Artefacts in Archaeology III: Round up the usual suspects?

Following successful sessions based around the theme of artefacts in archaeology at the Durham and Bradford TAG conferences, the authors propose a third session, somewhat wider in scope than the previous two. While artefacts in the conventional sense of the term will be covered (albeit from angles intended to represent the innovative and novel), a number of the papers are designed to demonstrate that a concern with the material nature of the encounter with the past does not end with the recovery, interpretation and presentation of archaeological material in its restricted sense. Once we move beyond the realms of the imagination and of oral narration, our contact with the past is, above all, a material one, experienced through the medium of the world of objects (to be considered inclusively from the single artefact to the widest landscape). That such encounters are necessarily situated and contextually specific is now widely acknowledged and it is hoped that this session will demonstrate that this fact offers the opportunity for further investigations of human relationships with the physical world.

My Mum's House and other stories

This paper compares the evidence for pottery use in a 20th century English context with that for medieval society. I shall be looking at the range of rooms within which pottery is used within three dwellings. These are the houses of my mother, who lives alone in a rural bungalow, Victoria and Simon who live with their two year old son in a Winchester town house; Frank and Tobie who live in the country with their three children. The pots in each room are classified by vessel type and function and have been counted. The data for each dwelling is compared and this will lead to a consideration of the implications for interpretations of archaeological evidence. Similar data from medieval excavations and historical sources will be presented as a contrast and the conclusions will dwell on the archaeological lessons we can learn from our own experiences.

Some observations on the concept of 'embedded' and 'disembedded' economies in archaeological discourse.

As part of a continuing attempt to situate the domain of 'the economy' as a significant arena of social action and discourse, the author will present some observations on the use of the terms 'embedded' and 'disembedded' to describe the characteristics of institutions associated with the production, circulation and consumption of material culture. The extent to which economic activity can ever be said to be disembedded will be questioned with reference to recent work in economic sociology and the implications of this for archaeology will be discussed.

Film and Fetish: Imaging the materials of excavation

Archaeological excavation is a performance rooted in its social and material occupation of space. The histories created by those who work at and visit excavation sites are mediated through their interactions both with others on the site and with the material presence of the 'dig' as constructed by archaeologists. This is the story of a photographic exploration of the ways in which the social relations of the site can be manifested both in personal physical space and how they might be reflected in or derived from the material culture of archaeological practice. The use of photographic images in archaeology is bound up with their perceived role as objective records of a physical reality. This paper offers new ways in which images can be used to illustrate the interaction that excavators have with their material surroundings as well as laying photographs alongside the tools and products of excavation as the fetishised accoutrements of archaeological practice.

The Art of Fine Archaeology

The nature of our contact with the past is a material one. That is to say, the evidence of past life is a material residue which we come into contact with as the artefact. However, what is it that actually defines the nature of an artefact? If we understand the artefact as being our link with the past, it follows that this will include anything that we in the present share with the past. In its broadest sense, the landscape can be considered in these terms. Just as we inhabit and create our environment, so too did people of the past inhabit, use and understand their environment ... a landscape that we can see today. How was this past landscape understood? We can not begin to think about this question without first attempting to understand our own experience and situation within the landscape. Part of the art project carried out at Gardom's Edge in Derbyshire (concurrently with a programme of archaeological excavation and survey) is an attempt to visualise this understanding, and so to encourage people to think in terms of their own situation in the landscape and thus the archaeology that surrounds them. To make a contemporary understanding of our place in the landscape explicit necessarily leads to an encounter with past understandings.

Late Saxon Strap-Ends and Dress Accessories: A Window into Social and Regional Identities in Mid-Late Saxon England

Late Anglo-Saxon strap-ends (in this case, spanning both the mid and late Anglo-Saxon periods, c. AD650-1050) are valuable for both art-historical and artefact studies of the period.

Thanks to recent archaeological and metal-detecting activity, the number of these objects has increased in excess of ten-fold in the last 35 years, and this paper will present some newly-identified regional groupings. It will be argued that there is evidence for the existence of workshops that manufacturing strap-ends which were tailored to local tastes and fashions, and the products of these will be compared with types which had a much more widespread popularity and circulation, unrestricted by political and geographical boundaries, not only reflective of economic factors such as craft-specialisation, but also of social factors such as increasing national identity.

Cleansing the Doors of Perception -
 

This paper will consist of a consideration and critique of some of the methodologies presently utilized in the analysis of prehistoric flint assemblages, and suggest some alternative ways to approach the material.

The Dark Ages. Not. -

This paper will comprise a survey of literary and epigraphic evidence of the use of classical Latin as a medium of intellectual discourse. An examination of the work of three major fifth-century Romano-British writers, Pellagius, Patrick and Fautus of Riez will be followed by a survey of British stone inscriptions in high-register Latin of the 5th-9th centuries. These sources will be used as a basis to argue that too many archaeologists have equated high-status artefacts with intellectual thought, and vice-versa.

Bronze Age water holes and Iron Age rubbish - yet another example of votive deposition in later prehistory

'All art is quite useless'

Artefacts analysts dealing with the late Medieval period have traditionally used manuscript illustrations as a primary source for placing material culture in its social context. Increasingly, the more formal paintings of the fifteenth and sixteenth century Flemish and German schools are being used in the same manner. This paper will examine the use of such sources and, using paintings such as Van Eyck's 'The Arnolfini Wedding', consider how reliable they are.

Dress accessories and social and regional identities in late Saxon England

Stone tools and evolution