How the Cycladic Islanders Found Their Marbles: Material Engagement, Social Cognition and the Emergence of Keros

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-610
Author(s):  
Alexander Aston
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Long Range ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Engagement Theory ◽  
Material Engagement ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
The Relationship

This paper utilizes Material Engagement Theory (MET), which examines material culture as a dynamic and integral component of human cognitive systems, in order to explore the relationship between Cycladic marble sculpting and the complex social organization evinced at the sites of Dhaskalio and Kavos on the island of Keros. The article shows how the development of Cycladic sculpting in conjunction with transforming settlement patterns suggests that the figurines emerged as part of a kinshipping dynamic. In this context, evidence from the cognitive sciences reveals how Cycladic figurines were profound attention-capturing technologies which shaped the development of intersubjectivity and collective activity. Cycladic marble provided a medium through which a semiotics of value could be generated, circulated and manipulated across the archipelago. The article argues that marble artefacts formed part of a distributed cognitive system which enabled the regional organization of long-range voyaging regimes centred on Dhaskalio-Kavos. The role of Cycladic sculpture in mediating maritime social interactions is clarified by examining the dynamics of social cognition and the organizational burdens of long-range voyaging culture. The relationship between marble, social interaction and longboat voyaging provides a strong explanation for the development and transformation of Keros as well as for broader chronological developments in the region. Cycladic sculpting traditions mediated the shifting burdens upon social cognition during the Early Bronze Age, facilitating the novel forms of social organization in the central Cyclades as a response to both the pressures and the opportunities of the Aegean world. Keros provides an exemplary case study of material culture's role in extending the boundaries of social cognition in ways that enable social complexity to emerge at new scales.

scholarly journals The archaeology of the social brain revisited: rethinking mind and material culture from a material engagement perspective

2020 ◽  
pp. 105971232094194
Author(s):  
Anna M Barona
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Technological Evolution ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Relational Models ◽  
Engagement Theory ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Material Engagement ◽  
The Relationship

The social brain hypothesis (SBH) has played a prominent role in interpreting the relationship between human social, cognitive and technological evolution in archaeology and beyond. This article examines how the SBH has been applied to the Palaeolithic material record, and puts forward a critique of the approach. Informed by Material Engagement Theory (MET) and its understanding of material agency, it is argued that the SBH has an inherently cognitivist understanding of mind and matter at its core. This Cartesian basis has not been fully resolved by archaeological attempts to integrate the SBH with relational models of cognition. At the heart of the issue has been a lack of meaningful consideration of the cognitive agency of things and the evolutionary efficacy of material engagement. This article proposes MET as a useful starting point for rethinking future approaches to human social cognitive becoming in a way that appreciates the co-constitution of brains, bodies and worlds. It also suggests how MET may bridge archaeological and 4E approaches to reconsider concepts such as the ‘mental template’ and Theory of Mind.

scholarly journals Establishing the Middle Sea: The Late Bronze Age of Mediterranean Europe (1700–900 BC)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Iacono ◽  
Elisabetta Borgna ◽  
Maurizio Cattani ◽  
Claudio Cavazzuti ◽  
Helen Dawson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Long Range ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Mediterranean Europe ◽  
Northern Shore ◽  
Comparative Survey ◽  
The Bronze Age

AbstractThe Late Bronze Age (1700–900 BC) represents an extremely dynamic period for Mediterranean Europe. Here, we provide a comparative survey of the archaeological record of over half a millennium within the entire northern littoral of the Mediterranean, from Greece to Iberia, incorporating archaeological, archaeometric, and bioarchaeological evidence. The picture that emerges, while certainly fragmented and not displaying a unique trajectory, reveals a number of broad trends in aspects as different as social organization, trade, transcultural phenomena, and human mobility. The contribution of such trends to the processes that caused the end of the Bronze Age is also examined. Taken together, they illustrate how networks of interaction, ranging from the short to the long range, became a defining aspect of the “Middle Sea” during this time, influencing the lives of the communities that inhabited its northern shore. They also highlight the importance of research that crosses modern boundaries for gaining a better understanding of broad comparable dynamics.

Style and Social Information in Kalahari San Projectile Points

1983 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Polly Wiessner
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Stylistic Analysis ◽  
Stylistic Variation ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
The Relationship

The results of a study on the relationship between stylistic variation in Kalahari San projectile points and aspects of San social organization are summarized. Five issues relevant to archaeology are discussed in light of the San data: (1) stylistic behavior and the different aspects of style, (2) which items of material culture carry social information and why, (3) which attributes on San projectile points carry social information, (4) what the results of the analysis of stylistic variation in projectile points imply for current methods of stylistic analysis and interpretation, and (5) the correspondence between style in San projectile points and San organization.

scholarly journals Kata Budaya sebagai Identitas Nigeria dalam Novel ‘Amāliqat al-Shimāl Karya Najīb al-Kīlānī

Al-Ma rifah ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-188
Author(s):  
Silmi Malina Binta
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Historical Novel ◽  
Material Object ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Social Culture ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Ecological Culture

The word culture is a word that contains solid cultural elements of a particular group or area. This word cannot be understood directly without any knowledge or explanation. This study includes an analysis of the word culture with the material object of the historical novel ‘Amāliqat al-Shimāl by Najīb al-Kīlānī. The word culture contained in the novel was collected, then included in each category based on the division of the cultural elements of Peter Newmark. The method used is descriptive qualitative by presenting the data in the analysis. The cultural words analyzed are given a general and concise explanation accompanied by pictures. This study aims to understand the novel’s content and strengthen the word culture, which is found as the Nigerian identity, which is the background of the events in the novel. The study results found 21 cultural words that have an identical effect on Nigeria. The cultural words are detailed in several subcategories, including one animal name, one plant name and eight place names in the ecological culture category, one name for traditional clothing in the material culture category, five names of state figures in social culture, and two names of beliefs, and three names of ethnic groups in the variety of social organization cultures.

