TAG2024

This session will explore the evolution of palaeolandscapes by focusing on the human dimension. In fact, the archaeology of submerged landscapes has made significant progress in addressing many decisive issues in human evolution, yet what can be achieved is often limited by the data available and/or the approaches we use – especially for areas that have only received limited attention. This inevitably leads to the risk of conceiving palaeolandscapes as empty boxes in which humans are conveniently placed, without much consideration of the dynamic nature of submerged landscapes and how this intertwines with the complexity of many aspects of human societies. Therefore, in this session we aim to address different perspectives and approaches that can help us move towards a more ‘humanly-conscious’ study of palaeolandscapes, which envisions these as vivid places rather than empty spaces. Firstly, by assuming that submerged landscapes are intrinsically dynamic, we would like to discuss new ways to picture palaeolandscapes in their ever-changing nature. Secondly, we want to explore the theme of life on submerged landscapes, focusing in particular on how certain aspects of human life – including, but not limited to, ecologies, settlement patterns, subsistence strategies, mobility, connectivity, and cosmologies – are affected by the dynamic nature of palaeolandscapes. Finally, we would like to bring particular attention to an issue which we believe will allow us to summarise the themes mentioned above, namely responses to sea level change: how can a ‘man in nature’ approach – rather than ‘man vs nature’ – help us improve our understanding of the issue? How can we explore resilience to and perception of changes? Can we, for example, identify ‘ritual’ responses to sea level change?

9:00am | Tracks through La Manche: exploring the ”Goldilocks Zone”  | Beccy Scott, Martin Bates, Richard Bates, Ed Blinkhorn, Chantal Conneller, Sarah Duffy, Josie Mills, Andrew Shaw 

9:20am | Lost landscapes and the Middle Palaeolothic occupation in the southern North Sea: new finds from the submerged Paleo-Yare | Andrew Shaw, Daniel Young & Hayley Hawkins

9:40am | People, ancestral beings, and offshore windfarm insfrastructure in the submerged paleolandscapes and Sea Country of Australia  | Hanna Steyne 

10:20am | Searching for Doggerland: Cultural Engagements with Submerged Prehistory and Regional North Sea Futures  | Ren´ee Hoogland 

10:40am | Discussion |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

Archaeology is often described as informed storytelling: as practitioners, we are trained not only to produce data in the field or in the lab, but also how to write about and present on it – often in more formal settings such as conferences, or informally through public outreach and engagement. However, with increasingly specialised fields of study come greater barriers to dissemination; research narratives may end up ‘lost in translation’, whilst facts and data take second place to catchy news headlines or popular media.

Practised across time and space, storytelling provides an alternative method through which to communicate archaeological information, not only to public audiences, but also amongst those working in diverse archaeological fields. Stories develop and evolve, much like our data and interpretations, and can be told and retold by different narrators. Such techniques may therefore help us to convey complex research in an accessible – but by no means overly-simplified – format, in turn permitting cross-disciplinary discussions and understanding. From archaeological theory to stable isotope analysis, it offers the possibility of connecting with varied audiences, widening participation, and challenging status quo present in traditional modes of research dissemination.

In this session, we invite anyone interested in the human past to try your hand at alternative communication techniques, broadly through storytelling methods. We also welcome those who have had success with such approaches to come and share your experiences! The session aims to be inclusive and experimental, so whether you bring props, present in verse, try out the method of kamishibai (Japanese ‘paper drama’ or picture storytelling – we recommend this method if you are unsure where to start), or simply present your work differently, we would like you to step away from traditional slideshow presentations and to embrace the creative and evolving narratives that archaeological research generates.

So, what’s your story?

9:00am | I Matilda, Regina Anglorum  | Lizzie Bryant

9:15am | Introduction | Kirsty Lilley & Lusia Zaleskaya

9:25am | Combining archaeology and fiction: can writing fiction be a form of experimental archaeology?  | David Greig

9:40am | The Bones in the Scout Hut | Sam Scott Reiter

9:55am | Hominin story | Carys Phillips

10:10am | Creating Pwani: rope, nets, fish-traps and the maritime cultural heritage of Pemba  | Laura Basell

10:45am | The Tale of the Toad Stone | Katy Whitaker

11:00am | My life in the “Movies”: Interpreting the archaeological remains of WW1 submarine chaser “Movy” Motor Launch [ML]286 through storytelling   | Suzanne Taylor

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

Chris Tilley (1955-2024) was one of the most dynamic archaeological theorists our discipline has produced. From his co-authored works in the 1980s that defined the first wave of post-processual thought, via his transformative engagement with phenomenology to his later work with materiality, his impact on archaeological theory is unquantifiable. In memory of this, we seek to explore in this session how Tilley’s work from different eras reads in the light of contemporary concerns, whether political or theoretical. How does the work continue to inform our contemporary arguments? What more might we glean from returning to the questions he posed? How might our current interests in ontology connect to his analysis of metaphor? In this session we welcome papers from people interested in exploring the impact of Tilley’s work, and its intersection with the ongoing challenges we face today.

9:00am | Introduction: reflections on the world changing theory of Chris Tilley | Rachel Crellin and Oliver Harris 

9:10am | “A conceptual dreamwork”; post-humanism, autoethnography and the experience of stone  | Amber Sofia Roy

9:25am | Beyond the Human: Chris Tilley’s Phenomenology and a More-than-Human Reading of the Thames Foreshore   | Claire Harris, Lara Band, Helen Chittock, Tom Chivers & Lesley McFadyen 

9:40am | From models and maps to experience  | Alejandra Galmés Alba

9:55am | Phenomenology without the fluff: How such a long word can produce more inclusive community engagement with archaeology  | Brodhie Molloy

11:00am | The shock of the old  | Anna Collar & Stu Eve

11:15am | Loneliness and Ethical Responsibility: A Levinasian Phenomenological Approach to Archaeology  | Joel Santos 

11:30am | “On Wenlock Edge the woods in trouble;” Christopher Tilley, Phenomenology and the ‘Thinging’ of Palaeoecological Interpretation  | Ben Gearey

11:45am | (Extra)Ordinary Worlds: Chris Tilley’s landscape thinking from phenomenology to anthropology and beyond  | Jonathan Last

12:00pm | Enforcing Viking Age Boundaries: Chris Tilley’s Phenomenology and Unravelling the Social Construction of the Danelaw  | Alexander Thomas

12:15pm | Chris Tilley and phenomenology | Julian Thomas

12:30pm | Discussion |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

Whilst well-established within Indigenous, disability and trans studies, rage as a methodology of affect has yet to emerge into widespread use within mainstream archaeology. This is to the detriment of our discipline. As archaeology increasingly comprehends its political implications and endeavours to establish itself as a progressive field by challenging the climate crisis, colonialism, discrimination and more, it must adopt a methodology that strives to engender change through anger, activism and action. Seldom has progress been won without fighting for it. Furthermore, we must question if, as a social discipline, we can genuinely produce co-created and meaningful work without feeling the same outrage as the communities we work with and for.

