ORGANISER(S): Colleen Morgan¹, Aris Politopoulos², Kathryn Killackey³ and Stuart Eve⁴

AFFILIATION: ¹University of York; ²Leiden University; ³Archaeological Illustrator; ⁴Wessex Archaeology

CONTACT: Colleen Morgan, colleen.morgan@york.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: 

In this session we will playtest and discuss worldbuilding as a strategy in archaeology to holistically record, interpret, and imagine the past. Worldbuilding is a concept developed in fiction writing and game creation (sensu Wolf 2014), the act of integrating history, ecology, and geology in order to bring an imaginary world to life. As such, worldbuilding deeply resonates with archaeological interpretation; archaeologists bring together environmental data, zooarchaeological assemblages, evidence of trade and foodways, osteobiographies, architectural remains, and all other textual and material traces to generate an impression of past lives. From these thickly described data, we can foment explorations in multiple media, digital and traditional, with multisensorial resonance. Worldbuilding is rich with interpretive possibility: textured worlds occupied by human and non-human beings, plants, and animals. 

During the session we will be playtesting an analogue game based on an Archaeological Worldbuilding Handbook. We invite participants to play, then discuss worldbuilding with us: how does worldbuilding contribute to your understanding of the past? What data are necessary for worldbuilding? How do we fill in the gaps in our worlds? Are some data more charismatic or challenging than others to use for worldbuilding? How does a worldbuilding approach affect archaeological practices, from the field to publication? What scales are possible? What do different forms of media require or afford from archaeological data? How do we let others tell stories in the worlds we build? What is a successful example of worldbuilding and what are its pitfalls? 

ORGANISER(S): Arianna Magyaricsová¹ and Laura Thompson²

AFFILIATION: ¹University of Glasgow; ²University of Manchester

CONTACT: Arianna Magyaricsová, arianna.magyaricsova@glasgow.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: 

Across museums, universities, and archives, countless collections lie dormant - abandoned, orphaned, or simply forgotten. Overlooked by dominant archaeological narratives, these artefactual and object-based collections remain unprocessed, under-researched, or detached from their original contexts, yet rich with potential. This session repositions such ‘dormant’ collections not as burdens from the past, but as dynamic assemblages for rethinking collecting practices, institutional memory, and public engagement. 

The first part of the half-day session will feature 10-minute presentations exploring the rediscovery, reinterpretation, and ethical challenges of working with dormant and/or underrepresented collections. We invite case studies of rediscovered archaeological or material culture collections, creative or critical approaches to cataloguing and interpretation, institutional challenges, and ethical considerations. Contributions from archaeologists, museum professionals, and those working with related collections (e.g. ethnographic, natural history, or teaching collections) are welcome. 

The second part of the session puts theory into action with a practical creative workshop focused on dormant collections. Participants will engage in slow-looking, speculative cataloguing, collaborative reimagining, storytelling, embodiment, and playful reinterpretation. These methodologies prompt fresh perspectives, challenge institutional narratives, and imagine new futures for overlooked materials. Engaging intellectually and emotionally, the workshop fosters alternative forms of knowledge-making and opens space for participation beyond conventional curatorial practices. 

Responding to a growing movement within GLAM and academia, this session calls for critical, inclusive, and imaginative approaches to material culture - particularly when working with collections that fall between the cracks of museum, academic, or heritage frameworks. By combining academic discussion with experimental practice, the session models innovative methods of care, reinterpretation and relevance in the present.

12:30    Lucy Moore

Let sleeping coins lie: digital engagement with the University of Leeds coin collection 

12:40    Mahsa Najafi (ONLINE)

Reawakening a Dormant Archive: Reconstructing a 14th-Century Massacre Through Forgotten Human Remains

12:50    Heidi J Miller

Stone tool collections from South Asia; are they relevant today?

