing this separation and enforcing the division between modern life
and natural death. In their new location the new cemeteries contained death within their boundaries
enabling the processes of decay and breaking up of the connection between the body and the identity of
the dead. They also provided a place for the practices enacted by gravediggers where bodies could be
manipulated and redeposited and produce unknown bones. The cemetery was a mechanism, through its
planning and regulations, creating a controlled, modern and static view of death. However these processes
are in stark contrast to the contemporary public perception of cemeteries as places of suspended material,
where the body is concealed and timeless below the ground. The role of the urban cemetery has altered
over time; they are no longer separated from society but within them. Between the bodies and the place
are the processes and practices which create a constantly evolving framework for dealing with death in the
social world.
Wrack Zone Archaeology: The heritage of stranded things
Speaker: Þóra Pétursdóttir, University of Tromsø ([email protected]])
The wrack zone refers the shelf/shelves just above the part of the shore that slopes down toward the
water, where high tide and winter storms deposit layer by layer of kelp, driftwood, things and debris.
Childhood memories from days on the beach often recall wondrous archaeological explorations in such
exotic zones, digging through slimy or shrivelled piles to encounter strange things washed ashore from far
away places; fishing nets, bottles and plastic containers, glass balls, rubber boots, sandals, and more.
Nostalgia set aside, or rationalized, however, it is today as likely that most will think in terms of pollution
and ecological threat when recalling or indeed encountering these exotic zones, as it is unlikely to think in
terms of (cultural) heritage or resources in this relation.
This paper will discuss a recently started project focused on the archaeology and heritage of wrack zones
and stranded things along the shores of Iceland. Here, wrack zone utilization and “resource management”
reach back to the settlement period while contemporary attitudes to stranded material (and indeed the
material itself) are changing. With foothold in these hybrid assemblages, and with inspiration from various
new materialisms, the project addresses the tensions between resource and waste and further explores
how these hyperobjects (Morton 2013), gathering on the verge of the human realm, may envision/recall
alternative forms of heritage, ecology and human-thing relations.
Ruins in the Age of Oil: The abandoned villages of Northern Qatar
Speaker: Marc Adam Fenchel, University of Copenhagen ([email protected] )
This presentation invites the audience to venture through the ruins of recently abandoned village
settlements found throughout the inland deserts, coastal stretches, and urban zones in northern Qatar. The
primary goal of this paper is to present documentation for the archaeological processes involved in
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destructive transformations of traditional Qatari village architecture through phases of habitation,
abandonment and reuse. This research strategy, on the one hand entails the classification of the various
types and tempi of decay, collapse and burial of architectural spaces recorded at the Qatari villages. On the
other hand, this study also seeks to explore the ghostly afterlife often associated with ruins and abandoned
spaces which may assist in the conveyance of alternative narratives and memories of historical change and
ruptures during the age of oil in Qatar. Through the select cases-studies, this paper particularly seek to
contribute with methodological and theoretical considerations on the empirical and conceptual study of
abandonment, ruins and ruination in a recent and contemporary historical context.
Keeping Up Disappearances: Acts of removal in marginal Denmark
Speaker: Tim Flohr Sørensen, University of Copenhagen ([email protected])
A number of rural areas in Denmark are currently subject to migrations and abandonment. As the
population thins out in these socio-economically marginal areas, homes, institutions and workplaces are
vacated, and left in various states of dilapidation. In order to combat the spur of rotting architecture,
municipalities and governmental agencies have initiated strategies to remove unwanted ruins by
supporting acts of demolition through economy and legislation. The legislative instance in particular serves
to transform the vacated buildings from ‘homes’, ‘houses’ and ‘architecture’ to ‘ruins’ and even more so
‘waste’. This paper discusses these technologies of dispossession, and it argues that the notion of waste as
‘matter out of place’ (Douglas 1966) needs to be complemented with a view of ruination as ‘matter out of
time’ (Grosz 2001, Yablon 2009), allowing us to understand technologies of disposal not simply as
instruments of categorisation, but equally as time technologies. Processes of ruination are reminders of an
autonomy of matter, the ability of things to move on their own, which challenges modernity’s regimes of
agency, dependence and chronology. As such, it will be argued that acts of dispossession in marginal
Denmark serve to create a community of seeming synchronicity.