Archaeologists often perceive rage as a last resort; where you end up when all traditional academic approaches to a problem have failed. However, through its ability to make individuals think from the position of disenfranchised or otherwise overlooked communities, rather than simply in sympathy with them, scholars of rage/outrage demonstrate why it must be integrated into praxis from the start (e.g.; Stiker, 1997; Stryker, 1994; Weismantel, 2013). This might, and often does, include making those in positions of power and/or privilege uncomfortable by equalising the epistemological playing field through championing embodied knowledge and challenging entrenched power dynamics.

We are looking for contributions that showcase how outrage functions as an affective method within any and all archaeological frameworks, be these gender, disability, climate, enabled, Indigenous or any other archaeologies. Submissions that look to evolve activist and transformative archaeologies using rage/outrage and those that discuss integrating this methodology “at the trowel’s edge” are especially encouraged.

9:00am | Introduction | Owen Hurcum & Niamh Malone

9:10am | Disability Activism in an Interdisciplinary Archaeology: Experiences of ableism and methods of counteracting it via Critical Disability Studies | Alexandra F Morris & Hannah Vogel

9:30am | Outrage, Survivors, and Politicising Archaeologies of Carceral Sites | Elias Michaut

9:50am | Break |

10:00am | Stirring the Pottery: Intentional and Accidental Outrage as a Method of Digital Public Archaeology. | Steph Black

10:20am | Defaultism in Landscape Archaeology. | David Stapley

11:00am | F*ck Your Civility, I Want Change! On Subversive Anger as an Asian American Archaeologist. | Alex Fitzpatrick

11:00am | Benign Ignorance and Unintended Consequences - or Why you Shouldn't Make an Activist Rage. | Ashley Fisher

11:20am | Turning Alienation into Action: Attempting to build a Disability Archaeology by and for Disabled People | Anna Freed

12:10pm | No, But My Mates Do: Considering the Necessity of Communities of Care to Actualise Anger-driven Activism | Yvonne O'Dell, Brodhie Molloy and Andy Rogers

12:30pm | Break |

12:40pm | Discussion |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

Astronomical speculation has been part of megalithic studies since antiquarian times. With the turn of the 20th century, archaeology and archaeoastronomy evolved separately, coming together and splitting apart at different moments. Right now, in the UK at least, the two appear to be converging again. But archaeoastronomy is still rife with controversy and speculation, with the quality of work done by academics varying greatly, with no set standards and giving off the impression that anything goes. Perhaps because of this, the field also attracts non-academic speculation that ranges from the quasi-academic to the ancient aliens crowd.

In this session we want to reflect on the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the relationship between archaeoastronomy and prehistoric archaeology. Has archaeoastronomy provided the missing key to understand prehistoric societies, as is often claimed by amateurs? Are the often-convoluted mathematical expositions and arcane explanations by archaeoastronomers a barrier to dialogue between the fields? Have archaeoastronomers been revolving around the same theoretical and methodological circles instead of evolving with wider archaeological and anthropological approaches? In other words, has archaeoastronomy provided an “evolution”, “convolution” or “involution” of prehistoric studies?

This session will explicitly focus on the broader issue of why there is an apparent lack of interest in archaeoastronomy by some archaeologists, and what is required to fully bridge the gap. We welcome papers that discuss the barriers to collaboration and dialogue, and how to overcome them, as well as papers proposing novel theoretical and methodological developments that may bring the fields together. Case studies will also be welcome but only in so far as they provide examples of broader theoretical and/or methodological considerations.

9:00am | Skyscapes and Archaeology: a reflection on the last decade  | Fabio Silva

9:20am | Bridging the Gap Between Archaeology and Archaeoastronomy: Overcoming Barriers Through Education and Outreach  | Carolyn Kennett

9:40am | Assembling Land and Sky  | Ingrid O’Donnell

10:00am | Excavating the sky  | Matt Leivers

10:20am | Archaeoastronomy and its evolutionary approach to archaelogy   | Tore Lomsdalen

11:00am | How wonder theory can help to understand skyscape archaeological phenomena   | Anna Estaroth

11:20am | Symbols and Theory in Skyscape Archaeology | Nicholas Campion

11:40am | Excavating Neolithic cosmologies: The Cotswold Severn long barrows and their skies – how to combine archaeology and archaeoastronomy within a single model   | Pamela Armstrong

12:00pm | Livestreaming the winter solstice phenomenon from Newgrange— commissioning of work, audience impact and analytics.  | Frank Prendergast

12:20pm | Towards a new "total archaeology"? How to manage sky-associated monuments in their landscape and skyscape contexts.  | Amanda Chadburn

12:40pm | Discussion |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

As we consider how to make archaeological practice more inclusive, equitable, and societally relevant, it becomes increasingly necessary for our sector become self-aware and transparent about how, why and who in archaeology sets research agendas, gathers data, analyses and interprets it – in other words, how archaeological knowledge is constructed. This process is one that many archaeologists are intimately familiar with, yet in-depth discussion of its implications remains rare.

This session invites exploration of all aspects of knowledge production in archaeology. Contributions could include, for example:

Addressing the gap between lived experience of research and the official narrative of the field report
Focusing on the voices and perspectives that tend to be excluded from this process altogether
Examining the implications of intercultural collaboration in the context of international projects, from systemic and localized power imbalances to the epistemic diversity of archaeological knowledge production within a single team
Reflecting on how we can better address contemporary societal challenges, enhance the impact of our field.
Methods in archaeology are constantly “evolving”, but what of the knowledge construction processes underpinning it all?

