Sensorial Archaeology

Standing at over a million men strong, the Royal Artillery was larger than the Royal Navy during the First World War; representing, by 1916, almost a quarter of all British soldiers serving on the Western Front. In the course of a war hallmarked by its industrial nature and scale, artillery evolved to become the premier killing arm, responsible for more than 50% of all casualties (Bailey 2004: xviii). A “mediator of change on many levels” (Crawford 2009: 8), field guns and heavy artillery pieces also helped to reshape Flanders’ fields, to leave an enduring mark on the landscape which resonates, via the medium of the annual harvest of unexploded ordnance, to the present day.

Recognised for their ability to destroy, neutralise, harass or suppress, the guns also provided the war with an unnatural ‘heartbeat’; with artillery’s fire attuned to the conflict’s industrial tempo; each gun battery a mobile factory designed to efficiently transform live artillery rounds into empty brass shell-cases, with human beings subordinated as ‘gun numbers’ to the greater needs of attritional science and technology.

Taking a “multidisciplinary, anthropologically informed” approach (Saunders 2012: iix), and drawing upon memoirs, letters and war diaries, contemporary art and photographic images as sources of primary evidence, this paper focuses on a hitherto unexplored dimension of the Great War to explore the sensorial and experiential impact of the conflict on the gunners who served the most prolific British artillery piece of the war: the Quick Firing 18-Pounder Field Gun (the ‘18-pdr’).

The author analyses some cases of mind/body experiences, with acoustic origins, occurred within prehistoric chambers with Neolithic art, relating them with the discoveries of recent neurophysiologic research based on hearing non-semantic sounds. Acoustic phenomena such as standing waves, and infrasound and resonant frequencies are also considered regarding the effects that they could have produced in the minds of prehistoric and protohistoric people. It will be discussed if some cases of Neolithic art can be the “depiction” of the mentioned mind/body experiences or the result of other phenomena with acoustic origins.
Key-words: Neolithic Art, Archaeoacoustics, Neuroscience, standing waves, infrasound.

Este artículo fue publicado en la revista Pasado Abierto, Revista del Centro de Estudios Históricos, Facultado de Humanidades de la Universidad del Mar del Plata, Argentina, No. 9, Año 5, enero-junio, 2019.

La imagen del sonido en códices prehispánicos del centro de México: una propuesta metodológica Resumen Toda cultura manifiesta de diversas formas la visión que tiene del mundo, una de ellas es la percepción sensorial. Su análisis nos permite conocer aspectos profundos del sistema explicativo que se tiene de la realidad que nos rodea. En este artículo nos detendremos en la percepción de los sonidos entre los nahuas prehispánicos, para ello, es necesario remitirnos a la memoria sensorial. Pareciera imposible y complejo, sin embargo contamos con datos que nos dan un valioso indicio, como la imagen contenida en los códices prehispánicos. La escritura en estos libros pintados refleja de forma muy especial la memoria sonora junto con los simbolismos que guarda casi secretamente. En este artículo se propone una metodología para el análisis de esas imágenes a través de la sinestesia-en términos antropológicos-como una forma especial de observar los códices y lograr identificar las representaciones del sonido, su simbolismo e importancia en la cosmovisión prehispánica. Abstract Every culture manifests in different ways the vision it has of the world, one of them is sensory perception. Its analysis allows us to know deep aspects of the explanatory system we have from the reality that surround us. In this article we will review the perception of sounds among the prehispanic Nahuas, for this, it is necessary to refer us to the sensory memory. It seems impossible and complex, however we have data that give us a valuable indication as the image contained in the pre-Hispanic codices. The writing system in these painted books reflects in a very special way

Resumen:
Tras 60 años de la publicación de las excavaciones en la Cueva de la Torre del Mal Paso (Castellnovo, Castelló), reestudiamos sus materiales y analizamos el uso que tuvo esta cavidad durante época ibérica. Mal Paso fue un espacio cultual dónde la imagen ofrendada jugó un papel vital en el desarrollo de las prácticas rituales. Teniendo en cuenta otros espacios similares, esta cueva destaca no solo por su cronología de uso, sino también por su localización y materialidad. Su frecuentación centrada entre los siglos III-I aC y su situación a pocos metros de un poblado, contrastan con otro ejemplos de sacralización rupestre analizados. Sin embargo, una variable se mantiene en relación a las cuevas rituales de siglos anteriores: la reutilización de un espacio sacro.
Palabras clave: Cueva, ritual, tránsito, cultura ibérica, espacio sensorial.


