Does Archaeology Stink? Detecting Smell in the Past Using Headspace Sampling Techniques

Abstract

Smell is a language, communicative and interpretive. Firmly embedded in the physical, social, emotional, and semantic context, odor emanates as existential expression that is integral and idiosyncratic to human culture, behaviors, and practices. Advances in scientific techniques allows for odor to be used as primary source evidence. Focusing on a groundbreaking technique, headspace sampling provides direct access to ancient odor molecules for analysis. This paper explores how empirical information permits entry into previously unexplored sensorial sociocultural avenues that enable deeper, richer models of archaeological interpretation.

Tear gas in orbit

“…Smells are hints of structure. Related fields have centered the human by studying how smells and other senses might themselves change anatomically in outer space (Valentine, 2016, 2017), just as the natural sciences have long studied how our olfactory senses coevolved with our earthly surroundings (Malik, 2021), producing miasmically minded neurons that “translate” an odor's chemical makeup into a bodily response and sensation (Soudry et al., 2011, p. 19; see also Stockhorst & Pietrowsky, 2004). Astronauts have commented that during missions, moondust that has stuck to their suits smells like carbine, and as NASA researcher Tony Philips (2006) has pointed out, “The smell, and [astronauts’] reaction[s] to it, could be a sign that moondust is chemically active” (my emphasis).…”