Theme:
6. Contested Pasts & Presents
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
A Hopeful Past? De-escalation Strategies in Past Societies
Content:
In conflict archaeology, research has mainly focused on violent events and findings so far, examining foremost escalating ways of interaction in conflict situations. Successful conflict resolutions without violence and damage leave less clear material traces than acts of violence and are more difficult to prove without written sources.
However, strategies of de-escalation are equally important when analyzing how past societies dealt with conflicts in general and must be considered substantially when it comes to social consequences and economic costs for the communities involved.
Not only can approaches from other disciplines but also written sources help to shed light on the complex structure of human conflicts which consists of both, escalating, but also de-escalating events and actions. One example might be the mutual gift exchange in pre-state societies that we know since Marcel Mauss´s “Essai sur le don” (1925) but has not been extensively discussed in archaeology.
This session aims to discuss possible archaeological evidence and thus highlight different perceptions and (peaceful) strategies of de-escalations in past societies:
Which historical and modern concepts were perhaps already known to prehistoric societies?
How was it possible to peacefully manage conflicts even without state structures?
Are there objects and/or materials that can be mainly found in the context of mutual gift exchange?
What did security and/or threat mean and how was an attempt made to establish such a sentiment?
And how is our perception of the presence and future related to our reflection of past societies?
Contributions from different periods in archaeology (ca. 2000 BC – 1000 AD) and theoretical approaches to this challenging topic are welcome.
Keywords:
conflict, conciliation, negotiation, peacemaking, de-escalation, gift exchange
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:
Anna-Theres Andersen (Germany) 1
Co-organisers:
Tobias Mörtz (Germany) 2
Jens Schneeweiß (Germany) 1,3
Vytenis Podėnas (Lithuania) 4
Matthew Knight (United Kingdom) 5
Affiliations:
1. ROOTS of Conflict, Kiel University
2. Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology, University of Hamburg
3. Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology, Schleswig
4. Lithuanian Institute of History, Vilnius
5. National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh
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