Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T05:50:47.516Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Witchcraft and Deep Time–a debate at Harvard

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Stephen Mitchell ,
Neil Price ,
Ronald Hutton ,
Diane Purkiss ,
Kimberley Patton ,
Catharina Raudvere ,
Carlo Severi ,
Miranda Aldhouse-Green ,
Sarah Semple  and
Aleks Pluskowski
...Show all authors
Stephen Mitchell
Affiliation:
Folklore & Mythology, Warren House, Harvard University, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Neil Price
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen, School of Geosciences, St Mary's, Elphinstone Road, Aberdeen AB24 3UF, UK
Ronald Hutton
Affiliation:
University of Bristol, School of Humanities, 11 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TB, UK
Diane Purkiss
Affiliation:
Keble College, Oxford OX1 3PG, UK
Kimberley Patton
Affiliation:
Harvard Divinity School, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Catharina Raudvere
Affiliation:
Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Snorresgade 17-19, DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark
Carlo Severi
Affiliation:
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale, 52, Rue du Cardinal Lemoine, 75005 Paris, France
Miranda Aldhouse-Green
Affiliation:
Cardiff School of History and Archaeology, Humanities Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK
Sarah Semple
Affiliation:
Durham University, Department of Archaeology, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
Aleks Pluskowski
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Box 226, Reading RG6 6AB, UK
Martin Carver
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, UK
Carlo Ginzburg
Affiliation:
Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7, 56126 Pisa, Italy
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Archaeology, consistently warned off religion by wise old heads, here rushes deeper into the thicket to tackle the thorny topic of ancient witchcraft. The occasion was a seminar at Harvard organised by Stephen Mitchell and Neil Price to mark the twentieth anniversary of Carlo Ginzburg's influential book on the connections between witches and shamanism – and by implication the possible connections with prehistoric ritual and belief. Archaeology was by no means the only voice at the meeting, which was attended by scholars active in history, literature, divinity and anthropology. The discussions revealed much that was entangled in the modern psyche: ‘don't let's tame strangeness’ was one leitmotiv of this stimulating colloquium. A romantic attachment to the irrational is a feature of our time, especially among academics. But maybe taming strangeness is an archaeologist's real job…

Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 84 , Issue 325 , September 2010 , pp. 864 - 879
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2010

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.)

References

Bloch, M. 2006. Apologie pour l'histoire ou métier d'historien, in Becker, A. & Bloch, E. (ed.) L'histoire, la guerre, la résistance. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Carver, M. 2000. Burial as poetry: the context of treasure in Anglo-Saxon graves, in Tyler, E. (ed.) Treasure in the medieval West: 25–48. Woodbridge: York Medieval Press.Google Scholar
Carver, M. 2001. Why that, why there, why then? The politics of early medieval monumentality, in Macgregor, A & Hamerow, H. (ed.) Image and power in early medieval British archaeology: essays in honour of Rosemary Cramp: 1–22. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Carver, M. 2009. Early Scottish monasteries and prehistory: a preliminary dialogue. The Scottish Historical Review 88.2: 332–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carver, M. (ed.) 2003. The Cross goes north: processes of conversion in northern Europe AD 300-1300. Woodbridge: Boydell.Google Scholar
Chang, K.C. 2005. The rise of kings and the formation of city-states, in Allen, S. (ed.) The formation of Chinese civilisation: an archaeological perspective. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press & Beijing: New World Press.Google Scholar
Frazer, J. 1922. The Golden Bough: a study in magic and religion. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ginzburg, C. 1991. Ecstasies: deciphering the witches' Sabbath. London: Hutchinson Radius.Google Scholar
Ginzburg, C. & Poni, C.. 1991. The name and the game, in Muir, E. & Ruggiero, G. (ed.) Microhistory and the lost people of Europe. Baltimore (MD): Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Gombrich, E.H. 1979. The sense of order: a study in the psychology of decorative art. Oxford: Phaidon.Google Scholar
Graves, R. 1961. The White Goddess. London: Faber & Faber.Google Scholar
Grimaldi, P. (ed.) 2003. Bestie, santi, divinitá: maschere animali dell'Europa tradizionale. Torino: Museo Nazionale della Montagna.Google Scholar
Gudmundsdóttir, A. 2007. The werewolf in medieval Icelandic literature. Journal of English and German Philology (July): 277–303.Google Scholar
Gunnell, T. 1995. The origins of drama in Scandinavia. Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer.Google Scholar
Gunnell, T. (ed.) 2007. Masks and mumming in the Nordic area. Uppsala: Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien.Google Scholar
Hutton, R. 2009. Blood and mistletoe: the history of the Druids in Britain. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis-Williams, D. 2002. The mind in the cave. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Lorey, E. 2006. Werwolfprozesse in der frühen Neuzeit. Available at: http://www.elmar-lorey.de/Prozesse.htm (accessed 22 June 2010).Google Scholar
Mackay, C.S. (ed. & trans.) 2006. Malleus maleficarum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mithen, S. 1996. The prehistory of the mind: a search for the origins of art, science and religion. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Mithen, S. 2003. After the ice: a global human history 20,000 -5000 BC. London: Weidenfield & Nicolson.Google Scholar
Moreland, J. 2001. Archaeology and text. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Murray, M.A. 1921. The witch-cult in western Europe. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Pastoureau, M. 2000. Pourquoi tant de lions dans l'Occident médiéval? Micrologus: Natura, scienze e societá medievali 8/1: 11–30.Google Scholar
Peirce, C.S. 1974 (1934). Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Volume 5: Pragmatism and pragmaticism, edited by Hartshorne, Ch. & Weiss, P.. Cambridge (MA): Belknap Press/Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pluskowski, A.G. 2005. The tyranny of the gingerbread house: contextualising the fear of wolves in medieval northern Europe through material culture, ecology and folklore. Current Swedish Archaeology 13: 141–60.Google Scholar
Price, N. 2002. The Viking way: religion and war in late Iron Age Scandinavia. Uppsala: Department of Archaeology & Ancient History.Google Scholar
Raudvere, C. 2002. Trolldómr in early medieval Scandinavia, in Ankarloo, B. & Clark, S. (ed.) Witchcraft and magic in Europe (The Athlone history of witchcraft vol. 3, The Middle Ages): 73–172. London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Redfield, R. 1955. The social organization of tradition. The Far Eastern Quarterly 15(1): 13–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Semple, S.J. 1998. A fear of the past: the place of the prehistoric burial mound in the ideology of middle and later Anglo-Saxon England. World Archaeology 30(1): 109–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trigger, B.G. 2002. Understanding early civilizations: a comparative study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Twycross, M. & Carpenter, S.. 2002. Masks and masking in medieval and early Tudor England. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar