Richard Bradley - A Geography of Offerings: Deposits of Valuables in the Landscapes of Ancient Europe (Oxbow Insights in Archaeology)
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A Geography of Offerings: Deposits of Valuables in the Landscapes of Ancient Europe (Oxbow Insights in Archaeology): summary, description and annotation
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More than quarter of a century ago Richard Bradley published The Passage of Arms. It was conceived as An Archaeological Analysis of Prehistoric Hoards and Votive Deposits, but, as the author concedes, these terms were too narrowly focused for the complex subject of deliberate deposition and the period covered too short. A Geography of Offerings has been written to provoke a reaction from archaeologists and has two main aims. The first is to move this kind of archaeology away from the minute study of ancient objects to a more ambitious analysis of ancient places and landscapes. The second is to recognize that problems of interpretation are not restricted to the pre-Roman period. Mesolithic finds have a place in this discussion, and so do those of the 1st millennium AD. Archaeologists studying individual periods confront with similar problems and the same debates are repeated within separate groups of scholars but they arrive at different conclusions. Here, the author presents a review that brings these discussions together and extends across the entire sequence. Rather than offer a comprehensive survey, this is an extended essay about the strengths and weaknesses of current thinking regarding specialized deposits, which encompass both sacrificial deposits characterized by large quantities of animal and human bones and other collections which are dominated by finds of stone or metal artifacts. It considers current approaches and theory, the histories of individual artifacts and the landscape and physical context of the of places where they were deposited, the character of materials, the importance of animism and the character of ancient cosmologies.
Table of Contents
Chapter One Beginning again
Chapter Two A chapter of accidents
The Broadward hoard
The Mstermyr hoard
Reassessments
Bridges and troubled waters
Iron Age deposits at La Tne
Roman artefacts from the Rhine near Mainz
Reassessments
Literary sources
Ritual and non-ritual, religious and secular deposits
The ubiquity of water
Hidden in plain sight
Chapter Three Faultlines in contemporary research
Chronological faultlines
Controversy and uncertainty
The sources of confusion
Unfinished business
The next stage
Chapter Four Proportional representation
The variety of deposits
Excavations at two spring deposits
Excavations at other wetland deposits
Excavations at dryland deposits
A question of scale
A question of time
Summary
Chapter five The hoard as a still life
Pronkstillevens
Accumulations
Display
Summary and conclusions
Chapter Six The nature of things
Technologies and myths
Stone and metal
Metals
Chapter Seven A kind of regeneration
The final act
Whole and undamaged artefacts
Incomplete or damaged artefacts
Friendly fire
Fragmentation
Weights
Numbers
the last act
Chapter 8 Vanishing point
Sinking treasures
Giving and taking
Artefacts with attitude
Profiting from loss
Exquisite corpses
Chapter Nine A guide to strange places
Naming places
Going under
Going forward
Northern lights
Southern comforts
A note of caution
Chapter 10 Thresholds and transitions
Introduction
Bridges, fords and causeways
Other kinds of boundaries
River names and their associations
The character of water
The character of mountains
The earth compels
A final reflection
Table of Contents
Chapter One Beginning again
Chapter Two A chapter of accidents
The Broadward hoard
The Mstermyr hoard
Reassessments
Bridges and troubled waters
Iron Age deposits at La Tne
Roman artefacts from the Rhine near Mainz
Reassessments
Literary sources
Ritual and non-ritual, religious and secular deposits
The ubiquity of water
Hidden in plain sight
Chapter Three Faultlines in contemporary research
Chronological faultlines
Controversy and uncertainty
The sources of confusion
Unfinished business
The next stage
Chapter Four Proportional representation
The variety of deposits
Excavations at two spring deposits
Excavations at other wetland deposits
Excavations at dryland deposits
A question of scale
A question of time
Summary
Chapter five The hoard as a still life
Pronkstillevens
Accumulations
Display
Summary and conclusions
Chapter Six The nature of things
Technologies and myths
Stone and metal
Metals
Chapter Seven A kind of regeneration
The final act
Whole and undamaged artefacts
Incomplete or damaged artefacts
Friendly fire
Fragmentation
Weights
Numbers
the last act
Chapter 8 Vanishing point
Sinking treasures
Giving and taking
Artefacts with attitude
Profiting from loss
Exquisite corpses
Chapter Nine A guide to strange places
Naming places
Going under
Going forward
Northern lights
Southern comforts
A note of caution
Chapter 10 Thresholds and transitions
Introduction
Bridges, fords and causeways
Other kinds of boundaries
River names and their associations
The character of water
The character of mountains
The earth compels
A final reflection
Richard Bradley: author's other books
Who wrote A Geography of Offerings: Deposits of Valuables in the Landscapes of Ancient Europe (Oxbow Insights in Archaeology)? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Richard Bradley
Richard Bradley
Brian M. Fagan
Anthony J. Frendo
Dana C. E. Millson (editor)
Richard Bradley
Brian M. Fagan
Roger Bland
Flatman
Guy Jolyon Bradley
Bergsvik Knut Andreas
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Published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by
OXBOW BOOKS
The Old Music Hall, 106108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE
The Old Music Hall, 106108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE
and in the United States by
OXBOW BOOKS
1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083
1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083
Richard Bradley 2017
Paperback Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-477-2
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-478-9 (epub)
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-479-6 (kindle)
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-480-2 (pdf)
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-478-9 (epub)
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-479-6 (kindle)
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-480-2 (pdf)
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016958733
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing.
