Short Abstract:
This session considers the artefact, ecofact and building reuse and the use of alternative, sometimes inefficient, methods or materials in past manufacture and resource exploitation. Papers will bring together archaeometric analyses and the social interpretation of these findings.
Long Abstract:
This session considers the artefact, ecofact and building reuse and the use of alternative, sometimes inefficient, methods or materials in past manufacture and resource exploitation. Papers should bring together the archaeometric analyses which identify these phenomena and the social interpretation of these findings.
In their consideration of artefact variability, Schiffer and Skibo (1997) suggest that artefacts are a compromise between efficiency in manufacture and use. We will question this assertion: is the reuse of objects, and the use of inefficient materials, really a compromise or do they have more deep-rooted cultural implications?
Further questions to be addressed include what does the active, physical engagement with objects, required during their repair, tell us about the value of the object in question - whether intrinsic or cultural. Does the lengthening of an objects biographical history through repair impart a cumulative cultural significance upon repaired, as opposed to non-repaired objects? If we accept that material culture had an active meaning, do instances of repair represent maintenance of the original cultural meaning of the object, or the creation of a new hybridised meaning?
We invite papers dealing with the reuse or recycling of artefacts, either for their original or an alternative function, skeuomorphism, or evidence of adaptability to changes in context in the archaeological record. Papers should offer an interpretation of these observations, but also be grounded in the archaeometric analysis of objects, structures, faunal or environmental remains.
References:
Schiffer, M and Skibo, J, 1997, 'The Explanation of Artefact Variability', American Antiquity 62,1, 27-50.
Accepted papers:
Session 1
What did the apocrypha know?
Andrew Crockett
(Wessex Archaeology)
Kayt Marter Brown
Rachael Seager Smith
(Wessex Archaeology)
Paper short abstract:
The results of research by Wessex Archaeology and AFESS on the repaired RB ceramics from CTRL Springhead, Kent
Paper long abstract:
Traditionally the repair of pottery vessels, particularly coarsewares, has been attributed to necessity, resulting from inadequate supplies or lowly status limiting the availability and access to new vessels, thus forcing the continued use of the old. The proposed paper will explore the phenomena of ceramic repair during the Romano-British period, focusing on the relatively little recognised practice of using birch-tar as an adhesive for repairing vessels. New research by Wessex Archaeology, with the help of AFESS at the University of Reading, on the largest group of 'glued' sherds thus far identified, from the ceramic assemblage at CTRL Springhead, Kent, suggests that this practice is not just the work of parsimonious individuals but common practice within the community.
More than just a quick fix? Repair holes on early medieval Souterrain Ware
Alison Kyle
(University of Glasgow)
Paper short abstract:
This paper considers how the application of a theoretical perspective to the analysis of post-firing perforations on ceramic vessels may enable meaningful interpretations of, for example, agency, gender, choice (resistance, persistence, adoption and adaption), production and reproduction.
Paper long abstract:
In the context of early medieval domestic pottery, this paper considers how post-firing perforations on ceramic vessels may be viewed by the archaeologist as an index of the past action of repair and vessel reuse.
The evidence for repairs of Souterrain Ware vessels from NE Ireland will be initially described, followed by a discussion of the exciting interpretative possibilities that such innocuous archaeological traces can yield through the application of archaeological theory. This paper will suggest that our interpretation must go beyond the single point in time at which individual vessel repairs took place. It is argued that, in this instance, repairs can be more meaningfully questioned at a broader regional or even interregional level.
This paper considers vessel repair to be an intermittently recurring action which was embedded in social practice. As a repetitive, habitual practice, which was passed from one generation to the next, this paper will raise the question of the role of ceramic production and use in cultural reproduction. The paper will demonstrate how these unassuming perforations may be further used to address questions of, for example, agency, gender, choice (resistance, persistence, adoption and adaption), production and reproduction.
Ultimately, this research derives from a broader study which seeks to question the degree of cultural similarity of Ireland and western Britain. The research presented indicates that within this broader study area, including Scotland, ceramic-producing regions used vessels in different ways, indicating the existence of regional variations in habitus, and by inference regional variations in identity.
