The Routledge Handbook of Sensory Archaeology is a welcome addition to the literature on sensory archaeology. This massive tome fills an important gap because sensory archaeology has been criticized for lacking well-defined methodologies. Accordingly, this edited volume provides a “toolkit” and “how to manual” for sensory approaches (p. 556). Theoretically, phenomenology is an important touchstone for many of the authors. But many of its contributors reject the “canonical and hierarchical Western five-senses model . . . in favor of the recognition that . . . life is multisensorial” (p. 2). They also recognize the necessity of working toward more culturally and historically situated perspectives on sensory perception and experience.
The book is organized into three parts: (1) “Approaches to sensory archaeology”; (2) “Sensorial practices, contexts and materials”; and (3) “Archaeological cases by period and region.” It begins with an introductory chapter by Robin Skeates and Jo Day that reviews key concepts, debates, and pivotal works, providing a useful entry point for those unfamiliar with sensory archaeology. Its organization seems logical, with different theoretical perspectives introduced before its topical chapters and regional overviews.
The chapters in Part I explore the history of theories of sense perception, useful theoretical concepts, the challenges of doing sensory archaeology, and how multisensory museum practices can engage audiences. For instance, David Howes examines the sensory turn in history and anthropology and the development of sensory studies in archaeology. Han Baltussen probes early Greek theories of sense perception that heavily influenced the development of later European ideas about sensory perception. One significant point in Baltussen's chapter is that the formulation of the “five senses” can be traced back to Aristotle, an idea that strongly influenced later European strains of thought. Ruth Tringham and Annie Danis address some of the challenges of doing sensory archaeology, especially how modern archaeological fieldwork is composed of multisensorial experiences. Similarly, Christopher Tilley advocates the incorporation of phenomenological and ethnographic techniques into archaeological practices. The section concludes with Cara Krmpotich's chapter, which examines how multisensory museum practices can engage audiences, encourage Indigenous modes of knowledge production, and decolonize institutions. Overall, these theoretical chapters provide interesting explorations of how to situate and implement sensory archaeology, but an entire chapter focused on the “importance of approaching non-Western cultures on their own sensory terms” (p. 25), as Howes puts it, would have been useful.
Part II delves into various topical issues. Ruth Nugent, for example, explores how archaeological approaches can tackle links between emotion and the senses, specifically considering in her case study how the mutilation of (human) effigies at four English cathedrals illustrates the anger and frustration of the iconoclasts (mutilators). Conversely, Ryan Lash focuses on how the movement of bodies and objects create intersubjectivities—offering insights into ritual, pilgrimage, and the built environment—whereas Liv Nilsson Stutz tackles reconstructing experiences of death and how funerary ceremonies create multisensory experiences entangled with grief, mourning, and commemoration. Andrew Hoaen considers alternative ways of theorizing the environment, highlighting how it juxtaposes the natural and the hybrid. He proposes that alternate concepts of the environment, such as delight and land health, can reframe understandings of past sensoriums. Terje Oestigaard plunges into the cosmic and religious associations of moving water—more specifically, waterfalls, including their linkages to water spirits and belief systems. Marion Dowd investigates how light, darkness, shade, and shadow are fundamental aspects of human experience, which are illustrated with examples that range from imprisoned solitary confinement and ascetic monastic prayer to meditation and the darkscapes of caves. Susanna Harris undertakes rethinking archaeological approaches to textiles by considering their sensuous characteristics, including how they feel, appear, smell, move, and sound. Her chapter is groundbreaking in the way it moves from scientific analyses of textile properties to reconstructive, experimental, and experiential approaches, demonstrating that different methods can inform one another. Chloë N. Duckworth delivers a similarly brilliant analysis on the perception of glass that shifts from its invention and production to its historical and metaphoric associations. Takeshi Inomata then navigates how the construction and use of ceremonial buildings in public events influenced sensory experiences and embodied practices in ways that reinforced established hierarchies, social relations, and power dynamics. Jeffrey D. Veitch examines the sensory affordances of the Roman cities, including how urban spaces were interpreted through sensory perception. He pays attention to how Roman streets, faҫades, and flora structured sensuous experiences, as well as the manner in which Roman social hierarchies created moral topographies and influenced movement. Matthew Leonard and Esther Breithoff wrestle with the emotions and multisensorial experiences unleashed by modern industrial war, including the use of “conflict machines” (such as tanks and airplanes), landscapes of modern conflict, and the challenges of investigating the subject. Erica Rowan's chapter on the experience of eating concludes this section by examining the connections between smell and taste, and how various ingredients are transformed into dishes. Her archaeological case study more specifically examines social status in the context of Roman dining.
