DÉJÀ VU: FROM PLACE TO SPACE IN PREHISTORY
Laura Basell and Tony Brown
From Typology to Behaviour: The Meanings of Intersite Variability in the Early Stone Age of East Africa
Matt Grove : Dept of Geography, Royal Holloway
A central problem with lithic typologies is that they are likely to reflect categories imposed by archaeologists rather than differences experienced by the toolmaker. The current paper argues that this problem is also true of archaeological site typologies; in the Early Stone Age (ESA) of East Africa, it is questionable whether those localities identified as ‘living floors’ or ‘butchering sites’, for example, were afforded such meanings by those who created them. Despite such debatable affiliations, studies of prehistoric land use often rely extensively on site typologies to reconstruct hominin subsistence and settlement patterns.
This paper combines quantitative and qualitative analyses of ESA assemblages from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and Koobi Fora, Kenya, to examine the relationship between recurrent patterning in the archaeological record, the context of such patterning at the time of deposition, and its meaning as reconstructed by the archaeologist. Discriminant Function Analysis is used to examine the integrity of the typological schemes applied to these assemblages, with the result that the classifications of Leakey and Isaac are found to be essentially mathematically robust. Given these findings, and the implication that variation was present and observable at the time of deposition, the latter part of the paper examines a series of individual ESA localities in much the way that Gell (1998) examines the Maori Meeting House. In particular, the possibility that recurrent associations and combinations of particular artefacts and agents at given localities establish meanings in the minds of those agents is examined in some detail.
Reference
Gell, A. 1998. Art and Agency: Towards an Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
The Extended Ape: 'place' as a semiotic construct in early prehistory
Matthew Pope, Institute of Archaeology, University College, London
Early human groups crossed a profound behavioural rubicon once they began to leave a durable record of their occupation through the discard of stone tools. From 3 million years ago it is likely that Australopithecines were beginning to occupy material environments in which traces of earlier occupation would have begun to accrete at key ecological affordances. By 1.5 million years ago patterns of discard left by Homo Ergaster had become highly contextualised and structured, they were also beginning to contain distinctive tools types with non-functional characteristics. This paper explores this behavioural trajectory and the possibility that the presence of stone tool scatters within palaeolandscapes had a direct contextualised effect on early human behaviour, cueing specific behavioural triggers and establishing patterns of simple information feedback. It is suggested that the human sense of 'place' began to be formed at this time, as much through the evolutionary advantages of semiotic transmission as through more traditional explanations of resource distribution and food sharing.
Space and Place in the Palaeolithic? The importance of context and association in the Lower Palaeolithic
Geoff Smith : Institute of Archaeology, University College London
The appreciation of space and place during the Lower Palaeolithic has been advanced by notable discoveries of large open air localities e.g. Boxgrove (Roberts and Parfitt 1999) . The ability to discuss the spatial association of artefacts and modified bones at points within a palaeolandscape (places) allows for greater understanding of past hominin use of space for activities such as subsistence and lithic production. Such an approach views these areas as functional locations within a landscape, and the idea of ‘special places’ appears a loaded term. However, there is some evidence for repeated return and re-use at some Palaeolithic sites (e.g. Boxgrove) though whether these represent ‘special places’ or functional locations within a Lower Palaeolithic context is difficult to assess (e.g. Pope and Roberts 2005) . However, such open air sites are rare and the necessity for accurate contextual understanding at all Palaeolithic sites is identified as a vital component to accurately reconstructing hominin use of space both within the palaeolandscape. Without understanding the depositional regime, and its impact on assemblage formation, there is no definitive evidence for association between lithics and bones. Only once such an association can be demonstrated should consideration of hominin use of space in the Lower Palaeolithic be considered. In addition, by considering the palaeoecology of the site locale, and change through time, can allow for discussion about changing resource potential and how this may have necessitated changing use of space.
References
Pope, M. & Roberts, M. B. (2005) Observations on the relationship between Palaeolithic individuals and artefact scatters at the Middle Pleistocene site of Boxgrove, UK. In Gamble, C. & Porr, M. (Eds.) The Hominid individual in context: Archaeological investigations of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic landscapes, locales and artefacts. London, Routledge.
Roberts, M. B. & Parfitt, S. (1999) Boxgrove: A Middle Pleistocene hominid site at Eartham Quarry, Boxgrove, West Sussex., English Heritage.