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Conflict Archaeology and the Practice Approach
Organizer: Rolf W. Fabricius, Combat Archaeology ([email protected])
Conflict archaeology, as a distinct strand of archaeological research, is still in its earliest stages and, as such,
still in need of much refinement. In view of the multifaceted aspects of combat and the longstanding
and multi-generational social structures that underlie it, there are obviously many approaches that can be
employed in studying phenomena of conflict. One major concern for the progress of studies of conflict in
archaeology is the general attenuation of the practice of violence, entailing an examination of agency in
terms of how people act in the world, i.e. what they actually do, think and feel. When archaeological
studies have focused upon subjects of or related to violence or warfare, it is not uncommon for the main
area of debate to be restricted to such subjects as origins, social consequences, ceremonial aspects, social
stratigraphy and weaponry typologies and dispersion etc. Certainly, a rich and nuanced understanding of
the relationship between violence and society has been attained as a result of these investigations into the
diagnostic traces of violence and warfare; but the broad contextualization comes at a price of an
impoverished understanding of the practice itself. Regrettably, there has been little focus upon the
methods by which it was conducted and how it was conceived, of the reasons for military success and
failure. This session, therefore, aims at exploring how a practice approach towards understanding
archaeologies of conflict can contribute to the field. We invite papers which relate to studies of conflict and
employ clear theoretical frameworks in order to explore interpersonal violence through direct
consideration of how it is undertaken and understood. We welcome contributors discussing the theoretical
and philosophical treatments of this general approach as well as specific case studies that apply it.
ABSTRACTS
Weapons Burials and the performance of violence in Iron Age Britain
Speaker: Melanie Giles, University of Manchester
The weapons burials of Iron Age Britain have often been unproblematically seen as the graves of elite
warriors. Fraser (2005) questioned this assumption, arguing that these burials project the image of the
warrior in death, rather than representing any actual expertise or experience of violence, during life.
However, this ground-breaking study did not include a consideration of the human remains themselves, nor
the biography of associated weaponry. This paper critically evaluates the evidence for the entwined lifehistories of people and arms, set against a wider understanding of conflict and violence in Iron Age Britain.
In presenting the most recent examples of this rare phenomenon, it argues that whilst some individuals are
scarred by actual conflict, most represent the use of martial symbolism to create figures of power. It
situates this against the wider context of violence in Iron Age communities, arguing that we can distinguish
between regional variations in codes of combat and cultures of violence. Despite these differences, the
paper will suggest that this trope of bellicosity as a tool of power relied on memorable performances
constructed around the corpse, the weapons themselves, grave mound and landscape context. These
performances should therefore feature more strongly in our analysis and interpretation.
Understanding the performance and effect of 17th-century artillery: the Vasa 24-pounder
Speaker: Fred Hocker, Vasa Museum/Magdalene College, Cambridge
Although a great deal of scholarship has looked at the typology and development of early artillery, the
operational and performance dimensions of muzzle-loading guns have largely been the province of reenactors and shooting clubs. In 2014 the Vasa Museum carried out trials of a replica of the main armament
carried by Gustav II Adolf’s Vasa of 1628, a muzzle-loading bronze 24-pounder, a type which saw extensive
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use in the Thirty Years War. Unlike previous replica projects, the focus of the effort did not lie in creating a
spectacular demonstration for a television audience but on performance and operational data. An
extensive program of fire was carried out on a fully instrumented, modern proving ground to evaluate
range, accuracy, and effect, as well as ergonomic aspects, such as rate of fire and the effect on gun crew.
This included firing at an accurate replica of part of the side of the ship. The results provided some
surprising conclusions about the tactical possibilities of such artillery. This paper will focus on the
operational results of the project, especially ergonomics and human factors, and what it has told us about
practice in the conflicts of the 17th century.
Traces of war
Speaker: Rune Pommer, University of Copenhagen
Given the lack of written sources and the limited iconographic material, it can be rather puzzling to study
the combat techniques of prehistoric combatants. In examining this issue as part of a BA project, the author
analyzed 113 swords, or parts of swords, from the war booty sacrifices of Nydam and Vimose. To better
understand their combative function, it was found necessary to develop a method whereby use-wear
analyses could be related to specific actions.
By using an experimental approach, through which the direction of the impact on the blade could be
typologically determined, it was possible to relate the different types of use-wear and their placement on
the blade to specific actions, including both parries and attacks. The insights gained from this approach
provides a good basis from which inferences can be made into the use of the sword and its functionality in
combative encounters.
Towards an Archaeology of Boarding: Naval Hand-to-Hand Combat Tactics of Northwestern
Europe in the 16th Century
Speaker: Rolf W. Fabricius, Combat Archaeology/University of Copenhagen
Much research has been undertaken over the years to illuminate the use of naval power in European
warfare in the past; yet, there has been surprisingly little written on the subject of naval boarding and
hand-to-hand fighting tactics at sea in general. Although a few brilliant exceptions touch upon this aspect of
naval warfare, it is evident that naval hand-to-hand combat has sunken into oblivion under the enormous
waves of literature on wind gage, cannon fire and lines-of-battles. The research presented in this paper is
an attempt to remedy that situation.
