Emotion, Space and Society 15 (2015) 64e73

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Emotion, Space and Society

More than a feeling: Towards an archaeology of atmosphere

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Contemporary philosophies of atmosphere hinge on the presence of an experiencing subject through
Received 20 May 2013 which atmosphere is conceptualised and analysed, and it is argued that one has be exposed to atmo-
Received in revised form sphere in order to appreciate it. This stipulation will be referred to as the ‘clause of subjectivity’ in this
5 December 2013
article. The clause implies, fundamentally, that it is impossible to approach atmospheres in the past, at
Accepted 15 December 2013
least the past located before living memory. This article seeks to challenge this condition, exploring the
Available online 24 January 2014
potential for analysing atmospheres in the prehistoric past. It is suggested that we need to build a notion
of atmosphere that is particular to the study of non-experiential contexts, capable of accommodating the
Keywords:
Atmosphere
material infrastructure of social spaces (e.g. architecture, lighting and sensuous qualities) and movement
Ecstasies of things (the corporeal staging of particular channels of experience) in order to move towards past atmospheres.
Emergent forms Monumental tombs, known as passage graves, from the South Scandinavian Middle Neolithic, form the
Movement exemplification of this proposal, offering the opportunity for not only exploring the possibility for
Kinesfield approaching atmosphere in the remote past, but also for addressing the affective properties of archi-
Passage graves tecture in a broader sense.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction: atmosphere and the clause of subjectivity (Heidegger, 1962: 134; 2001: 67; Merleau-Ponty, 2002: 25e26;
Shepherdson, 2007: 57), or, as philosopher Gernot Böhme declares
A growing body of literature across a variety of disciplines uncompromisingly about atmospheres: ‘Without the sentient
currently stipulate that atmosphere constitutes a crucial aspect of subject, they are nothing’ (Böhme, 2013: 3).
human social and individual life (e.g. Anderson, 2009; Blum, 2010; Altogether, this is what I will refer to as a ‘clause of subjectivity’.
Borch, 2009; Böhme, 1993, 2006a; Goetz and Graupner, 2007; The consequence of this clause is that atmospheres cannot be
Harris and Sørensen, 2010; Hasse, 2012; Kazig, 2007; Pennartz, passed down through representations, and that second-hand
2006; Rauh, 2012; Stewart, 2011; Thibaud, 2011, 2012; Zumthor, communication or inference of an atmosphere does not recreate
2006). A number of authors emphasise that atmosphere and the atmosphere, but only produces its mediation. Needless to say,
related phenomena, such as affect, mood and attunement, are this condition poses a fundamental challenge to the possibility of
phenomena that can only be apprehended by an experiencing apprehending atmospheres located before memory and outside of
subject. You have to be ‘exposed’ to an atmosphere in order to subjective experience.
appreciate it (Böhme, 1998: 114; 2001: 41, 52; 2006b: 405; 2013), If atmospheres are as culturally important as demonstrated in
because ‘atmospheric affects’ are ‘impressions’ (Brennan, 2004: 5e many recent writings on the theme, we should expect them not
6) issuing forth as ‘the complete occupation of a surfaceless space in only to texture the spaces of contemporary societies but equally
the region of experienced presence’ (Schmitz et al., 2011: 255). those of bygone times, whether in the recent or the remote past.
Hence, the experience of atmosphere hinges on the condition that Accordingly, atmospheres need to be taken into account as decisive
perception necessitates a ‘truly concrete and human subject’ cultural parameters also in the understanding of past societies. In
(Dufrenne, 1987: 8), and that the object of perception must be the archaeological past, especially in the prehistoric past from
‘present as sensitive to the sensuous, that is with a virtual knowl- which no oral or written accounts exist, atmospheres are even
edge of the affective significations the aesthetic object proposes’ more distant in the sense that they are not narrated by experi-
(Dufrenne, 1987: 9). Any kind of experience of atmosphere is thus encing subjects and are not represented through intentional, sub-
contingent on subjective disposition, mood or state-of-mind jective descriptions. What we are left with are material remains,
which is of course the condition for all prehistoric archaeology, yet
given the clause of subjectivity, the prehistoric condition implies
that we have no access to atmosphere in prehistory, and we thus
* Tel.: þ45 60757666.
E-mail address: farktfs@hum.au.dk. have to bracket off a culturally fundamental aspect of past realities

1755-4586/$ e see front matter Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2013.12.009
 T.F. Sørensen / Emotion, Space and Society 15 (2015) 64e73 65

in archaeological research. So, if the world is e partially or fully e 121e122; 1995: 32e34, 167e168). These ecstasies are the ways in
apprehended, shaped and staged through atmosphere the question which a thing stands out of itself, how it projects itself onto the
emerges to what extent archaeology can understand prehistoric world, or how it ‘tinctures’ its surroundings. A thing, in other words,
people, if it has no means of grasping atmosphere in the past. has the capacity to give ‘colour’ to its surroundings (Böhme, 1993:
Excluding a potentially crucial dimension of the cultural envi- 121), exercising a presence by affecting the world around it (see
ronment and of human dwelling is, of course, not very satisfying for also Armstrong, 1971). In much the same vein, philosopher Tadashi
any discipline within the humanities and social sciences. As such, Ogawa (2004) addresses how things may ‘shine forth’ and have a
this challenge resounds traditional archaeological discussions as to radiance onto their surroundings. He relates this radiance to
the epistemological possibility for accessing aspects of past realities Edmund Husserl’s concept of Abhebung (‘standing-out’), signifying
that do not transpire in the form of concrete material objects or as the object’s transcendence and its qualitative relation to the world:
solid facts (Hawkes, 1954; see also Harris and Sørensen, 2010: 145). ‘In standing-out, a thing comes forth in a field of appearances, a
While archaeology has conventionally been characterised by a field that envelops me in a certain atmosphere or mood’ (Ogawa,
widespread mistrust of elusive phenomena, recent phenomeno- 2004: 153).