Whose “place” is it anyway? Space and Place in the Middle Stone Age and Middle Palaeolithic
Laura Basell , Department of Geography, University of Exeter
Issues of place are more readily discussed in relation to later periods of prehistory from the Upper Palaeolithic onwards. This is related to availability of wider array of material culture on which to draw and the fact that Homo sapiens sapiens were the only extant hominin species by that time. During the MSA and Middle Palaeolithic however, different hominin species or sub-species co-existed, and it is during this period that Homo sapiens sapiens appeared. This paper will explore two themes using the MSA/Middle Palaeolithic archaeological records of Africa and Europe. Firstly, whether it is possible to consider “place” during these time-frames, beyond ecologically based interpretations, given the resolution of the archaeological record and the type of artefacts we have. And secondly what the implications of hominin co-existence might be to such interpretations.
Pieces of places and persons
OR
The place of place in the Mesolithic of the Northern Irish Sea Basin. Pieces of places and persons
OR
The place of place in the Mesolithic of the Northern Irish Sea Basin
Hannah Cobb , Department of Archaeology, School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester
When we consider past hunter-gatherer groups, such work appears to lend itself perfectly towards the examination of patterns of hunter-gatherer movement around, and exploitation of the landscape. Yet I would argue that in fact this consideration is fraught with contradictions. Such perspectives require us to see landscape in a two dimensional sense; as a commodity, as something to be objectified, to be subdivided into territories, to be exploited, and to be moved over mechanically. However, over a decade of concerted critiques of such views of landscape from within Archaeology and Geography has demonstrated clearly that such perspectives are entirely particular to the modern west. As such there is now a growing body of literature that demands we reject such modernist frameworks for conceptualising hunter-gatherer understandings of and interactions with place and landscape.
Yet how can we consider this without reverting to our own Cartesian frames of reference? In trying to answer this question a number of approaches have been employed, yet these have drawn criticism for projecting methodologies that work within later prehistoric periods back onto hunter gatherer sites. Indeed it has been suggested that such approaches produce only “banal phenomenological truisms” (Jordan 2003, 130). However in this paper I will suggest that we must not simply dismiss phenomenology out of hand. Instead, by drawing upon the case study of the Mesolithic of the northern Irish Sea basin and exploring the myriad of intimate connections that Mesolithic materialities enabled between people and places, I will outline a series of suggestions as to how we can now find new ways of examining hunter-gatherer conceptions of place.
References
Jordan, P., D. (2003). Investigating Post-Glacial Hunter Gatherer Landscape enculturation: ethnographic analogy and interpretive methodologies. In L. Larsson, H., Kindgren, K., Knutsson, D., Loeffler, and A., Akerlund (eds.), Mesolithic on the Move. Papers Presented at the 6th International Conference in the Mesolithic in Europe, Stockholm, 2000. Oxford, Oxbow: pp128-138.
Making places, making people: Movement, materiality, emotion and memory at the Neolithic timber hall at Lockerbie, Scotland
Oliver Harris ( University of Cardiff), Phil Richardson ( University of Newcastle and CFA Ltd.).
The production of place cannot be separated from the construction of people. People make themselves as they make their worlds, as they move through it, dwell through it, and interweave with each other and particular materialities. Places are thus not bounded either, following Ingold, but rather are produced through the intersection of movements of both people and things. The production of place also involves its texturing and shaping through emotion and memory, and this in turn limits how people can feel about a certain site and what they can remember. In this paper we will examine the creation of place through the ways in which movements, materialities interwove in the construction and occupation of an Early Neolithic timber hall at Lockerbie, Scotland, recently excavated by CFA ltd. In presenting the results of this excavation we suggest that the multiple materialities inherent in its construction (including clay, stone, wood and turf) would have textured the hall with emotions and memories, and helped to create a sense of place in the Early Neolithic. In so doing other places, including the sites these materials had been obtained from would also be changed, as would the people themselves.
