Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T15:24:30.909Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Antonio Blanco-González
Antonio Blanco-González*
Affiliation:
*Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK (E-mail: ablancoglez@gmail.com)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Pottery has sometimes been compared to a living organism in its cycle of birth, life and death or discard. A biographical approach to an unusual assemblage of pottery from the Late Bronze Age site of Pico Castro in central Spain suggests that they had been used together at a communal feast. The shared social memory that they acquired thereby conferred on them a special status that resulted in their eventual placement in the pit, fine wares and coarse wares together. Thus the varied biographies of the individual vessels—and the individual sherds—eventually converged not only in their discard but in the episodes that preceded it.

Keywords

IberiaLate Bronze Agesecond millennium BCcultural biographypit depositionpottery assemblageCogotas I culture
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 88 , Issue 340 , 01 June 2014 , pp. 441 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alberti, B. & Bray, T.L.. 2009. Animating archaeology: of subjects, objects and alternative ontologies. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19: 337–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S095977430900053 Google Scholar
Aranda, G. & Montón-Subías, S.. 2011. Feasting death: funerary rituals in the Bronze Age societies of south-eastern Iberia, in Aranda, G., Sánchez, M. & Montón-Subías, S. (ed.) Guess who's coming to dinner: feasting rituals in the prehistoric societies of Europe and the Near East: 130–57. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Armada, X.-L., Rafel, N. & Montero, I.. 2008. Contactos precoloniales, actividad metalúrgica y biografías de objetos de bronce en la Península Ibérica, in Celestino, S., Rafel, N. & Armada, X.-L. (ed.) Contacto cultural entre el Mediterráneo y el Atlántico (siglos XII-VIII ane). La precolonización a debate: 465–508. Madrid: CSIC.Google Scholar
Blanco-González, A. In press. Sitios en altura y vasijas rotas: reconsiderando la ‘plenitud’ de Cogotas I (1450-1150 cal AC) en la Meseta. Trabajos de Prehistoria 71.Google Scholar
Calleja, M.V. 1975. Un yacimiento de la primera Edad del Hierro en Dueñas (Palencia). Sautuola 1: 161–68.Google Scholar
Chapman, J. 2000. Fragmentation in archaeology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chapman, J. & Gaydarska, B.. 2007. Parts and wholes: fragmentation in prehistoric context. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Crespo, M., Herrán, J.I. & Puente, M.. 2005. Excavaciones arqueológicas en Pico Castro (Dueñas, Palencia). Report prepared for the Regional Heritage Administration General Directorate of Cultural Heritage, Autonomous Government of Castile and Leon.Google Scholar
Delibes, G., Fernández, J. & Herrán, J.I.. 2007. Los Bronces de Valdevimbre y la metalurgia Cogotas I, in Celis, J., Delibes, G., Fernández, J. & Grau, L. (ed.) El hallazgo leonés de Valdevimbre y los depósitos del Bronce Final Atlántico: 106–31. Salamanca: Junta de Castilla y León.Google Scholar
Eriksson, T. 2008. Pottery and feasting in central Sweden, in Berg, I. (ed.) Breaking the mould: challenging the past through pottery (British Archaeological Reports international series 1861): 47–55. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Esparza, A., Velasco, J. & Delibes, G.. 2012. Exposición de cadáveres en el yacimiento de Tordillos. Perspectiva bioarqueológica y posibles implicaciones para el estudio del ritual funerario de Cogotas I. Zephyrus 59: 95–128.Google Scholar
Elburg, R. 2010. A Neolithic treasure chest. The European Archaeologist 33: 4–6.Google Scholar
Fontijn, D.R. 2002. Sacrificial landscapes: cultural biographies of persons, objects and ‘natural’ places in the Bronze Age of the southern Netherlands. Leiden: University of Leiden.Google Scholar
Fontijn, D.R. 2013. Epilogue: cultural biographies and itineraries of things: second thoughts, in Hahn, H.P. & Weiss, H. (ed.) Mobility, meaning and transformation of things: 183–95. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Garrow, D. 2012. Odd deposits and average practice: a critical history of the concept of structured deposition. Archaeological Dialogues 19: 85–115. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1380203812000141 Google Scholar