9:00am | Introduction | Lisa Randisi & Cecilia Conte

9:00am | Unearthing Power: Qufti Labor, Colonialism, and the Making of Archaeological Knowledge at Abydos | Amany Abd El Hameed & Robert J. Vigar

9:20am | Dividing Stories: Knowledge Production at the site of Buhen, Sudan in the Post-independent Era  | Yu Zhuang

9:35am | “Base Camp”: practice and materiality of international field schools in rural Mongolia | Lisa Randisi

10:05am | Who are you calling pseudo-scientific? The magic-magnetic properties of the Karakol kurgans (Altai Republic, Russian Federation)  | Cecilia Conte

10:20am | Exploring TikTok as a Tool for Participatory Public Engagement and Intercultural Collaboration in Archaeology  | Julia Josefowicz

10:35am | Are You Not Entertained? Exploring the Production and Interpretation of Archaeological Knowledge Outside of Academia  | Isabel Scarlet King

10:50am | Discussion |

11:20am | A Climate Archive and Modes of Representation  | Suha Hassan

11:35am | Solar Farms and Archaeology: 20th century thinking applied to a 21st century opportunity  | Robert Sutton

11:50am | Cultural heritage-security nexus: Understanding the evolution of cultural heritage as a security issue | Sabine Ameer & Andreas Giorgallis

12:05pm | Discussion and roundtable |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

Framing the session title in an interrogative way, at one level is a nod towards remembering Alfred Russell Wallace, who conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection independently of Charles Darwin, who lived in Bournemouth and was buried in Broadstone cemetery in 1913. At another level the theme prompts the question of whether evolutionary models are still relevant for understanding culture-change through archaeology. And at yet another level the theme raises the matter of changing archaeological practice and where current trends in fieldwork might be taking us: is archaeology as a discipline ‘evolving’?. But the theme should not be seen as a constraint on contributions; it is a starting point! Posters on any aspect of theoretically grounded archaeology are welcome.

9:30am | Neanderthal Cultures in Britain and Doggerland: a computational investigation into selected Middle Palaeolithic assemblages.  | Alexandra Barroso
9:30am | Tigers in Film: Past, Present and Future Perspectives   |  Farah Benbouabdellah
9:30am | The evolution of object biography: cauldron’s obituary   | Wenqing Zhang

Storytelling and narrative construction has long been a topic of interest to archaeology both in understanding the evolutionary role of stories in past societies, and in using archaeological data to create narratives about the past in the present. Contemporary archaeological theory acknowledges the need for diversity, multivocality and constructivism in interpretations of archaeological pasts presents and futures.

Diverse narrative and creative approaches can enhance impact and engagement, offering subversive, fictive, and alternative perspectives. With the inexorable rise of self-publishing, social media, bots, and AI, we are inundated with stories and content designed to evoke emotional responses or effect change. The power of the past, heritage, and material culture provided by archaeology offer a rich source of inspiration. But are archaeologists engaging effectively in this arena? If so, how can we do so ethically and responsibly, while maintaining academic integrity?

Questions we’re eager to explore include:

Were there compromises made between research rigour and the demands of story, worldbuilding and plot?
What do you create and why?
What are the challenges and what are the benefits of a creative approach?
What challenges did you face responding creatively to your own or others’ research?
What practical and ethical decisions did you have to make?

11:30am | Developing new interdisciplinary approaches for engagement in the Caucasus: Reflections from the Caucasus Through Time Network (CTTN) | Narmin Ismayilova/Caucasus Through Time Network

11:45am | METSEMEGOLOGOLO: of fragmented archives and story-mapping for the exploration of ancient African urbanism | Stefania Merlo, Justine Wintjies & Anton Coetzee

12:00pm | Journeys on the Tavistock Canal: navigating multivocal narratives of industrial Improvement | Andrew Thompson

12:15pm | Stories of stone and soil – the intersection of materiality, landscape learning and human-environment interactions | Emma Stockley

12:30pm | Recovering and reimagining absent archaeologies through creative engagement? | Claire Nolan & Ben Gearey

12:45pm | The past fizzes and trembles in the present | Alice Clough

2:00pm | “Shards of the Past, Meanings of the Present” Bridging distant and recent memories by researching-exhibiting relationships | Mauro Puddo

2:15pm | Animating the Narrative: Artefacts and their Adventures | Aaron Clarke

2:30pm | Playing - with - Light and Time | Laura Basell

3:00pm | Ice-bound Discoveries: An archaeological voyage to Antarctica | Felix Pedrotti, grant Cox, Michael Grant and Jack Pink

3:15pm | Lifeless Things? Archaeological Roleplay in Nothing Beside Remains | Florence Nicholls

3:30pm | Participants as Designers: What Neighbourhood-Led Digital Heritage Storytelling Can Teach Us about Place-Based and Urban Heritage Relationships. | Claire Boardman

3:45pm | Encountering movement: embodied perspectives on the “dancing stone”  | Fiona Coward, Derek Pitman, Richard Potter and Megan Russell

4:00pm | Discussion |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

The main theme of the 45th Theoretical Archaeology Group is ‘Evolution?’ It prompts us to consider whether evolutionary models are still relevant for understanding culture change through archaeology. While many scholars would agree that culture is characterised by the fundamental tenets of universal Darwinism (i.e. variation, selection, and heredity) and be sympathetic to a definition of culture as ‘information that is passed from individual to individual nongenetically, via social learning processes such as teaching or imitation’, there is an extensive and diverse, and often contrasting bodies of theory that aim to understand cultural change. Some of these, such as social evolution and dual inheritance theory, are comparatively well known to archaeologists, while others, such as cultural attraction theory, have received less scholarly attention. It follows that the term of evolutionary models is perhaps too broad as a category to allow us to determine its relevance in the archaeological discourse. Many models have been misunderstood, some concepts abused, and several opportunities for development and synergies were missed Evolutionary thinking in archaeology also runs the risk of being outdated when compared with modern evolutionary thought – which is constantly changing, as demonstrated by the recent (debated) calls for an extended evolutionary synthesis. This session will gather speakers who believe that the answer to the question ‘Evolution?’ is ‘Evolution.’, but are critically aware of the many limitations of what has been achieved so far, and are open to reconsidering, updating, breaking, and possibly rebuilding many of the pillars of current thoughts and premises of evolutionary archaeology.

11:40am | Reframing Evolutionary Archaeology in the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis; a holistic scaled systems approach | Kuipers, K.J.