13:00    Paul Prince

The Many Lives of a Dog and Bear: From Non-human Individuals to Zooarchaeological Teaching Specimens and Back

13:10    Miranda Spraggs

‘Miscellaneous Finds’: Exploring Concealed Objects in Museum Collections

13:20   Helen Wickstead

Creativity and Lies: Phalli, Fiction and Fakery in the British Museum’s Secretum

13:30    Nyree Finlay

Caring about archaeological housework

13:50    Q&A/Discussion

14:00-14:30    Break

15:00    Workshop

ORGANISER(S): Jonny Graham¹ and Sam Scott-Moncrieff²

AFFILIATION: ¹University of Leicester, ²University of Edinburgh

CONTACT: Jonny Graham, jonny.graham997@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: 

In 1993, Jacques Derrida coined the neologism ‘hauntology’ to describe the hauntedness of human experience. In Specters of Marx, Derrida proposed that advanced capitalist societies were haunted by the cognitive and physical remains of Marxism. These Specters represented not just the past, but futures which failed to come to pass, injuncting the present to restore justice in futures yet to come. 

Subsequently, musicians, artists, and writers have harnessed hauntology to creatively articulate feelings of melancholia and engagement with half-remembered elements of pasts that persist spectrally within the present. However, hauntology has been infrequently utilised by archaeologists to date, despite a mutual interest in the impact of the past upon subsequent presents.

In this session, therefore, we would like to explore the concept of haunting in archaeology in two ways. Firstly, within the archaeological past itself, we invite papers that contemplate lost futures in past worlds, the inescapability of the past during the past, and attempts to restore justice in the archaeological record. Secondly, within archaeological theory itself, we encourage submissions that reckon with discomforting specters, from the impact of neoliberalism, to the lingering ghosts of those marginalized or forced out of the discipline due to exclusion, economic instability, or systemic inequalities.

In the haunted halls of Elsinore Castle, Hamlet observed that “The time is out of joint”. We propose that hauntology offers us not only a productive theoretical methodology for exploring and imagining disjunctures in time, but helps us clarify some of the many lost futures within our discipline.

12:30    Sam Scott-Moncrieff &  Johnny Graham

Ghosts of our lives: archaeology and hauntology

12:45    Anna Collar

Haunted by monuments

13:00    Hannah Curry

"Tin places, thin places: exploring paratemporality at prehistoric extractive sites "

13:15    Christina Fredengren 

 Hauntologies, Barad and the transtempo-real

13:30    Lara Band & Barry Taylor

 "Apocalypse Now: multi-species futures in the ruins of the industrial past"

13:45    Q&A/Discussion

14:00-14:30  Break

14:30    Vera Haponava

The hanged man and the road of death: ghosts of the past in Belarusian consciousness and social movements

14:45    Kevin Kay

Who houses haunt. The spectral stakeholders of architectural projects in Neolithic Türkiye

15:00    Natalie Swanepoel

Apartheid in ruins: Removals, Restitution and Haunted Futures at Botshabelo Mission Station, Mpumalanga, South Africa

15:15    Kyra Leigh

We make ghosts out of the living: a case study of the coloniality  of time in Sri Lanka

15:30    Florence Smith Nicholls

Continue without saving? Video game archaeology as a hauntological practice

15:45    Q&A/Discussion

ORGANISER(S): Andy Hutcheson¹, Harriet Sams², and Alphaeus Lien-Talks^3,4,5

AFFILIATION: ¹Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Culture, University of East Anglia; ²Bournemouth University; ³University of York; ⁴Historic England; ⁵Archaeology Data Service

CONTACT: Andy Hutcheson, a.hutcheson@uea.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: 

What theoretical frameworks are available for exploring how archaeology, and heritage in broader terms, play a role in supporting wellness-related connectedness? 

It is well understood that archaeology shapes community identity, fosters engagement with local history, and combats social isolation. Increasing empirical evidence confirms the benefits of archaeological engagement, but self-assessed well-being scores from projects that have attempted to measure outcomes only take you so far in understanding what is happening between participant, material and site.  It is suggested that a better understanding of such complex relationality requires theorising. Such theorising can assist researchers to develop, and case workers to implement, suitable projects. 

The need for theorising includes an exploration of digital heritage. As digital platforms become more central to heritage engagement, how can computational archaeology foster meaningful, long-term participation? Digital heritage includes exploring the theory behind the role of digital media, if AI has a contribution to make, the role of online archives and how online community-based outreach affects social and archaeological connection. 

Potentially there are several ways of examining why archaeology is beneficial: for instance, decentring the authorised narrative and looking at the problem from the perspective of a flat ontology, posthumanism, multi-species archaeology, and object-oriented ontologies all may help to understand the mental processes at work during archaeological investigation. Likewise, theories of the mind arising from educational psychology, behavioural analysis, mindfulness, Buddhism, Gestalt, neuroscience, and psychedelia all have contributions to make.

