Heads and Tails – Minds and Bodies: Reconsidering the Late Bronze Age Vestby Hoard in Light of Symbolist and Body Perspectives
2011; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 14; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1179/146195711798356692
ISSN1741-2722
Autores Tópico(s)Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
ResumoA pair of animal heads of the Faardal type is central in our reinterpretation of the Late Bronze Age Vestby hoard from eastern Norway. After a period of use and circulation, the heads were mounted on bodies belonging to a different animal species. We argue that the making of the animal figurines and the other high-quality objects of the hoard can only be properly understood against the backdrop of Scandinavian Bronze Age cosmology. This line of thought extends to the presence of a tin bead necklace, which we interpret as a lunar calendar. By combining a ‘body perspective’ – including understandings of body techniques, operational sequences and the ‘sociality’ of objects – with a ‘symbolist perspective’ – including symbol systems, cosmology and intentionality – we put the head back onto the body, so to speak. We also scrutinize the premises for earlier interpretations of the objects' ‘life stories’ and reinterpret their trajectories. This influences the understanding of the act of hoarding, and finally leads to a discussion of how hoarding was also somehow related to the ‘birth’ of the artefacts.
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