scholarly journals Prehistoric Grinding Tools as Metaphorical Traces of the Past

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-142
Author(s):  
Cecilia Lidström Holmberg

The predominant interpretation of reciprocating grinding tools is generally couched in terms of low archaeological value, anonymity, simplicity, functionality and daily life of women. It is argued that biased opinions and a low form-variability have conspired to deny grinding tools all but superficial attention. Saddle-shaped grinding tools appear in the archaeological record in middle Sweden at the time of the Mesolithic — Neolithic transition. It is argued that Neolithic grinding tools are products of intentional design. Deliberate depositions in various ritual contexts reinforce the idea of grinding tools as prehistoric metaphors, with functional and symbolic meanings interlinked.

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 25-52
Author(s):  
Paul Nicholson

The main steps in the production of pottery are well known and are often similar across much of the world. However, the loci of production where such steps took place, namely the workshops/workspaces, have traditionally attracted less attention from Egyptologists than have the major religious and funerary monuments. In the past three decades or so, however, there has been an increased emphasis on settlement archaeology and ‘daily life’ and this shift has increased the importance of understanding production loci.This paper attempts to use the concept of the chaîne opératoire in association with spatial information in the way which Monteix (2016) has done in his study of Pompeian bakeries in an attempt to better understand the layout of workshops and to identify potential gaps in the archaeological record.  


Author(s):  
Daiva Milinkevičiūtė

The Age of Enlightenment is defined as the period when the universal ideas of progress, deism, humanism, naturalism and others were materialized and became a golden age for freemasons. It is wrong to assume that old and conservative Christian ideas were rejected. Conversely, freemasons put them into new general shapes and expressed them with the help of symbols in their daily routine. Symbols of freemasons had close ties with the past and gave them, on the one hand, a visible instrument, such as rituals and ideas to sense the transcendental, and on the other, intense gnostic aspirations. Freemasons put in a great amount of effort to improve themselves and to create their identity with the help of myths and symbols. It traces its origins to the biblical builders of King Solomon’s Temple, the posterity of the Templar Knights, and associations of the medieval craft guilds, which were also symbolical and became their link not only to each other but also to the secular world. In this work we analysed codified masonic symbols used in their rituals. The subject of our research is the universal Masonic idea and its aspects through the symbols in the daily life of the freemasons in Vilnius. Thanks to freemasons’ signets, we could find continuity, reception, and transformation of universal masonic ideas in the Lithuanian freemasonry and national characteristics of lodges. Taking everything into account, our article shows how the universal idea of freemasonry spread among Lithuanian freemasonry, and which forms and meanings it incorporated in its symbols. The objective of this research is to find a universal Masonic idea throughout their visual and oral symbols and see its impact on the daily life of the masons in Vilnius. Keywords: Freemasonry, Bible, lodge, symbols, rituals, freemasons’ signets.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Andrés López ◽  
David Checa Cruz

The industry has a relevant spatial and socioeconomic importance in most of the Spanish cities and nowadays is one of the main urban economic activities. However, in many situations, and despite recent advances in the past two decades, industrial heritage is a value that is still not sufficiently widespread in society. The factories, their activity, and their historical evolution are often disconnected and isolated from the daily life of the cities, being quite an unknown aspect for most of the citizens. This contribution presents the result of various experiences of knowledge transmission on the heritage value of industry, through the use of games and storytelling technique as an educational tool and the combination of different technologies (3D modelling, videomapping, virtual reality) as useful tools to spread the explanation of this phenomenon.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 139-147
Author(s):  
Marjona Akhmadovna Radjabova ◽  

Abstract. The following article discusses the role of onomastic components in phraseological units and their meaning as well as giving a classification of onomastic components in phraseological units based on the materials of different structural languages. Through examples the author proves that the presence of names in the ancient rich phraseological layer of non-fraternal English, Russian and Uzbek languages is related to the national and cultural values, customs, ancient history, folklore and daily life of the peoples who speak this language. Besides, in the process of study of onomastic components it is also determined that names, along with forming their national character, are a factor giving information about the past of a particular nation. Background. In the world linguistics there have been carried out a series of researches in the field of the study of phraseological units with onomastic components in comparative-typological aspect revaling their national and cultural peculiarities, analyzing and classifying their content structurally and semantically


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (27) ◽  
pp. 165-178
Author(s):  
Stanov Purnawibowo

AbstractArchaeology not only describing about the past, but also present. The form of cultural transformation process which describe the process of archaeological record disposition in the post-depositoanal factors, one of example form describe from present. Cultural transformation of archaeological record was found in Benteng Putri Hijau site. Precipitation position of archaeological data and stratigraphy can give information about cultural transformation data and contexts remain found in archaeological deposition.