Printed in Malta by Gutenberg Press
For a complete list of Oxbow titles, please contact:
United Kingdom Oxbow Books Telephone (01865) 241249 Fax (01865) 794449 Email: www.oxbowbooks.com | United States of America Oxbow Books Telephone (800) 791-9354 Fax (610) 853-9146 Email: www.casemateacademic.com/oxbow |
Oxbow Books is part of the Casemate group
Cover images: Animated water. Detail of the cataract at Allt Coire Phadairlidh, Scotland, whose name connects it with a water sprite (Photograph: Richard Bradley). Artefact photographs courtesy of National Museums Scotland.
My roots go down through veins of lead and silver, through damp, marshy places that exhale odours, to a knot made of oak roots bound together in the centre. Sealed and blind, with earth stopping my ears, I have yet heard rumours of wars.
Virginia Woolf, The Waves
OXBOW INSIGHTS IN ARCHAEOLOGY
EDITORIAL BOARD
Richard Bradley Chair
Umberto Albarella
John Baines
Ofer Bar-Yosef
Chris Gosden
Simon James
Neil Price
Anthony Snodgrass
Rick Schulting
Mark White
Alasdair Whittle
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
Table
. |
Preface and Acknowledgments
Be warned. This is an extended essay and not a work of synthesis. It considers some of the problems of the prehistoric and early historical periods, but it makes no claim to have solved them. Instead its aim is to explore a theme which extends over a longer period of time than is usual in archaeology. It also draws on a wider range of evidence. Its composition has led me into new areas, although my expertise is all too obviously limited to the pre-Roman period. It is because studies of later phases are so absorbing that I have ventured outside my comfort zone. Even a cursory examination of these sources shows that they are investigating similar questions to prehistorians who work in Western Europe.
It makes a specific case, but anyone who has studied law (as I did long ago) knows that every argument invites a counter-argument. Even the most precise observations can be interpreted in more than one way. More cautious statements abound in the professional literature and consider some of the same material, but, true to the spirit of this series, this is a work of advocacy and needs to be recognised as such. Readers may disagree with what it says, but I hope that it does not misrepresent the information on which my arguments depend.
I have emphasised its distinctive character and the character of the series in which it appears, but I should make it clear that, although I am one of its editors, I had no hand in choosing the referee for this proposal and have benefitted from his or her anonymous advice like any other author. Thanks are due to Hella Eckardt who read the first draft and more than once encouraged me to keep going. I must also thank Clare and Julie at Oxbow for supporting this proposal and Katherine for coping with a partner who became obsessed with the distant past. Courtney Nimura edited the text with her characteristic flair and attention to detail I cannot thank her enough. As so often, Aaron Watson prepared wonderfully lucid figures, and on this occasion he did so at very short notice.
Much of the book was written as an academic visitor to the Institute of Archaeology in Oxford, where I have felt very much at home since my retirement from university teaching. The invitation came from Chris Gosden and this book is dedicated to him with my thanks for his support and enthusiasm.
1 October 2016
CHAPTER ONE
Beginning Again
Where does a project begin, and how can it be said to conclude? The research described here had several false starts and at least as many false endings. So far they have spanned roughly thirty years.
So much depends on the language archaeologists use. Some time ago I offered an analysis of prehistoric hoards and votive deposits (Bradley 1998[1990]), but all these terms give problems. The category of hoard was considered as if its modern usage reflected some reality in the ancient world. In fact it applied to different phenomena at different times in the past. The idea of a votive deposit fared little better, for in most cases it was treated as a residual category made up of collections of objects whose composition resisted a practical interpretation. Even the adjective prehistoric was confusing. Over large parts of Europe it was synonymous with the pre-Roman period, but beyond the Imperial frontier it had another connotation, so that in Northern Europe it extended until the end of the Viking Age. Those problems are still with us today. Not only are similar phenomena studied by scholars working in separate traditions, there can be institutional barriers to communication between them. The period studied in The Passage of Arms was too short (Bradley 1998[1990]). Roman practices were quoted as a source of influence on indigenous communities, but nothing was said about developments in the 1st millennium AD when the archaeological record poses the same problems as it does during earlier phases.
I tried to compensate for some of these shortcomings in later publications, but always in discussing a more general theme. Thus one of the chapters in An Archaeology of Natural Places considered deposits of artefacts and animal bones in terms of where they were found. In the case of hoards it even proposed an amendment to the conventional view (Bradley 2000, chapter 4). Was it possible that certain kinds of places required particular kinds of offering, so that the relationship between the types of artefacts deposited and the character of the site should be the object of study? Topography and typology needed to be brought together.
Another amendment to my earlier account was to emphasise the life histories of individual objects and the ways in which they were treated before they entered the archaeological record. The Past in Prehistoric Societies did not say enough about the biographies of artefacts and the ways of studying them, for its main concern was with monumental architecture (Bradley 2002). Ritual and Domestic Life in Prehistoric Europe took an equally cautious approach, although it ventured a little further by considering the roles of incomplete objects in the Bronze Age (Bradley 2005). In particular, it argued that certain parts of broken artefacts were deposited at the expense of others (Bradley 2005, chapter 5). The idea was not taken any further as the aim of that study was to show that many of the practical activities undertaken in ancient Europe were characterised by rituals. Metalworking was only one of them.
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