Link to the Zoom webinar

Speaking of materiality in archaeology today is not simply a matter of identifying past human actions reflected in material forms. The emergence of ‘new materialism(s)’ in archaeology, allied with perspectives described as post-humanist and non-representationalist, has been producing multiple perceptions of what materiality is and is not. Stemming from the ‘material turn’ and ‘thing theory’, novel and challenging approaches are emerging from the disparate sub-disciplines of archaeology. Entanglements (Hodder 2012), engagements (Malafouris 2013), and assemblages (Fowler 2013) of things are all part of an emerging vocabulary where material culture stands for what it is and actively participates in a wider network of interactions (Knappett 2015). These perspectives and their role in constituting past and present worlds engage with materiality at various degrees. From a less anthropocentric perspective on how material culture actively constructs or challenges social reality up to the multi-sensorial capacities that the material world exerts on humans when using and making things.

This session seeks to explore how materiality instantiates human relationships with their environments on multiple spatial and temporal scales. It features emerging conceptions of materiality and how they might be approached in our research. In this panel, we welcome papers that engage with all conceptions of materiality, regardless of the geographical and temporal context of analysis.

Colonialism is a significant force in the intellectual history and theory of archaeology. The word is ubiquitous in many different areas of archaeology and often used in different ways. We want to use this session to bring these diverse perspectives together.

Much archaeological research addresses issues in relation to the transformations brought about by encounters that were colonial by intent or outcome. As a persistent feature of interacting communities, it has been tied to processes of exploitative and dominant social relations (Dietler 1998), while consciousness of this dominance has been extended to current understandings of history itself (Witmore 2014). The issues generated by colonisation (and subsequent decolonisation) are varied, complex and highly-charged, and touch upon research across all disciplines, in anthropology as well as archaeology, requiring diverse perspectives (e.g., post-colonial theory and world systems theory) in order to identify and understand them. By focusing on material aspects of human existence, archaeology offers a unique perspective on the cultural dynamics that shape this worldwide phenomenon (Gosden 2004). Material culture from archaeological sites as well as museum collections and archival material provide a way of identifying the presence of social practices related to the maintenance and reproduction of social groups, power relations, and the construction of identities that occur in colonial spaces (Van Dommelen 2005).

In the quest to cast light on human interactions, archaeological analyses intervene on multiple scales, from the minutiae provided by the study of a single artefact to the regional and global interpretations of human activities unfolding over long periods (Knappett 2005). Different patterns of artefactual distribution suggest several kinds of human interaction (i.e., settlement hierarchy, exchange interaction, sharing of ideas, continuity in traditions) where different scales are at play both spatially and temporally. Scale has a direct impact on archaeology’s ability to make sense of the past and visualise the processes emerging within individual workshops or across continents.

The borders between micro, meso, and macro are invisible but active agents that shaped and shape perceptions of time, space, and social position (Lock and Molynaxu 2006). Researchers now seamlessly move through scales using technologies such as remote sensing or GIS. As a result, the same invisibility of scales is at the centre of this discourse. Equally important is the working definition of "scale." While anthropologists feature the relations between humans, things, and environments, approaches to network analysis in archaeology also look at the different scales at play among artefacts, people, temporalities, and space (Knappett 2013).

This session aims to understand scale, its role in identifying linkages and associations through the use of networks and technologies, and how these notions influence how we practice archaeology. We welcome papers and posters that consider the relationships between humans and material culture and relate humans, things, and their environments at multiple scales of interaction (Robb 2013).

Since 1980 archaeology has witnessed an escalation in landscape studies. Artefactual distribution over geographical spaces, united with novel techniques of analysis, fostered the study of the interactions between humans, places, and material culture. Landscape archaeology has become a branch of its own with precise aims and techniques to gather and analyse data. Analysis of pollen, faunal remains, soil sampling, geophysics, historical archives, satellite images, long-term studies of human-landscape interaction, and phenomenological approaches are synthesised within the practice of landscape archaeology. As a result, landscape archaeology is interested in the social and experiential nature of the place and not just the environment's effects on humans (David and Thomas 2008). Soundscapes, in opposition to or intersecting with visionscapes (Gell 1995), are embedded and integral to people, places, cultural values, and times. Taskscapes attempt to examine the multiple temporalities nested in the landscape, emphasising the actions and movements within a landscape or seascape (Ingold 1993). Analogous is the interaction between humans and the sky. Skyscapes look at the relation between sky and human society and the cultural values emerged from such a relation in time (Silva 2015).

With this session, we intend to synthesise the aforementioned approaches. Papers and posters in this session might address methods to gather and analyse environmental and settlement data, studies that challenge or complement past research, or long-term changes and their influence on human actions. We welcome presentations featuring of the implications of the environment effects upon social order and gender, the phenomenological or sensory approaches to places, among others.

Archaeology draws upon many different disciplinary methods, approaches and questions to address its central issue: the understanding of human past through the study of material remains; therefore, it is a truly multidisciplinary research activity (Sinclair 2016).

Archaeological science plays a central role in the formulation of new theories and in challenging long-standing assumptions in archaeology. Nevertheless, despite the application of science-based techniques to the study of past material culture, often providing crucial insights to further our understanding of material and social dynamics, their use has often resulted in discussions on methodology, documentation, and interpretation of the archaeological data (Andrews and Doonan 2003; Jones 2002; Pollard and Bray 2007; Martinón Torres and Killik 2015) .

The main objective of this session is to entice interdisciplinarity critical thinking and new insights on archaeological materials by bringing together researchers combining different techniques and inter- and multidisciplinary approaches. These approaches not only allow the incorporation of a wide variety of sources of information and/or methodologies but also foster the revision of previous interpretations and datasets. We welcome papers presenting single case studies or theoretical argumentation revisiting existing data and expanding traditional research questions on the study of the archaeological materials, with particular interest in key issues of materiality, social construction of technologies, and models of technological change.

Since the pioneering work of Honor Frost, Frédéric Dumas, and Keith Muckelroy, maritime archaeology has grown to become a recognised sub-discipline within the wider field with its own distinct contribution to the study of maritime and fluvial communities. From an early fascination with the study of wrecked ships, the sub-discipline has developed intellectually to encompass a broad range of entangled relationships between people and the planet’s oceans, seas, rivers and lakes through the exploration of material remains. Subsequent innovation has played a major role, enabling underwater excavation and the discovery of cultural artefacts in increasingly deeper and more remote areas. These innovations have broadened the discipline, opening up new areas of interpretation from objects to landscapes and connected networks. This ‘view from the sea’ is featured at this GAO conference with a day of papers dedicated to new research ideas and innovations in the discipline and the impact that they can have on our understanding of global cultural heritage.

The session explores the development of maritime archaeology and evaluates emerging innovations occurring in this sub-discipline. Speakers may present their approaches to underwater excavations and surveys, cultural interactions, and economic exchange.