Focusing on archaeological and historical lines of evidence from the 16th century, the author explores the
extent to which warships of the period were specifically prepared for naval hand-to-hand combat and how
these practices were conducted in Denmark and England. The insights gained from a dialectic
archaeological-historical approach provide an unparalleled degree of micro-level detail regarding the
practice of naval hand-to-hand combat, revealing underlying tactical frameworks that involve complex and
comprehensive operational management of technology and soldiers. Moreover, being a cultural
performance – and not merely a pragmatic phenomenon contained within a social vacuum and devoid of a
social discursive history – the details uncovered in the investigation are at once reflective and instructive in
matters that can be ascribed to general macro-level categories, such as sociopolitical and economic
structures. The research underscores the significance of boarding in naval warfare and the need for further
studies into this aspect of naval warfare on both a micro and macro scale.
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Studies in Battlefield Archaeology: Theoretical, practical and methodological consideration in
connections with investigations of the Battle of Nyborg (1659)
Speaker: Jesper Olsen, Nyborg Slot
In the course of the last few years of investigations into the Battle of Nyborg (1659), certain key issues have
arisen regarding the pinpointing of the location of the battlefield and the events that took place on it. The
paper will present further considerations towards developing a more precise and systematic analysis of the
finds and a new method for interpreting the archaeological distribution maps based on, among other
things, analyses of the caliber of the bullets, their type, deformation etc. The objective is to be able to
provide a more detailed description and interpretation of the movement of the various army units as well
as the course of the battle as a whole based on the finds in relation to the written sources.
From the War from the Sea to the War on the Sea
Speaker: Francesco Tiboni, Aix-Marseille University
Notwithstanding the conventional position on the origins of naval warfare, there is much that suggests that
the dawn of war on the sea in the Mediterranean region must be placed in the Iron Age and not in the Late
Bronze Age. Even though some sea fights seem to have taken place prior to the Iron Age, the archaeological
and historical record suggests that the very first appearance of ships properly fitted to fight on the sea
should be dated to not prior to the 7th century BC. It is in particular the introduction of the ram, the main
naval weapon of the ancient navies, which signals the appearance of proper warships, a development
which, based on archaeological remains and iconographic evidence, can be attributed to an Etruscan king
of this period.
In this paper, starting from the analysis of iconographic evidences and ancient texts, the author examines
some of the key moments of the ancient naval history and, in particular, of naval warfare. Focusing on
these important episodes, both of the Late Bronze Age and of the Early Iron Age, the author discusses the
theory of the Etruscan origins of the ram, attempting to verify its link to the origin of the proper man-ofwar. Moreover, based on the proposed evolutionary development ancient Mediterranean ships, the study
presents a brief analysis of the evolution of the sea combat strategies between the Late Bronze Age and the
Early Iron Age Mediterranean, supported by iconographic evidence.
West goes East. East goes West. The Conflict at Sea 1713-1721 between Sweden and Russia
Speaker: Marcus Hjulhammar, University of Helsinki
In 1713 Finland, which until 1809 was a part of Sweden, and the island of Åland was occupied by Russia for
eight years. This period is known in Finland as Isoviha (1713-1721) which was a part of the Great Northern
War 1700-1721. Swedish and Russian historiography does not, of course, give a coherent picture of the
war. This ratio increases the maritime archaeological value in relation to written sources. The events have
also given rise to extensive folklore, something which is challenging to interpret in this context
(Hjulhammar 2014).The ambition of this project is to study and link together the archaeological physical
remnants from the war 1713-1721 in a West-East zone from Stockholm to Hogland in the Gulf of Finland.
The intention is to shed light on the war from mental and psychological aspects. The perspective opens up
for comparisons with contemporary historical research on general issues concerning war and people (see
for example Meinander 2009).
References:
Hjulhammar, Marcus (2014). Sotasaaliskaleerit Tukholmassa. I: Riilahden Taistelu 1714. Red. Ilkka Linnakko.
Helsingfors
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Meinander, Henrik (2009). Finland 1944. Krig, samhälle, känslolandskap. Helsingfors.
