Theme:
3. Sustainable archaeology and heritage in an unsustainable world
Session format:
Session with keynote presentation and discussion
Title:
Recycling Cultures: Interpreting the Ways Re-Using and Recycling of the Material Culture and Landscape Are Attested in the Archaeological Record
Content:
Garbage is a useful source of cultural information about the past. The final deposition of objects is what we come across in our archaeological work often in the form of rubbish heaps or pits. Several studies related to the analysis of materials focus on the “object biography”, suggesting that it is important to consider not only the original purpose for which an artefact may have been made, but also the different ways that it may have been used through its lifetime and also its secondary uses. These different ‘lives of objects’ include the restorations, welds, modifications, adaptations, and sometimes even the concealment or the ‘curation’ (the retention of an artefact well beyond its production date) or the purposeful ‘destructions’ of objects.
All these actions aim to a new use and a new life of material culture, incorporate different meanings and entail certain changes in its cultural perception and use. Moreover, analyses of ancient materiality emphasize the need for detailed and in-depth research of the issue of secondary uses, and to clarify aspects of the use and life of objects. Recent developments in the fields of Landscape Archaeology provide new tool that can help us to understand the various forms the reuse of landscape had in different periods.
In the current session we welcome papers on any aspects of re-use or recycling of materials and/or landscapes, interpretations of their role and importance in their context, studies on garbage assemblages, biographies of objects and purposeful destructions of items throughout antiquity.
Keywords:
Recycling, Garbage, Material Culture, Landscape, Biography of Objects, Desctruction of Artefacts
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Mercourios Georgiadis (Spain) 1
Co-organisers:
Eurydice Kefalidou (Greece) 2
Nikolas Dimakis (Greece) 2,3
Affiliations:
1. Institute of Classcial Archaeology in Catalunya
2. University of Athens
3. University of Crete
THIS SESSION CAN NOT BE SELECTED AT THIS MOMENT