Theme:
2. Archaeological Sciences, Humanities and the Digital era: Bridging the Gaps
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
The Mindreading of Materialities. Archaeology of Movement and Sight
Content:
Interpreting the archaeological record, archaeologists make a painstaking effort to read the material´s mind. However, novel neuroscientific methods formally support the role of the material world as an active element in our cognition too.
This session aims to discuss how thought is shaped by archaeological materialities, addressing locomotion in proposals of cognitive archaeology.
This topic is comprised of the study of the gaze (ocular movements), general bodily movement and navigation, but also the directed motion and techniques of the body in creation (e.g. pottery making) or expression (e.g. dancing).
This includes tracing depictions and traces of bodily expression in the archaeological record, but also an attempt to break the fourth wall in the study of modern participants´ (visual and motive) interactions with archaeological remains or material processes. By studying the way that movement, behaviour and gaze are conditioned by materialities and the pertaining processes, it is aimed to deduce meaning in terms of cognitive and interpretational patterns.
Methods currently available to trace people´s thoughts and actions in different relations to material culture are addressed. We are also interested in discussing new approaches in experimental design, data analysis and modelling, highlighting for example the use of eye-tracking, other trackings of bodily movement or Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and Electroencephalography (EEG) methods as techniques for exploring past cognition based on human – materiality relationships. Central to the contribution of these (neuro)scientific methodologies is a theoretical spine, as valuable archaeological narratives can be constructed only if scientific methods converge with a solid framework of thought.
We combine different narratives in interpreting archaeological depictions, tracing movement in the archaeological record, but also practising an enactive and cognitive approach of the senses in archaeology. Not only a joining of methodologies is discussed here, but also the transcending of ontologies.
Keywords:
Archaeological Materialities, Cognitive Archaeology, Locomotion and Gaze, Neuroscientific Methodologies
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:
María Silva Gago (Spain) 1
Co-organisers:
Bruno Vindrola-Padros (Germany) 2
Jadranka Verdonkschot (Spain) 1
Manuel Santos-Estévez (Spain) 1
Regina Zaghi (Spain) 1
Affiliations:
1. INCIPIT-CSIC
2. Kiel University
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