logically inspired work have sought to rehabilitate experience, The ecstasy of things is thus complicit in the production of at-
emotion, senses and embodied engagements with landscape mospheres and the signification of materialities, in that it is integral
(Cummings et al., 2002; Hamilton and Whitehouse, 2006; Harris, to the shaping of situations and the mood of the perceiver. Hence,
2010; Tilley, 1994, 2004, 2008, 2010). The concern in philosoph- atmospheres emerge, according to Böhme (1993: 119), as an in-
ical phenomenology with consciousness has in archaeology, how- termediate position between subject and object, or rather as a unity
ever, largely been translated into personal experience, which of subject and object, which is fundamentally characterised by their
means that archaeological phenomenology thus relies on the re- co-presence (Böhme, 2001: 56e57). Böhme defines the presence of
searcher’s perspective, thereby conserving the clause of subjec- things not as their mere factual existence as subjects or objects, but
tivity. So when archaeologist Christopher Tilley describes his the ways in which they make their presence perceptible; a thing
phenomenology of movement as his ‘walk of the walk’ (Tilley, articulates not as being-there or not-being-there, but instead as
2008: 269) it is not only a subjective walk, but even more so a ‘the ways in which it goes forth from itself’ (Böhme, 1993: 121). This
personal walk in and through which he explores his own experi- breaks down the absolute distinction between subject and object,
ence of walking in a landscape. This experience is, in turn, projected in that they become mutually constitutive (see also von Bonsdorff,
on to the movements and experiences of prehistoric individuals. 1998: 131).
Tilley contends that any attempt to device a more formalised In addition, Böhme (1998, 2006a) argues that architectural
approach, released from personal experience, would turn the qualities arise from the influence that each material component
exploration into words that are ‘dead, silent, and inert, devoid of has on the creation of a certain kind of atmosphere, which he
love and life’ (Tilley, 2008: 266). defines as the relationship between spatial qualities and a person’s
So while Tilley describes the walk during the walk from an mood. In a less philosophical tone, architect Peter Zumthor (2006)
individualised point of view, the present approach seeks to similarly describes how the properties of architecture e the ma-
decentre the subjective gaze and extract atmosphere from the terials employed in architecture and the orchestration of the
material environment, thus seeking to explore the role of material movement of people and light e have the capacity to create strong
culture as an affective accomplice in the staging of architecture. emotive effects on people’s engagement with spatial settings.
Redirecting the focus from experience to atmosphere offers the Zumthor’s approach to atmosphere thereby emphasises the qual-
potential for emphasising a material rather than a personal ity of materials not simply as a source and a static trait in archi-
perspective. The ambition is, in other words, to look at body and tecture, but rather as the effects the materials produce through
architecture from the outside, exploring how these phenomena their radiance or affective influence on people. This implies that
influence one another in terms of producing a moving field of atmosphere is object-oriented or object-dependent, or spatial in
friction, sensation and affect. character, but at the same time creative of the mood of the
The challenge is thus to negotiate the clause of subjectivity so as perceiver of the atmosphere, which works as a ‘force field’
to accommodate the possibility for understanding past atmo- (Stewart, 2011: 452). Atmospheres thereby hinge on their material
spheres by appreciating them as constituting through material grounding, for example in the form of smells, sounds, illumination,
culture in the absence of a directly observable experiencing subject. taste, heat, and the very tactile feel of a building (Schmitz, 1999;
Certain aspects of current atmosphere theory do indeed open up see also Pallasmaa, 1996, 2005). The experience of atmospheres
for challenging the otherwise unconditional clause of subjectivity, cannot be disentangled from places and things, which work as
and to move beyond the individually bounded constraints of media for being attuned to the world (Guignon, 2003: 187;
archaeologically applied phenomenology. This article will thus Sedgwick, 2003: 19), i.e. being affectively disposed on the grounds
explore to what extent the clause of subjectivity can be bypassed, of the material surroundings (Harris and Sørensen, 2010). These
and it progresses by focusing on the often-stated claim that at- affective properties are synonymous with atmosphere being a
mosphere exist in the co-presence of subject and object through multiplicity of forms and forces with the intersection of body and
which the material and bodily aspects of atmosphere may be environment as a nexus. As such atmosphere can work as a
foregrounded. concept that allows experience not to be restricted to bounded
subjectivity (see also McKim, 2009). It is this intermingling of
2. Ecstasies and the embodiment of atmosphere sensory experience and material form that can be further pursued,
modelling a potential for exploring atmosphere with a strategi-
The clause of subjectivity takes its starting point in the experi- cally decentred human subjectivity.