Waterland: changing environments, human perception and monument construction on Hatfield Moors during the Neolithic
Benjamin R. Gearey and Henry P. Chapman , Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham
This paper presents a case study of Hatfield Moors, east England and considers how the incorporation of multiple datasets regarding the rate and character of the environmental changes that this landscape underwent during prehistory can be built into a coherent narrative. This may be used to ‘situate’ – both in a physical sense and also within broader themes of debates surrounding people, space and places in this period - the construction towards the end of the Neolithic of a rather unusual monument. It stresses how any exploration of the significance of ‘place’ in prehistory requires an appreciation of processes and rates of environmental change, on a range of scales from site to landscape, and that it is at the interface between archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data that meaningful dialogue on such issues might be found.
A place for everything and everything in its space
Fraser Sturt , Department of Geography University of Southampton
Despite protests to the contrary much of archaeology is about categorisation; of placing things in boxes in order to facilitate interpretation. Space and Place represent two such arbitrary containers within which we attempt to force the tangled and confusing threads for the evidence of past people's lives. This paper explores alternative ways of thinking about spatiality that do not focus on a space/place divide but on a continuum of engagement with the physical world.
Unknown and Known Places in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of the Irish Sea Region
Bronwen Price : Department of Archaeology, University of Cardiff
This paper considers how travel incurs repeated designation and characterisation of place based upon pre-existing expectations. Movement generates engagements with a succession of constituted places, each differentially acquainted with the traveller/s. Comprehension of such encounters necessitates the constant renegotiation of social knowledge, a phenomenon which invariably avoids explicit contradictions with contemporary cosmologies. As a result of this process, certain places can become designated as ‘known’ or ‘not known about’ within social psyches, and this is archaeologically accessible through the differential treatment of taskscapes (Ingold 1993).
With reference to the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of the Irish Sea region, I argue that labelling places as unknown or known was agent-driven rather than based on any universalities, and therefore that the perceived character of a place was entirely irrespective of the extent of people’s acquaintance with it. Entirely un-encountered places may have become instantly established as known, whereas places pivotal to daily life may have become entangled with taboos due to their ongoing designation as unknown. Indeed the nature of what unknown and known meant at this time may share little resemblance with our modern conceptualisation of it, and I therefore challenge common assumptions about the nature of prehistoric engagements with places such as caves (e.g. Barnatt and Edmonds 2002).
The discovery and understanding of places conceded as unknown and known can guide us on the complex processes of the construction and deconstruction of place. This paper will discuss issues of familiarity, normality, memory and knowledge formation, and world-views.
A Place in Nature
Tony Brown , Department of Geography, University of Exeter
Spaces can have utility but places have meaning. Does the early Neolithic in Europe mark an ‘appropriation’ of nature or a more complex shifting relationship between people, natural events and natural entities? Or is there continuity of reference and meaning but with an additional and potentially destabilising addition? Do events create places in the sense that they confer meaning through memory and this frequently promotes revisitation, commemoration and ironically desecration? Although these questions are immensely difficult to answer, it is possible to ask them of archaeological record. Their importance lies in their implications for much wider questions such as the rise of monumentality and the creation of landscape. This paper will explore these questions using Early-Mid Neolithic data from Midland and SW England.
Creating places: an embodied approach
Vasileios Tsamis : University of Southampton Archaeology Department
The role of built space has been extensively analysed in archaeology. In particular its relation with phenomenology (e.g. Tilley and Bennett 2004), social organisation (e.g. Grahame 2000) and identity (e.g. David and Wilson 2002) has been central in the interpretation of Prehistory. In addition, studies on access analysis (e.g. Hillier and Hanson 1984; Ratti 2004) have provided additional tools in its interpretation. Nevertheless, the majority of the above work focuses on functional and socio – economic connotations. Little is said about the role of remembering (or forgetting) and the impact of bodily senses in the interpretation of space.
Late Bronze Age central Macedonia, Greece, will provide three examples (the mounds of Kastanas and Assiros and Thessaloniki) in order to demonstrate the role of memory and body senses in the past. Their manipulation and control will be seen as central in the creation of places.
This approach will put forward an alternative interpretation putting people back in the places they created. Bodily senses and memory will be introduced when interpreting the role of place. Moreover, it will illustrate the importance space in the creation of locality and sense of belonging.
Debating Architecture: Place and monumentality in Northern Portugal in the III-II millennia B.C.
Gonçalo Leite : (Instituto Politecnico de Tomar ) gonvelho@gmail.com
In the third millennium B.C., the Iberian Peninsula witnessed the development of monumental structures. First seen as colonies and later as fortified settlements, these places are now regarded as monumental places (Jorge, S. O.1994). This means a change in the interpretation scale, to an almost semiotic level.
