Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine the use of experimental archaeology, field survey and GIS analysis to develop an embodied and contextualised overview of the use of hot stone technology in Bronze Age Shetland.

Paper long abstract:

Until recently the study of burnt mounds has focussed its attention on finding a definitive output for the technologies involved in their creation. This paper aims to overcome the objectification of these sites by exploring them, not as a number of potential outcomes, but as a series of interlinking and transformative processes, through which people, places and things combine.

Following on from the work of writers such as Ingold (2000, 2007), this study focuses centrally on the concept of habitus (as defined by Bourdieu, 1977), and recognises the need for the creation of a practise based interpretation of these sites and their technologies. In particular it is argued that a detailed understanding of the materials encountered in these processes, and the affordances that they offer those who encounter them is key to understanding these sites.

Taking the burnt mounds of Shetland as a case study, a program of GIS analysis, landscape survey and experimental archaeology was devised. It is suggested that through these methods, by examining the processes involved in the creation and use of these sites we can achieve a greater understanding not only of the potential applications of hot stone technologies, but also how the people, places and things involved in this use interacted and were perceived.

Bourdieu, P. 1977[2008] Outline of a Theory of Practise. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Ingold, T. 2000 Perception of the Environment: Essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. London: Routledge.

Ingold, T. 2007. Materials against materiality. Archaeological Dialogues. 14: 1-15.