encing subject, and is centred on the human, yet at the same time it
is argued that atmosphere essentially unfolds through the imbri- 3. Movement and emergent forms
cation of subject and object (Böhme, 1993: 119; 2001: 57). Atmo-
sphere has been described as an emotive radiance in space If we are to devise a framework for approaching atmosphere in
(Schmitz, 2007: 23), and its relation to human subjects emerge the prehistoric past, we need to be able to extract ecstasies from the
through what Böhme terms the ‘ecstasies of things’ (Böhme, 1993: confluence of material culture and people, and more specifically
66 T.F. Sørensen / Emotion, Space and Society 15 (2015) 64e73

address the affective properties of architecture and artefacts on Taking these observations a step further, choreographer
human bodies. The crucial elements here is the potential for un- Gretchen Schiller (2008), argues that we need to fill the gap be-
derstanding how spatiality is not simply defined by the architec- tween people and objects in order to adequately understand
tonic setting, but emerges in the co-presence of moving human movement and the ‘dynamic transactions that take place between
bodies and material culture. This allows for exploring how move- the body and the environment’ (Schiller, 2008: 433). Schiller de-
ments generate what I term ‘emergent forms’ in the interplay with scribes this locale as a ‘kinesfield’, developing upon Laban’s
the ecstasies of things, whereby space may be understood as kinesphere (1966: 10), whereby we may not only address the
emerging through the co-presence of various bodies (humans, sphere of the body but also what she terms the spatio-temporal
things, architecture). Just as light shining through a coloured win- conditions of the environment, such as socio-cultural events, ob-
dow may tinge a room and make it assume a particular texture or jects and atmosphere (Schiller, 2008: 432). She thus argues that the
gravity, so is bodily presence in a situation formative of spatial body of the moving person ‘moves with moving objects that
form. It is the notion of these kinds of emergent forms, generating together with it create dynamic transactional relationships. In
spatial texture and gravity, that makes it possible to pursue a model these relationships the choreomediated space is palpable and dy-
for atmosphere that may suspend the clause of subjectivity. namic’ (Schiller, 2008: 432e433). Schiller’s use of ‘field’ as opposed
Contrary to the ecstasies of things, it is not enough simply to to ‘sphere’ originates in the wish to emphasise the body moving in a
make observations of the stationary distribution of objects and given setting e i.e. a particular place e as opposed to Laban’s more
people in a given context in order to illuminate emergent forms generalised sense of a sphere surrounding a moving body (Schiller,
beyond the ones defined by architecture or the natural environ- 2008: 432). In short the ‘kinesphere’ could surround any body
ment. Moving bodies are part of the constitution of any inhabited moving in any kind of space, whereas the ‘kinesfield’ is a textured
space, and it is through this passage of bodies that forms emerge place, revolving around the body in particular contexts (see also
(and dissolve). In the context of dance, Baroque choreographer and Preston-Dunlop, 1983; Schiller, 2007).
dance annotator Raoul Feuillet (1706, 3) thus observed how In a similar vein, the kinesfield that Schiller explores is co-
movements and postures of the body e which he termed the created by and co-creative of atmospheres, which altogether
‘presence of the body’ e are part of the definition of a room. He suggests a need for approaching atmosphere, architecture and
describes how the front and back of the body are co-creative of movement as one mutually constitutive occurrence. What may at
zones on the stage, and can cut off or frame a part of a stage in order first be considered a static aspect of movement, namely the
to shape perceptions of interiority and exteriority, and of nearness instance of immobile formations and postures, thereby also
and distance. This means that the body and its movements have continue to be potentially engendering of atmosphere. The
spatial effect on the place within which it is situated. positioning and posture of bodies hence work as a choreographic
Another influential choreographer, Rudolf Laban (1966) takes accomplice in the generation of spatial form. The various for-
this logic further, and defines place as the locality of spatial change, mations, positions and postures that bodies may assume should,
which means that place cannot merely be approached as an empty of course, not be seen as ends in themselves, as the mobile as-
container separated from movement (Laban, 1966: 3e4). In other pects of choreography would then be lost out (cf. Laban, 1966: 3).
words, if change is an inherent aspect of places, movements in the Movement is thereby not only framed by the body or by archi-
place are defining of its feel or atmosphere if you will. At the same tecture, but is itself constitutive and transformative of spatial
time, movement is not simply an occurrence or happening, but form by being kinetically generative.
place and movement become intertwined as intrinsic qualities of Combining these forms of movements with the built environ-
one another: ‘Space is a hidden feature of movement and move- ment, it becomes evident that architecture may constrain or
ment is a visible aspect of space’ (Laban, 1966: 4). The space of determine aspects of motions, for example as a blind alley forces
movement is described by Laban as ‘kinesphere’, which he uses to movement to stop or to be stopped, before it can turn around and
describe the sphere around the body, or the extension of the body pick up the pace in a new direction. A passage may thus have
created by movements of arms, legs, gestures and postures (Laban, entirely different characters in the situation of a halt as opposed to
1966: 10). continuous movement. A seizing movement may thus be trans-
Laban (1971: 91) defined two main forms of action during ferred to architecture as a suspended or suspending architectonic
movement, namely ‘scattering’ and ‘gathering’. Scattering is the setting or the temporality of a setting may be conceived as referring
form of movement that issues from the centre of the individual to a potential futurity, being continuous and projective of move-
body and outwards, while gathering flows from the periphery of ment on to a perceived other side; for example in the case of a
the body sphere to its centre. Gathering brings something towards threshold, doorway or a bridge.