In this paper I will assess the importance of these sites within Ingold’s (1993) view of a “temporality of landscape”. I will analyse the importance of a sense of ‘place’ within architecture, through a reading of Heidegger’s seminal works and the recent studies of Ingold (2000) and Thomas (1999). This will lead to an interrogation of the notion of ‘architecture’ itself. As I will discuss, Castelo Velho and Castanheiro do Vento are two sites in which building relates very closely to ‘placeness’ or to dwelling. It’s techne and poiesis, who “brings them forth” in the world.
Space Carve or Curve Time? Some Reflections on Prehistoric Mentality throughout Rock Art
George Dimitriadis , Dept. of Arts and History, University of Lecce, Italy
Wittgenstein and Jung demonstrate that the human mind finds refuge in spatial metaphors in order to visualize its proper conceptual structures. By individuating the elements that construct place, it becomes possible to understand the place itself. In sum, the landscapes created by the man are precious cultural evidences and for this reason space is defined not only according cultural needs but also material ones. Space and Man are completed by each other. There is no space without matter or matter outside of a spatial context. Space wraps human beings and man is projected to the future and new dimensions: the myths of the primates. Man dreamed at all times according space dimensions and in space terms has led his pilgrim.
The space and the various places inside it can be considered as a topos based on a hank of social relations between the actors who carried the space with its symbols and significances. It is necessary to recall the action dimension as the landscape was modelled, in order to make sense of it. Recalling the fragmentary elements of the place enable us to read the landscape. Thanks to the “Place” the man and the objects are collocated acquiring value and entity. To discover the “Place”, the fundamental quanta which re-enact the space, means rethinking the space according the relations and the inter-relations which existed inside it. The present paper explores the relationship between human and environment: humans and rocks. Petroglyphs and paintings, ecofacts and artificial “ceremonial” places are studied in order to bring in evidence the spirit of the “place”.
Paul Cloke , Department of Geography, University of Exeter
Abstract and title forthcoming.
Cyclical spaces, permanent places: Settlement and activity in the Alpine zone in the southern French Alps
Kevin Walsh & Nick Trustram Eve , Department of Archaeology, King’s Manor, University of York
The exploration of human engagements with supposedly liminal zones has often been characterised by discourses imbued with notions of marginality (environmental, economic and cultural). Moreover, many assessments of activity in high altitude areas are dominated by economic models where seasonality is the key defining characteristic. Eight years of field work in the Southern French Alps (in the Parc National des Ecrins and the Ubaye Valley) has allowed us to reassess the complex network of human relationships within the sub-alpine and alpine zones (2000m and above). Previous models have treated these zones as spaces visited by people within a cyclical round of economic activities; hunting and transhumance for example. Here, we wish to consider the network of connections that existed between people and these places; concentrating on the notion that such places, although often only visited during the summer months, had a permanency as places constituted in social memory through ritual (rock art, burial) as well as economic practices.
The presentation of data from two study areas (the Ecrins and the Ubaye Valley) will contrast two quite different zones. The first study area has produced a sequence of sites and palaeoecological evidence spanning the entire Holocene and provides evidence for the recurrent use of specific areas in the high altitude zone. An important increase in activity occurred during the late third and second millennia, with an apparent reduction in the popularity of this zone during the first millennia BC. Economic rationale alone cannot explain this waxing and waning of activity. In our second study area, structures and stone tools are complimented by Rock Art and burial evidence and allow us to fully explore the complexity of activity in, and attitudes towards, this landscape.
Understanding Place is Child’s Play
Sophie Allen : Institute of Archaeology, London
Within much of the work cited in the session abstract it is posited that places are meaningful because people exist within them; but are places meaningful to people? If so, what aspects hold particular meaning? This paper aims to address a question asked in the session abstract: Does archaeology allow us an insight into the construction of place?
Through asking questions of the present about how places are created, what meaning they hold for different groups of people and how people experience them we can explore questions of space and place within prehistory more fully. Academics often take a leap of faith between the present and the past without fully exploring people’s experiences of the landscapes of today.
The focus of this paper is the relationship between children and place. It will examine the role of archaeology in the construction of place by children and it will question how important the past is (and the remains of the past) in the construction of a locale. |