The repair and modification of early Anglo-Saxon brooches: theoretical Implications
Toby Martin
(University of Sheffield)
Paper short abstract:
Early Anglo-Saxon brooches are fragile objects whose accidental breakage may provoke a decision to repair. Consequently, the object becomes physically and symbolically transfigured. Different types of repair have various meanings in terms of economic value, availability of resources, and biography.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines a corpus of over 1000 early Anglo-Saxon brooches and locates a frequency of repair and modification as high as 20% for some brooch types. Not only does this raise questions about the economic worth and availability of such items, but the amateurish nature of most repairs and modifications emphasises the embodiment of personal memory in these objects, and perhaps helps to explain their high rate of deposition as grave goods. Repair and modification impart insight into the detailed biography of these artefacts. This is of critical theoretical importance to objects generally seen only in their last stage of biography i.e. as grave goods.
There is such a high variety of physical modification that generalisation obscures the subtler meanings. Thus a typology of physical transformations is constructed that demonstrates how the purpose of these modifications oscillates between practical function and symbolic meaning. This typology may also help to locate where and when these modifications are taking place, be it in a workshop immediately after a casting error, or a simple repair presumably performed in the home.
This has significant theoretical implications for both Anglo-Saxon mortuary archaeology, as well as the study of dress accessories in general. Specific types of brooches are suggested to be highly personal and inalieanable objects whose only proper place of disposal after their initial casting is physically attached to the owner's corpse.
Significant reuse: material biography and early medieval sculpture in Scotland
Mark Hall
(Perth Museum & Art Gallery)
Paper short abstract:
An exploration of reuse as key strand of material biography, particulalrly of early medieval sculpture.
Paper long abstract:
This contribution will explore reuse and repurposing through the avenue of material or cultural biography. Reuse is integral to cultural biography and both will be assessed in the context of early medieval (including Pictish) sculpture in Scotland. Such an approach reveals human complexity in both the short, period time-frame and in the multi-period long durée. It breaks down the straight jacket of period transcending such demarcations and by revealing complexities within periods it disrupts their cohesive, generalised definition. It is also people focussed, it does not fetishise objects but seeks to tell us about how they were used and reused and changed by people. Objects have use lives and multiple users.
Objects that stay in currency or in the landscape have generally greater potential for recoverable biographies; excavated objects once sealed in the ground less so - but archaeologists should acknowledge that the identity of an object is more complex than its fixed site context of where it came to rest. They have wider social contexts. The biographical approach is sympathetic with a landscape approach: there is a close affinity in studying landscape palimpsest and the life histories of objects, indeed the two should be linked.
When is a pot still a pot?
Duncan Brown
(English Heritage)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the concept of pottery vessels as 'seconds', considering the validity of pots in terms of their intended function, even if they have not emerged from the kiln in a pristine state. This provides an opportunity to explore the relationship between the pottery-maker and the consumer, as well as those people and the object.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the concept of pottery in the form of 'seconds', considering the validity of pots in terms of their intended function, even if they have not emerged from the kiln in a pristine condition. One particular vessel is examined in terms of what happened to it in the kiln, how that affected its final appearance and what that might have meant in terms of value as a saleable commodity and as a functional item. That will lead to a general consideration of the relationship between finish and function and the place pottery might have occupied in a medieval household. One might then reflect upon where, in a medieval scheme of materiality, the lines of ceramic compromise might be drawn. In other words how bad does a pot have to be before it is deemed worthless and useless? From there, it is a short step to a consideration of the continuing functionality of pottery in broken form, although that discussion may be covered more thoroughly by other speakers in the session.
Making do or making the world? Tempering choices in Anglo-Saxon pottery manufacture
Ben Jervis
(University of Southampton)
Paper short abstract:
I aim to collapse the dichotomy between material and social explanations in the interpretation of ceramic technology. This approach will demonstrate that what we may see as an inferior product was both a product of, and active in the construction of, a particular formulation of 'the social',
Paper long abstract:
As a pottery specialist I am often asked why the earliest Anglo-Saxon pottery is so crude, in particular why it has organic temper. Often this pottery is friable and it is difficult to understand why this method of manufacture was adopted. Typically I could give one of two responses. Firstly, I could argue that the use of organic temper (typically chaff or dung) made the clay more workable and increased the thermal shock properties of the pottery, by producing voids in the fabric. Secondly, I could cite social reasons, arguing that it fitted with the 'habitus' of Anglo-Saxon potters.
Neither explanation is satisfactory, instead I propose we address the question by collapsing the social and material worlds into each other, to attempt to compose what is termed a 'symmetrical' view of the world. Following Actor-Network Theory I will demonstrate how the pottery is situated within a network through which meaning and action is distributed between human and material actors. By taking this approach we can examine how the pottery played a part in building context, how its relations with humans distributed agency and thus created a meaning, or logic, to what seems to us to be a illogical choice of material culture.