12:00pm | Cultural Microevolution and Archaeology | Enrico Crema

12:20pm | ‘Concepts’ in dynamic assemblages: an integrative and encompassing evolutionary framework and its archaeological relevance | Jennifer French, Marc Kissel, Somaya Khaksar & Augustin Fuentes

12:40pm | Relating Material Culture and Demographic Trends: A case on prehistoric arrowheads
| Alfredo Cortell-Nicolau

2:00pm | The (Per)Mutation Problem: Outlining a new approach to long-term developments in ceramic technology | Erik Kroon

2:20pm | Can we use the present to interpret the past? Ethnographic analogy and cultural evolution. | Marc Vander Linden, Andres Angourakis & Francesco Carrer

3:20pm | MetaPypulation | Marc Vander Linden & Matteo Tomasini

3:20pm | Evolutionary Archaeology: Time for a Rethink
| Mike O'Brien

3:40pm | Discussion |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

Framing the session title in an interrogative way, at one level is a nod towards remembering Alfred Russell Wallace, who conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection independently of Charles Darwin, who lived in Bournemouth and was buried in Broadstone cemetery in 1913. At another level the theme prompts the question of whether evolutionary models are still relevant for understanding culture-change through archaeology. And at yet another level the theme raises the matter of changing archaeological practice and where current trends in fieldwork might be taking us: is archaeology as a discipline ‘evolving’?. But the theme should not be seen as a constraint on contributions; it is a starting point! Presentations on any aspect of theoretically grounded archaeology are welcome.



2:00pm | The spirals in Atlantic neolithic rock art all spin clockwise: a theoretical foundation for an ideographic/pictographic approach to a decipherment of the iconography of Newgrange, County Meath, Ireland.   | William Murphy
2:15pm | Curation and (re-)creation: not so hidden monuments; a solar legacy | Robert Sutton
2:30pm | Indigenous Involvement for Rock Art Protection in the Vindhyan Range: How Indigenous Archaeology can preserve Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in Central India. | Shriya Gautam
2:45pm | Emancipatory Archaeology: A Proposal. | Guo Peng Chen 陈国鹏
3:00pm | Discussion |

The concept of the past has evolved significantly since the inception of archaeology as a discipline. Traditionally conceived as something that is gone and needs to be put together by the archaeologist to understand it, in this session, we use the idea that the past never ends as our starting point. Along this line of reasoning, science continues to shape and reinterpret the past. We will discuss the biases of known pasts and how these influence the very idea of the past. In other words, which constructs of time do we prioritise, how are they reevaluated, and why are some erased? Furthermore, archaeology, with its hegemonic position based on its expertise and scientific methods, does not have absolute control over the representation and construction of earlier times. The narratives about the past are fluid, reflecting diverse perspectives and ways of being, questioning whether the past we relate to is real or recreated. In this session, we explore how these forces interact and challenge traditional perceptions of time. Therefore, we welcome presentations that question its linearity, its coloniality, and/or examine how historical events are always ongoing, highlighting specific material examples. The session promises to offer a rich discussion on the evolution of past narratives and their material representation, challenging long-established perceptions and fostering archaeological study.

2:00pm | Massive Weapons: The BNP and the Weaponization of Heritage  | Lorna-Jane Richardson 

2:20pm | Re-conceptualizing the nature of power in late protohistory, France. | Béatrice Fleury

2:40pm | Monuments and the Past-Present-Future Nexus  | Heather Ford 

3:20pm | Ways of Living in the Upper Thames Valley: The changing nature of domestic life in the Upper Thames Valley  | Olivia Britter 

3:40pm | The past is never-ending: the destruction and reconstruction of a Moche statue  | Aldo Accinelli Obando 

4:00pm | Archaeology of the imagination. Simulating the reality to satisfy the archaeological narrative about the past.   | Jesús Martín Alonso 

4:20pm | Discussion |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

In 2002, James Whitley declared there were ‘too many ancestors’ in archaeology following the ubiquity of them in Neolithic narratives of the 1990s. He was critical that they were invoked as an explanation for seemingly everything and could be found everywhere. Furthermore, it could be argued that several authors discussed ‘the ancestors’ without clearly defining who they were or what their relationship to the living was.

More than 20 years on, the ancestor’s hold on archaeology hasn’t loosened, yet we believe this concept can still be used uncritically. Therefore, rather than throw the ancestral baby out with the bathwater, we think it would be useful to rethink this major concept in archaeology. We both work in contexts with ancestors albeit understood differently. In Neolithic Britain, ancestors have been found in tombs, old pathways, and standing stones however ideas about ancestry draw heavily from ethnography. Similarly in the Caribbean, ancestor worship is often cited as the rationale for a whole host of practices, images, and objects.

In this session, we want to think about ancestors in archaeology without the theoretical baggage they have previously brought with them and are looking for papers reconsidering this concept in a radically different way taking inspiration from posthumanism, new materialism, and Indigenous theory.

2:00pm | Ancestor? We hardly know her! An introduction  | Andy Rogers & Jonny Graham

2:20pm | Ancestral rupture, structural violence and the politics of kinship in 1st millennium northern Europe.  | Kevin Kay and Marianne Hem Eriksen 

2:40pm | A building lineage? Palimpsests, brochs, and complex identity in the Scottish Iron Age    | Sam Scott-Moncrieff 

3:12pm | Not quite dead: how ancestors shaped prehistoric cooperation  | Mark Haughton and Mette Løvschal 

3:35pm | What could ancestors do? – Reflections on different roles of ancestors in the Neolithic in north-west Germany  | Sarah Bockmeyer 

3:55pm | Memories of an ancestor: becoming-minoritarian at Quanterness  | Jonny Graham  

4:15pm | Discussion and roundtable |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

In recent years, archaeologists have begun to confront a range of ethical issues—the conundrum of looting, the interactions we have with descendent and local communities, the complications of business-oriented professional archaeology, and the complexities of personal and academic relations in education and museum contexts. . How the next generation of scholars chose to address these and other ethical dilemmas will define the field of archaeology—what it offers and what it does—in the new millennium.

In 2004, the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) inaugurated the Ethics Bowl at its annual meeting in Montreal, Canada to help students gain a sense of ethical responsibility and give them the tools to tackle professional ethics in an enjoyable setting. During the Ethics Bowl, teams of graduate and/or undergraduate students debate case studies which illuminate a variety of ethical issues in modern archaeology. Student teams consist of three to five individuals, guided by at least one faculty mentor. In 2024 first Ethics Bowl in the UK will take place at TAG2024 in Bournemouth. After 20 years of operation, the Ethics Bowl at the SAA has now become a regular and eagerly contested debate competition and sponsored by the Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA). Teams of students from different universities compete by debating solutions to the ethical dilemmas archaeologists face in our day-to-day lives. Archaeologists employed in different areas of work act as judges, throw curveball questions to the teams that extend or change key components of the cases, grade the teams on their responses and then decide which teams advance to the final round and compete for prizes. It’s an awesome experience and a great opportunity to practice ethical decision making before being placed in a hard situation in real life. Judges in the USA have regularly commented that Ethics Bowl contestants demonstrate stronger ethical decision making skills than many working archaeologists have sometimes shown.


For this first Ethics Bowl session in the UK, the aim is to show UK students the nature and value of the Ethics Bowl event, with less focus on the competition between teams and more emphasis given to examining the proposed courses of action that our hypothetical individuals face. The RPA have sponsored the UK event and have chosen 8 recent case studies used at the Ethics Bowl in the USA that are applicable to the UK context. All students are welcome to attend, offer their judgements, and in the process hopefully gain something from thinking about these ethical dilemmas.

5:00pm | Mrs Thatcher and the privatisation of knowledge: the evolution of archaeological practice in Britain since 1990 | Gill Hey

In 1990, Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative government issued new planning guidance to local authority planning departments, setting out how archaeological remains on sites to be developed should either be preserved or recorded. Importantly, the cost of any work (mitigation) was to be borne, in the vast majority of cases, by the developer. This fell within the Conservative party’s strategy to privatise many sectors of industry and business, to cut costs and red tape and increase efficiency; gas, water and the railways are well-known examples, but consideration was also given to privatising universities. Henceforth, archaeological work in the UK would no longer be the preserve of universities, museums and local government units.

Since that time, there has been an exponential increase in the amount of money spent on archaeology, the size of projects and the number of archaeologists. What has the effect been on the acquisition and sharing of the knowledge gained? This talk will explore how the discipline has evolved, its methodologies, its relationship to theoretical concerns and the benefits (or otherwise) that have been derived.

Framing the session title in an interrogative way, at one level is a nod towards remembering Alfred Russell Wallace, who conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection independently of Charles Darwin, who lived in Bournemouth and was buried in Broadstone cemetery in 1913. At another level the theme prompts the question of whether evolutionary models are still relevant for understanding culture-change through archaeology. And at yet another level the theme raises the matter of changing archaeological practice and where current trends in fieldwork might be taking us: is archaeology as a discipline ‘evolving’?. But the theme should not be seen as a constraint on contributions; it is a starting point! Presentations on any aspect of theoretically grounded archaeology are welcome.



9:00am | Imperialism as Structural Totality: Determinism, Teleology and Normativity. | Sahal Abdi
9:15am | Reflection: mirrors in Roman and Han Empires.  | Goran Đurđević
9:30am | The role of the military in the evolution of technology through a case study of ceramic and glass production in Roman Britain. | Helena Fahy
9:45am | What Do We Do With The Commingled Sailors? Investigating Disarticulated and Commingled Skeletal Remains As An Under-Utilised Source of Information. | Xander King, Mélie Le Roy, Gabrielle Delbarre & Dr Martin Smith
10:00am | ‘Kinship work’ in pre-Nuragic Sardinia? Carving community through rock-cut tombs (domus de janas)  | Kirsty Lilley
10:15am | Archaeogenetics and modes of mobility in the ancient Mediterranean. | Hannah Moots
10:30am | Discussion |

In this session we aim to explore whether concepts of environmental legibility and landscape learning can be used effectively in: 1. interpreting the archaeological traces of prehistoric hunter-gatherer communities, and 2. predictive modelling. From the outset we acknowledge the partial nature of the archaeological record; that culture is not separate from nature; that humans are not separate from landscape and that archaeologists frequently deal with non-analogue landscapes (particularly when considering evolutionary timescales).

Environmental legibility and landscape learning are crucial in hunter-gatherer communities, influencing decision-making, resource use, and the embedding of ecological knowledge within social and spiritual contexts (as explored through multiple theoretical lenses e.g. Kelly 1995, Basso 1996, Ingold 2000). Simply put, environmental legibility refers to the ease with which people can read and navigate landscapes (Guiducci & Burke 2016; Schmuck et al 2022). The concept of landscape learning, arises from the idea that population movement into unfamiliar environments can have significant consequences (Rockman 2003, 2009, 2012).

Recent studies aligning with these themes suggest extended periods of human dependency during childhood allow time for complex skill development required for the hunting and gathering niche (Kaplan et al., 2000; Hewlett & Lamb, 2005). The transmission of social learning processes often involves play; and the cultural emphasis on individual autonomy and socio-political egalitarianism among hunter-gatherers, shapes knowledge transmission mechanisms (Boyette, 2018; Salali et al 2019). Thinking through these themes allows new perspectives of prehistoric peoples and landscapes (e.g. Hiscock 2014)

9:10am | Predicting and protecting lithic landscapes – understanding the distribution of lithics across Dartmoor, UK | Emma Stockley, Laura Basell, LS Bray, H. Chapman

9:35am | Exploring the interplay of environment and mobility in Pleistocene hunter-gatherers: a case-study from southern Ethiopia during MIS 3  | Valentina Decembrini & Enza E. Spinapolice 

10:00am | “I know where I’m going”: Finding the way in Stone Age Africa  | Laura Basell

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

The concept of cosiness has captured our modern attentions. We burrow into blankets and knitted jumpers, enjoy the gentle glow of a lit candle, or soothe ourselves with a warm brew. However, our perceptions of the past are rarely as comfortable or tender. Although there is often reason to paint the past as bleaker than our present, it biases our interpretations of how different peoples experienced these periods. The terminology is relatively new. The etymological roots of cosiness stem from the eighteenth century, and it has recently cemented itself in our current imaginations on a wave of hygge, but does this mean that people did not experience “cosiness” before this?

This session interrogates the easily-blurred lines between comfort and utility. For example, a hearth can serve very practical functions, but also provide comfort and more-than-tactile warmth. Furthermore, these spaces offer nexus points for the less tangible: shared stories, whispers, and laughter. When does a blanket become more than a means of negating the cold? How do the tools of our food production contribute beyond just sustenance? Is cosiness accessible to non-human persons?

We invite participants to explore the different ways we can investigate this complicated interplay in the archaeological record, ultimately broadening our appreciation of past experiences. How has our understanding of cosiness evolved? Does this notion transcend temporal boundaries? We welcome a variety of perspectives on this topic, from the usage of space, the affective properties of objects, and the presence of cosiness where we may not typically expect it (and many others). In doing so, this session will nuance our perceptions of the past—not by dismissing its dark spots, but welcoming its warm ones too.

9:20am | Homecooking? (re)creating homely foods in diaspora  | Ben Davenport

9:40am | Miniatures and Emotional Cuteness: An Approach to Comfort in Archaeological Contexts  | Tânia M. Casimiro & Ricardo C. Silva

10:00am | The Temporality of Cosiness  | Ben Jervis

10:20am | Cosy Life Discussion |

11:10am | Embracing the Afterlife: Exploring Cosiness in Burial Practices at Deh Dumen Cemetery   | Mahsa Najafi & Reza Naseri

11:30am | A Pillow for Your Head: “Comfortable” Deaths in Viking Age Denmark  | Emma Louise Thompson,

11:50am | Cosy Cremation  | Howard Williams

12:10pm | Cosiness in Death Discussion |

12:30pm | Common Cosy Discussion |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

Archaeological inquiry has evolved to encompass a more holistic view of human societies, recognizing the intricate relationships between humans, animals, and their environments across time. This session seeks to explore our understanding of these relationships through a more-than-human approach, emphasizing the dynamic entanglements that have shaped both human cultures and animal ecologies.

Animals have been integral to human societies as sources of food, labour, materials for technology, and companionship. Beyond utilitarian roles, they have been subjects of symbolism, spiritual significance, and artistic expression, influencing cultural identities and belief systems worldwide. Such interactions are not one-sided but involve reciprocal influences where animals, as active agents, have impacted human behaviour and vice versa. This session invites contributions that explore how archaeological evidence illuminates these multifaceted relationships and focus on the complexities of human-animal entanglements across diverse cultural and environmental contexts.

9:00am | More-than-archaeologists: Studying rat-human interactions across disciplines  | Daan Jansen

9:20am | Anthropogenic Niche Construction and Multi-Species Entanglements: Insights from Pınarbaşı, Boncuklu Höyük, and Çatalhöyük, Anatolia   | Emma Jenkins, Michelle Feider, Paul Clarkson, Sabrina Renaud, Katerina Papayiannis, Greger Larson, Kristina Tabadda, Lisa Yeomans, Emilie A. Hardouin, Thomas Cucchi & Douglas Baird

9:40am | Evolution or revolution in the small animal world  | Paul Clarkson

10:00am | Reimagining Human-Animal Entanglements in Late Chalcolithic Mesopotamia (c. 4000-3100 BCE): Perspectives from Shakhi Kora, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.  | Synnøve Heimvik

10:20am | Multispecies interactions at an Eastern Jordanian wetland in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene  | Lisa Yeomans, Maria Codlin, Beatrice Demarchi & Camilla Mazzucato1 

11:00am | ZooMS and Isotopic analysis of El Hammar and El Hattab II caves  | S. Iken, A. Bouzouggar & A. Grandal-d’Anglade

11:20am | Changing the lens: human-animal entanglements in Portuguese Holocene Prehistory  | Nelson J. Almeida

11:40am | The Use of Animal Resources in the Economic Model of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra  | Sergiy Taranenko, Mykhailo Kublii

12:00pm | Woolly thinking: St Kilda’s three ancient sheep races  | Andrew Fleming

12:20pm | Discussion |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

The evolution of cognitive and behavioural complexity is a major focus of Palaeolithic research. Experimental archaeology – a hypothesis-driven, practical approach for testing theories about past production processes – has contributed to this field as a provider of a “maker’s knowledge” (Currie, 2022, 337). Interpretation of this knowledge can involve assessment of the relative behavioural complexity of a process. For lithic studies this can be the number of discrete production steps (Perreault et al., 2013, S398) or degree of “indirect thinking” (Köhler, 1925; Muller et al., 2017, 166).

To what degree do the results of experimental archaeology confirm or contradict prior assumptions about the evolutionary trajectory of behavioural complexity? How should we interpret expedient or ad hoc behaviour?

Experimental archaeology can also be used to test hypotheses about alternative methods of production. Should we expect different human populations or species to display the same evolutionary pathways for tool production?

This session invites contributions from authors who have used experimental archaeology to investigate cognitive or behavioural complexity, or to test new hypotheses about stone tools or other materials – whether for the Palaeolithic or more recent prehistory.

9:10am | A “leap” too far? Experimental archaeology and the nature of the Oldowan-Acheulean transition | James Clarke

9:30am | Cognitive extensions: Hand-tool interaction and visuospatial integration in human evolution | Annapaola Fedato

9:50am | Re-thinking about bipolar technique: New Approaches to the Bipolar Flaking Technique: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Kinematic Perspectives | Görkem Cenk Yeşilova, Adrián Arroyo, Andreu Ollé & Josep Maria Vergès

10:10am | Cognition and the origins of aceramic cooking: An experimental study of wet-cooking in organic vessels | Andy Needham

10:30am | Walking a mile in their shoes: An experimental approach to the question of Neanderthal footwear. | Phoebe Baker

11:10am | Bringing Neanderthals in from the cold: introducing an experimental methodology to test the hide cutting and piercing capacities of Mode 3 technology  | Helen Hampton & Andy Needham

11:30am | Many ways to get to the point: Experimental insights into the behavioural complexity involved in Middle Stone Age point-making | Antoine Muller

11:50am | The replication and hafting experiments of Balde and Flake Technology in Late Palaeolithic Settlement of Laranga, North Karanpura Valley, Jharkhand. | Pronil Das & Shubham Rajak

12:10pm | Different bronze alloying techniques, different possibilities: how experimentation shapes existent histories of technology | Julia Montes-Landa

12:30pm | Discussion |

12:30pm | Discussion |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

S4 Abstract: Archaeology is often romanticized as a discipline for its discoveries and insights into past civilizations. However, the profession encompasses a variety of uncomfortable situations that practitioners encounter, ranging from fieldwork to academic settings. This session explores the multifaceted nature of discomfort experienced by archaeologists, digging into personal anecdotes, language barriers, systemic issues when trying to publish, feedback from reviewers, or the implications of past scholarly works, to mention a few.

In fieldwork, archaeologists often demonstrate remarkable resilience in the face of harassment and hostility, whether due to gender, ethnicity, or other personal attributes. Additionally, working within or alongside communities can present challenges when there is resistance to external researchers or when crossing complex socio-political landscapes. These encounters can strain professional and personal well-being, necessitating strategies for conflict resolution while fighting for safer working conditions.