Contexts, Conflicts, Consequences
Speaker: Louise Ströbeck, Lund University
An introductory review of the study of violence and conflict in feminist and gender archaeology in the
twentieth and early twenty-first centuries reveals differentiated views on sex, gender, and body within
various feminist and gender perspectives. Attention will be drawn to the ways perspectives asserted
themselves and underlined their significance as alternatives to each other, and to traditional research of
conflict.
Still, dichotomies such as, enemy - allied, perpetrator - victim, male - female, survivor - casualty have been
recurrent themes in previous archaeological research of violence and conflict. Studies have paid little
attention to the contexts and consequences of hits and injuries in conflicts.
A case-study illustrates how perceptions of the glorious warrior, the adventurous retinue, and a fascination
over the many casualties from big battles in Roman Iron Age Scandinavia have steered scholars away from
investigations of fitness for fight and combat, and peoples’ differentiated exposure, vulnerability and
adaptability in conflict and on-going combat. Furthermore, perceptions have made us forget about the
bleeding wounds, fractured bones, scars, physical discomfort, and rehabilitation. A gender approach with
integrated analyses of the life-span of social human beings and their changing corporeal characteristics
studies these issues.
“Olof Larsson told me some fiddle-faddle about the Danes having made inroads into Småland...”
(King Erik XIV in his diary on October 31st, 1567)
Speaker: Claes Pettersson, Jönköpings Läns Museum
The Nordic Seven Years War, 1563 – 1570, has been described as the first modern war fought in
Scandinavia. It was a devastating conflict, with Danish and Swedish forces opposing each other on both
land and sea. A war aim for Denmark was to restore the Kalmar Union of 1397 and thus unite the Nordic
countries once more. Of greater importance, however, was the struggle for control of the Baltic trade
routes. In 1567, this drawn-out conflict had reached a stalemate. The Danish solution was to attack the
heartland of the Swedish realm - a swift strike that would force the enemy to surrender.
The Getaryggen 1567 project is following in the footsteps of this invading army. One of the battlefields has
been located and partially excavated, a site where local militia had to face professional Danish soldiers.
What tactics were used and how were the opposing forces armed? Could local peasants offer any real
resistance to the Landsknechts of the 1560s? And what might have happened to the numerous fallen, of
whom we have found no traces? Focus is also on the long-term consequences of the conflict. What
happened to a population and a region that found itself in harm’s way?
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Fortifications in Late Iron Age Northern Europe: an artefact of terminology or a
valid subject of research?
Organizer: Arjen Heijnis, Aarhus University ([email protected])
The purpose of this session is to address the problem of fortifications from a methodological perspective.
Many researchers in various Northern European environments have been studying what are commonly
known as ‘hillforts’, but with relatively little interaction between the different regions. Yet society in the
first millennium AD was characterized by long-distance contacts and distant references. Additionally,
because the professional archaeological world is highly integrated, we often use the same terminology to
describe a number of regional phenomena. Besides this common toolbox as archaeologists, we also
develop our own, local methods in dealing with these similarly-named features. How similar are our
research questions really, and how are our research methods different? How do these differences and
similarities allow us to contextualize our material in an international perspective? Can we speak of a single
‘hillfort phenomenon‘ when talking about Late Iron Age Northern Europe, or are we seeing a number of
independent traditions?
ABSTRACTS
Qualified guessing and empirical data: Hill forts in Norway
Speaker: Ingrid Ystgaard, Norwegian University of Technology and Science ([email protected])
In my paper I want to discuss the empirical background for hill fort research in Norway. How does the state
of the empirical material affect our research questions? How can we gain new knowledge about the hill
forts based on the state of the empirical material, and how can we avoid reproducing qualified guesses?
Very few and restricted archaeological excavations have been carried out in hill forts in Norway, and
research is to a large extent based on data which are, to say the least, insufficient. An important research
question still remains to place the hill forts into a chronological context. We need to have more hill forts
dated, and we need to have dated hill forts dated better. Another central research question remains to
provide material that allows us to interpret the function of the forts. A functional interpretation can of
course be done applying a landscape analysis approach. But landscape analysis alone is based on too few
clues, and should be supplied with archaeological investigations in hill forts themselves.
Hillforts and territories – a case study from Estonia using the Xtent algorithm
Speaker: Kristo Siig, University of Helsinki ([email protected])
My paper will discuss using hillfort sizes (area as well as earthwork volume) to model territories pertaining
to these forts in Estonia in 1200 AD based on the Xtent algorithm originally proposed by Renfrew & Level
(1979) and enhanced by Ducke & Kroefges (2008). The algorithm calculates the influence of a centre in a
given point based on a measure of the size of the centre and its distance from the given point and then
assigns points on the map to centres which exert the most influence in those particular points, thereby
modelling territories pertaining to these centres. The resulting model will be compared to different maps of
political territories reconstructed by previous scholars based on their interpretations of contemporary
historical sources, providing a basis for discussion about the nature of the reconstructed hillfort territories
in relation to different categories – whether they are economic hinterlands to the hillfort, political
dominions of hillforts, property in feudal terms belonging to the hillfort or something else.