Part III focuses on archaeological case studies by period and region. Elliott begins by examining Mesolithic Europe, focusing on not only ways to write about sensory experiences but also on alternate forms archaeological discourses might take, such as paintings and graphic novels. Astrid J. Nyland considers Scandinavian and Finnish archaeology, including how sensory approaches can contextualize rock art and funerary rites and also be integrated with GIS, geochemical identification, and other methods. Skeates discusses sensory studies in Mediterranean archaeology and pays particular attention to the Neolithic in northern Italy. In the next chapter, Day tackles the Aegean Bronze Age, including Minoan and Mycenean archaeology. Her case study of an Early Minoan hamlet offers an interesting contrast to studies of Minoan tombs and palaces. Augusta McMahon assesses the sensory world of Mesopotamia, including how texts provide a nuanced understanding of their color concepts and meanings, as well as the importance they assigned to multisensorial experiences. Richard Bruce Parkinson undertakes understanding sensuous perception in ancient Egypt, adeptly employing the available texts while noting how Egyptian texts have been “overprivileged . . . at the expense of more artefactual and sensory approaches” (p. 425). Heather Hunter-Crawley explores the Classical world and highlights how sensory approaches can combine literary analyses with studies of material culture, and she uses several examples, including Roman dining. Brendan O'Neill and Aidan O'Sullivan employ work on medieval archaeology to emphasize the value of integrating experimental archaeological replications with analogical and theoretical approaches, including sensory studies. Their case studies include experiencing a reconstructed early medieval house and the insights gained by moving back and forth between evidence of Irish medieval metalwork and its modern replication. Conversely, Simon O'Meara constructs a fascinating argument that vision is configured as more haptic than optical in Sunni Islam, including how this haptic configuration is reinforced in premodern Islamic art, architecture, and cities. In turn, Newman discusses the long history of scholarship on sensorial experience in ancient Mesoamerica. She also suggests that the concept of “collective corporeality” can be utilized to broaden the interpretive possibilities and examine how investigations of the sensorial and personhood intersect. Ruth M. Van Dyke charts how ancient Pueblo sensory experiences, places, and landscapes have been investigated with phenomenology, GIS, auditory analyses, and other contextual approaches. Similarly, Corin C. O. Pursell illustrates sensory approaches to the Woodland and Mississippian cultures of the Eastern Woodlands of North America, including work on color, landscapes, Indigenous music and sound, rock art, caves, and astronomical alignments. Tim Thomas ends this section by showing how the oral traditions and the ethnographic corpus from the Pacific can be used along with the archaeological record to achieve new insights into past sensory experiences.
In the handbook's Afterword, Skeates and Day assess the progress that has been made toward a fully realized sensory archaeology. They emphasize the importance of reflexivity, bodily experience, experimentation, and reconstruction, as well as imagination, artistic creativity, and evocation. Yet Skeates and Day seem wary of ethnographic insights and analogies, although they acknowledge that they “can add value, if used with caution” (p. 559). However, the book's most insightful chapters weave ethnographic insights and analogies with other lines of evidence to create richer, more nuanced sensorial exploration that departs from modern expectations. As Sarah E. Newman documents, Mesoamerican archaeology is a success story and model for how to construct a sensorial approach to the archaeology of a non-Western region, built on early research on Nahua and Maya concepts of the person, soul, human body, and its physiology. Thomas's chapter on sensory archaeology in the Pacific provides another useful non-Western case study. The use of multiple lines of evidence—including textual (historic/ethnographic) records, architecture, and objects—are also a fundamental aspect of the research on Mesopotamia (McMahon), ancient Egypt (Parkinson), the Roman Empire (Veitch, Hunter-Crawley), Sunni Islamic cities (O'Meara), and numerous other chapters in the book. It is also important to consider Van Dyke's salient point that the use of ethnographic and historic sources must be ethical, but this issue can only be tackled on a regional and contextual basis. In contrast to Skeates and Day, I would emphasize the limits of archaeological perspectives that only employ experimentation, reconstruction, and direct bodily experience, even with a multisensorial framework. From my perspective, the use of historic and ethnographic insights seems to consistently enrich archaeological accounts and suggests that past (nonmodern) peoples perceived various aspects of their worlds in extremely nuanced and culturally specific ways.
