Theme:
Theories and methods in archaeological sciences
Session format:
Session, made up of a combination of papers, max. 15 minutes each
Title:
Mediating proxies and choice in a Stone Age world
Content:
How do we mediate knowledge generated from both the humanistic and natural sciences in one project? Can methods from different fields play to each other’s strengths, or are some more appropriate than others? Is our contemporary focus on the natural sciences in archaeology dictating what we can, or choose, to see in the archaeological record? Inter-disciplinary studies does have the potential to develop new knowledge of past societies and lived lives. The question is, are we there yet?
We seek papers exploring how increasing volumes of ever-more detailed knowledge of the prehistoric physical world support theories of prehistoric social lives, symbolic practices, social mechanisms and societal developments. The natural world sets climatic, topographic, or geological limitations, whereas human creativity, the will and ability to explore and modify one’s surroundings, to relate to various elements, new impulses, or resources, are socially situated. Hence, generated knowledge of the composition of the physical world, mass-data resulting in various identified patterns, can be indicators of conscious choices, preferences, or strategic activities. Furthermore, materials may also contain qualities, ‘attention-drawing’ elements or phenomena perhaps hard to quantify or verbalize, but are elements that may have made the world make sense for people inhabiting the past too.
Hence, we welcome papers mediating proxies (knowledge from micro- or macrofossils, aDNA, isotope analyses, C14, pXRF, etc.), and choice in a socially situated world. Accepted papers should implement and interpret identified proxies in a wider social context and theoretical framework with case studies, preferably from the Mesolithic and Neolithic.
Keywords:
Patterns, Proxies, Choices, Stone Age
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Main organiser:
Dr. Astrid Nyland (Norway) 1
Co-organisers:
Professor Gabriel Cooney (Ireland) 2
Affiliations:
1. Archaeological Museum, University of Stavanger, Norway
2. University College Dublin, School of Archaeology, Ireland
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