This half-day session encourages submissions that critically examine the role of archaeology and digital archaeology in well-being and access to heritage, particularly for individuals and communities historically excluded from dominant narratives. We seek theoretical and methodological contributions that address themes such as:

• Educational psychology and Gestalt approaches
• Arts and craft approaches
• Digital heritage as a tool for combating social isolation
• AI and machine learning in expanding public engagement
• Participatory approaches to diversifying heritage narratives
• Ethical challenges in community heritage

12:30    Introduction

12:45    Helen Shearn (ONLINE)

The role of creative health practitioners, creativity, historical research and exhibitions in fostering wellbeing through heritage in Kirkham

13:00    Despoina V. Sampatakou 

Heritage Across Realities: Social Interactions and Storytelling with Cultural Objects in XR

13:15    Mac Sizeland

Imagining digital archaeology from below: community empowerment as an effective engagement strategy for classical archaeological archives

13:30    Tabatha Maud

State of the Art in Digital Heritage landscapes: A review of the four-body problem of Current Practice and User-Centred Future Advancements toward accessible design

13:45    Q&A/Discussion

14:00-14:30     Break   

14:30    Alfie Lien-Talks

Digital archaeology data accessibility as a mechanism for inclusive individual and community benefit

14:45    Harriet Sams

An Animist view of therapeutic heritage: Haraway, Wall Kimmerer, and Le Guin as theoretical guides

15:00    Chris Elmer

The ‘Holding Space’ concept as a therapeutic tool in community archaeology practice

15:15    Andy Hutcheson

Mind and matter: relations between people and things as a basis for wellbeing

15:30    Q&A/Discussion

ORGANISER(S): Adam S. Green, Simon Mair, Andrew Pickering and Peter Schauer

AFFILIATION: University of York

CONTACT: Adam S. Green, adam.green@york.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: 

Researchers and policymakers are deeply divided on the nature of economic growth. Some theorise that increasing economic growth is key to sustainable development. Others are wary of the impact of human activity on the environments we depend on, and call for new ways to investigate economic growth, sometimes advocating “degrowth” or “post-growth” economics as an urgent policy aim. Action is needed to help envision a sustainable future.

Reconciling these positions calls for a deep understanding of long-term social change, but archaeology is conspicuously absent from this debate. Traditional archaeological theories, like neoevolutionism, contend that as societies change, they pass through a series of stages or types characterised by increases in “complexity,” but the linkage between that complexity and ‘growth’ is rarely explicitly theorised. As neoevolutionary theory crumbles under the growing weight of archaeological evidence, archaeologists have expanded their engagement with growth, developing approaches to demographic change, social scale, and human-environment interactions, but studies that explore the potential of archaeology to transform our understanding of economic growth remain rare. 

For this standard session, we invite archaeologists to take action by placing economic growth in the centre of their analysis. Does archaeology have a role to play in debates about economic growth? What approaches should archaeologists adopt to tackle questions about growth? How can we assess economic growth in the past? How do we think economic growth has impacted the societies in which it occurred, and what were its environmental impacts? What can archaeology contribute to broader debates about economic growth today?

12:30    Introduction

12:40    Simon Mair

Archaeology for Social Metabolism

13:00    Katie Campbell

Urban abandonment and economic growth in ‘medieval’ Central Asia

13:20    Toby C. Wilkinson

Measuring palaeo-productivity in the landscape: economic growth and archaeological survey

13:40    Maya Goldman

Growth and wellbeing in African economies through time; a long duree perspective

14:00-14:30  Break

14:30    Andrew C. Pickering

Growth Without Capital: Archaeological Tests of Pre-Industrial Economic Theories

14:50    Shyama Vermeersch

Land, labour, and food: how farming contributes to stories of economic growth in past and present societies

15:10    Dan Lawrence

Uneven Empires: Catch-Up Growth and Economic Divergence in Roman England and Southwest Asia

15:30    Efrossini Vika

Meat, manure, and Thomas Malthus: What can prehistoric studies of protein consumption actually say about past economic growth?