Within academic institutions, students and professionals alike confront uncomfortable realities. Experiences of overt and subtle discrimination can hinder academic progress and personal growth. Moreover, the academic journey often includes engagement with historical and contemporary scholarship that perpetuates racism, misogyny, and other forms of subalternisation. These moments of discomfort are critical for promoting a reflective practice that questions and challenges the ethical dimensions of our work.

This session aims to encourage archaeologists to share their experiences, promoting an open dialogue about the uncomfortable aspects of our profession. By addressing these issues head-on, we aim to inspire a more inclusive and ethical field of archaeology. The discussion will highlight the potential for creating supportive networks, implementing institutional changes, and promoting a critical examination of the discipline’s foundations and methodologies.

S18 Abstract: Last year we ran a TAG session that looked at interrogating and disrupting the ways language operates in theory, archaeology, academia and life on a whole. We identified different experiences, limitations and methodologies that addressed the challenges of English being the lingua franca in academia, culminating in an upcoming publication on the topic. But this conversation is not confined to a 10-page special issue nor needs to stay within the four walls of the lecture theatre at UEA. This year we will continue facilitating a conversation around how and what language is doing to our research and communities.

The theme of TAG 45 touches on this topic in an interesting way. Evolution is based on the concept of progress, which is generally perceived as positive. However, this does not align with the message we wish to convey. We instead acknowledge that communication is a never-ending changing and evolving activity. By choosing one language and/or dialect and expecting its full proficiency would mean interrupting this change which would then be perceived as a barrier that all individuals are expected to overcome. Therefore, this session explores: How can we create an evolving academic environment where all voices are heard without imposing one language over another? How can we address a multilingual academia and what might this look like in the classroom? Specifically, how can we decolonize archaeology as a discipline?

We invite all to join us in a workshopping session where we will discuss, disrupt and try to build a praxis on how we can foster more inclusive and accessible language diversity in our daily practices.

9:20am | Discomfort is the key to everlasting comfort: a personal account in field archaeology   | Susana Henriques

9:35am | I am an outsider, and I don’t know how to deal with it: Reflections on Archaeological Practice, Empathy, and Discomfort.  | João Sequeira  

9:40am | Voices of Discomfort - Silenced Emotions in the Archaeology of Asylums  | Elias Michaut & Joel Santos

10:05am | Challenging Discomfort: The psychological side of learning theory   | Joel Santos & Tânia Manuel Casimiro

10:20am | Discussion |

11:00am | Margins: Journey of A Gay Chinese Archaeology Student in China and the UK   | Guo Peng Chen 陈国鹏

11:15am | The “2000 Words” theatre/archaeology performance in Koutroulou Magoula, Greece: an experiential approach to decolonizing archaeology through language | Jason Goodman  & Efthimis Theou

11:30am | The intricacies of multilingualism in archaeology: Sa Limba Sarda as a decolonial path from publication to outreach   | Mauro Puddu

11:45am | Walking towards a wider academic language(s)  | Judith M. López Aceves & Alvaro Felipe Ortega González

12:00pm | Discussion/workshop |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

Framing the session title in an interrogative way, at one level is a nod towards remembering Alfred Russell Wallace, who conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection independently of Charles Darwin, who lived in Bournemouth and was buried in Broadstone cemetery in 1913. At another level the theme prompts the question of whether evolutionary models are still relevant for understanding culture-change through archaeology. And at yet another level the theme raises the matter of changing archaeological practice and where current trends in fieldwork might be taking us: is archaeology as a discipline ‘evolving’?. But the theme should not be seen as a constraint on contributions; it is a starting point! Posters on any aspect of theoretically grounded archaeology are welcome.

9:30am | Neanderthal Cultures in Britain and Doggerland: a computational investigation into selected Middle Palaeolithic assemblages.  | Alexandra Barroso
9:30am | Tigers in Film: Past, Present and Future Perspectives   |  Farah Benbouabdellah
9:30am | The evolution of object biography: cauldron’s obituary   | Wenqing Zhang

The world is an awesome and wondrous place. Harris and Sørensen (2010) describe emotion as the “act of being moved,” and human encounters with places of beauty and magnificence, monumentality and atmosphere, whether natural or anthropogenic, invoke sensorial and emotional responses. Though emotion is often considered to be high on archaeology’s “ladder of inference,” recent works, especially in the realm of death and burial, have demonstrated the potential to understand emotions in the archaeological record. This session seeks to expand upon that work to explore the human relationship to landscape, place and space through those sensual encounters. Many places are imbued with magic and wonder and draw people together through communal experience. How can we archaeologically interpret the impressions left on the ancient observer? How can we identify the affective fields and atmospheres that stimulate emotional responses to past environments? This session welcomes varied approaches to understanding the emotional resonance of places, whether through theoretical understanding, material culture and iconography, or computational approaches such as viewshed analysis or spatial reconstruction.

11:00am | Marks of affect, awe, violence and wonder  | Rachel Crellin, Oliver Harris, Matt Hitchcock, Dawid Sych and Christina Tsoraki 

11:20am | The Ruthwell Cross: Early Medieval Emotions, Written in Stone  | Ciarán Walsh 

11:40am | Monument construction in 6th century Scandinavia: bringing people together as the world fell apart  | Andreas Ropeid Sæbø

12:00pm | Spectres of the Past: Uncertainty, Awe, and Haunting  | Anna Collar 

12:20pm | Seeing the Sea: an awesome and emotional experience  | Max MacDonald 

12:40pm | “It may be awesome …but you’d better not believe it!” Overcoming the denial of belief and emotional affectivity in archaeological thought.  | Farès K Moussa 

2:00pm | Becoming Affective Through Rock Art: A Material & Sensorial Case Study in Guanajuato, Mexico  | José Chessil Dohvehnain Martínez-Moreno 

2:20pm | Being moved, on the move: a case for ‘persistent routeways’ and ‘natural avenues’ in Neolithic Britain  | Jack Rowe 

2:40pm | A Groovy Kind of Love with the Tangible World.  | Sarah Botfield 

3:15pm | Triple Bronze and Oak: Emotion in Ancient Mediterranean Seafaring  | Madison Scrabeck 

3:35pm | Discussion |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

This session will explore creative and academic approaches to archaeology as it is presented through new and old media for the purposes of research, leisure and entertainment, and/or for public engagement. This session aims to showcase more nuanced and complex understandings of the potential of the subject field, and in turn the significance of archaeology and ‘pastness’ in digital media, film, television, and popular entertainment, and its relevance to broader social and cultural histories. This session also invites the submission of media objects, creative responses, and other critical practice-based engagements with the session theme, as well as papers presented in the traditional conference format. Scholarly perspectives are invited that explore newspaper media, radio, podcasting, film, television, contemporary art, photography, video games, mobile technology, 3D image capture, digitization, social media and other media forms. Discussions are especially welcome on archaeology on TV or in film, archaeology and social media, digital/multi-media storytelling, documentary, archaeogaming, popular understandings of archaeology, and archaeology/media futures.

