Posts com a Tag ‘Oxbow Books (E)’
Past Bodies. Body-Centered Research in Archaeology – BORIC; ROBB (DP)
BORIC, Dusan; ROBB, John (Eds). Past Bodies. Body-Centered Research in Archaeology. Oxford: Oxbow Books; The Cromwell Press, 2008. Resenha de: BUDJA, Mihael; PETRU, Simona. Documenta Praehistorica, v.37, 2010.
“The body in archaeology is both omnipresent and invisible.” (Bori! and Robb, p.1) The book is a collection of essays resulting from two symposia, ‘Past Bodies’ in Cambridge in 2006, and ‘Acting and Believing: An Archaeology of Bodily Practices’, held at the Society for American Archaeology meetings at San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2006. The book is in four sections, with papers grouped by general theme or approach in order to draw attention to cross-disciplinary linkages. The first section presents a general introduction to social theories of the body and an overview of relevant archaeological methodologies.
The second presents studies of the represented body, and the third, studies of the body in death. The fourth section contains studies which cut across traditional domains of study such as representation and burial, and focus upon the socially contextualised body at particular historical moments.
The articles range from the hunter-gatherers of the Upper Palaeolithic through modern British populations. The majority refers to the European sequence, but there are discussions of Near Eastern, North American and Mesoamerican cases. The book offers three theoretical implications: (i) it underscores the productive richness of the concept of the body in archaeology; (ii) it shows that the archaeology of the body is not the monopoly of a single province of archaeology, particularly data-rich regions; (iii) it goes beyond such stereotypes and prejudices as ‘symbols, gender, agency, social relations and ritual experience, etc., are all very well, but you can only do them where you have texts’.
The book’s most significant contribution is its evidence and argumentation highlighting the partiality of the, traditionally Western, homo clasus conception of the embodied being. It accomplishes this through various demonstrations of the ‘relationality of embodied subjects’ and ‘fractal thinking’. It also addresses issues relating to questions of epistemology (knowledge and representation of the body), phenomenology (lived representations of the body), and ontology (the material bodily properties and capacities of our antecedents). The case studies provide explorations of corporeal knowing, sensing and being, and archaeology’s concern with the ‘open’ and varied relationships that exist between embodied subjects and the social bodies of tribe and society.
Mihael Budja and Simona Petru
[IF]
Archaeology and Memory – BORIC (DP)
BORIC, Dusan (Ed). Archaeology and Memory. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2010. 210p. Resenha de: PRIJATELJ, Agni. Documenta Praehistorica, v.37, 2010.
Stimulated by a growing interest in the issue of memory, remembering and forgetting in the various fields of humanities and social studies, this volume illuminates the relationship between archaeology and memory. In doing so, it raises some perennial but also novel questions. What is the relationship between materiality and memory? What diverse mnemonic systems for inscribing the ‘past in the past’ can be discerned through archaeological records? How does archaeology understand time and, consequently, represent the past? What are the consequences of the interplay between the uses of memory and archaeological practice? Varied answers are provided by eleven contributors from the fields of archaeology, anthropology and the arts. As far as the organisation of the volume is concerned, twelve papers are organised into three sections. Following a theoretical introduction that gives an historical overview of the development of the concept of memory in philosophy (Bori!), there are seven papers (Whittle, Bori!, Tringham, Jones, Hanks, Boozer and Gutteridge) which are concerned with the theme of the ‘past in the past’. Six of these elaborate on diverse prehistoric and classical case studies from the Eurasian regional contexts. The seventh, on the other hand, is written as a personal recollection of how the creation of the archaeological record has changed through time with the development of digital media (Tringham). The final section in the book comprises four papers which explore the archaeologies and memories of the contemporary past, three of them through selected case studies (Filippucci, Weiss, Baji!) and the fourth from a theoretical perspectives (Buchli).
A number of key points arise throughout the twelve chapters. First, memory which can be seen as a curated and fragmented past embedded in the present is expressed through incorporated bodily actions and performances. However, it can be also inscribed as a text into material objects, monuments, landscapes and places by the practical engagements of people with the world. Several philosophical concepts, particularly concepts of trace, citation and repetition/recapitulation (Bori! p. 16–21, 24–26) which are of practical relevance for examining the relation between remembering, forgetting, and materiality, allow the contributors to present a number of case studies of materialised memories embodied in the forms of dwelling structures (Whittle, Bori!, Boozer), monumental public architecture (Gutteridge), burial structures (Whittle, Bori!, Jones, Hanks), votive offerings (Jones), landscapes of conflict, violence and war (Filippucci, Weiss), as well as digital archaeological archives (Tringham) and virtual museum (Baji!).