15:50    Q&A/Discussion

ORGANISER(S): Ben Jervis

AFFILIATION: University of Leicester

CONTACT: Ben Jervis, bpj4@leicester.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: 

Endurance, a concept which has emerged fairly recently in philosophical and social science discourse, has been defined by Povinelli (2011) as “the ability to suffer yet persist” and by Salazar and Scheerder (2023) as “the ability to withstand hardship, adversity or suffering”.  It can be defined as an ability to persist with change, to keep on going through adversity and as the outcome of purposeful strategies of temporal suspension. Endurance therefore provides a fruitful concept for thinking through processes of continuity and change, engaging with past emotional experiences of trauma and suffering and understanding the ways in which individuals and communities worked to resist, surrendered to or were caught up in, potentially harmful, processes of change. This session is intended to explore the potential of a concept of endurance in archaeological enquiry. Areas for exploration might include:

• The relationship between endurance and complementary concepts such as resilience and indigenous survivance.
• The ability of a concept of endurance to draw attention to emotional experiences of anxiety, anticipation and exhaustion in the past.
• The potential of endurance to facilitate engagement with ‘minoritarian’ pasts which foreground the generative experiences of communities often overlooked in archaeological enquiry, or who experienced erasure, oppression or subjugation in the past.
• Approaches to temporalities of delay and suspension, which contrast conventional narratives of progress.

12:30    Introduction

12:40    Nelson J. Almeida 

Animals as Theory: Enduring Human-Animal Relations in Prehistoric Southwestern Iberia

13:00    Daphne Sinclaire Myhrvold 

The Price of Permanence: Endurance and Environmental Change in Egypt’s Old Kingdom Pyramid Towns Viewed Through Panarchy and the Adaptive Cycle

13:20    Elanji Swart 

Societal Perseverance Through Depression In The Ancient Near East: Archaeological Perspectives On   Resilience And Survival

13:40  Rianca Vogels

When Survival Isn’t Enough: Archaeology’s Role in Indigenous Legal Struggles 

14:00-14:30     Break

14:30    Benjamin Allen 

Expansive Endurance: Why The Ainu Did Not Vanish

14:50    Natalie De Schuytener 

Archaeological Notebooks as Enduring Traces

15:10    Isabelle Carter

Enduring Homelessness: The Archaeology of Squatter Activity in the Forest of Knaresborough, Yorkshire, 

and the Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire, Between the Seventeenth Century and the Point of Parliamentary Enclosure

15:30   Thomas Jellis

Thinking Endurance Across Disciplines

15:50  Discussion

ORGANISER(S): Pippa Postgate^1,2,  Sadie Watson², Rachel King³ and Harald Fredheim⁴

AFFILIATION:  ¹Durham University; ²Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA); ³UCL, ⁴University of York 

CONTACT: Pippa Postgate, philippa.a.postgate-foulsham@durham.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: 

This session aims to situate archaeological and museum practice within the neoliberalising processes that have shaped governments and economies over the last 40 years. At their broadest, these processes have re-engineered relationships between states and societies through interventions like rolling back government welfare provisions, incentivising private capital accumulation, and the growth of a professional consulting class - all of which demand new attention to what counts as a public good. 

This session will explore how archaeological practice, and its interventions, have been and continue to be shaped by neoliberal values, interests and policies. It will discuss the role of neoliberalism in shaping the discipline as it exists today, across academia, museums, the commercial and voluntary sectors. It seeks to look at how the ‘managerial’ style that has proliferated in the public and private sectors since the neoliberal turn has influenced the roles and responsibilities of practitioners. It will also address the primacy of economic growth within global development and the subsequent transformation of contemporary archaeological and museum practice and understandings of their value. We hope to explore how these disciplines are entwined with global processes of ‘creative destruction’ and how we as practitioners might be able to find ways of disrupting or challenging these trajectories through our practice. We welcome papers from across the sector, from academia and museums to development-led archaeology, which seek to engage with a future beyond neoliberalism, and that explore how processes of professionalisation have raised barriers to participation and public benefit, how professional structures (including standards, norms and business models) enable and constrain opportunities for participation and public benefit and examples of how different forms of engagement, participation and public benefit have, are and might be realised in light (or shadow) of the structures of the profession.