the centre of the body and is flexible, whereas scattering pushes In turn, the movements that emerge are not just spatial move-
something away and is thus more direct. Within dance, Laban ments, but are at the same time ways of being moved, because the
regarded these movements to be symbolic residues of historical connection between bodily movement and affective movement is
movement shapes, referring to the classical ballet poses ‘attitudes’ formative of the sensation of spatial forms (see also Mazis, 1993;
and ‘arabesques’ (see also Beaumont and Idzikowski, 2003: 30e31; Sheets-Johnstone, 1999). Movements do not just result in a trans-
Grant, 1982: 2, 9). While earlier choreographers generally portation of bodies, but have the capacity to produce sensibilities,
approached these two classical poses as stationary placements generative of the very experience of a room or a situation. In other
(Bradley, 2009: 34; Laban, 1971: 94) saw them as dynamic alter- words, sensing one’s body in its field of movement is also a feeling
ations that could work as conclusive and projectional movements of one’s extension and magnitude of movement, a feeling of spatial
respectively. Attitudes are ‘final poses which cannot well be further constraint, intimacy or exclusion (Schmitz, 1999).
developed’ (Laban, 1971), which means that once an attitude has
been assumed, a new direction is necessary in order for movement 4. Atmosphere beyond subjectivity: a case study
to proceed. Arabesques, on the other hand, project in definite di-
rections from the centre of the body, which means that they do not Such affective productions of emergent forms shed light on the
sum up a dynamic, but anticipate and ‘strive towards some point of creative spatial situations that derive from the constellation of
the external world’, and they ‘demand a continuation of the motion material culture, body and movement, and by combining ‘ecstasies’
in a clearly indicated direction’ (Laban, 1971). (or material radiance) with ‘emergent forms’ (or bodily radiance)
 T.F. Sørensen / Emotion, Space and Society 15 (2015) 64e73 67

offers an approach to atmosphere that may bypass the clause of a diameter of ten to thirty metres, sometimes still lined by an
subjectivity. In short, by ‘ecstasies of things’ I adopt Böhme’s notion encircling row of granite kerbstones.
that things can radiate affectively on to their surroundings, and I The actual tomb inside the mound is accessed through a corridor
use ‘emergent forms’ to describe how the moving body itself pro- e or passage e running from the outer perimeter of the mound
duces tuned spaces. In concert, these notions allow for an appre- towards its centre. The length of the corridor can vary from three to
ciation of the affective and sensuous engagements between human ten metres, and is normally ca. half a metre wide and about one
beings and architecture even in the absence of an experiencing metre high with a ceiling of granite boulders. The corridor to the
subject in the analysis, inviting an exploration of the limits of what chamber is set roughly perpendicularly to the chamber, and ordi-
we may reasonably say about atmosphere in a context where the narily runs from the middle of the chamber’s long side to the edge of
human is analytically decentred. the mound encapsulating the entire construction (Fig. 2). The in-
The connectivity of the animate body and architecture offers a ternal chambers in the passage graves are constructed of large
framework for exploring the engendering of atmosphere in the vertical granite boulders (orthostats), intersected by a dry-walling of
prehistoric past, where atmosphere is not and cannot be accessed layered, flat sandstone. The dry-walling has proven particularly
as an unmediated subjective experience. Of course, this implies that efficient as it was been lined with folded birch bark, which prevents
the kind of atmosphere addressed in prehistory is not entirely water from sieving through should it penetrate the several mem-
synonymous with the ones that are explored through a researcher’s branes of packed flint, pebbles and clay that make up the material in
subjective gaze, yet I argue that the analytical categories of body, the mound. The chambers are ceiled by enormous capstones of up to
movement and architecture e as outlined above e offer the po- 25 tons on top of which further draining layers were constructed.
tential for characterising certain atmospheric settings even in The chambers are ordinarily rectangular or oval, and up to 15 m in
prehistory (see also Harris and Sørensen, 2010). length, up to 2.5 m in width and height, and thus offered room
What follows is an exploration of the potential for such an enough for numerous burials (Dehn and Hansen, 2002, 2007).
interpretation of atmosphere in a case study, focusing on the Unlike the architectonic construction of the passage graves,
monumental burials structures from the North European Neolithic their internal use as burial places is often shrouded in poor pres-
known as passage graves. Specifically, I draw on South Scandina- ervation of skeletal material and a perplexing image of what ap-
vian passage graves built the late 4th millennium BC (their con- pears to be a disorderly confusion of bones, stone objects, potsherds
struction is usually dated to 3300e3100 BC) and used often for and a host of small ornamental items in animal bone and amber.
centuries, and occasionally for millennia albeit not necessarily Part of the confusion stems from the fact that some passage graves
continuously (Dehn and Hansen, 2002: 47). This form of architec- continued in use as cemeteries for up to 2000 years after their
ture is particularly useful for an archaeological approach to atmo- construction (Andersen, 2001: 55; Scarre, 2010: 181), which means
sphere as it strictly encodes particular sensory experiences, staging that the burials conducted in the latter half of the 4th millennium
or choreographing a particularly affective framework for moving sometimes have been cleared out or disturbed repeatedly in the
and interacting with the material setting. course of later uses. In order to approach an atmospheric appreci-
Approximately 500 passage graves are preserved within the ation of the monument, it is necessary to keep in mind that the
borders of contemporary Denmark, yet the original number of passage graves precisely were places of burial and that people
monuments may have been much higher, potentially up to 5000 entered and left them in the practice of depositing and/or removing
(Dehn et al., 2004: 153). Even though many passage graves have dead bodies and/or parts of dead bodies.
been destroyed or are damaged, numerous still exist in an almost
pristine condition, and their extreme durability is testimony of 4.1. The corridor
their high engineering qualities. Most passage graves are large,
domed monuments, composed of soil, turf and stone (Fig. 1), and an When the dead body or parts of the dead body were to be
average-sized passage grave in eastern Denmark has been esti- transported into the tomb, the participants in the burial would
mated to be constructed from an astonishing 990 tons of building access the chamber through its narrow corridor. The opening of the
materials (Holten, 2009: 167). Seen from the outside, passage corridor at the face of the monument represents a distinct
graves usually appear as round or oval grass-covered mounds with boundary zone, separating the inside and outside of the

Fig. 1. Birkehøj passage grave, Northwest Zealand, Denmark. Photo: Tim Flohr Sørensen.
