Hostname: page-component-669899f699-vbsjw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-29T02:42:36.697Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mutable objects, places and chronologies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 January 2021

Victoria A. Sainsbury Open the ORCID record for Victoria A. Sainsbury [Opens in a new window] ,
Peter Bray ,
Chris Gosden  and
A. Mark Pollard
Victoria A. Sainsbury*
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, UK
Peter Bray
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, UK
Chris Gosden
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, UK
A. Mark Pollard
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, UK
*
*Author for correspondence: ✉ [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Mutability—the ability to change form and substance—is a key feature of glass and metals. This quality, however, has proven frustrating for archaeological and archaeometric research. This article assesses the typological, chemical and theoretical elements of material reuse and recycling, reframing these practices as an opportunity to understand past behaviour, rather than as an obstacle to understanding. Using diverse archaeological data, the authors present case studies to illustrate the potential for documenting mutability in the past, and to demonstrate what this can reveal about the movement, social context and meaning of archaeological material culture. They hope that through such examples archaeologists will consider and integrate mutability as a formative part of chaînes opératoires.

Keywords

recyclingreuseobject biographycopperglassmutability
Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 95 , Issue 379 , February 2021 , pp. 215 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Antiquity Publications Ltd

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bidegaray, A.I., Nys, K., Silvestri, A., Cosyns, P., Meulebroeck, W., Terryn, H., Godet, S. & Ceglia, A.. 2020. 50 shades of colour: how thickness, iron redox and manganese/antimony contents influence perceived and intrinsic colour in Roman glass. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 12: 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-020-01050-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R. 1998. Ruined buildings, ruined stones: enclosures, tombs and natural places in the Neolithic of south-west England. World Archaeology 30: 13–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.1998.9980394CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bray, P.J. 2009. Exploring the social basis of technology: re-analysing regional archaeometric studies of the first copper and tin-bronze use in Britain and Ireland. Unpublished DPhil dissertation, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Bray, P.J. 2015. The role and use of daggers in British Early Bronze Age society: insights from their chemical composition, in Woodward, A., Hunter, J., Bukach, D. & Needham, S. (ed.) Ritual in Early Bronze Age grave goods: appendix II. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Bray, P.J. & Pollard, A.M.. 2012. A new interpretative approach to the chemistry of copper-alloy objects: source, recycling and technology. Antiquity 86: 853–67. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00047967CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caple, C. 2010. Ancestor artefacts-ancestor materials. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 29: 305–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0092.2010.00350.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cavalieri, M. & Giumlia-Mair, A.. 2009. Lombardic glassworking in Tuscany. Materials and Manufacturing Processes 24: 1023–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/10426910902987119CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coghlan, H.H. 1970. A report upon the hoard of Bronze Age tools and weapons from Yattendon, near Newbury, Berkshire. Newbury: Borough of Newbury Museum.Google Scholar
Cool, H.E.M. 2000. The parts left over: material culture into the fifth century, in Wilmott, T. & Wilson, P. (ed.) The Late Roman transition in the North (British Archaeological Reports British Series 299): 47–65. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Crellin, R.J., Dolfini, A., Ucklemann, M. & Hermann, R.. 2018. An experimental approach to prehistoric violence and warfare, in Dolfini, A., Crellin, R.J., Horn, C. & Uckleman, M. (ed.) Prehistoric warfare and violence: quantitative and qualitative approaches: 279–305. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78828-9_13CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Degryse, P. (ed.). 2014. Glass making in the Greco-Roman world: results of the ARCHGLASS project. Leuven: Leuven University Press. https://doi.org/10.26530/OAPEN_513796CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earle, T. 2000. Archaeology, property, and prehistory. Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 39–60. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.29.1.39CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckardt, H. & Williams, H.. 2003. Objects without a past?, in Williams, H. (ed.) Archaeologies of remembrance: 141–70. Boston (MA): Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9222-2_7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, A.J.H. 1940–1941. A hoard of Bronze Age halberds from Auchingoul, Inverkeithney, Banffshire. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 75: 208–209.Google Scholar
