The slightest elements of material culture
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 27/05/2016

Artefact analyses have been long dominated by studies of typology and technology. Only in recent decades have we begun to look beyond ‘form’ and ‘function’ for more esoteric meaning in the archaeology of material culture, yet there are categories of artefacts that are still under-studied and under-theorized in this way, such as beads. Understanding the sociocultural- economic significance of beads is obscured by their general classification as ‘ornamentation’, which implies an outward-looking, visually driven, social practice, with decorative purpose. Conversely, ethnographic studies show us that beads, with their physical closeness to the human (or other) body, often have an important role in sympathetic magics that are invoked to counteract the ill effects of elemental imbalances. In this paper, we will attempt to trace a continuity of ideas, if not practices, through modern pastoral and Bedouin groups into the prehistoric record of bead related practices in Anatolia and the Near East. In this way we highlight how our current, post-enlightenment approaches to these items may be inadequate and how viewing these items with the aid of an elemental lens may enhance their interpretation.

Emma BAYSAL (Trakya University, Turkey) and Holly MILLER (University of Nottingham)