Archaeology Stinks! Can we find Smell in Archaeology?
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-07-31

Smell is a language, communicative and interpretive. It connects the physical, social, emotional and semantic, informing meaning and understanding.
How can we engage with smell – often considered intangible, invisible and incorporeal? Bringing science-based analysis and theory together, we can create strong evidence-based metanarratives of past cultures. This presentation will discuss a technique that can bring odour molecules to life by exploring analysis in the lab and some of the methods and techniques available for collecting samples in the field. Delving into test case evidence from the first millennium BC burial sites in Yemen this talk will demonstrate how we can bring tangible empirical evidence to archaeological theory to a possible meta narrative around the treatment of the body in ancient Yemen and understanding mortuary practices at this time. Furthermore, what could the future hold for a technique that bridges the gap between science and theory in the world of archaeology?

Rose Malik (University of York)

TAG Deva 2018
Session: Integrating Theory and Science in Archaeology