Bjørnar Olsen

Material culture after text: re‐membering things

Why have the social and human sciences shown such disinterest in material culture? How has this neglect affected archaeology? How do things and materiality at large relate to human beings and ‘social life’? These questions are addressed in this article which also critically examines social constructivist and phenomenological approaches to material culture. Arguing against the maxim that ‘all that is solid melts into air’, it is claimed that to understand important aspects of past and present societies, we have to relearn to ascribe action, goals and power to many more ‘agents’ than the human actor — in other words, to re‐member things.

Keeping things at arm's length: a genealogy of asymmetry

Abstract This paper discusses why things have become marginalized in the social sciences and addresses some major intellectual traditions considered the main suspects for this deportation. It also explores what is claimed to be a crucial link between those very philosophies and central approaches in recent material culture studies. The paradoxical outcome of this effective history is that the ontology responsible for the displacement of things also to a large extent grounds the programs of repatriation.

Archaeology, symmetry and the ontology of things. A response to critics

This article responds to recent critiques of ‘symmetrical archaeology’. It addresses three common claims: (1) that symmetrical archaeology fails to see a difference between living and non-living entities, (2) that symmetrical archaeology makes no room for humans and other living things, (3) that symmetrical archaeology lacks any sincere ethical concern for things. This article demonstrates how these claims are based on common misunderstandings or misreadings, and offers further clarifications as to its perspective on ontology, ethics and things.

Hunters in Transition

Hunters in Transition provides a new outline of the early history of the Sami and discusses issues such as the formation of Sami ethnicity, interaction with chieftain and state societies, and the transition from hunting to reindeer herding.

Ruin Memories : Materialities, Aesthetics and the Archaeology of the Recent Past

1. Ruins - concepts, theories and attitudes 2. Modern ruins and heritage 3. Material memory 4. Aesthetics, art, attraction 5. Abandonment 6. Archaeologies of the recent past

Saqqaq housing and settlement in southern Disko Bay, West Greenland

In 1995 and 1996 archaeological investigations were carried out by a joint Nordic research project in the southern Disko Bay area, West Greenland. The project focussed on Paleo‐Eskimo spatial organization, particularly the arrangements of dwelling structures. This paper presents some results from surveys and excavations of Saqqaq sites, and discusses issues related to Paleo‐Eskimo house forms and settlement organization. It is argued that considerable changes in housing and settlement patterns took place in West Greenland ca. 1700–1600 BC.

Hunters, herders and hearths: interpreting new results from hearth row sites in Pasvik, Arctic Norway

The transition from hunting to reindeer herding has been a central topic in a number of archaeological works. Recently conducted archaeological investigation of two interior hearth row sites in Pasvik, Arctic Norway, have yielded new results that add significantly to the discussion. The sites are dated within the period 1000-1300 AD, and are unique within this corpus due to their rich bone assemblages. Among the species represented, reindeer is predominant (87 %), with fish (especially whitefish and pike) as the second most frequent category. Even sheep bones are present, and represent the earliest indisputable domesticate from any Sami habitation site. A peculiar feature is the repeated spatial pattern in bone refuse disposal, showing a systematic and almost identical clustering at the two sites. Combining analyses of bone assemblages, artefacts and archaeological features, the paper discusses changes in settlement pattern, reindeer economies, and the organization of domestic space. The analyses provide new perspectives on early domestication as well as on the remarkable changes that took place among the Sami societies in northern Fennoscandinavia during the Viking Age and early Medieval Period .

Theory adrift: The matter of archaeological theorizing:

At a possible transition towards a ‘flat’, post-human or new-materialist environment, many have suggested that archaeological theory and theorizing is changing course; turning to metaphysics; leaning towards the sciences; or, even is declared dead. Resonating with these concerns, and drawing on our fieldwork on a northern driftwood beach, this article suggests the need to rethink fundamental notions of what theory is – its morphological being – and how it behaves and takes form. Like drift matter on an Arctic shore, theories are adrift. They are not natives of any particular territory, but nomads in a mixed world. While they are themselves of certain weight and figure, it matters what things they bump into, become entangled with, and moved by. Based on this, we argue that theories come unfinished and fragile. Much like things stranding on a beach they don’t simply ‘add up’ but can become detached, fragmented, turned and transfigured. Rather than seeing this drift as rendering them redundant and out of place, it is this nomadism and ‘weakness’ that sustains them and keeps them alive.

Table of Relations

This chapter presents the table of relations discussed in the book Hunters in Transition. The book provides a new outline of the early history of the Sami and discusses issues such as the formation of Sami ethnicity, interaction with chieftain and state societies, and the transition from hunting to reindeer herding. It provides a new synthesis of Sami history to a broader, English-speaking audience and follows previous work in Norwegian, but the accounts and interpretations have been re-examined, modified, and updated in accordance with recent research.Keywords: chieftain society; English-speaking audience; Norwegian; Sami ethnicity

Contrasting patterns of prehistoric human diet and subsistence in northernmost Europe

Current archaeological evidence indicates the transition from hunting-fishing-gathering to agriculture in Northern Europe was a gradual process. This transition was especially complex in the prehistoric North Fennoscandian landscape where the high latitude posed a challenge to both domestic animal breeding and cereal cultivation. The conditions varied, the coastal dwellers had access to rich marine resources and enjoyed a milder climate due to the Gulf Stream, while those living in the inland Boreal forest zone faced longer and colder winters and less diversity in animal and plant resources. Thus, the coastal area provided more favourable conditions for early agriculture compared to those found inland. Interestingly, a cultural differentiation between these areas is archaeologically visible from the late 2nd millennium BC onwards. This is most clearly seen in regionally distinct pottery styles, offering unique opportunities to probe diet and subsistence through the organic residues preserved in ceramic vessels. Herein, we integrate the lipid biomarker, compound-specific stable carbon isotopes (δ13C), and zooarchaeological evidence to reveal culturally distinct human diets and subsistence patterns. In northern Norway, some of the coastal people adopted dairying as part of their subsistence strategy, while the inhabitants of the interior, in common with northern Finland, continued their hunter-gatherer-fisher lifestyles.