Ginzburg, C. 1992. Clues, myths, and the historical method. Baltimore (MD): Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Gosden, C. & Marshall, Y.. 1999. The cultural biography of objects. World Archaeology 31: 169–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.1999.9980439 Google Scholar
Hahn, H.P. & Weiss, H.. 2013. Introduction: biographies, travels, and itineraries of things, in Hahn, H.P. & Weiss, H. (ed.) Mobility, meaning and transformation of things: 1–14. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Hamilakis, Y. & Sherratt, S.. 2012. Feasting and the consuming body in Bronze Age Crete and Early Iron Age Cyprus, in Cadogan, G., Iakovou, M., Kopaka, K. & Whitley, J. (ed.) Parallel lives: ancient island societies in Crete and Cyprus: 187–207. London: British School at Athens.Google Scholar
Harrison, R.J. 1995. Bronze Age expansion 1750-1250 BC: the Cogotas I phase in the Middle Ebro Valley. Veleia 12: 67–77.Google Scholar
Harrison, R.J. & Mederos, A.. 2000. Patronage and clientship: a model for the Atlantic Final Bronze Age in the Iberian Peninsula, in Pare, C.F.E. (ed.) Metals make the world go round: the supply and circulation of metals in Bronze Age Europe: 133–50. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 2012. Entangled: an archaeology of the relationships between humans and things. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hoskins, J. 2006. Agency, biography and objects, in Tilley, C., Keane, W., Küchler, S., Rowlands, M. & Spyer, P. (ed.) Handbook of material culture: 74–84. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Hruby, J.A. 2006. Feasting and ceramics: a view from the Palace of Nestor at Pylos. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cincinnati.Google Scholar
Immonen, V. 2002. Functional ladles or ceremonial cutlery? A cultural biography of prehistoric wooden spoons from Finland. Acta Borealia 19: 27–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08003830215541 Google Scholar
Jones, A. 2002. Archaeological theory and scientific practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Joy, J. 2009. Reinvigorating object biography: reproducing the drama of object lives. World Archaeology 41: 540–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438240903345530 Google Scholar
Knappett, C. 2012. Materiality, in Hodder, I. (ed.) Archaeological theory today: 188–207. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Kopytoff, I. 1986. The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process, in Appadurai, A. (ed.) The social life of things: 64–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lamotta, V.M. 2012. Behavioral archaeology, in Hodder, I. (ed.) Archaeological theory today: 62–92. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Lillios, K.T. 2000. A biographical approach to the ethnogeology of late prehistoric Portugal. Trabajos de Prehistoria 57: 19–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.3989/tp.2000.v57.i1.259 Google Scholar
MacGregor, G. 1999. Making sense of the past in the present: a sensory analysis of carved stone balls. World Archaeology 31: 258–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.1999.9980445 Google Scholar
Marshall, Y. 2008. The social lives of lived and inscribed objects: a Lapita perspective. Journal of the Polynesian Society 117: 59–101.Google Scholar
Naji, M. & Douny, L.. 2009. Editorial. Journal of Material Culture 14: 411–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1359183509346184 Google Scholar
Skeates, R. 1995. Animate objects: a biography of prehistoric ‘axe-amulets’ in the central Mediterranean region. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 61: 279–301.Google Scholar
Skibo, J.M. 1992. Pottery function: a use alteration perspective. New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
Spector, J.D. 1993. What this awl means. St Paul: Minnesota Historical Society.Google Scholar
Steel, L. 2013. Materiality and consumption in the Bronze Age Mediterranean. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tosello, G. 2003. Pierres gravées du Périgord magdalénien: art, symboles, territoires. Paris: CNRS.Google Scholar
Walker, W.H. 1999. Ritual, life histories, and the afterlives of people and things. Journal of the Southwest 41: 383–405.Google Scholar
Woodward, A. 2002. Beads and beakers: heirlooms and relics in the early Bronze Age. Antiquity 76: 1040–47.Google Scholar
York, J. 2002. The life cycle of Bronze Age metalwork from the Thames. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 21: 77–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-0092.00150 Google Scholar