More than a Body

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lambros Malafouris ◽  
Maria Danae Koukouti
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Material Engagement Theory ◽  
Material World ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Engagement Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
Material Engagement ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Way

Merging notions of materiality and intercorporeality is becoming increasingly important in archaeology and anthropology, as material culture has brought the materiality of bodies and the materiality of things back to the center of attention. Material Engagement Theory (MET) offers a new approach to the study of the nature of interactions and relational transactions of people and things as well as understanding their role in shaping the mind. Using the example of pottery making, this paper explores how the material world now becomes an inseparable component of the way we think; mind and matter are one and must be studied as such. This is a new emphasis on the priority of material engagement as a prereflexive, preverbal capacity for basic thought through, with, and about things which emerges from our bodily engagement with the world. It resonates, extends, and complements the concept of “intercorporeality” (intercorporéité) as advanced by French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

The Powerful Dead: Archaeological Relationships between the Living and the Dead

1993 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Parker Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Contextual Analysis ◽  
Human Society ◽  
The World ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Status Differences

The dead, collectively or individually, are sometimes powerful forces in human society. At other times they fade into relative insignificance. How archaeologists recover such ideological changes has repercussions for their interpretation of social organization and social change. Interpretations of status, gender, and ranking from funerary deposits are to a large extent dependent on archaeologists' abilities to interpret initially the relationship that the living construct with the dead. This contextual analysis of the Danish Iron Age uses studies of landscape and topography, and contrasts in material culture to situate the changing placement of the dead in society. Their increasing incorporation into the world of the living in the pre-Roman Iron Age indicates a growing concern with lineage and individual status. Later on, within the hierarchical ordering of Roman Iron Age society, the dead retained their significance for the living but in certain regions this was expressed in terms of their communality rather than status differences.

The Early Iron Age at Tell Abu al-Kharaz, Jordan Valley

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Bürge
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Jordan Valley ◽  
Starting Point

The present monograph by Teresa Bürge deals with the material culture of the city of Tell Abu al-Kharaz in the northern part of the Jordan Valley. The basis and starting point is an extremely well-preserved domestic compound dating from the early Iron Age – one of the most controversial periods of the Eastern Mediterranean: it follows the political and economic collapse of the Late Bronze Age and results in a re-structuration of the political and social organization, which – due to the present state of research – is well documented only for the later Iron Age. In addition to a detailed examination of the architecture, the find material, its contexts, the relative and absolute chronology, and the possible function of the building, the study aims at an integration of the evidence from Tell Abu al-Kharaz into a broader picture. Special attention is devoted to the economy and social organization of the early Iron Age town, to aspects of tradition versus innovation, and patterns of economic contacts and migration. Therefore, the study contributes to a better understanding of processes of continuity and change in social and political organization and cross-cultural relations of pre- and protohistoric societies.

Human Ontogeny and Material Change at the Bronze Age Tell of Százhalombatta, Hungary

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Sofaer
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Domestic Space ◽  
Developmental Experiences ◽  
Material Change ◽  
Domestic Material Culture ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Human Ontogeny

This article explores the relationship between human ontogeny — how people become who they are — and material change at the Bronze Age tell of Százhalombatta, Hungary. Shifts in domestic material culture and in the use of domestic space in houses imply altered developmental experiences for people living on the tell from the Early to Middle Bronze Age. These changes produced qualitatively different kinds of people at different points in time.

Tradition and change

1994 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 98-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Lohof
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
The North ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
The Relationship

This article is based on the results of a project on social change in the Early and Middle Bronze Age in the north-eastern Netherlands, which ended in 1991. Although the project originally focused on the possible development of social stratification, here, the emphasis will be on the relationship between burial ritual and social change in general. Before embarking on the main argument, it should be understood that the link between burial ritual and social change by no means implies the view that burial ritual reflects all social changes which take place within a society, nor that the changes observed in the burial ritual are essential to an understanding of the society concerned. The burial ritual offers us no more than an opportunity to study past social changes. The resulting interpretations should be supported and tested by other expressions of material culture, such as those concerning economy and settlement patterns.

Bringing things to mind

2018 ◽  
pp. 754-772
Author(s):  
Lambros Malafouris
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Human Intelligence ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Material Engagement Theory ◽  
Enactive Cognition ◽  
Engagement Theory ◽  
4E Cognition ◽  
Strong Material ◽  
Material Engagement

Human intelligence and its evolution have always been inextricably linked with the material forms people make. Archaeology and anthropology may well testify that human beings are not merely embedded in a rich and changing universe of things; rather, human cognitive and social life is a process genuinely mediated and often constituted by them. The specific details, varieties, and forms of that process are not well understood and demand a cross-disciplinary approach. This chapter argues for the need to add a strong material culture dimension of research in the area of 4E (embodied–embedded–extended–enactive) cognition. Material engagement theory (MET) is proposed as a framework suitable for bridging the analytical gap between 4E cognition and the study of material culture. The notion of “thing-ing” is used to draw attention to the modes of cognitive life instantiated in acts of thinking and feeling with, through, and about things.

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