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Hilltop sites, enclosures, and the political geography of the Lake Mälaren region
Speaker: Michael Olausson (County Administrative Board of Stockholm)
The ability to raise hilltop sites, fortifications – the monumental architecture of the migration period,
became the mark of the elite in several regions in Sweden.
Hilltop sites and fortifications cannot be viewed as mere copies or mimics of Roman fortifications. They
were rather a cultural novelty: a synthesis of domestic settlement patterns and traditions on one side, and
considerable conceptual impulses from the Roman Empire on the other.
Despite many common features, the hilltop sites must be seen and understood as different “individuals”
with varying backgrounds and motivations for their creations. The hilltop sites should generally be regarded
as elite milieus and/or expressions of domination during the Migration Period. However, their role and
functions can hardly be seen as uniform.
Hilltop sites and fortifications during the Migration Period were drawn into, as well as were active parts of,
warfare, both ritualised between smaller groups and as a part of bigger campaigns. Hilltop sites were not
primarily used for military purposes; first and foremost, they were an expression of a lifestyle, adopted and
performed in some areas of Southern Scandinavia.
The Ringforts of Öland – Intelligent Design or Evolution?
Speaker: Svante Fischer, Institut d’Études Avancées de Nantes ([email protected])
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the fundamental theoretical problems surrounding the background
of the Ölandic ring forts. Up to now, there have only been two different schools of thought that have
offered any coherent argumentation as to the origin of the ring forts. The first school is based on an
ethnological perspective. It argues that any human society has an innate capacity to independently create
structures such as radial houses surrounded by ring walls, and that the ring forts are hence domestic
creations without outside influence (Näsman 1989). The second school argues for an influence from Late
Roman and Byzantine border fortifications and that these also explain the finds of Late Roman solidi on
Öland (Werner 1949). It claims that the ring forts were the result from contacts along the interface of two
cultures and the ring forts hence represent a gradual diffusion and evolution of a Mediterranean concept in
Barbaricum. None of the two schools has tried to argue from a macroeconomic perspective of progressive
global economic decline and social crisis leading to the evolution of a new building type. In this paper, the
origin of the ring forts is sought in a much wider phenomenon, that of the urban crisis of the decaying late
3rd century Roman Empire. The author argues that the ring forts on Öland have a far more common
evolutionary precedent in the shape of fortified amphitheaters throughout the Roman world. The latter is a
widely known phenomenon (Blanchet 1907, Butler 1959) not discussed by either of the two schools.
References:
Blanchet, A. 1907. Les enceintes romaines de la Gaule. Etude sur l’origine d’un grand nombre de villes
françaises. Paris.
Butler, R. M. 1959. Late Roman town walls in Gaul. Archaeological Journal 116.
Näsman, U. 1989. The Gates of Eketorp. To the question of Roman prototypes of the Öland ringforts, in K.
Randsborg (ed). The Birth of Europe. Archaeology and social development in the first millennium AD. 129139. Analecta Romana Instituti Danici, Supplementum XVI. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.
Werner, J. 1949. Zu den auf Öland och Gotland gefundene byzantinischen Goldmünzen. Fornvännen 44.
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Hillforts as fortified refuges
Speaker: Jonas Christensen, Curator Museum Southeast Denmark ([email protected])
Prehistoric fortifications in Scandinavia are often built at easily defended heights, with abrupt precipices,
and fortified with ramparts of stone or earth. They have traditionally been interpreted as defensive refuges,
where the local inhabitants could seek shelter in times of war. But how does this interpretation fit with our
knowledge of the social structure and military organisation in the Iron Age? What are the military functions
of a defensive refuge and how do the fortifications compare to the military technology available? And what
about the logistic considerations? Since most Scandinavian hillforts have not been excavated it is often very
difficult to determine the function, but it is important to recognize that the various distinct interpretations
of the hillforts, as defensive refuges or fortified settlements for instance, have a different impact on the
nature of Iron Age warfare.
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Bog Bodies – excavating, analyzing, curating and displaying well preserved human
remains from NW Europe
Organizers: Melanbie Giles, University of Manchester ([email protected]) & Christina
Fredengren, Stockholm University ([email protected])
There are no more enigmatic and moving discovery of well-preserved human remains than the bog bodies
of NW Europe. They range in date from the prehistoric era to the historic period, but many of the most
iconic examples date from the Iron Age. Some are found dismembered and in fragments, whilst others are
deposited whole, and many show signs of violent death. Interpretations are diverse, ranging from
accidental death to violent sacrifice. Other objects also found deliberately deposited in the bog and
environmental analysis has greatly enhanced our understanding of these as rich, if dangerous, landscapes.
These iconic remains have not only fascinated archaeologists but the general public, through the work of
authors such as Glob (1969) as well as the poetry of Seamus Heaney. In this session, we encourage
participants to think more critically about the meanings and motivations that lay behind such violence. We
also welcome papers from conservation experts involved in their challenging exhumation, investigation and
preservation, as well as museum curators responsible for their display. We hope to showcase the latest
discoveries as well as ‘cold case’ interpretations of well-known examples, and also draw in participants
interested in the legacy of these human remains upon the archaeological and public imagination.
ABSTRACTS
Bog bodies and bog pots – Iron Age bog bodies as rituals
Speaker: Karin Johanneson, Aarhus University ([email protected])
When studying bog pots of the Iron Age of southern Scandinavia it is impossible not also to get acquainted
with the bog bodies dating to the same period. Not only are bog bodies and bog pots found in the same
type of places, but occasionally they are even found in direct association with one another – such as at
Neder Bjerregrav near Randers, Jutland. But bog bodies and bog pots also have other elements in common
such as the presence of pots and worked wooden objects suggesting that the two in some instances should
be seen as a part of the same ritual tradition and perhaps even occasionally imbued with the same meaning
content. This presentation will therefore take a closer look on some of the similarities and differences
between bog bodies and bog pots in order to investigate their relation and meaning in the ritual context of
early Iron Age societies of southern Scandinavia.
Mummies versus skeletons
Speaker: Pernille Pantman, Curator, Museum Nords Nordsjælland ([email protected])
The traditional definition of bog bodies is usually linked to the mummified bodies, but what about the
skeletons? Though fascinating as they be, the mummified bodies are not the only ones who can contribute
to our understanding of human sacrifice. The fact that some of the human sacrifice are mummified and
others are not is entirely depending on the chemistry of the bogs and has nothing to do with the actual
ritual of sacrificing humans. It is beyond question that mummified bodies can contribute with important
information for instance regarding the content of the stomach. As for knowledge of the cause of death,
height, age, etc.; the skeletons can provide equal amount of results. In my opinion, the future discussion
should include the mummified bodies as well as the skeletons.
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The Rabivere bog body: an accidental death, murder victim or result of traditional behaviour?
Speakers: Pikne Kama & Riina Rammo, University of Tartu ([email protected])
The Rabivere bog body was found from north Estonia in 1936 in the course of peat-cutting. This fully
clothed body of a woman has remained the only bog body known from Estonia so far. On the basis of the
Swedish coin from the year 1667 found with the body, the find has been dated from the end of the 17th to
the beginning of the 18th century. Probably the most intriguing question is why her body was in the bog? It
has been interpreted as an accidental drowning in wetland, a murder victim, but also as deliberate burial
into the extraordinary place. The find is meant to be part of a new exhibition of Estonian National Museum
and this is one of the reasons to re-examine the unique find.
What are the possibilities of interpreting this find today? Unfortunately, the body itself was reburied after
the examination. We only have the report by an archaeologist, who visited the find place, photos and
woman`s clothes with a coin and a brooch left from this rare find. In addition, the historical and folklore
sources help to create background for the interpretations. Could the new study of all the evidences give us
clearer picture about the woman and her death?
The Becoming Bog Body
Speaker: Christina Fredengren, Stockholm University ([email protected])
Here is presented evidence for depositions of human and animal remains in wetland locations in
Sweden. This paper provides a case study of the human and animal remains from Torresta,
Uppland. These depositions are associated with a fording point in the landscape in prehistoric
times, where both waterways and land-communications met. It deals with how this wetland and
water would have drawn on a series of nature : culture relationships. This is also a place where a
multi-species and cross-temporal life- and death history converged. The research field of bog
bodies often produce the history an iconic human individual, that through a range of
archaeological techniques also become a technologized other. With a base feminist posthumanism this paper presents a way of dealing with how this material made present in the now
through a range of scientific techniques and to establish a way of exploring how these depositions
as figurations and the becoming of messy mergers of a range of human and non-human others.
Worsley Man: new analysis of a UK ‘cold case’ bog body
Speaker: Melanie Giles, University of Manchester ([email protected])
Worsley Man is a ‘bog head’ found on a moss outside Manchester, UK. Initially treated as a police
case, his conservation was less than ideal: becoming a pathology specimen before his donation to
the Manchester Museum in the 1980s. For many years, he formed an important part of the
museum’s ‘Reconstructing Faces’ gallery, as part of a research project directed by Prof. Joh Prag.
However, in the last few years, a new research initiative involving international collaboration, is
beginning to re-evaluate Worsley Man’s life and circumstances of death. This paper will present
our preliminary results and discuss plans for his future analysis and exhibition, in the context of
new thinking on Britain’s ‘bog bodies’.
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Reflections on the challenges of caring for Tollund Man, the display methods, and the meaning
of this bog body to a local community
Speaker: Ole Nielson, Curator, Silkeborg Museum ([email protected])
Tollund man is a world star, an icon in the fields of bog bodies. Every year, thousands of visitors from
Denmark and abroad come to see him, and for numerous film crews, making documentaries, he is a “must
have” on the list. In Silkeborg people are proud of their famous citizen and realize his potential for tourism,
and thus Museum Silkeborg is in a transformation process with more focus on Tollund Man which implies a
new, bigger and more modern exhibition on him and Elling Woman. Over the years we feel a growing
interest on our code of ethics regarding the display of human remains. Till now, we have had very few who
dislike what we do, but we feel that it will be an issue in the future. Some reflections before we build.
Redisplaying Grauballe Man
Speaker: Pauline Asingh, Curator, Moesgaard Museum, Aarhus ([email protected])
As curator of one of the most iconic bog bodies in Northern Europe – Grauballe Man - it has been an
interpretive and logistical challenge to develop a new way of displaying the remains of this fascinating
individual. As part of the new Moesgård Museum, Grauballe Man has become a focal point for
understanding the special power and place of bogs, as well as pioneering new ways of encountering and
understanding human remains. This paper will reflect on the process of developing and realizing this new
exhibition.
The Irish Bog Body project – new finds and new ideas
Speaker: Eamonn Kelly, Curator of the National Museum of Ireland – retired ([email protected])
Ireland has been fortunate in the discovery of several new bog bodies over the course of the last
decade. This paper will review the major new discoveries of Cloneycavan Man, Oldcroghan Man,
Moydrum Man, Rossan and Cashel Man, along with other examples, in terms of their date and
evidence for the manner of their lives and deaths. It will introduce the ideas behind the exhibition
‘Kingship and Sacrifice’ (which forms the centerpiece of the the NMI’s prehistoric gallery) and
which has pioneered new methods of displaying bog bodies. It will situate these ideas within the
folklore and mythology of Ireland’s ancient texts, focusing on the themes of fertility, sovereignty,
sacrifice and regeneration.
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What did the Romans collect? A study into material culture and world structuring
Organizer: Jane Fejfer, University of Copenhagen ([email protected])
Collecting – the systematic accumulation of stuff – is a particularly powerful tool for expressing personal
and collective identity. With outset in the almost exclusively text-based research on collecting in antiquity
material culture is brought into the discussion with the purpose of re-evaluating the phenomenon in
antiquity. In particular it is asked whether theories and methodologies applied in modern collecting studies
may serve as models for the study of collecting in antiquity.
ABSTRACTS
The collection and appropriation of Egyptian art in Rome: materialities and meanings
Speaker: Kristine Bülow Clausen, Aarhus University ([email protected])
From the Augustan period onwards, the Romans removed a considerable number of Egyptian sculptures
(aegyptiaca) from different Egyptian temple sites. Some of these sculptures were re-displayed in the
sanctuaries of the Egyptian goddess Isis in Rome (Campus Martius) and Beneventum. During the reign of
Domitian (AD 81-96) both of these sanctuaries were restored and decorated in a distinctive Egyptian style.
Alongside the collection and display of original Egyptian art works, a creative process of copying and
emulation took place and new replicas and versions of the Egyptian originals were created. Based on
theories of materiality (Miller 2010) and the history of collecting (Pearce 1995) I will, in this paper, examine
and discuss the materialities and meanings of some of these Roman aegyptiaca. What was collected and
what was copied; what role did the materials and materiality of the aegyptiaca play; and, finally, in what
ways did these Roman collections of aegyptiaca assist in the construction of personal and shared cultural
identities?
The sculpture from the Bath of Caracalla in Rome: an ancient Roman collection?
Speaker: Christina L.J. Hildebrandt, University of Copenhagen
Sculpture from Roman baths is often considered simply to be thematic or to fulfill decorum. Certain statues
are generally found, and expected to be found, in all baths, a.o. statues of athletes and water deities, and
these types were also found in the Baths of Caracalla. But other types of statuary, some in colossal form,
were found in the Baths of Caracalla mixed with the ”usual suspects” and iconographic themes co-exist in
both freestanding sculpture, architectural sculpture and mosaics.
Some architectural sculpture remains in situ in the baths and thanks to the work of Miranda Marvin it is
possible to reconstruct most of the surviving sculptures' original location within the central complex.
Based on the ground work of Marvin combined with the application of modern collection theory as devised
by Susan Pearce, this short paper will examine whether the sculpture from the Baths of Caracalla could be
classified as a Roman collection and not simply as decorum.
Speaker: Liv Carøe, University of Copenhagen
With outset in the overall theme of the section of how to approach the phenomenon of collecting in
antiquity, this paper centers on a group of marble statuettes found on the upper terrace of the House of
Octavius Quartio in Pompeii. The house and its decoration have caused substantial scholarly interest: it has
been “read” in the light of literary sources and it has been doomed as down-right kitsch but what is lacking
is a thorough investigation of both its wall-paintings and sculptural decoration in the light of collecting
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theories. Based on the theory devised by Susan Pearce I will re-examine this complex in order to establish
whether the sculptural as well as the pictorial display is better understood in this context.
Late Roman sculpture collections: motivations and practice
Speaker: Lærke Maria Andersen Funder, University of Copenhagen ([email protected])
With this paper, I wish to discuss the application of modern theoretical models of collection practice on an
Ancient context: late Roman collections in Gaul. Several private collections of Roman sculpture have been
documented through archaeological finds in Gallic villas, dating to the 4. - 6. century. These finds are
especially relevant to the present inquiry since many of the sculptures were fund in situ. This provides an
opportunity to explore the collection not only in terms of the thematic subject matter, which the motifs of
the sculpture may reveal, but also through the placement of the sculptures in relation to the architecture of
the villas, and the interrelations between the sculptures as framed by this physical setting. The finds from
Gaul thus allow for an exploration the practice of collecting in Antiquity both as expressed through material
culture and contemporary literary sources. Especially the genre of the exphrase will be central to this
inquiry. Through an analysis of the archaeological finds supported by literary sources, the motivation and
logic of the late Roman collections will be discussed. Based on these findings, I will explore the feasibility of
applying modern theoretical conceptualisations as models of explanation for ancient collection practice.
Cicero’s attitude towards collecting ornamenta γυμνασιώδη: Roman responses to the visual
space of the Hellenistic gymnasium
Speaker: Stella Skaltsa, Univeristy of Copenhagen ([email protected])
This paper aims to investigate the different sets of values with which the statuary decoration of Hellenistic
gymnasia and its Roman counterpart are charged, by taking as a starting point Cicero’s attitudes towards
practices of collecting. Cicero’s letters to his friend Atticus, residing in Greece in the 60s BC, reveal his
ardent acquisition of statuary suitable for a gymnasium (ornamenta γυμνασιώδη: Ad Att. 2.2; 5.2), with a
view to decorating his villa in Tusculum. For Cicero, statuary types are closely intertwined with architectural
setting, insofar as space can prescribe modes of display, while at the same time sculptures can be imbued
with the values related to the space in which they are put up. As for actual statuary types, Cicero’s
instructions to Atticus concerning what to acquire are not particularly illuminating: some relief plaques and
three Herms (depicting Hermes, Herakles and Athena). This statuary decoration reveals a rather
intellectualized and perhaps idealized view of the gymnasium and its visual space. The Hellenistic
gymnasium was highly imbued with civic values, as shown by the numerous honorific statues typically set
up within it. For the Romans, the gymnasium was a core feature of Greek culture and Greek lifestyle, but
portrayed as a place of indulgence, luxury and effeminacy, and thus as a potential threat to Roman values
and morality. Yet, Roman literary sources are replete with references to gymnasia and palaestrae forming
integral parts of Roman villas. Whereas Hellenistic gymnasia may have set the example for the architectural
form of peristyles in the design of Roman villas, the social values and ideals expressed through the
architecture and sculptural decoration of the Hellenistic gymnasium stood worlds apart from the Roman
perception of these principles. It can thus be argued that Cicero’s selective and eclectic attitude towards
collecting is informed by a refined and intellectualized view of the space in which statues were to be put on
display. Emulation in Cicero’s gymnasium was essentially limited to design and theme (architectural form of
the peristyle and sculpture).
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