12:30    Introduction

12:40    Ian Baxter

We need to talk about heritage management

13:00    Jonas Van Looveren & Kaatje De Langhe (online)

Where did the volunteers go?: Participation of non-professionals in archaeology in Flanders (Belgium)

13:20    Clive Jonathon Bond

English Planning, Archaeology and Neoliberalism

13:40    Sadie Watson & Harald Fredheim

Is increased specialisation and professionalisation distancing us as professionals from the publics we serve?

14:10-14:30    Break

14:30    Guillermo Diaz de Liaño

    Professionalisation is not neutral: (few) Perks & (many) Disadvantages 

14:50    Jim Hunter

What Do You Want If You Don’t Want Mahany? 

15:10    Emma Samuel, Rianca Vogels & Diarmaid Walshe

Between Exclusion and Anarchy: Community Archaeology, as a third option

15:30    Alice Clough

The council of archaeological beings: an exercise to enchant and trouble developer-led workflows

15:50    Q&A/Discussion

ORGANISER(S): Saltanat Amir¹ and Rinat Zhumatayev²

AFFILIATION: ¹The British Museum; ²Al-Farabi Kazakh National University

CONTACT: 
Dr Saltanat Amir, samirova@britishmuseum.org

ABSTRACT: 

This session aims to explore and critically discuss theoretical frameworks that can be used to approach and interpret how societal and cultural transformations influenced the emergence, development, and evolution of craftsmanship in different ancient societies. These include, but are not limited to, hunter-gatherer groups, sedentary communities and semi/fully pastoralists societies.

We are particularly interested in examining how transitions between different forms of social organisation—such as hierarchical, heterarchical, egalitarian, centralised, decentralised structures, and even anarchic configurations—impacted local craftsmanship. The session seeks to investigate the strategies and mechanisms employed by ancient craftspeople to adapt to such changes, and how such adaptations influenced the organisation of production, the selection and sourcing of materials, the quality of finished products, and their accessibility across different social strata. We aim to identify both parallels and divergences in such adaptation mechanisms. 

Furthermore, this session aims to assess the extent to which societal values shaped and defined the roles, skills, and social perceptions of craftspeople and their products. In addition, it seeks to explore the role of ancient societies in determining the significance and use of particular forms of ornamentation and decoration—for example, those inspired by local fauna/flora—which held specific societal meaning for the communities, and mechanisms of  abandoning, rejecting, or transformation of such artistic expressions. Conversely, the session will also consider the extent to which craftspeople themselves may have influenced societal norms and values by shaping the cultural acceptance and perceived appropriateness of crafted forms, decorative styles, symbolic meanings, and technological innovations.

12:30    Introduction

12:40    Abay Namen

Evaluating knapping quality and lithic raw material choices in the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor 

13:00    Milena Gošić

Between Metallurgy and Ritual: The Complex Diversities of the Levantine Chalcolithic Heterarchies  

13:20    Rutuja Milind Hampe (ONLINE)

Theoretical Approaches to Craft Specialization in Deccan Chalcolithic Culture

13:40    Elena Paralovo

Coinless craftsmen: getting paid (or not) as ceramists in Iron Age Northern Italy

14:00-14:30    Break

14:30    Corso Dominici

The cultural value of things in pre-Roman central Italy. An archeo-anthropological study of craft and exchange of pottery goods (600-400 BC)

14:50    Ahmad Mohammed

Crafting Space and Kinship: Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives on Pottery Production in Contemporary El-Nazlah, Egypt

15:10    Hrishita Gosh

(Un)controlling the element: Moving beyond chemical analysis in ceramics to recognize varying onto-epistemes of “elements” in Archaeology

15:30    Aslan Gasimov

Adapting to the Deep: Environmental Impact and the End of Pottery Craft in Bandovan, Azerbaijan

15:50    Victoria Stevens 

Faithful hands: craft as an act of worship 

ORGANISER(S): Dani Riebe¹ and Ashley Lingle²

AFFILIATION: ¹University Georgia Athens; ²University of York 

CONTACT: Dr Dani Riebe, Danielle.Riebe@uga.edu

ABSTRACT: 

Archaeology thrives on complexity—stratified landscapes, overlapping narratives, and layers of human activity that defy linear storytelling. Yet, the ways we translate these intricacies to non-specialist audiences remain uneven, often shaped by disciplinary conventions rather than the needs of those encountering our work. This session seeks to explore how archaeologists working on sites craft narratives that resonate beyond the academy.

How do we balance multiplicity with coherence? What narrative strategies help us illuminate deep time, rapid change, and historical entanglements without flattening the past into a single thread? In a field constrained by limited budgets and the relentless pressure to develop new digital skill sets, can we create compelling, accessible stories without sacrificing depth and nuance? Moreover, how can community archaeology and primary engagement shape the ways we tell these stories, ensuring that the voices of those connected to these places are part of the conversation?

We invite papers that grapple with these questions through case studies, methodological experiments, and theoretical reflections. Contributions might examine digital reconstructions, public engagements, museum interpretations, or other forms of storytelling that embrace (rather than erase) archaeological complexity. We particularly welcome perspectives that challenge traditional modes of communicating archaeological time, inviting discussion on how we can foster deeper, more meaningful engagements with the past.

This session will be of interest to those working at the intersection of archaeological interpretation, community archaeology, and public engagement, as well as anyone concerned with how we translate the material record into compelling, accessible, and informative narratives.

12:30    Introduction

12:40    Jesse Wolfhagen

'Bless This Mess’: Embracing the Uncertainty of Past Human-Environment Interactions to Craft More Engaging Narratives

13:00    Ashley Lingle

New Stratigraphy: Co-Creating Archaeological Narratives at Vésztő-Mágor, Hungary

13:20    Andrew P. Roddick

Unflattening Late Formative Tiwanaku: Time, Uncertainty, and Diverse Publics in an Ancient Andean City

13:40    Isobel Harvey

Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey Mud: Multi-Proxy Approaches to Complex Temporalities in Peatland Landscapes

14:00-14:30  Break

14:30    Howard Williams

Walking Lines and Marking Times through the Linear Earthworks of the Anglo-Welsh Borderlands

14:50    Rob Sutton

The Accidental Monument

15:10    Jonathan Last

Walking the historic landscape, or: how to put the characters into characterization

15:30    Laurence Ferland

Power, prestige, and the comfort zone: On weaving a complex archaeological narrative in a commercial project context in Old Quebec City

15:50    Danielle Riebe

The Trouble with Historical Sites: Creating and Sharing Archaeological Narratives through Student Engagement

ORGANISER(S): Brodhie M. I. Molloy¹ and Tânia Manuel Casimiro²

AFFILIATION: ¹University of Leicester; ²University of Stirling

CONTACT: Brodhie M. I. Molloy, bmim2@leicester.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: 

It’s time! You successfully got the grant you spent months applying for. The project is planned down to timings and toilet breaks. Connections with people and organisations are made. You are ready to deliver and… Crash! Bang! Oh no! Something has gone wrong. Our projects often have things that go wrong or do not work out. But as practitioners we seldom admit this, especially not in official forums like a conference. However, this is a very normal thing to occur. Humans are messy. Messy things often require messy responses.

This session looks to open a conversation on our ‘failings’ in projects and how we can look at these, and to each other, for future solutions. We invite papers and discussants to join us in this conversation about the reality of archaeological projects in the contemporary world. We welcome discussions on the challenges faced in a wide range of archaeological projects, including social, ecological, and community-driven initiatives, as well as those involving heritage management, digital archaeology, education, and policy-driven work, among others. We will foster a space to network with others working in the fields of community and public-based engagement, offering comfort in the fact that we are not alone in this sector, and its associated struggles (funding, access, needs etc.). We are hoping this session will provide an opportunity for learning where we can exchange tips, tools and a sense of camaraderie.

As organisers, we are not afraid to admit that our projects, at times, have failed. We hope you won’t be afraid too!

09:30    Leigh Chalmers

    Beginnings, Endings, And The Bit In The Middle

09:45    Aidan Phillips 

    A Phoenix laid bare…

10:00    Kris Lockyear

    Geophysics and community archaeology

10:15    Ben Donnelly-Symes

    Professionally ‘Winging It’ at the Northamptonshire Archaeological Resource Centre 

10:30    Susana Henriques

    Archaeology vs bullfighting. How local politics shape our historical narratives

10:45    Cecilia Conte

    “If you are not an animal, they won’t care about you”: ethnographic journeys of an archaeologist in Mongolia

11:00-11:30   Break

11:30    Debbie Frearson

    "My needs were not met”

11:45    Derick Coetzee

    Motives and Misinterpretation: Constraining Motivated Reasoning in Archaeology

12:00    Catriona Cooper 

    Creatively safe: Sanitising a Radical Legacy at Prospect Cottage

12:15    Nelson J. Almeida

    Theory Meets the Bulldozer: The Cycles of Memory and Oblivion of a Megalithic Tomb in Portugal

12:30    Eleanor Harrison

    One step at a time: Documenting a year in the footsteps of Audrey Henshall

12:45    João Sequeira 

    This is just a ride: A Matter of Perspective

13:00    Discussion

ORGANISER(S): Kirsty Lilley¹ and Lusia Zaleskaya²,

AFFILIATION: ¹Lancaster University; ²University of Edinburgh

CONTACT: Kirsty Lilley, kirstymlilley@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: 

Despite decades of theoretical shifts in archaeology, narratives of the past are still too often rooted in rationality and fact-based neutrality, and the idea that their construction can be a creative venture remains under-explored. Yet, we are always crafting stories - stories informed by data, but invariably and inescapably shaped by our perspectives, worldviews, and intentions. With the onslaught of misinformation about our past, particularly through social media, it is especially pertinent to consider the power of the narratives we produce, as well as their ultimate audiences.

Building on the success of last year’s storytelling sessions, which highlighted the variety of nontraditional, creative approaches already in use in the discipline, we present its ‘sequel’: in line with this year’s theme - Theory in Action - we invite contributors to reimagine traditional reports, data, and interpretations, and transform them into creative narratives. While the form of the ‘story’ is open, we urge participants to step away from conventional conference presentations, and reflect on your aims, audience, and positionality. Whether you engage with new discoveries, or revisit existing data, take the creative reins - and take action!

This session provides an opportunity to explore the productive role of subjectivity in interpreting the past, and to experiment with storytelling as a generative means of diversifying archaeological and heritage narratives. If time allows, we hope to close with an informal ‘data → storytelling’ workshop - an opportunity for attendees to try out creative techniques, share ideas, and push the boundaries of the ‘archaeological narrative’.

09:30    Introduction

09:40    Alexander Iles

    …and if you look over here – From Storytelling to Archaeology

10:00    Harold Mytum

    Collingwood's Re-enactment and telling a story: Sir Christopher Brooke's resistance to the construction of the Bridgewater Canal at Norton Priory

10:20    Peter Lawson

    Wordless Storytelling: Playing History on a Medieval Instrument

10:40    Leigh Symonds

    Stories Matter:  Standing stones, sagas and archaeological wisdom

11:00-11:30   Break

11:30    Paolo Masci (ONLINE)

    Reimagining the Past to Shape the Future: Futures Literacy and Digital Storytelling in Cultural Heritage Education

11:50    Mac Sizeland

    Imagining Digital Archaeology 'from below': Community Empowerment as and Effective Engagement Strategy for Classical Archaeological Archives

12:10    Despoina Sampatakou

    Storytelling for decolonising cryptocolonised heritage: should we and how

12:30    Rachel Cubitt

    Finds Fiction

12:50    Aaron Clarke

    A ‘Creative Explosion’ of Stories: new objects from old narratives

13:10-14:10   Lunch

14:10    Matthew Hitchcock

    Axestories: Blending Art and Science to craft narratives about prehistory

14:30    Vera Haponava

    Rethinking (and Remembering) Stable Isotope Theory Through Comics

14:50  Arun Daniel Sharma

    ‘Pilgrim’ (short film + discussion)

15:10    Maya Hoole

    “POSSIBLY” - sitting with discomfort in the archaeological narrative

15:30    Guillermo Diaz de Liaño

    “The things you people do to avoid looking at pottery”: Successes and miseries of studying prehistoric ontologies

15:50-16:10  Break

16:10    WORKSHOP: Data storytelling

ORGANISER(S): Kolawole Olugbenga Adekola

AFFILIATION: University of Ibadan; The Cyprus Institute; University of Cambridge

CONTACT: Kolawole Olugbenga Adekola, k.adekola@cyi.ac.cy

ABSTRACT: 

For so long, Archaeologists working in many parts of Africa have practically usurped the power of interpretation of cultural materials thus rendering the communities/groups being investigated into the background. The ‘experts’ domineering role is such that communities are hardly consulted except for the necessity of oral traditions to aid interpretations at times. Often, community members are engaged at tangential levels as helpers on the field-different artisans, security, food vendors, tour guides and so on with little or no involvement in the nitty gritty of the core of the archaeological investigation

This perspective is now changing in many parts of Africa. For instance, in Western Africa, archaeological investigations are now conceived with active interactions between communities and archaeologists with a better focus on proper heritage management, protection and the necessity at times for tourism promotion.