Second, singularity is not in the nature of time – on the contrary, it is inherent to each segment of time to be composite. Hence, the present (also the present in the past) is formed as a palimpsest, consisting not only of the present time, but also of fragments of different pasts. This phenomenon is most readily observed in our physical environment, as is shown by an illustrative case study by Gutteridge. The author describes the locale of the Arch of Constantine as a place where past and present conjoin in the form of historical topography, peopled by tourists, street merchants and men dressed as gladiators and centurions equipped with 21st century gadgets such as mobile phones. Similarly, the distinction between the past and the present is dissolved in the Arch itself: spoliated reliefs from at least three older monuments are used intentionally to achieve an effect of timelessness along with the elision of biographical and cosmic time. As Gutteridge stresses, this principle of selective curation negates the linear temporal principle of historic time and instead creates a bricolage of events and their material manifestations that are “moved, shuffled, and relocated in the spatial and temporal landscape, … never fully out-oftime” (p. 168).
Third, following the sociological distinction between individual and collective memory, the majority of authors seek to examine diverse engagements with the world that are involved in creating collective identities and collective memories. When, for example, Whittle (p. 38) writes on dwelling and the everyday activities of “building structures, herding animals, tending crops, procuring raw materials, interacting with co-residents, neighbours and others, and attending to the level of floodwaters when they came” that came about in the Neolithic settlement of Ecsegfalva 23 in the Great Hungarian Plain, he brings to the forefront social knowledge and collective memories as preconditions for daily life. On the other hand, as shown by Boozer, archaeology is able (in particular instances) also to touch upon the topic of memory in relation to personal identity construction and maintenance. The case study of an elite male who decorated his Roman Egyptian house in Amheida by the end of third century with Homeric mythological scenes reveals the particular strategies used by a wealthy individual to define his position within the imperial framework.
Fourth, the past living on in the form of materialised memories returns and is never completely gone. Weiss’s paper, which explores the landscapes of conflict and violence created in the 1990s Balkan wars, presents the immense power of mutilated landscape and how these are able to pull victims into a loop of reliving past atrocities. The author asks that a more equitable role for material evidence be given in relation to written documents and witness testimonies in international criminal tribunals, since “there is a profound tenacity inherent in certain objects, markers and monuments in the landscape – a tenacity tending towards the continual recapitulation of the intentions and agendas of power” (p. 192).
Fifth, similar to memory itself, archaeological objects, places and landscapes often convey traces of repetition/ recapitulation. This is illustrated by two Meso/ Neolithic contexts of the Danube gorges (Bori!): in the case of Lepenski Vir, older, Early Mesolithic hearths were (partially) superimposed by later trapezoidal structures; while in the case of Vlasac, burials were superimposed at the same location for several generations. According to the author, both examples convey the principle of reproduction which enables the past to live on in disguised form in the present, yet, on the other hand, this brings with it – besides tradition – innovation and change.
Sixth, the nature of historical time is dissimilar to the nature of archaeological time: while the former consists of dates and chronologies which arrange singular events into a unilinear sequence, the latter represents the fusion of fragmented and materialised pasts and the present entwined in a continual dialogue.
Gutteridge brilliantly illuminates this point by comparing the nature of archaeological narratives with the principle of spoliation:
“In archaeology, this spoliation, … The repetitive rhythmic movement between the past and the present, the removal of individual instants from their embedded layers of context, the shuffling of our kaleidoscopic attempts to combine different pasts to speak to the present, and our refusal to let these fragments fall away silently from the future, all play a role in the ways in which we create and interpret our cacophonous spoliated memorials to the archaeological past” (p.168).
