Animate objects: a biography of prehistoric ‘axe-amulets’ in the central Mediterranean region

Abstract

This paper considers some of the relationships between people and things. It develops a broadly-based model of the later life-histories of prehistoric stone axes in the south-central Mediterranean region, taking account of their production, circulation, and consumption, and their cumulative transformation by physical and conceptual processes, of which the latter may have included personification, sacralisation, and animation. Attention is focused upon the value, meanings, and uses of axe-pendants, and intepretations are placed within a dynamic historical and political context of changing social practices and strategies in central and southern Italy, Sicily Malta, and Sardinia.

Tracking the social lives of things: biographical insights into Bronze Age pottery in Spain

“…Over the last two decades, a broad variety of approaches across social anthropology and archaeology has focused on the intertwined relationships between people and the material world and their mutual transformation over time (Chapman 2000;Alberti & Bray 2009;Hodder 2012;Knappett 2012). Inspired by Kopytoff (1986: 68), a growing number of scholars have deployed concepts such as 'biography', 'life-history' or 'life cycle' to discover fresh insights into material culture (Skeates 1995;Gosden & Marshall 1999;MacGregor 1999;Lillios 2000;Fontijn 2002;Jones 2002;Marshall 2008;Joy 2009).…”

Archaeological Approaches to Obsidian Quarries: Investigations at the Quispisisa Source

“…For example, the Tosawihi opalite quarries in the US Great Basin (Elston and Raven 1992 ) have been examined in detail over some years using an energetics and ecology approach. In recent decades, a greater number of archaeologists are considering the ritual signi fi cance and meaning of quarrying in the past, often using empirical evidence that includes ceremonial structures at quarries and links to stone objects from that source found in ritual contexts (Bradley 2000 : 81-96;Bradley and Edmonds 1993 ;Cooney 1998 ;Edmonds 1995 ;O'Connor et al 2009 ;Skeates 1995 ;Topping 2010 ) . In the Andes, the evidence for the symbolic and ceremonial importance of quarries is strongest at architectural stone sources used during later periods of the Prehispanic period (Chaps.…”

Embodiment and visual reproduction in the Neolithic: the case of stamped symbols

“…It has also been claimed that their repeated application to certain kinds of people and property could have been used either in socio-economic transactions, to mark identity and ownership, or in ritual performances, to signify and enhance spiritual potency. I have recently published a revised account of these objects (Skeates 2007), in which I explored these artefacts' various biographies, their reciprocal relations with people, and their embeddedness in cultural processes, with particular reference to their archaeological deposition contexts, their surviving forms, and regional variations in their style (c.f. Prijatelj 2007).…”