Engendered places in prehistory

197

134

The World Archaeology volume 'The Cultural Biography of Objects' (Marshall and Gosden 1999) retains its currency ten years after its publication and the ideas highlighted in it continue to be developed. However, the relative success of biographical studies which rely on anthropological or historical information compared with biographical studies of prehistoric objects is evident. Through the example of a British Iron Age mirror this paper explores ways of redressing the difficulties of applying a biographical approach to prehistoric objects.

Section: Reinvigorating Object Biography 543mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The life-history approach has largely been ignored by those following the anthropological biographical approach (although see Tringham 1994). This is probably because the two approaches use a different language, often operate on different scales and set different objectives.…”

Section: Biographical and Life-history Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reinvigorating object biography: reproducing the drama of object lives

Joy¹

2009

197

134

“…Writing fictionalized vignettes and narratives allows archaeologists to break out of the mould of established archaeological writing and explore aspects of the past otherwise unavailable for study (cf. Spector 1991Spector , 1993Tringham 1991Tringham , 1994. Furthermore, it has recently been argued that creative narrative, or to use Hamilakis' phrase 'evocative writing ' (2002: 103), may be the only way to effect a truly sensory archaeology.…”

Section: Why Classify and Compartmentalize? The Sensory Envelopementioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing is perceiving?

Frieman¹,

Gillings

2007

Current archaeological concerns with viewing and all things visual are predicated upon a series of assumptions that have so far escaped serious consideration. This state of affairs resulted from the way in which our concerns with mapping and analysing patterns of seeing and looking in the past emerged before any broader critical consideration of the senses per se. To place an interpretative premium upon viewing space is to accept that vision as a perceptual category was meaningful to those under study, and that it, above all else, shaped and structured understanding to the point that it can profitably be represented and analysed in complete isolation from all other sensory stimuli. In this paper we argue that vision should be folded back into the mix of the sensorium and sketch two potential pathways for achieving this.

“…Previous studies (e.g. Hodder 1984Hodder ,1991Hodder ,1994Lane 1994;Tringham 1991Tringham ,1994Locock 1994) suggest that longer use-life of domestic buildings or multiple reconstruction of houses in specific loci were used by kin-based groups to legitimate their intergenerational rights inland. Simply put, domestic buildings are used as a symbol to represent permanence and continuity between a living generation and their ancestors -a continuity which is the foundation for land inheritance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mura witchcraft practices reported herein were collected in the course of a larger ethnoarchaeological study of gender, power and the spatial order of domestic compounds in Delà (see Lyons 1992). This research is part of a growing body of archaeological, ethnoarchaeological and related research that examines the relationship between gender and the construction of power through domestic architecture (see Donley-Reid 1990;Hodder 1984Hodder , 1991Hodder , 1994Lyons 1992;Moore 1986;Roberts 1991;Therkorn 1987;Tringham 1991Tringham ,1994Wall 1994). The construction and design of domestic buildings is a powerful resource as it is a context in all cultures where men and women interact.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Witchcraft, gender, power and intimate relations in Mura compounds in Déla, northern Cameroon

Lyons

1998

African witchcraft is a personal act of one individual using supernatural powers to harm another. This action is not random but is a strategy used within particular sets of social relations and contexts of interaction. Presented here is an ethnoarchaeological study of witchcraft in husband-wife relationships amongst the Mura of Déla in northern Cameroon. In Mura society a set of social practices, including witchcraft, presents women as mobile and antisocial, justifying their exclusion from controlling major resources especially land and houses. Wives use men's fear that they will act as witches to curb husbands from abusing their authority. Men use differential site formation processes in men's and women's areas of domestic compounds to represent women as disruptive and impermanent members of households and unworthy of holding major resources. At the same time men must protect themselves from wives who might use witchcraft against them and do so by burying powerful amulets in the floors and through other material practices. It is argued that such practices are widespread and may have broader implications in the emergence of social differentiation.