Beyond Consumption: Functionality, Artifact Biography, and Early Modernity in a European Periphery

Abstract

This paper considers the functionality and biographies of artifacts in the context of historical archaeology. It is argued that in order to understand how human life in the recent past unfolded in relation with material culture, artifacts must be recognized to perform various unobvious functions and also be conceived as processes rather than bounded physical objects. The paper begins with a theoretical discussion and then focuses on the post-acquisition life of artifacts and humanartifact relations in the seventeenth-century town of Tornio, northern Finland.

Copper worlds: a historical archaeology of Abraham and Jakob Momma-Reenstierna and their industrial enterprise in the Torne River Valley, c. 1650–1680

“…At the same time, there is evidence of the making of a particular way of urban life, related and similar, but not identical, to the towns of the southern part of the Gulf of Bothnia (Ylimaunu 2007;Herva and Nurmi 2009;Herva and Ylimaunu 2010;Nurmi 2011). The region's distinct features as a borderland between different power structures, religious traditions, cultures, economies and ethnic groups have led Timo Ylimaunu et al to label the region as a "third space" during the late mediaeval and the early modern periods (Ylimaunu et al 2014).…”

Archaeology of Spiritualities

“…There is fairly abundant evidence of wornness, repair and reuse of such everyday artefacts as ceramic vessels and clay pipes, which cannot satisfactorily be explained in economic or other such simple terms (Herva and Nurmi 2009 :167-170, 173-174;Nurmi 2011 ) . As argued more extensively elsewhere (Herva and Nurmi 2009 ) , signs of wear and repair may have been considered a form of "patina", visual indications of a long-standing relationship between people and particular artefacts (cf. Lucas 2006 :42-45;McCracken 1988 ) .…”

Propuesta para la clasificación de los materiales cerámicos de tradición aborigen de la isla de Gran Canaria (Islas Canarias)

“…Si bien haremos énfasis en unas funciones y no en otras, entendemos que durante su vida útil un mismo objeto pudo conocer diversos fines, algo muy común cuando se trata de recipientes (Arthur, 2002;Herva y Nurmi, 2009;Joy, 2009). No obstante, las diferencias percibidas entre los grupos propuestos parecen suficientes para poder incidir en unos usos determinados, empleando categorías generales.…”