Foster, H.E. & Jackson, C.M.. 2010. The composition of late Romano-British colourless vessel glass: glass production and consumption. Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 3068–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.07.007CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freestone, I. 2015. The recycling and reuse of roman glass: analytical approaches. Journal of Glass Studies 57: 29–40.Google Scholar
Gillings, M. & Pollard, J.. 1999. Non-portable stone artefacts and contexts of meaning: the tale of Grey Wether. World Archaeology 31: 179–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.1999.9980440CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gosden, C. & Marshall, Y.. 1999. The cultural biography of objects. World Archaeology 31: 169–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.1999.9980439CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heck, M. & Hoffman, P.. 2000. Coloured opaque glass beads of the Merovingians. Archaeometry 42: 341–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4754.2000.tb00886.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, J. 1987. Chemical and archaeological analysis of some British and European prehistoric glasses. Annales du 10e Congrès de l'Association Internationale pour l'Histoire du Verre 1985: 13–22.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 2012. Entangled: an archaeology of the relationships between humans and things. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118241912CrossRefGoogle 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. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781848607972.n6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, M. 1974. Germanic and Roman antiquity and the sense of the past in Anglo-Saxon England. Anglo-Saxon England 3: 29–50. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0263675100000569CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, L. 2006. Byzantine glass mosaic tesserae: some material considerations. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 30: 29–47. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0307013100015032CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, A.M. 2012. Prehistoric materialities: becoming material in prehistoric Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199556427.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joy, J. 2009. Reinvigorating object biography: reproducing the drama of object lives. World Archaeology 41: 540–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438240903345530CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Killick, D. & Fenn, T.. 2012. Archaeometallurgy: the study of preindustrial mining and metallurgy. Annual Reviews of Anthropology 41: 559–77. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145719CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinney, D. 2001. Roman architectural spolia. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 145: 138–61.Google Scholar
Kopytoff, I. 1986. The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process, in Appadurai, A. (ed.) The social life of things: commodities in cultural perspective: 64–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819582.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCullough, T.J. 2014. Metal to clay: ‘recovering’ middle Minoan metal vessels from Knossos and Phaistos through their ceramic skeuomorphs. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
McKerrell, H. & Tylecote, R.F.. 1972. Working of copper-arsenic alloys in the Early Bronze Age and the effect on the determination of provenance. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 38: 209–18. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00012111CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton Braund, S. 2004. Juvenal and Persius. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mozley, J.H. 1928. Statius, Silvae. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Needham, S.P. 1983. The Early Bronze Age axeheads of central and southern England. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Cardiff University.Google Scholar
Nicholson, P.T. 2011, Glassworking, use and discard, in Wendrich, W. (ed.) UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. Available at: http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz00289zd5 (accessed 25 November 2020).Google Scholar
O'Flaherty, R. 2002. A consideration of the Early Bronze Age halberd in Ireland: function and context. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University College Dublin.Google Scholar
O'Flaherty, R. 2007. A weapon of choice: experiments with a replica Irish Early Bronze Age halberd. Antiquity 81: 423–34. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00095284CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ottaway, B.S. 2001. Innovation, production and specialization in early prehistoric copper metallurgy. European Journal of Archaeology 4: 87–112. https://doi.org/10.1179/eja.2001.4.1.87CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pajunen, N. & Heiskanen, K.. 2012. Drivers and barriers in the supply chain: the importance of understanding the complexity of recycling in the industrial system, in Mishra, B.K., Proceedings of the 26th International Mineral Processing Congress, New Delhi, India, 24–28 September 2012: 4047–56. New Delhi: International Mineral Processing Congress.Google Scholar
