Archaeology After Interpretation by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Archaeology
ISBN: 9781315434230
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2016-06-16T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Objects and Social Change: A Case Study from Saxo-Norman Southampton

Ben Jervis

Within medieval archaeology objects are used as indicators of social change, be this in the form of pottery typologies that reflect changing influences, technologies, or patterns of use (e.g., Vince & Jenner 1991) or of metalwork styles that reflect changing tastes and cultural affiliations (Webster 2011). Medieval archaeologists have begun to consider the active role of objects, for example in the creation of identities (e.g., Smith 2009), but artifacts are typically seen as reflecting, rather than participating in, long-term processes of continuity and change. Ceramics in particular provide a valuable but underutilized resource for understanding these processes. The bulk of work on medieval ceramics has focused on characterization; however, studies are increasingly examining the role of ceramics either as reflections of identity or as having a role in its formation (e.g., Blinkhorn 1997; Gutierrez 2000). Ceramics are generally relegated to a secondary role however, being tools used by (rather than acting on) people in the process of identity formation. This chapter presents a fresh perspective, which deviates from conventional approaches by considering the range of interactions between people and objects and exploring how multiple forms of agency emerge through them. By following the relationships formed with ceramic vessels, this chapter will move beyond an anthropocentric view of change to explore how objects were enrolled in processes of continuity and change surrounding the Norman Conquest of England.

Although a major watershed in English history, the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 has not been the focus of sustained archaeological study. Research has typically focused on assessing the visibility of the Conquest (e.g., Sykes 2007) and exploring the directional movement of influences (Impey 2000; Sykes 2007) within a framework concerned primarily with a top-down process of "Normanization." Because of the absence of clear "Norman" material culture in many areas of Britain, the Norman Conquest has not been studied from a ceramic perspective.1 Within these approaches concepts of change are largely anthropocentric. Yet we can consider that early medieval England was experienced in a multitude of connected but individual ways, determined not just by human intentionality but also by the ways in which people were drawn into a variety of associations with objects, with multiple effects. The approach taken here, grounded in Actor-Network Theory, follows these connections, allowing us to explore the social assemblage of Anglo-Norman Southampton not as a stage in which powerful actors managed change, but (to use an appropriate metaphor) more as a tapestry of tangled strands of action in which the agency for continuity and change was woven and distributed through interactions between humans and the material world. Such an approach is valuable in introducing multivocality into an archaeological interpretation of Normanization and in acknowledging that "the social" of Anglo-Norman England was achieved and maintained through a tangle of courses of action, of which both humans and nonhumans were part.

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