Abstract:
Sixty years after the excavations in Cueva de la Torre del Mal Paso (Castellnovo, Castelló) were published, we have restudied its materials and analyzed the use that this cave had during the Iberian Iron Age. Mal Paso was a sacred space where the offered images had a really important role in the ritual practices. By considering other similar spaces, this cave stands out not only because of its chronology, but also because of its location and materiality. Its chronology, focused between the 3rd and the 1st centuries BC, and its location, a few meters from a settlement, contrast with other examples of rock sacralization from the same area. However, looking at the caves ritualized between the 5th and the 4th centuries BC, one variable stays clear: the reutilization of a sacred space.
Keywords: Cave, ritual, transition, Iberian Culture, sensorial space.

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Drawing on the Peircean concepts of qualia and qualisign (Munn 1986; Keane 2003; Chumley and Harkness 2013), I propose that Classic Maya hieroglyphs were associated with two fundamental sensorial experiences, materiality and proximity, which were expressed by coordinating lexical, morphological, syntactic, and pragmatic strategies. I argue that Classic Mayan terminology distributed materiality between three basic qualisigns by privileging tactile and technological experiences of scribal production above interaction with the finished text. Qualia of proximity, in turn, implied differential access to hieroglyphic writing and its recorded knowledge with qualisigns that distinguished producers from patrons or owners. A semiotic approach articulates the material, the corporal, and the social in Classic Maya ontologies of writing and reveals the relational nature of hieroglyphic production and access. It also offers a theoretical consideration of the role of morphology, syntax, and pragmatics in culturally conditioned experiences of qualities and their interpretations.

Resumo: Somos seres encorpados, sendo assim, nossa experiência do dia a dia é uma experiência sensorial. Captamos as informações do mundo através dos sentidos. Cores, texturas, aromas, paladares, a sensação de movimento, de calor, de peso, tudo nos é apresentado através dos sentidos, sendo assim, entender como concebemos historicamente os sentidos nos permite entender como concebemos o mundo à nossa volta. A Arqueologia Sensorial busca entender como através da experiência sensorial com a materialidade, construímos nossas histórias, identidades, políticas, cultura e memórias. Abstract: Summary: We are bodiedbeings, so, ourexperienceofeverydaylifeis a sensoryexperience. We capture theworld'sinformationthroughthesenses. Resumen: Somos seres concuerpo, así, nuestraexperiencia de la vida cotidiana es una experiencia sensorial. Capturamos lainformacióndel mundo a través de los sentidos. Colores, texturas, olores, sabores, lasensación de movimiento, el calor, el peso, todo se nos presenta a través de los sentidos, por lo tanto, comprendercómohistóricamenteconcebimoslos sentidos nos permite entender cómodiseñamosel mundo que nos rodea. Sensorial Arqueología busca entender cómo a través de laexperiencia sensorial de lamaterialidad, hemosconstruidonuestra historias, identidades, las políticas, la cultura y losrecuerdos.

"The Inka Empire adopted several means to create, demonstrate and legitimize the power in its conquests over a vast territory. This paper focuses on one of those means: the production and
restructuring of socially constructed space. We believe that through this process of domination, the Inka Empire imposed its ideology and its worldview over the conquered societies. Although we do not ignore or reject the explanations usually given to this process, this position evaluates the Inka expansionism as a process guided not only by economic or logistic motivations. Therefore, we believe that ideology and the use of space are both key components when analyzing any social process, and in this specific case: the Inka domination in Northwest Argentina, particularly in the area of the Quebrada de Humahuaca. In subsequent lines we aim to explore some aspects of the relationship between ideology and space as theoretical concepts with the social production of space in the Tawantinsuyu, the Inka conquest of Humahuaca and the specific case of La Huerta archaeological site."

Aimed at unveiling some of the perceptions and experiences that people may have had
when dwelling in different towns and villages in the past, possibilities are being discussed with a
view to adopting a phenomenological approach to archaeological records. Therefore, the pertinence
of certain concepts and precepts from phenomenology being used as analytical and methodological
tools will be taken into account, in preference to a rigid theoretical outline. Accordingly, I aim
to demonstrate the potential of what I refer to as “experiential studies,” and how this idea may
work in collaboration with independent lines of research so as to achieve a deeper understanding
of past societies.