68 T.F. Sørensen / Emotion, Space and Society 15 (2015) 64e73

Fig. 2. Plan of Mogenstrup passage grave, East Jutland. After Nordman 1918, fig. 67.

monument. This is not simply a boundary in terms of an indexical In many passage graves there are two thresholds inside the
demarcation of a symbolic transition, but also works as a sensory corridor, where stone sills in the walls and on floor of the corridor
threshold. Looking from the end of the corridor towards the mark the possible place of doors or screens (e.g. Skaarup, 1985: 194,
chamber, one can decreasingly see detail in the monument’s 252; Tilley, 1996: 218). The actual partitions have not been pre-
texture as light vanishes gradually the further one looks towards served, so the material nature of this separator can only be spec-
the chamber, and the surface of the boulders become more and ulated. However, even just the presence of door stones and frames
more indistinct in the dark. The role of luminosity in passage graves narrow the corridor and demarcate what could be seen as a strong
is crucial, and will be explored further later on. intensification of the inside-outside structure of the corridor. These
In choreographic terms, the entrance to the corridor might be thresholds have the capacity to open or close the spatial flow of
described as a ‘limp’ threshold that does not pose a highly marked movement in the corridor, and removing a screen before the dead
effect on the body until bending down to enter the corridor. The body was taken into the tomb would have concretised the transi-
mouth of the corridor is the place, where posture changes and tion of the status of the deceased as well as the spatial boundaries
represents not only a spatial crossing, but also a bodily trans- of situations in the mortuary ritual. Again, this place in the passage
figuration. The limp threshold works to increase awareness and grave is delineated by a strong sense of friction as body and
anticipation of the next part of the movement into the tomb; the
gradual and limp transition does not create a marked friction be-
tween body and architecture, but functions as an intensifier of the
anticipation of the movement into the tomb, attuning from one
context towards another. As the entrance to the corridor is formed
as a narrow funnel, the movement from the area in front of the
passage grave e where we may expect a larger body of mourners to
be present e and into the corridor is marked by a transition from
being situated within a collective atmosphere to being singled out
through the movement through the corridor. Upon entering the
corridor, the person about to move through the corridor may thus
anticipate a bodily separation and an affective transformation in
relation to the atmosphere of the ritual setting.
Beginning to move through the corridor, in turn, affects body
posture markedly, as one is forced from an erect to a crawling or
crouching posture (Fig. 3). The corridors in the many passage graves
vary between 60 and 120 cm in height and 40 and 100 cm in width
(see examples in Skaarup, 1985). In bodily terms, the height of the
corridor corresponds approximately to ‘waist height’, judging from
the average height of the Neolithic population (Bennike, 1993, 1997:
104). This means that the entering the corridor involves bending
down to a crawling or squatting posture, where the body is in
contact with the floor and the walls of the corridor. By crawling
rather than squatting it is possible to avoid touching the roof of the
corridor, while if squatting through the corridor one’s head, back
and shoulders inevitably and repeatedly bashes into the granite
roof and walls. Once inside the corridor, the front-back orientation
of the body is formed by the directionality of movement due to the
narrow passage, which dictates one-way movement, especially if
transporting an object e e.g. a dead body or parts thereof e or Fig. 3. Interior view from the corridor at Birkehøj passage grave as person moves
followed by other individuals. through the corridor. Photo: Tim Flohr Sørensen.
 T.F. Sørensen / Emotion, Space and Society 15 (2015) 64e73 69

architecture merge and the human agent needs to take concrete in the passage grave (see also Schuldt, 1972). At least in one case
action to change the posture of the body. (Birkehøj, northwest Zealand) it is evident that the non-anatomical
Further inside the corridor, the body is confined by the surfaces order of body parts or skeletal remains was orchestrated in a
of the corridor, and physically engaged with the proximity to the deliberate act in the form a human ankle bone (talus) that had four
architecture. Movement is not arrested by the architecture, yet the human teeth pressed into it (Dehn et al., 2004: 170).
body is only partially mobile as the architecture installs projec- The image of human disposal as constituted by skeletal as-
tional qualities on the bodily movement: motion takes place in a semblages is, however, not uniform, and excavations and osteo-
certain direction and the architecture has a strong bearing on the logical analysis have shown that burials did in some cases preserve
pace of movement. The impact of the architecture on the experi- bodily integrity (e.g. Ahlström, 2003; Bennike, 1985: 480e481;
ence of the mortuary ritual would also be significant at this stage, Kaul, 1992: 30; Sjögren 2010; Skaarup, 1985: 372). Some passage
because the confined space in the corridor and the crawling posture graves clearly demonstrate burials of whole corpses, while other
mean that there may be a close spatial proximity to the deceased, data suggest secondary burial of fragmented skeletal remains
bending over or towards the dead body. where dead bodies had putrefied elsewhere or where body parts or
It is interesting to note that the posture that one assumes upon skeletal fragments were removed from the passage grave at some
entering the corridor remains more or less constant until arriving in point (e.g. Kaul, 1992; Larsson, 2003: 162; 2009: 276e277; Madsen,
the chamber. The narrow corridor makes it more or less impossible 1900, 2009: 130e131; Rosenberg, 1933; Sjögren, 2010: 116e117;
to change posture from crawling to squatting, because of the im- Strömberg, 1968: 197ff).
mediate contact with floor, walls and roof, and changing posture In some passage graves the floor of the chambers is divided into
means that parts of one’s body extends in directions that does not smaller sections by laterally placed stone slabs on the floor
necessarily fit with the proportions of the corridor. The expansion (Skaarup, 1985: 194; Strömberg, 1971: 251ff; Tilley, 1996: 125e126).
of movement is thus intimately connected with the expansion of Such a division of the chamber would help to orchestrate the
the body, or may rather be seen as mutually restricting. Moving spatiality of depositions, to single out particular places for indi-
through the corridor, for instance, only makes it possible to see in vidual bodies or for selections of body parts. Furthermore, com-
front of one’s body, because turning around or turning one’s head to partments would aid orientation in the room, especially in the case
look out of the corridor is not possible due to the spatial confines. of the lack of lighting by creating boundaries that could be tactually
All of these spatial restrictions mean that there is a very high degree identified. The absence of interior compartmentalisations in other
of friction between body and architecture and a high degree of passage graves may indicate that orientation was shaped there by a
directionality. higher degree of embodied knowledge through corporeal sensa-
tion. The interaction with the dead and the interiority of the pas-
4.2. The chamber sage graves would instead be favouring exploration and intuition.
The logics of the spatial form of the chamber would then have been
The height of chambers in passage graves is typically more than produced along the lines of less rigid formulations than those
two metres and up to 2.40 m (Dehn and Hansen, 2006: 26), materialised in stone slabs. In some cases, skeletal fragments were
meaning that one may stretch out and turn around, and regain a divided into different areas, for instance with crania stacked in one
more or less unlimited immediate body space. The end of the section of the chamber and other skeletal parts in another (Fig. 4;
corridor thus marks out a second limp threshold, which, however, Kaul, 1992: 22). This way of organising specific parts of the
is creative of postures radically different to the ones assumed inside decomposing or skeletonised body would certainly help texturing
the corridor. Furthermore, the limp threshold demarcates the movement in the chamber by creating particular places within the
transition from an exclusive place, or a place where one or two chamber and make them stand out with differing sensuous
individuals can move and work together, one after the other. The characteristics.
size of the chamber, on the other hand, allows groups to form In this regard, we should also note how the access to the
around the deceased or to manipulate the dead bodies already in chambers would not always have been straightforward or easy.
place in the chamber. When dead bodies, body parts and skeletal remains began to pile
Unlike the corridor, where only one axis of movement is
possible, the chamber allows for a variety of dimensions and a
fullness of spatial relations. The internal space of the chamber is not
as strongly restrictive of the body’s spatiality, and the chamber
allows mourners to engage in expansive movements in several
directions, creating spatial trajectories that are not strictly pre-
meditated by the architectonic setting. This means that the artic-
ulation of the dead body or parts thereof needs to be addressed
within a different kind of attentiveness compared with movement
through the corridor.
Excavations of some passage graves have demonstrated the
internment of as many as 100 individuals (e.g. Rævehøj, south-
western Zealand; see Nordman, 1918: 80ff) or even more (e.g.
Rössberga, Falbygden, Sweden; see Ahlström, 2001). There is also
evidence that chambers were cleared out or at least parts of the
bone assemblage were removed. This has resulted in ‘chaotic’ dis-
tributions of skeletal remains in some chambers (Holten, 2000:
289; Kaul, 1992; Midgley, 1992: 450ff; Nordman, 1917: 241;
Rosenberg, 1929: 214). The bones have frequently been found
spread in ways that did not correspond with anatomical skeletal
order, suggesting secondary burial practices, where the corpse has Fig. 4. Detail from Rævehøj passage grave, Southwest Zealand, where nine crania were
been partially or entirely skeletonised elsewhere before internment found stacked in the corner of the chamber. After Nordman 1918, fig. 57.
70 T.F. Sørensen / Emotion, Space and Society 15 (2015) 64e73

up, together with other forms of debris, movement through the build on a multi-sensorial linking of bodily experience, where
corridor and into the chamber may have been made almost acoustic, haptic and the limited visual stimuli interconnect to a
impossible without some form of clearance of the interior of the unified whole.
tomb. At any rate this would have implied a movement charac- Not only vision but also sound plays a pronounced affective role
terised by the architecture’s insistence on friction, not only with the in the passage graves. During numerous visits to several passage
architecture, but also with remains of human organisms when graves (e.g. Birkehøj (Dehn et al., 2004) and Troldestuerne (Hansen,
crawling over bones and body parts, feeling one’s way through the 1993; ch. 5) in northwest Zealand) it was noted that sounds are
interior of the passage grave. muffled acoustically inside the chamber and do not travel between
the surfaces of the boulders due to the uneven surfaces, dispersing
5. Senses and the staging of atmospheres sounds and muting echoes. On the other hand, sounds from outside
the monument reach the chamber rather easily, and even talk
Feeling one’s movement through corridor and chamber, and without high voices in front of the corridor is intelligible inside the
going out again, may thus be key to understanding the atmo- chamber.
sphere of passage graves. This rests on the capacity to connect The architectonic framework of the passage grave thereby also
feeling as a tactile experience of the corporeal presence in the becomes central to the construction of certain spatial experiences.
tomb with feeling as an affective presence. Body and materiality The architecture choreographs certain vistas and lacks of such, and
are central to this connectivity, which goes back to the principles channels perception of the tomb and the dead matter in a way that
of ‘ecstasies’ and ‘emergent forms’ discussed earlier through emphasises proximity and attention to one’s presence in a very
which the imbrication of material infrastructure and body can be special place. The disappearance of visual identification of details in
further developed. Things and their materiality (the sensuous the tomb e the concealment of some perceptual stimuli e high-
quality of things) radiate and touch human beings in terms of lights other sensations and as demonstrated, touch, sound and
being affectively creative, while the bodily presence in a given smell take centre stage at the expense of sight. The identification of
situation mutually tinctures the perception of things and places. places in the chamber and the places of putrefying dead bodies thus
In this sense, materiality may stir affects in humans, and offer a need to be identified by sensory engagements that require prox-
sense of being moved literally and figuratively (Harris and imity and intimacy in comparison with sight, which is often
Sørensen, 2010; von Bonsdorff, 1998; Youdell and Armstrong, referred to as a distancing faculty (Merleau-Ponty, 1964: 166;
2011). The qualities of the basic body kinetics have the capacity Paterson, 2007: 1). The passage grave itself is thus projective of
to form different degrees of intensity in the interaction between a choreography or proximity and distance, stirring a very particular
humans and the material framework, creating varying intensities atmospheric framework in which the sensation or feeling of
of feeling (Winter et al., 1989: 212), and the intersection of emergent forms are crucial. The mortuary practices suggest the
movement and architecture is precisely productive of the sense tactile and sensuous interaction with the dead bodies were a means
of presence integral to atmosphere. of staging atmospheres in which touching and smelling dead
The role of feeling a bodily presence has been highlighted so far matter were integral.
in the sense that there is a pronounced friction between body and The lack of visible clarity implies that one’s presence amongst
architecture and between bodies of living people and dead bodies whole and partial dead bodies does not constitute as an object in
in the passage graves. However, it needs to be stressed that the space, but rather as a seamless infiltration. Senses are not sup-
emergent forms of the passage graves come into being in a pressed, but the lack of clear visibility implies that the experience of
particular way as a result of the limited visibility in the tomb. As one bodily bounded identity dissipates: the distance in the passage
moves through the corridor, one’s own body increasingly blocks graves between the living person and the material setting
natural light from the outside and except for the limited amount of (including dead bodies) thus collapses. The ecstasies of things and
light that may sieve in through the passageway, there is no light the emergent space of the body pervade one another, and the
inside the chamber, and one’s perception is restricted to other contours of body and space disappears. The relative or entire lack of
senses than sight. Having resumed upright posture in the chamber, light in the chamber implies that seeing the dead matter may not
the visual sense of the tomb is almost entirely lost. Accordingly, the have been a central means of perception, and the dimmed sharp-
most prominent sensation of the chamber is composed of touch, ness of vision would make depth and distance ambiguous (para-
smell and sound. phrasing Pallasmaa, 2005: 46). The tactility of encountering the
After a while, one’s vision gradually adjusts to the darkness in assemblage of dead bodies is thus a way of feeling the slippage from
the chamber, revealing increasing interior surface detail and identifying the deceased individual with a singular body, which
texture. Torches or fires could have been used to illuminate the would precisely have been engendered by the relative or complete
chamber, and burnt skeletal remain inside and outside tomb lack of visibility.
chambers in a number of examples (Kaul, 1992: 20; Larsson, 2003: This staging appears to have had the purpose of rubbing out
57; Tilley, 1996: 222) may suggest that burning took place in the experiential clarity by playing forcefully on a number of sensory
chamber. In that case, we can easily imagine how the flickering of ambiguities: darkness, friction, slowness and fragmentation, which
the flames would have shed shadows on the surfaces in the cannot be boiled down to semiotic or discursive meaning contents.
chamber, altering the texture and the visual gravity of the cham- Movement is integral to how atmosphere would have unfolded in
ber’s feeling of interiority in which we would need to include a the context of the passage graves, precisely because of the gradual
change in temperature, humidity and density of the air, and the transformation of sensory perception; had it been possible to
development of smoke. If burning or the use of torches was not a obtain an impression of the atmospheric condition from one van-
part of the material inventory of the passage graves, one’s eyes tage point, there would have been no need for movement. How-
would gradually begin to adjust to the darkness in the chamber, and ever, going through the passage grave with changing postures,
one’s sight is regained to some degree, yet the chamber still re- sensibilities and getting a gradually changing feel of one’s presence
mains a distinctly dark place. Regardless if torches or fires were in the tomb through evolving kinesfields worked as a choreo-
used in the chamber, it would still not be an unambiguously dis- graphing force in the staging of a particular atmosphere, animating
closed environment. Details in the surface of the tomb would not be the architectonic setting through the motion of the body: ‘move-
clearly visible and the perception of the passage grave needs to ment is, so to speak, living architecture’ (Laban, 1966: 5).
 T.F. Sørensen / Emotion, Space and Society 15 (2015) 64e73 71

6. Conclusions and further perspectives emergent forms, which can to some extent be taken as the opera-
tional ground of an archaeological notion of atmosphere.
