Sarah Tarlow

Bereavement and commemoration : an archaeology of mortality

List of Figures. List of tables. Preface. 1. A historical archaeology of death. 2. Towards an archaeology of bereavement and commemoration: death, emotion and metaphor. 3. Changing commemorative practices in Orkney. 4. A living memory and a corrupting corpse. 5. Remembering the dead in the nineteenth century: a love story. 6. War and remembrance. 7. Loved and lost. Glossary. References. Index.

Emotion in Archaeology

Despite the establishment of significant traditions of emotion research in many disciplines, there has been little discussion of the state and potential of the archaeological study of emotion. This paper aims to review archaeological approaches to emotion-to assess the significance of existing studies and outline the potential for the incorporation of emotion into archaeological research. It argues that the study of emotion in the past is both necessary and possible ; it considers which understandings of emotion we might find most useful, how the archaeology of emotion might be carried out, and what are the most promising avenues to explore. In archaeology, both the sociobiological approach and one based on empathy have serious problems. After reviewing and rejecting the dichotomy between emotions as entirely biological, universal, and hard-wired, on one hand, and entirely social and constructed, on the other, a view of emotions as historically specific and experientially embedied is advanced. Finally it is argued that it is vitally important for us to incorporate a consideration of emotional values and understandings into our archaeologies but that emotion cannot be separated from other aspects of social and cultural meaning and experience.

Emotion in Archaeology1

Despite the establishment of significant traditions of emotion research in many disciplines, there has been little discussion of the state and potential of the archaeological study of emotion. This paper aims to review archaeological approaches to emotion—to assess the significance of existing studies and outline the potential for the incorporation of emotion into archaeological research. It argues that the study of emotion in the past is both necessary and possible; it considers which understandings of emotion we might find most useful, how the archaeology of emotion might be carried out, and what are the most promising avenues to explore. In archaeology, both the sociobiological approach and one based on empathy have serious problems. After reviewing and rejecting the dichotomy between emotions as entirely biological, universal, and hard‐wired, on one hand, and entirely social and constructed, on the other, a view of emotions as historically specific and experientially embodied is advanced. Finally it is argued that it is vitally important for us to incorporate a consideration of emotional values and understandings into our archaeologies but that emotion cannot be separated from other aspects of social and cultural meaning and experience.

An Archaeology of Remembering: Death, Bereavement and the First World War

Archaeological approaches to death and commemoration which privilege the negotiation of power relationships can underestimate the importance of personal and emotional responses to bereavement and mortality. Remembrance of the dead of the First World War is often understood in terms of the promotion of nationalist ideologies, but emotional factors such as grief and shock were also involved in the shaping of commemorative responses. In this article, responses to the First World War at national, local, and individual levels are considered. I suggest that people select monuments, places and ways of remembering for their power to express intense and personal feelings.

Landscapes of memory: the nineteenth-century garden cemetery

During the 1820s, 1830s and 1840s, garden cemeteries were founded in most cities in Britain. Their characteristic appearance owes much to a British tradition of naturalistic landscape design but ha...

Excavating Utopia: Why Archaeologists Should Study “Ideal” Communities of the Nineteenth Century

The study of utopias is riddled with contradictions: we admire and fear them; they are a radical critique of the modernist societies that surround them, and yet they are in some ways the archetypal product of modernity. This paper suggests that studying Utopia could be of value in analyzing some of the complexities and contradictions of Western society and ideology in the nineteenth century, as well as causing us to question some of the preconceptions we regularly bring to the study of the archaeological past. Finally I will suggest that a different kind of nineteenth century, one which includes the radical dissent and resistance of utopian thinkers and experimenters, provides a strong basis for a critique of the social values of modern capitalism.

Can an archaeologist be a public intellectual

In the contributions that follow seven archaeologists, of different backgrounds and working in different ways and places, attempt to answer the question ‘Can an archaeologist be a public intellectual?’ This discussion follows a special forum, sponsored by this journal, held at the European Archaeologists’ Association annual conference in Helsinki in 2012. The participants in that forum were Asa Larsson, Layla Renshaw, Ghattas Sajey, Audrey Horning and Thomas Meier, who was unfortunately unable to offer his contribution for publication. The published discussion is supplemented by contributions from Cornelius Holtorf, Fredrik Svanberg, Nathan Schlanger and Jaime Almansa Sanchez. We hope that this special section captures some of the spirit of lively debate that characterized the forum.

The Interpretive Potential of Utopian Settlements

The term utopia was fi rst coined by Thomas More in 1516 as a reference to an ideal place that does not really exist. The designation utopian has increasingly grown to encompass the efforts of real people pursuing visionary alternative lifestyles. It is in this latter sense that the term is employed here. Utopianism may be manifest as a fi ctional genre, a political philosophy, or, as in this volume, an attempt to create an ideal society. All utopian visionaries are critical of what is perceived as the fl awed dominant cultural pattern, and they articulate that critique by modeling an ideal alternative. Utopian settlements have long intrigued scholars and the public. Their alternative lifestyles are subjects of great curiosity or even derision, and much has been written about them by proponents, detractors, and interested observers. All settlements were founded on at least two fundamental precepts. The fi rst was dissatisfaction with some aspect of the dominant culture. That dissatisfaction had a variety of sources rooted in industrial capitalism, urbanization, religious dissent, gender inequality, and other factors. The second ingredient was an idealistic faith that a better way of life was possible. This faith spurred the creation of hundreds of bold social experiments that are interesting for what they reveal about human nature, adaptability, and processes of social change. Beyond those common threads, utopian settlements were notably diverse in philosophy, organization, and way of life. This volume focuses on several utopian and quasi-utopian communities founded on the North American continent between the 1790s and 1910s. Some articles in this volume evolved from papers presented at a symposium entitled “Dissenting Voices: Comparing the Visions and Realities of Life in Utopian Communities,” held at the 2001 annual meeting of The Society for Historical Archaeology in Long Beach, California. Other articles were contributed by scholars pursuing archaeological studies at other utopian settlements. All of those studies have been energized by similar issues and challenges. A synopsis of the utopian movement in North America is provided here to introduce the common ground linking recent archaeological studies of such places.

Death and commemoration

Abstract The study of graveyards and memorial monuments in Britain in the early modern and modern periods is underdeveloped. Despite the many (maybe thousands) of graveyard survey and recording projects that have been undertaken, wide-ranging historical research questions have barely begun to be addressed. This paper identifies a number of possible directions for academic research, clustering around the three areas of demographic, family and social structure; the production and expression of identity and changing beliefs about the living and the dead. It is suggested that the full potential of graveyard studies has not yet been exploited for a variety of reasons. First, the essentially local remit and interest of most projects has not encouraged any orientation towards ambitious historical questions; secondly, the absence of any standardised way of recording graveyards and any way of monitoring the work that has been done; and thirdly, the failure of post-medieval archaeologists to develop many extensive or imaginative research programmes.

The Technology of the Gibbet

The practice of “hanging in chains” or gibbeting had been part of the punitive repertoire of the English and Welsh judicial system for centuries before the 1751–52 Murder Act specified it as one of two mandatory post-mortem punishments for murderers. The practice was not abolished until 1834. This article considers the technical and design features of the gibbet cage, through an exhaustive survey and catalogue of their surviving remains. It notes that, given the comparative rarity of hanging in chains, no chronological or regional traditions of design are evident in this kind of artifact, since blacksmiths were individually solving the problem of fulfilling the necessary functions of a gibbet cage without knowledge of previous examples and under great time pressure. The technology of the gibbet shows how state directives intersected with geographical discretion in the creation of idiosyncratic local solutions.