Paynter, S. & Jackson, C.. 2019. Clarity and brilliance: antimony in colourless natron glass explored using Roman glass found in Britain. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 11: 1533–51. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-017-0591-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perrin, B. (trans). 1914. Plutarch, Lives, volume I: Theseus and Romulus. Lycurgus and Numa. Solon and Publicola (Loeb Classical Library 46). Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pollard, A.M. & Bray, P.. 2014. The archaeological bazaar: scientific methods for sale? Or: ‘putting the ‘arch-’ back into archaeometry, in Chapman, R. & Wylie, A. (ed.) Material evidence : 133–47. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pollard, A.M., Bray, P.J. & Gosden, C.. 2014. Is there something missing in scientific provenance studies of prehistoric artefacts? Antiquity 88: 625–31. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00101255CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollard, A.M., Bray, P., Gosden, C., Wilson, A. & Hamerow, H.. 2015. Characterising copper-based metals in Britain in the first millennium AD: a preliminary quantification of metal flow and recycling. Antiquity 89: 697–71. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2015.20CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollard, A.M., Bray, P., Cuénod, A., Hommel, P., Hsu, Y.-K., Liu, R., Perucchetti, L., Pouncett, J. & Saunders, M.. 2018. Beyond provenance: the interpretation of chemical and isotopic data in archaeological bronzes. Leuven: University of Leuven Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv7xbs5rCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, J. & Cottam, S.. 1998. Romano-British glass vessels: a handbook. York: Council for British Archaeology.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1975. Trade as action at a distance: questions of integration and communication, in Sabloff, J.A. & Lamberg-Karlovsky, C. (ed.) Ancient civilization and trade : 3–60. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Sainsbury, V.A. 2018. When things stopped travelling: recycling and the glass industry in Britain from the first to fifth century CE, in Rosenow, D., Phelps, M., Meek, A. & Freestone, I. (ed.) Things that travelled: Mediterranean glass in the first millennium AD: 324–45. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt21c4tb3.19CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sainsbury, V.A. 2019. From trash to treasure: the recycling of glass in Roman and early medieval period Britain. Unpublished DPhil dissertation, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Schiffer, M.B. 1972. Archaeological context and systemic context. American Antiquity 37: 156–65. https://doi.org/10.2307/278203CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sear, F.B. 1977. Roman wall and vault mosaics. Heidelberg: F.H. Kerle.Google Scholar
Shackleton Bailey, D.R. (ed. and trans.) 1990. Martial, Epigrams, volume III (Loeb Classical Library 480). Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sheridan, A., Pailler, Y., Pétrequin, P. & Errera, M.. 2011. Old friends, new friends, a long-lost friend and false friends: tales from Projet JADE, in Davis, V. & Edmonds, M. (ed.) Stone axe studies III: 411–26. Oxford: Oxbow. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1dv6v.41CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silvestri, A. 2008. The coloured glass of Iulia Felix. Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 1489–1501. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2007.10.014CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skingley, P. (ed.). 2014. Coins of England and the United Kingdom. London: Spink & Sons.Google Scholar
Swift, E. 1999. Regionality in the late Roman west through the study of crossbow brooches, bracelets, beads and belt sets. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of London.Google Scholar
Swift, E. 2012. Object biography, re-use and recycling in the late to post-Roman transition period and beyond: rings made from Romano-British bracelets. Britannia 43: 167–215. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X12000281CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, R.H. 1988. Roman and Celtic objects from Anglo-Saxon graves: a catalogue and an interpretation of their use (British Archaeological Reports British Series 191). Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, D. & Gudenrath, W.. 2007. Reflecting antiquity: modern glass inspired by ancient Rome. Coring (NY): Corning Museum of Glass.Google Scholar
Wolf, S., Kessler, C.M., Stern, W.B. & Gerber, Y.. 2005. The composition and manufacture of early medieval coloured window glass from Sion (Valais, Switzerland): a Roman glass-making tradition or innovative craftsmanship? Archaeometry 47: 361–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4754.2005.00207.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, A., Hunter, J., Bukach, D. & Needham, S.. 2015. Ritual in Early Bronze Age grave goods. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar