Where are the witches of prehistory?

Abstract

Why are certain common classes of ritually destroyed objects (persons, artifacts, or architecture), such as persecuted witches, so difficult to identify in the archaeological record? Although a common topic in cultural anthropology, witches seldom receive the attention of archaeologists. The difficulties archaeologists face in the study of religion derive, in part, from the lack of correlates linking ritual activities to the formation of archaeological deposits. This paper defines ritual as a technology and employs an object life history approach that draws upon ethnographic, archaeological, and experimental research to begin building such linkages--including those describing the persecution and deposition of witches, sorcerers, and other victims of ritual violence. These new directions are illustrated through a case study of anomalous deposits of human skeletal remains from the North American Southwest.

The Materiality of Social Power: The Artifact-Acquisition Perspective

“…Unsatisfied with conventional theories of communication based on language, Schiffer and Miller (1999) have crafted a fully general theory that highlights the roles artifacts play in all modes of human communication-including language. Likewise, Walker (1995Walker ( , 1998Walker ( , 1999Walker ( , 2001Walker ( , 2002 has reframed discussions of religious practice to emphasize the employment of ritual technologies. In addition, Whittlesey (1998) and Zedeño (1997Zedeño ( , 2000 have set forth frameworks for studying the material dimensions of territories and landscapes.…”

Perimortem mutilation of human remains in an early village in the American Southwest: A case for ethnic violence

“…The destruction of witches is another possible motivation underlying the extreme processing of human remains in the Southwest (Darling, 1999;Walker, 1998). Witch persecution and destruction has been documented to have occurred among Pueblo groups and in some cases the body of the witch has undergone cutting, fragmentation, and burning.…”

“…Burning, pounding, cutting, and dismemberment not only serve as instruments of destruction, but also neutralize supernatural power, release the spirit, and prevent the spirit from using its body should it want to return to the living (Darling, 1999:735). Darling (1999) and Walker (1998) outline the archaeological signatures of witch destruction, several of which overlap with other potential causes of perimortem mutilation (Table 1). There is a correlation between witch-craft accusations and environmental, subsistence, and social stress.…”

Material Culture and Indigenous Spiritism: the Katamansu Archaeological “Otutu” (Shrine)

“…In interpreting the reuse of local (e.g., Stone Age, Iron Age, and historic) and European artifacts (e.g., ceramics, beads) in an archaeological shrine context, this paper attempts to explore the nature, internal structure, and relationship between mundane artifacts and their ideological functions within the cultural and historical locale in which they are manifested (Schiffer 1987). A number of observations have been made on the fact that ritual objects are frequently drawn from an assortment of mundane materials and are imbued with ritual importance through "practice and context" (Walker 1998;Walker and Lucero 2000). The reuse of "mundane" material culture in "symbolic" (Beaudry et al 1991: 155) and practical contexts such as shrines provides avenues for archaeologists to interrogate why such artifacts were favored and what sorts of ideological functions and meanings they convey (Mather 2009).…”