We live, capriciously enmeshed in a world of things. In the process of human becoming, both artists and archaeologists, as skilled negotiators, mediators and translators of things, have opportunitiesto steward, provoke and subvert our intra-relationships in the shared ecologies of our world. Today, artists and archaeologists are turning towards each other to exchange experiences, narratives…
things
Věra Chytilová’s “Sedmikrásky” and fragmentation
a playful parallel to the so much disputed theme of fragmentation in archaeology…
The most personal personal ornament
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Things can be mixed up during an excavation. Consequently, objects can be easily misplaced during our archaeological taxonomies. This was the case with the human-tooth pendant found at the excavation of the lakeside Neolithic settlement of Dispilio in Greece . During the study of the personal ornaments assemblage of the site…
Deprivation through ‘dialectics’: Why some archaeologist’s are hamstrung by things and why things are hamstrung by some archaeologists
Over the last few weeks I have been causally reading through the various chapters in a recent book edited by Elizabeth DeMarrais, Chris Gosden and Colin Renfrew entitled Rethinking materiality: The engagement of mind with the material world (2004). The book, the material product of a symposium with the same title held in March 2003…
Symmetrical Archaeology at Society for American Archaeology (SAA’s) in Puerto Rico
The second installment of A Symmetrical Archaeology was organized as a full session at the Society for American Archaeology at San Juan, Puerto Rico (April 26-30th). Organized by Timothy Webmoor with Bjørnar Olsen, Michael Shanks, and Christopher Witmore, the session brought together an international and trans-disciplinary group of thinkers to present a Manifesto for Symmetry…
Tim Ingold on categories of material against materiality
Thanks to Ruth Tringham, Tim Webmoor and I had the opportunity to have lunch and coffee yesterday with Tim Ingold, a Professor of Anthropology and Head of the Department at the University of Aberdeen. Ingold is well known as a creative thinker across both anthropology and archaeology. Much of his work is on human perception…