These are the highlights of this book. Yet I would also like to point out to some of the difficulties that arise when the concept of memory is applied to archaeological discourse. The biggest hindrance stems from the fact that memory is primarily a psychological process and therefore difficult to trace in archaeological records. While the premise of memory embedded in materiality creates a bridge between the material and the immaterial, it does not necessarily help to recognise the fundamental distinctions between influence and memory or repetition/replication and continuity in the archaeological material itself. Indeed, dwellings were built on older dwellings; burials were reused or superimposed over older burials. Yet how can we penetrate behind the general statement that this was a meaningful reuse of space and grasp the actual meanings behind it? Even more so, since the psychological, social and cultural experience behind these acts belongs to a world and time of ‘others’. As exemplified by case studies of prehistoric burials (cf. Whittle, Bori!, Jones, Hanks), a vast range of speculations and unknowns is involved in interpreting archaeological traces of past commemorative acts. It is not uncommon that authors adhere to very general statements: a long barrow in Southern Britain is seen as a “loci of diverse remembrance” (p. 43); a superposition of burials at the site of Vlasac “evokes strict rules and closely- followed observances of the ‘ancestral’ ways” (p. 64); in North-western Scotland “the deposition of grave goods impress themselves upon memory” (p.114); in Iron Age Eurasia “elaborate tombs, … provided important physical contexts for both inscribed and embodied memory practices surrounding the lifestyle of the warrior” (p. 134). This kind of ambiguity in formulations originates from the constraints of archaeological material that inhibit the recognition of a particular and intentional commemorative significance in preserved traces. What becomes obvious when reading through the book is that the concept of memory is used to much greater effect in the case studies of explicit intentionality of monumental public architecture, textual narratives (in this volume, Documenta Praehistorica 2010 book reviews 341 presented by studies of figurative depictions, digital archives and virtual museum) and our contemporary pasts which allow us to recognise our intense psychological, social and cultural engagement with them.
Archaeology and Memory contains a wealth of interesting case studies and ideas. While the theoretical chapters (Boric, Buchli) are challenging, the book’s subject matter and its interdisciplinary scope make reading highly rewarding. This book should be an indispensable read for anyone ready to expand the range of questions on the past and to reflect on the ethical responsibilities of archaeological narratives.
Agni Prijatelj – Durham University
[IF]
An Enquiring Mind: Studies in Honor of Alexander Marshack – BAHN (DP)
BAHN, Paul G. (Ed.) An Enquiring Mind: Studies in Honor of Alexander Marshack. Oxford; Oakville: Oxbow Books. 332p. Resenha de: PRIJATELJ, Agni. Documenta Praehistorica, v.37, 2010.
This volume represents a tribute to Alexander Marshack – an eminent science journalist and photographer who came into the field of Palaeolithic research in 1963 at the age of forty-five as a self-taught outsider with the idea that “certain marks, etched in patterns on bone, represented a calendrical system” (p. 3). In the next forty years, Alexander Marshack contributed enormously to the field of Palaeolithic art research; particularly through his work on the cognitive abilities of early humans and themes such as notational systems, female imagery, finger flutings and net-like motifs, archaeo-astronomy, but also by introducing the new techniques of infrared, ultraviolet and fluorescence light into examining cave paintings.
In accordance with the various research interests of the late Alexander Marshack, twenty seven contributors in twenty two chapters elaborate on such diverse themes and topics as mnemonic systems, rituals, evolution and human cognition, and Palaeolithic art.
Their expertise in various fields, ranging from archaeology, anthropology, ethnography, astronomy and economics, along with their personal acknowledgements of the inspiration of Marshack’s work, testify to his great legacy. Although the papers in this volume are organised alphabetically, this short overview presents them in four sections as recognised by themes they share.
The first thematic section in the volume comprises two papers (Soffer, Tattersall) that seek to explore evolution and human cognition. Soffer, who is concerned with the ‘Neanderthal enigma’, argues against interpreting the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition as a revolution, and against the use of environmental determinism for the last Neanderthal niches, since
“it is not only Neolithic or Bronze Age “man” that made “himself” but so did “his and hers” Middle and Upper Paleolithic predecessors – creating both their cultures and biologies through day to day decisions and their intended and unintended consequences” (p. 303).
If Soffer stresses as the principal element of modernity “institutionalized interdependence – the various social ties that create permanent inter-sex bonds between adult individuals through such grouping principles as marriage, kinship, and descent ideologies” (p. 290), Tattersall seeks to explore modernity through the advent of symbolic cognition in Homo sapiens. The author elaborates on the view that the symbolic intellect is
“the result of a qualitative rather than a quantitative revolution in hominid cognition: something equivalent in scale developmentally to the unanticipated and apparently abrupt appearance of the essentially modern hominid body skeleton much earlier in hominid evolution” (p. 320–321).
Four papers in the volume (Aveni, Hudson, Krupp and Schmandt-Besserat) are concerned with mnemonic systems. While Hudson tracks the evolution of counting systems from the Palaeolithic to the earliest city-states and stresses the continuous importance of calendrical systems for social structures, Schmandt- Besserat compares and contrasts two major symbolic systems of art and writing to conclude that not only did “The two communication systems had a different origin, history and evolution” but also “art became a universal phenomenon, writing remained the privilege of a few societies” (p. 266). Aveni contributes to the topic by presenting a particular type of Mesoamerican petroglyph – pecked crosses, whose various uses were connected to celestial phenomena and calendars. A paper by Krupp, on the other hand, explores an ancient Greek constellation myth that captures the seasonality of the rains.