In the prehistoric Mediterranean, it seems plausible that sulphur was incorporated into society not only for economic reasons but also as a cultural resource that transformed and was transformed by local ways of living and identities. Processual theoretical approaches have highlighted how human collectives economically benefit from resources, however, recent anthropological research has illuminated how the threads of human cultures, identities, perceptions, experiences and the landscape become interwoven. Drawing upon the latter, contemporary archaeological theory is becoming increasingly concerned with understanding how to incorporate natural resources in this entanglement of cultural, sensorial and natural dimensions as an active force. Within this framework, this paper tackles the appropriation of sulphur in Early Bronze Age Sicily (EBA, ca. 2300-1500 BC), ultimately focusing on identities that might have emerged through engaging with this mineral within a natural and built landscape for cooperative/competitive relations. Therefore, it addresses life worlds in resource landscapes by drawing upon the archaeological evidence of sulphur extraction in the case-study region of Palma di Montechiaro, in Agrigento, Sicily. It suggests that the transformation of sulphur into a cultural resource was related to the identities of dwellers, miners and non-kin that emerged as a result of shared experiences within wider social arenas of interaction. It will propose that the sensory experience of the smell of sulphur played a role in this process by combining a phenomenological approach to raw materials with ethnographic and archaeometric evidence of sulphur's extraction process. To discuss this, I will review data regarding traditional technologies of extraction in the case study area, complemented by a re-assessment of the social and cultural practices in the excavated EBA settlement of Monte Grande, which comprises a thick description of the archaeological evidence for the smelting and extraction of sulphur. Finally, I propose an interpretation of how the relations that bound the local community together emerged from these interwoven engagements with, and responses to, the smells of the smelting process. In contrast to current interpretations, such an approach demonstrates how sulphur was more than just a commodity to exchange.

Aplicação dos princípios básicos da Arqueologia Sensorial à análise da arte rupestre identificada na Área Arqueológica de Sobradinho, Bahia (Brasil), tomando por exemplo o sítio de Boqueirão da Lajinha.
Partindo deste estudo de caso, amplia-se o entendimento das manifestações de arte rupestre e da dinâmica cultural dos diferentes grupos que habitaram ou passaram na região.
E demonstra-se a aplicabilidade de outros modelos interpretativos das evidências arqueológicas conhecidas, bem como da sua relação com os grupos indígenas e as comunidades tradicionais locais.
PALAVRAS CHAVE: Arqueologia sensorial; Arte rupestre; Etnoarqueologia; Identidades; Brasil.

The Western Front is one of the most iconic and resonant cultural landscapes to have emerged in modern history. The area continues to have a magnetic draw for tourists from many countries even as the First World War (1914-18) slips from private lived experience into historical memory. Tourists have been visiting the Western Front in Belgium and France ever since the war ended and the Centenary of the conflict (2014-18) is now amplifying this interest. Tourism has added an important new dimension to the socio-economic impact of the war. Tourists come to see and to understand; they seek connection with events stimulated by rich and varied cultural representations such as film, TV documentary, theatre and a buoyant war publishing industry. They engage with an “emotional geography” of cemeteries, museums and visitor centres which serve to ‘incarnate the facts’ of this enormously imaginative landscape.
This chapter examines the way tourists utilise their senses in the way they seek to understand the Western Front.  It includes a discussion of the ‘official’ heritage narrative expressed through both public and private museums and visitor centres as well as more private experiences of tourists.  Tourists come to seek meaning through a process of engagement with the memory and heritage of war. This can be a complex process because ‘heritage…is not an inherited essence but an experienced process; a process in which our emotions and feelings are enmeshed with our thoughts’ (Schorch 2014: 22). The senses are important in this process in that an encounter with heritage in ‘an interpretive context can be achieved through multisensory and embodied performances, a sensory and emotive contextualisation leading to an ‘internal understanding’ and empathy’ (Schorch 2014: 28). Although this relates primarily to museum interpretation it is clear that the senses are a key aspect of any ‘internal understanding’ of a ‘heritage-scape’ like the Western Front.

Several major publications over the last decade, such 'Caves in Context' (2011), 'Sacred Darkness' (2012), 'The Archaeology of Darkness' (2016) and 'Between Worlds' (2019), have all highlighted the cultural significance of subterranean natural spaces for human societies across diverse regions and periods. Indeed, human groups have frequently occupied selected natural cavities throughout Europe, from prehistory right up to the present day, for a variety of reasons.