11:30am | Archaeology & Media Studies: Public Archaeology Theory for the 21st Century?  | Lorna Richardson

11:50am | Barriers to Digital Heritage Engagement.  | Catriona Cooper & Katie McGown

12:10pm | Romancing the Ruins: Science Communication Through Popular Depictions and Perceptions of Archaeology  | Matilda Siebrecht & Raven Todd DaSilva  

12:30pm | The Site has been Spotted!’: Role of Newspapers in Recovering Vulnerable Archaeological Heritage Sites in India  | Simran Kaur

2:00pm | The Price of a Good Story: TV Production and Emotive Storytelling from Bonekickers  | Mia Coe

2:20pm | Bioarchaeology & the Media   | Ellie Chambers

2:40pm | Human Evolution and the ‘History of Humankind’ YouTube channel  | Carys Phillips

3:20pm | Discussion |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

Plants are essential to life. We depend upon them for the oxygen we breath, for sustenance and for the materials required to produce the ‘stuff’ of human existence. Plant life is vulnerable to human existence, but is also highly adaptable, emerging in a multitude of ways as relations of co-dependence develop, are erased and mutate. This session seeks to explore the intersections between archaeology and plant life in two ways.

Firstly, we ask how can we develop approaches to archaeobotanical and wider environmental datasets which engage with the precarity, resilience and emergence of forms of plant life in the past, to better understand the forms of more-than-human life that they sustain, stimulate or place under threat. Examples might include the impact of cultivation on species diversity and relational dependencies, the ways in which plants life makes new spaces and the responses of plant life to anthropogenic processes which both create potential for emergent co-dependencies between forms of life, and threaten their very existence.

Secondly, we ask how the plant-based thought of writers such as Emanuele Coccia, Michael Marder and Lesley Stern might shape the way in which we approach the past beyond the study of plants themselves. For example, within Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage thought the rhizome is a key concept which has been adopted by archaeologists, whilst they also use other botanical processes as touchstones in their writing. Thinking through plants opens us to worlds of co-dependence, complexity, temporality and becoming which create the potential to understand past lives, past becoming(s), from novel perspectives, creating a means to effectively de-stabilise the anthropocentrism of archaeological thought by approaching life differently.

It is our hope that this session will stimulate archaeologists to think through more-than-human life in novel and exciting ways, which take seriously the contribution of plants both to how we live in the world, but also how we think about it.

2:10pm | A Lasting and Bitter Relationship: Hops and Humans in the past  | Brian Costello & Barry Taylor

2:30pm | Compost Communities: Reconstructing Biorhythms of Medieval English Towns  | Kate Autumn Evetts

2:50pm | Cropmarks as autographic memories: plants, growth, and duration in archaeological research  | Andrew Jones & Paul Reilly

3:20pm | Disturbance and Urban Atmosphere in Medieval England  | Ben Jervis

3:40pm | Reconstructing Past Entanglements in the face of Climate Devastation  | Anna Den Hollander

4:00pm | Plant Encounters: Engaging students with the botanical world through archaeological accounts of plant lives  | Amy Gray-Jones & Barry Taylor

4:20pm | Discussion |

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

The impact of the unprecedented rate and scale of change in the 21st century is being felt in al areas of personal and professional lives across the world. Despite the informative and transformative potential of natural and cultural heritage to both challenge and contribute work in this area remains piecemeal, lacking focus and cohesion and therefore any sense of its effectiveness. If archaeology is to fulfil this potential, then a critical assessment of current practice is required. Are we asking the right questions? Working with the right people? Using the right approaches? Do we have the data, tools, funding, roles and structures we need?

This half-day, inter-disciplinary workshop aims to bring together a broad, representative group of archaeologists and heritage practitioners and will follow the ‘Futurescaping’ speculative design protocol (CoHERE, 2019) developed specifically for innovation and change the Cultural Heritage Sector by Areti Galani and Gabriella Arrigoni (Newcastle University) and their partners at the Copenhagen School of Design and Technology.

Grounded in critical theory and while future-oriented, speculative design is not about predicting the future. Leveraging collective intelligence its purpose is to suspend present-day constraints in order to ask questions about the politics and values in the sociotechnical systems that we currently experience (or might want to experience in the future) by creating an imagined world configured differently from our own. It is speculative in that it re-imagines the world to be organised into different social, political, economic, and technological configurations, or what Auger (2013: 12) terms “alternative presents”.

However, speculation alone is insufficient. The final action in this workshop will evaluate what is needed to deliver the desired future outcomes, against current capabilities and capacities to provide a starting point for a strategic sectorial response to unprecedented change.

2:00pm | N/A | N/A

Full paper abstracts available here:
https://tag2024.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/tag-2024-session-abstracts-1.pdf

4:30pm | The potential and limits of conducting archaeologies of the Northern Ireland Troubles and peace process: reflections over 20 years | Laura McAtackney

The question that has haunted me through my research career has been what are the potentials and limits of material culture in revealing unresolved aspects of difficult recent pasts, most specifically in the conflict and peace in the North of Ireland? It is a question I have been trying to answer for over twenty years and one that has involved engaging with various material forms that have constantly been in motion and in flux. My first inclination was to turn to an ‘icon’ of the conflict, Long Kesh / Maze prison, as a monumental and materially rich site that was largely off-limits to researchers. The politics of its inaccessible dereliction meant I had to consider it in an expansive way as a place with ‘distributed self’ (2014) that materially and psychically reached far beyond its confines and deep into communities. It was in those communities that I eventually started traversing streets and noting their ever changing configurations of murals, graffiti, and grassroots memorials creating memoryscapes alongside enduringly materialized segregation, so-called ‘peace walls’. More recently, I have thought on how  my understandings of the conflict has been shaped not only by presences but also absences; a place with a desire for peace but also fear of forgetting injustices. Ultimately, my faith and despair in material answers to loaded questions has evolved in ways that I could never have foreseen at the start and so this lecture will consider what under-explored pasts have been revealed and what are the limits of the material in knowing the contemporary.