The third thematic section in the volume consists of two chapters (Frank, Lorblanchet) that are concerned with rituals. While Frank examines masked figures visits in Europe during winter and links them to bear ceremonialism, Lorblanchet analyses various types of human traces in caves, some of which tend to imitate claw marks. The author interprets them as ritual remnants and “evidence for ritual activity in the heart of the paleolithic sanctuaries” (p. 165). By far the most extensive section in the book comprises chapters examining Paleolithic and rock art.
The contributors present diverse case studies, ranging from portable and parietal art from European and Near Eastern Paleolithic contexts (Belfer-Cohen & Bar-Yosef, Bosinski & Bosinski, Delluc & Delluc, d’Errico, Martin, Mussi, Otte, Pettitt & Bahn & Züchner, Sharpe & Van Gelder) to Altai Bronze age petroglyphs (Okladnikova) and Australian aboriginal rock art (Clegg). The paper by Belfer-Cohen and Bar-Yosef thus focuses on abstract and figurative art in the Near East which is dated to the late Pleistocene. The authors argue that some of the abstract Natufian markings, previously interpreted as decorations, might be notation marks, perhaps “markers of specific groups” (p. 32). While Bosinski and Bosinski analyse the representations of seals from the Magdalenian site of Gönnersdorf and interpret them as evidence of the long-range mobility of the group occupying a site 500 km away from the ocean, D’Errico re-examines plaquette 59 from the very same site with the oldest depiction of childbirth. The author draws attention to several new components of the engraved composition, most importantly to a third female figure.
According to the author, the depiction of childbirth in an upright position assisted by other women indicates that “relationships between women had attained a degree of complexity comparable to that of traditional societies in which these practices have been documented” (p. 107). Delluc and Delluc examine a particular aspect of Paleolithic art – depictions of animal and human eyes to illuminate the mind of Palaeolithic artists. Otte, on the other hand, focuses on the semantic qualities of cave art by an interesting comparison of Paleolithic signs with modern road markings and graffiti. The author aims to penetrate the codified meanings of parietal art by, first, examining primary units or ‘morphemes’ consisting of “drawings, outlines, colors and textures” (p. 229) and, second, by analyzing complex compositions and their relationship with the space and the viewer. While Martin publishes for the first time a detailed study of the engraved and carved block from the cave of Guoy, Mussi, on the other hand analyses the Upper Paleolithic Venus figurine of Macomer from Western Sardinia. Pettitt, Bahn and Züchner question the dating of Chauvet art to the Aurignacian and Gravettian periods as proposed by the Chauvet excavation team and convincingly argues on the basis of features, motifs and techniques ascribable to the later phases of the Upper Paleolithic, problems connected with the radiocarbon dates obtained, and the lack of parallels in the decorated caves of the region that “while one cannot rule out the possibility of a limited amount of Aurignacian art in Chauvet, by far the greater amount of its parietal figures should be attributed to the Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian” (p. 257). Lastly, Sharpe and Van Gelder discuss various types of finger flutings – “the lines that human fingers leave when drawn over a soft surface” (p. 269) – which have been frequently overlooked in interpretations of Paleolithic art. By differentiating several forms of finger fluting on the basis of body movement and the number of fingers used, as documented in Rouffignac Cave, they open a new avenue for investigations of this particular type of sign.
I put this book down with mixed feelings. Reading through the collection of papers, I did not have the sense of a well integrated volume, primarily for two reasons: first, the quality of the papers varies (which is alluded to also by the editor; cf. p. x). Second, the alphabetical organisation of chapters enhances the sense of thematic incongruity. While it is not uncommon for Festschrifts to compile heterogeneous themes, it is also common to present the personal recollections of an honoured scientist (in this volume Marshack, Lamberg-Karlovsky) and a complete bibliography of the person whom the book is honouring.
Unfortunately, Marshack’s bibliography is missing from this volume. Nevertheless, several well-balanced, theoretically firmly grounded pieces made my reading enjoyable. In spite of the vast range of themes covered, I believe this is a book which will be read primarily by people working in the field of Paleolithic art.
