Session: #459

Content:

Past and Present are entangled. All that we are is a consequence of what we were and what was is a consequence of what is. Time is seen as linear. That is why some of us consider ourselves pre-historians, others medieval, contemporary or any-time archaeologists. But what if time was not that linear after all? What if we did not see time as a linear constant concept like physicists taught us to do, but we could analyse time from different perspectives? This would open the path for the co-existence of different and multiple times.
If we use, today, objects made in the past, how can we define their chronology? Are those objects roman, medieval or contemporary? When we find a family heirloom in our grandmother’s house or when we drink tea in those family cups are they old or contemporary objects? Many of us feel comfortable when dividing time into frames, because it helps us to create mental drawers where we keep time, confined, and well in place. This was once, and sometimes still is, a helpful mental tool in any archaeologist’s kit. However, this creates other problems especially in long durée interpretations or in artefacts that cross generations.
The study of time is not new and several theoretical debates about it have been written in the past decade. However the purpose of this session is to join people who study and develop multitemporal approaches, going beyond theoretical perspectives, applying them to real case studies, and engaging in empirical debates about how sites, techniques, ways of doing, artefacts, processes of territorialization, and human behaviours, among many other things that can be observed from different time perspectives apart or combined with traditional time visions.

Session: #459

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