Altogether, the application of a notion of atmosphere through Based on the notions of ‘ecstasies’ and ‘emergent forms’, I
emergent forms and ecstasies of things offers a concept for believe that there is indeed something to be gained in terms of
appreciating experience beyond the framework provided by a understanding atmosphere as a cultural dimension of past soci-
subjectivity bounded phenomenology. Phenomenology, at least as eties. For archaeology and material culture studies more broadly,
it has been adopted in archaeology, thus allows for a description of the question is to what extent the clause of subjectivity can be
conscious reflections on thoughts and emotions, while atmosphere negotiated so as to accommodate the possibility for at least moving
may offer an avenue for recognising ‘microperceptions’ (Massumi, in the direction of appreciating atmospheric properties and effects
2002: 196e198; McKim, 2009); minute sensory transmissions, through material settings. An archaeological notion of atmosphere
occurring through materially-affective frictions between body and does not necessarily conform to a contemporary one, simply
environment. This framing implies that atmosphere is not reduc- because there are different channels of approaching atmosphere,
ible to subjective experience, but rather integrates subject and yet the role of bodily movement and material culture in the shaping
object, creating a sense of pre- or post-reflective presence in the act and staging of atmosphere in the present may furthermore be
of moving. So while feeling is the subjectively reflected recognition stressed on the basis of this archaeological model. It is, in other
of a situation or state of mind, atmosphere can be said to be more words, not possible to say so much about the details of how
than a feeling, and instead constitute an event that completes the particular individuals experienced atmosphere in prehistory, yet at
interstices between subject and object. the same time material infrastructure and implements may occa-
The aim of this article has not been to delineate a rendering of an sionally inform us about other aspects of atmospheric frameworks
exact situation or atmosphere within a specific passage grave at a than those described subjectively without implying that atmo-
given moment in prehistory, but instead to outline the atmospheric sphere can be reduced to objective facts.
effects of a particular form of architecture, where there are no living This observation is not merely of relevance for disciplines
interlocutors or textural evidence to yield information about the studying the remote past, but equally a challenge for those studies
experience of atmosphere. The article has aspired to examine the of the contemporary world that do not rely on subjective human
potential for addressing atmosphere deep in prehistory, and to experience, but nevertheless seek to explore the constitution of
outline certain means of approaching atmosphere in such a context. social realities. In this way, the clause of subjectivity also needs to
Compared to contemporary studies of atmosphere (e.g. those rep- be challenged seen from the perspective of academic approaches to
resented in this issue), the address of atmosphere in prehistory may the world that decentre the human being, highlighting the imbri-
appear generic or superficial, because it is not based on particular cation of human and non-human agents without automatically
individuals and their experience of an atmosphere. Yet, the aim of foregrounding the human perspective (e.g. Barad, 1998; Bryant
the examination is evidently not to construct tableaus of imaginary et al., 2011; Hayles, 1999; Haraway, 2008; Pyyhtinen and
‘atmospheres’, but rather to explore the limits of what we may Tamminen, 2011; van der Tuin and Dolphijn, 2010). The position
reasonably propose about atmosphere based on material remains of atmosphere in these posthuman discourses may be challenging
alone. and problematic (like the very notion of the human itself), yet at the
It should be clarified that this proposal for an archaeological same time it also provides a key example of the cessation of a
approach to atmosphere rests strictly on material spaces where it is clearly distinguishable relationship between humans and non-
reasonable to imagine a relatively strong sense of staging. This is humans (see also Sørensen, 2013). Ultimately, the archaeological
also the reason why the exploration of atmosphere in the Middle condition affords a ground for exploring e and being forced to
Neolithic has focused exclusively on the interiority of the passage explore e the limits of what can be reasonably said about atmo-
grave. The external space and the landscape around the monu- sphere beyond subjective experience.
ments can only be reconstructed in very general terms, and the
routes of movement at and around passage graves remain obscure. Acknowledgements
The aim is thus not to argue for an archaeological ability to address
atmosphere in undiagnostic or open-ended settings, nor is it This article developed as part of my research for the joint project
argued that atmosphere can be deduced from architecture alone in Death, Materiality and the Origin of Time at Aarhus University. Several
any straightforward way. The latter would imply that we could look colleagues have, directly or indirectly, been instrumental in helping
at, say, at church and extract its alleged atmosphere, regardless if it me develop this manuscript, and I am grateful for their generous
is the scene of a wedding, a funeral, a service or a tourist visit. On reflections: Anne Line Dalsgaard, Oliver J.T. Harris, Jean-Paul Thi-
the other hand, the article stipulates that it would be equally baud, Juliane Wammen, Mikkel Bille and Peter Bjerregaard. More-
misguided to approach atmosphere solely on the basis of the social over, I have benefited tremendously from three highly useful peer
event, e.g. wedding or funeral, disregarding the spatial choreogra- reviews in addition to editorial comments by Mick Smith. Lastly, I
phy of movement and sensory experience through the material would like to acknowledge the influence of my parents, Anna
infrastructure. (1936e2012) and Aage Flohr Sørensen (1930e2014), in continuing
It is precisely the material ground of the spatial choreography to ask fundamental questions on life and death ‘back then in the
that offers the potential for an archaeological concept of atmo- Stone Age’, which has allowed me to value the things we cannot
sphere, where the extension of body and material world is fully explain. All errors and misunderstandings remain my own.
continuous and where the boundaries of objects become blurred. In
the particular case of passage graves from the Middle Neolithic, the
choreography of movement and sensation suggests that atmo- References
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