Digital Sensoriality: The Neolithic Figurines from Koutroulou Magoula, Greece

Abstract

The image-based discourse on clay figurines that treated them as merely artistic representations, the meaning of which needs to be deciphered through various iconological methods, has been severely critiqued and challenged in the past decade. This discourse, however, has largely shaped the way that figurines are depicted in archaeological iterations and publications, and it is this corpus of images that has in turn shaped further thinking and discussion on figurines, especially since very few people are able to handle the original, three-dimensional, physical objects. Building on the changing intellectual climate in figurine studies, we propose here a framework that treats figurines as multi-sensorial, affective and dynamic objects, acting within distinctive, relational fields of sensoriality. Furthermore, we situate a range of digital, computational methods within this framework in an attempt to deprive them of their latent Cartesianism and mentalism, and we demonstrate how we have applied them to the study of Neolithic figurines from the site of Koutroulou Magoula in Greece. We argue that such methodologies, situated within an experiential framework, not only provide new means of understanding, interpretation and dissemination, but, most importantly, enable researchers and the public to explore the sensorial affordances and affective potential of things, in the past as well as in the present.

Project Holocene: The Clayful Phenomenology of Jōmon Flame Pots

“…Concerns about the consequences of excluding the researcher's sensory experience from archaeological research has led some researchers, most notably Hamilakis (2013; 2017, Hamilakis & Jones 2017) to propose a wholesale re-habilitation of the senses. For example, in a recent paper about Neolithic figurines from Greece, Papadopoulos et al (2019) argue that archaeological recording methods (photos, drawings, notes, etc.) objectify archaeological evidence by failing to capture the sensoriality of artefacts.…”

“…The body and the sensorial and affective constitution of the researcher become, inevitably, part of this endeavour; as such, reflexivity and an investigation of the researcher's own sensorial archaeology is a starting point of any investigation on the senses. (Papadopoulos et al 2019, 8)Clearly Papadopoulos et al do not intend to equate the feelings of present-day researchers with those of past people. They focus not on the individual emotional reactions, but describe instead a supra-systemic notion of sensoriality and affect that arises out of shifting assemblages (Deleuze & Guattari 1987) and implicates the researcher in the prehistoric mark-making of others.…”

“…(Papadopoulos et al 2019, 15)Despite their intentions they end up with a phenomenological account of a present-day individual which is retrofitted to past actions. Finally, they imply a universal quality to ‘the power of sensoriality’, describing it as ‘neither past nor present, but multi-temporal’ (2019, 8), leaving me unsure what conclusions Papadopoulos et al wish me to draw about the ontological status of affect with regard to what went on between figurine and its original maker. Perhaps experiencing uncertainty is an inevitable and even necessary part of subjective accounts: something I will return to later.…”

Art Studies, Post-processual Perspectives on (Gender, Landscape)

“…Gender A recent study of Neolithic figurines from Greece demonstrates well the new avenues that have opened up in the digital era. Papadopoulos et al (2019) draw on the multi-sensorial and dynamic aspect of figurines and apply digital and computational methods within an experiential framework to inform our understanding. Such a methodological approach also enables us to grasp the three-dimensional quality of figurines, their making process and their rich biographies through stages of transformation, all of which are meaningful in the past and the present.…”

Towards a Digital Sensorial Archaeology as an Experiment in Distant Viewing of the Trade in Human Remains on Instagram

“…The inter-and intra-actions amongst the various agents partaking of the relational, sensorial field of photography, including the human actors, shape the photographic outcomes." [24] (p. 634)…”