Material Explorations in African ArchaeologyOUP Oxford, 22 okt. 2015 - 496 sidor How people engaged with materials such as clay or stone, why people dug features such as pits, why they decorated their bodies, or treated their dead in certain ways, were all meaningful in the African past. However, these are subjects that have been generally neglected by archaeologists working in Africa until recently. Material Explorations in African Archaeology examines materiality in African archaeology by exploring concepts of material agency and material engagement and entanglement in relation to their manifest presence in persons, animals, objects, substances, and contexts. It investigates the magnificent and complex world of past African materiality by considering a range of case studies. These include, for example, why standing stones were erected, the potential meanings of bodily alteration practices such as scarification and dental modification, and why, recurrently, Africans in the past gave ritual importance to objects, materials, and locations thought of as exotic or different. Adopting a multidisciplinary focus, the volume draws not only on archaeology but also, among other areas, ethnography and history, discussing themes such as bodies, landscape, healing and medicine, and divination, as well as concepts such as memory and biography, transformation, and metaphor and metonym. |
Innehåll
1 | |
12 | |
The Dead and the Ancestors
| 78 |
Animals
| 115 |
Stone
| 156 |
Earth and Clay
| 206 |
Shrines
| 250 |
Landscapes
| 294 |
Healing Medicine and Divination
| 339 |
Past Material Interrelations? Some Concluding Thoughts
| 387 |
References | 395 |
453 | |
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African past ancestors animals archaeological contexts archaeological record associated Azande beads Benin body bones burial Burkina Faso calabash Cameroon cattle century Chapter clay complex concept construction contained corpse cowry shells cult curation dated decorated deposition described divination earth shrine ethnicity ethnography Evans-Pritchard evident example excavated exotic Figure figurines focus fragments function funerary gender Ghana grave Hence human ibid importance indicated initiation Insoll instance interpreted iron Jebel Barkal Kankpeyeng 2013 landscape linked MacLean Mali material culture medicine memory metaphorical metonymical midden miniature monuments mound Mursi Nigeria Nkumbaan northern Cameroon northern Ghana objects paths patterns perhaps personhood placed plants potentially pots potsherds practices processes rain-making re-used reference region relation represented ritual rock gongs sacrifice scarification settlement significant skeuomorphic skull social soil southern standing stones structured sub-Saharan Africa substances Sudan suggested symbolic Talensi Tong Hills transformed trees Uganda unspecified varied wrapped Zambia