Agni Prijatelj – Durham University
[IF]Parts and Wholes: Fragmentation in Prehistoric Context – CHAPMAN; GAYDARSKA (DP)
CHAPMAN, John; GAYDARSKA, Bisserka (with contributions from Ana Raduntcheva and Bistra Koleva). Parts and Wholes: Fragmentation in Prehistoric Context. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2007. 233p. Resenha de: MLEKU, Dimitrij; BUDJA, Mihael. Documenta Praehistoricav.34, 2007.
The book Parts and Wholes is in many ways a supplement to Chapman’s previous book, The Fragmentation in Archaeology (2000), but it is also a new, highly innovative and interesting book. It is an ambitious attempt to write an integrated study which combines archaeology, social anthropology and material culture studies.
Chapman’s study focused on the complementary practices of fragmentation and accumulation, processes which link people to objects through production, exchange and consumption. He adopted an anthropological model of personhood, derived mainly from ethnographic analyses of Melanesian societies, where people are made up of the totality of their relations: they are not “individuals” but “dividuals”, made up of their relations and transactions with each other, places and material culture.
This study was founded upon the “fragmentation premise “, an idea that many artefacts in the past were deliberately broken and then re-used as fragments after that break. A crucial practice connected with the creation of personhood is “enchainment”, a social relationship between people and people and objects which emerges from the exchange of fragments. A related, complementary process is “accumulation”, which creates a hoard of objects.
Fragments are tokens of relations between people, places and objects, and thus create personalities. This model of personhood seems to fit the evidence of fragmented objects, hoards and partial deposits of human bone from southeastern Europe.
In the present book Chapman and Gaydarska elaborate on many points and arguments from Chapman’s previous book. In fact, the book addresses many criticisms of the first book and provides many case studies which support the theoretical issues raised in the both volumes.
The first two case studies are examples of the culturally specific creation of personhood, the first using whole pots and the principle of “categorisation” (Chapter 1). The second study discusses the anthropomorphic figurines from Hamangia (Chapter 3). Observation of the various biographies of Hamangia figurines, which were androgynous when whole, but change their rendered identity to male, female or genderneutral, or no-gender following the fragmented life history of the figurines. However, in graves, either complete figurines or fragments, which can be refitted to whole figurines, were deposited, which characterise Òa return to androgynous whole at death. “Two methodological studies focus on the correspondence between the mobility of objects and fragDocumenta Praehistorica 2007 book reviews 314 ments and the archaeological record. The first one Ð wittily named “Schiffer visits the Balkans” Ð discusses “rubbish” , the importance of deposition and disposal for the objects” biographies, the mobility of the fragments, the creation of context and the definition of “activity areas” (Chapter 4).
Meanwhile, the second approach mobilises the re-fitting studies and chine op.ratoire approach to answer the key question in fragmentation studies: “Where are the missing parts?” The study traces the dispersion of fragments both on-site and off-site (Chapter 5).
The final two studies combine a biographical approach with re-fitting studies. The first approaches the large assemblage of fragmented figurines from the Final Copper Age layers of the Dolnoslav tell (Chapter 6). The complex pattern of deposition at Dolnoslav seems to suggest that the tell was an accumulation site for the fragments, while the pattern reflects diverse principles of personhood, and thus offers an interesting contrast to the study of Hamangia figurines in the third chapter.
The second traces the ch.ine op.ratoire of Spondylus rings based on refitting studies of three sites (Chapter 7).
Chapman and Gaydarska succeed in demonstrating that the Ôfragmentation premiseÕ is well founded. The high level of object and fragment mobility Ð up to 80 % of objectsÕ mass is missing on some sites Ð suggest that fragments travel across sites and landscapes. Even more, they show that fragmentation studies can offer an insight into the creation of personhood and identity.
What we miss in the book is an acknowledgement of the social importance of the act or performance of deliberate breaking. Deliberate breaking is first an extremely important event in the biography of the object, not just “ritual killing”. It is an act of transformation, when a whole object is transformed into something other. The act of transformation Ð due to its visual or aural qualities Ð can bring people together and make the event an social one. Obvious examples are the “ritual explosions” of figurines at Dolni V.stonice, Balkan celebrations involving the ÔritualÕ breaking of glass against walls, or Leslie GrinsellÕs funeral cited in the introduction to the book. In such events it is the performance of deliberate fragmentation which has important social implications; it binds people together, the resulting fragments make those relations merely visible and tangible.
All in all this is a mind-boggling book. Chapman and Gaydarska’s study is a highly innovative and stimulating one. It opens completely new lines of enquiry into Balkan (and wider) prehistory.
Dimitrij Mleku and Mihael Budja – University of Ljubljana .
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