This session aims to capitalise on this recent progress made by archaeologists in interpreting caves and to help set the agenda for the study of the human-cave interactions for the third decade of the 21st century. The scope is to go beyond the established norms of Cave Archaeology and to bring together provocative new theories on human-cave interaction with cutting-edge methodological and technical applications for the study of subterranean environments. We particularly welcome ideas that incorporate current theoretical perspectives (e.g. on their sensorial dimensions of caves and their landscapes, their affordances, their ritualization, the multiple uses of these natural spaces and so on), with new methodo-logies for the study of caves and of the cultural remains found within them (e.g. computational modelling , terrestrial and geophysical survey, creative narratives, performance studies, biochemical and bio-engineering approaches, amongst others). The session is not restricted to these topics; it is open to any provocative, novel, and experimental way to study the underworld beyond traditional archaeological approaches.

Keywords: Cave Archaeology, Human Uses of Caves, Subterranean Archaeology, Sensorial Archaeology, Archaeological Method and Theory

Have you ever wonder what is the value of your little finger? Strange as it may seems the question is not entirely misplaced, especially if we think that in recent years have grown the number of "celebrities" that put some part of their bodies in insurance. During the Middle Ages, damage caused by third parties to the body or parts of a person's body were compensated from cash payments. In the Islamic world, even today, the practice of Dyia determines the payment of monetary values to those who have suffered some kind of injury in the body or in the senses. The understanding of the principles that govern the monetization of the body and senses allows us to analyze how the body or parts of it are socially and culturally valued. With this goal in mind I intend to discuss the Lists of Compensation in medieval barbaric laws and the Western Modern Insurance Policies.

very culture conceives of the senses in different ways, establishing their own models and sensory hierarchies. Despite the importance of the senses in human experience, archaeology has generally neglected the sensory dimension of the material world. In response to this lacuna, the contributions to this volume incorporate all the senses in imaginative scenarios, in order to stimulate new ways of seeing and conceptualising archaeology and bring back the “self” to this science.

The international character of the essays brought together here, including researchers and case studies from across the globe, provides a variety of perspectives on this topic from a number of scales of analysis. The book will appeal to a wide range of readers, including academic researchers and the general public concerned with archaeology, history, anthropology, and sociology, and will provide readers with a greater understanding of the dynamics of the senses, the relationship between narratives and societies, and the cultural world.

Childhood is really a magical moment, when we can dream, fantasize and play. We can talk to objects, animals and even to talk aloud to ourselves in the street: no one will think it strange. But everything changes when we grow up. We come to consider as inanimate objects, animals as beings without conscience, and dreams as something childish. The situation worsens when we become scientists because we search truths. Science, and especially archeology, is a cold, soulless and lifeless world. We need to dream again, to speak with the objects and I do not mean it metaphorically. We must learn the language of objects if we want an archeology that really seeks to understand the past. Thus, this paper intends to merge the scientific discourse with literary discourse, dialoguing with a classic of world literature that attracts readers of all ages. Therefore we propose a disruption of hegemonic discourses, which can be sensorial archeology. It has the potential to change not only the archaeological discourse, but also the archaeologist, by enabling different contacts with objects, by allowing them to speak their language again.
Keywords: Sensorial Archaeology, Material Culture, Imagination, Scientific Colonialism

""The article reflects, from previous studies by the author in La Huerta (Quebrada de Humahuaca, Jujuy Province),
on the role of the archaeologist’s experiences in the analysis of particular ways of organizing and perceiving
space, and in fieldwork as a fundamental instance in generating interpretations about the past. It stands up
for the importance of strengthen an experiential approach to the archaeological record as a procedure to extend
knowledge in new ways and to deepen critically in existing ones.""

Este número da revista Habitus é dedicado ao tema Arqueologia das Práticas Rituais e traz uma seleção dos trabalhos que foram apresentados em simpósio de mesmo nome, organizado por Cristiana Barreto e Daniela Klökler no XVIII Congresso da Sociedade de Arqueologia Brasileira realizado em Goiânia em 2015.

Sealers were the first people to visit Antarctica; particularly, the South Shetland Islands. One of the most important goals of the international project “Landscapes in White” is to discuss the early history of the archipelago. In this way, the members of the project want to learn more about the people who were silenced by the official narratives of the region. For years, we have taken for granted what it was like to be a sealer. In this chapter, I would like to question this idea, considering the process by which somebody became a particular kind of sailor and hunter. This challenge makes me focus on the figure of the “green hands” (those who entered the trade). Furthermore, it makes me go beyond the South Shetlands, including some other scenarios which were also part of the sealing voyages. The analysis considers the ways in which the green hands acquired new habits as part of their sensory-motor engagement with different material contexts. It also considers the ways in which these habits could have shaped specific subjectivities.