by Jon Lackman | 21 April 2008 | Ancient, Medieval, Theory
The latest issue of World Archaeology (39:4) is largely devoted to two themes: the senses and “symmetrical archaeology.”
C. Pamela Graves writes:
In the Middle Ages the senses were considered two-way processes. The senses ‘enabled tangible qualities, and indeed, spiritual or intangible qualities, to be passed from one party to another’ and were acknowledged as gateways to the soul … Seeing something was in effect to touch it … The concepts of sensory environments, e.g. sensuous geographies, acoustic space, soundscapes, aromascapes have been experimented with in application to prehistoric contexts. The challenge for historical archaeologists … is to produce situated analysis … Many commentators have concluded that the acoustic properties of the great medieval churches were not an intentional part of the design, but that ‘for those who repeatedly attended services in these religious spaces, aural and visual symbolism became tightly linked’ … [However] There are known instances … of definite planning with respect to acoustics and religious architecture.
Christopher L. Witmore writes:
The ‘principle of symmetry’ begins with the proposition: human and non-humans should not be regarded as ontologically distinct, as detached and separated entities, a priori. Indeed, modernism’s burdened ‘subjects’ and ‘objects’ are regarded as the purified ‘products’ of our particular relations to the world. Therefore, neither our analyses nor our explanations nor our interpretations should ever begin with such asymmetric dualisms. Thought and action, ideas and materials, past and present are thoroughly mixed ontologically …
The humanities and social sciences are awakening to an archaeological sensibility at large. We are witnessing a return to things. Here, there is a great urgency for archaeology to step up. In a world pervaded by short-term thought, archaeology … has never been more relevant. But we cannot sufficiently answer this calling unless we come to agreement over how to engage with the material world, unless we recognize the simultaneous action of material pasts in our contemporary lives.