Author(s):  
Ivan Romaniuk ◽  

The article reviews the textbook in three parts, in which well-known authors using primarily source documents, the work of domestic and foreign researchers have revealed agrarian relations in Ukraine from ancient times to the present. Particular attention is paid to issues of change in agriculture, socio-economic life of the village, the environment of the peasantry, the daily life of the Ukrainian countryside. Knowledge of the experience of the past agrarian system can become a reliable basis for a conscious choice of optimal ways of further progress of Ukraine as a democratic and prosperous state.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (12-2) ◽  
pp. 85-93
Author(s):  
Svetlana Ulyanova ◽  
Ilya Sidorchuk

The article examines the experience of Soviet propaganda to the history of everyday life by creation a negative memory of the past life of pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg workers. Having studied the scientific and agitation discourse, the authors came to the conclusion that the pictures of the daily life of workers during the tsarist period were an integral part of the formation of the binary opposition “then” - “now”, which implied the maximum discrediting of the pre-revolutionary past in the eyes of the population.


2022 ◽  

Research on pre-Columbian childhood refers to all those studies that consider the different evidence and expressions of children in Mesoamerica, prior to the Spanish invasion in the 16th century. Archaeology, understandably by its very focus, has been one of the most prolific disciplines that has approached this subject of study. Currently, archaeological research focuses on highlighting the different social experiences of the past (or multi-vocality) of social identities, such as gender and childhood, and its relationship with material culture. In addition, archaeologists recognize a modern stereotype that considers children as passive or dependent beings and therefore biases childhood research in the past. Consequently, it is necessary to critically evaluate the cultural specificity of past childhood since each culture has its own way of considering that stage of the life cycle. Another problem, in the archaeological study of childhood, is to consider that children are not socially important individuals. It has been said that their activities are not significant for the economy or the social realm of communities and societies of the past. From archaeology, there exists a general perception that children are virtually unrecognizable from the archaeological record because their behavior leaves few material traces, apart from child burials. It has been since feminist critiques within the discipline that the study of childhood became of vital importance in archaeology to understand the process of gender acquisition through enculturation. This process refers to the way children learn about their gender identity through the material world that surrounds them and the various rituals that prepare them to become persons. Thus, the intent of recent studies on childhood has been to call upon archaeologists to consider children as social actors capable of making meaningful decisions on their own behalf and that they make substantial contributions to their families and their communities. In this sense, studies on pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures have focused at the most basic sense on identifying the presence of children in the archaeological record or ethnohistoric sources. Its aim has been to document the different social ages that make up childhood, the ritual importance of Mesoamerican children, funerary practices, and health conditions marked in children’s bones as well as the different material and identity expressions of childhood through art and its associated material culture.


Author(s):  
Vicki Cummings

The transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic in Britain and Ireland remains one of the most debated and contested transitions of prehistory. Much more complex than a simple transition from hunting and gathering to farming, the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Britain has been discussed not only as an economic and technological transformation, but also as an ideological one. In western Britain in particular, with its wealth of Neolithic monuments, considerable emphasis has been placed on the role of monumentality in the transition process. Over the past decade the author‧s research has concentrated on the early Neolithic monumental traditions of western Britain, a deliberate focus on areas outside the more ‘luminous’ centres of Wessex, the Cotswold–Severn region, and Orkney. This chapter discusses the transition in western Britain, with an emphasis on the monuments of this region. In particular, it discusses the areas around the Irish Sea – west Wales, the Isle of Man, south-west and western Scotland – as well as referring to the sequence on the other side of the Irish Sea, specifically eastern Ireland.


Author(s):  
Peter R. Schmidt ◽  
Alice B. Kehoe

This chapter introduces the foundational principles of Archaeologies of Listening. It takes the reader back to the genesis of anthropological method as well as the debates that have influenced attitudes toward indigenous knowledge and oral traditions over the last century. It critically examines the failure of “New Archaeology” to employ anthropological methods and proposes a complementary practice that does not eschew science but advocates a broader practice incorporating empirical evidence from those with deep experience with material cultures and landscapes. This chapter brings into focus how a richer interpretative posture occurs when we open our practice to the knowledge of others by employing the principles of apprenticeship and patience when working with communities. By putting into action the principle of epistemic humility, alternative views of the past open as do alternative ontologies that structure how the archaeological record is formed and heritage is performed.


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