With community archaeology, people or groups who hitherto had been rendered powerless on their heritage/cultural objects now have active voices as it relates to remains of archaeological and historical significance.

The aim of this Session is to examine recent efforts of Community archaeology practices. The Session anchors on the belief that specific individual narratives or case studies maybe of help in fashioning standard that could be adopted for Community Archaeology elsewhere.

The Session therefore welcomes Research Papers from all parts of Africa and even elsewhere to assess and project the future.

09:30    Abidemi Babatunde Babalola

    What Community Whose Heritage

09:45    Dare Omogbai, Charles Lequesne, and Bayo Folorunso

    Recent Archaeological Studies in outer Benin Moats

10:00    John Osawe, Iwinosa Oyakhire, and Sofia Fonseca

    Spotlighting Community Voices through Archaeology learning excahnges

10:15    Owoseni Bolaji

    Community-based Archaeology in Nigeria. Reflections from Ilorin

10:30    Aicha Toure

    Natio 1: What the first Archaeological Excavations Reveal

10:45    Humphrey Nyambiya and Idah Maniki

    Are we there yet, community engagements in African Archaeology and Heritage, insights from Botswana and Zimbabwe

ORGANISER(S): Hayley Saul and Emma Waterton

AFFILIATION: University of York

CONTACT: Hayley Saul, hayley.saul@york.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: 

We are currently in the grips of acute environmental, social, and political uncertainty. The crises we face are well-known and range from the climate emergency to deforestation, displacement, food and water shortages, genocide and war. These crises have been escalated by the unfinished and world-ending catastrophes of colonialism, which, as we know, are themselves inextricably linked with the ongoing crises of unfettered capitalism. In the debates that surround each crisis, heritage often emerges as both a set of objects and a constellation of practices that could and should play a critical role in mitigating their effects. It is, in other words, both a problem and a solution. It is a past legacy that is either threatened by, or the cause of, such crises, while at the same time potentially providing sets of experiences that may help us negotiate future pathways and innovate solutions to globally relevant problems. This session will explore what role heritage can play to drive towards a more just and sustainable planetary future in these rapidly changing times.

09:30    Introduction

09:40    Ben Davenport

    Changing Human-Food-Heritage Relations in an 'Era of International Migration'

10:00    Megan Peters

    Archiving the Future: Time, Technology, and Memory in Global Crisis

10:20    Melissa Thomas

    Heritage, precarity and shifting seas: exploring identity and change in British fishing communities

10:40    Mariana Pinto Leitao Pereira

    Deltascapes: Macao’s Waterborne Communities and the Ethics of Shared Landscapes in the Pearl River Delta

11:00-11:30  Break

11:30    Sarah Kerr

    Mitigation Past and Present: opportunities, challenges and hope

11:50    Sree Subramanian

    Deconstructing Industrial Heritage: Extractive Heritage and Narratives of Colonial Progress

12:10    Tanja Hoffmann

    "The Law of Intention": Reflections on decolonising theory in action.

12:30    Fran Mahon

    Working with Rivers: The Living Heritage of the Yorkshire Rivers Foss and Ouse

12:50    Ben Elliot

    Prehistoric Justice: Tracing the influence of the ancestral human condition within British and Irish Just Transition policy

13:10-14:10   Lunch

14:10    Jianing Wang

    The Multiple Heritage Landscape of the Grand Canal, China

14:20    Anoj Khanal

    The Liquid Landscape of Kathmandu, Nepal: Hiti Pranali Heritage and Water Precarious Futures

14:40    Niamh Malone

    "Mobilities, Materialities, and Heritage Construction: The Complexity of Movement for

Disabled Individuals"

15:00    John Schofield

    Heritage and Homelessness: Creating Small Wins through Social Enterprise in York (UK) and Nuuk (Greenland)

15:20    Jes Hooper

    Embodied Perspectives: Becoming With Coffee Producing Civets

ORGANISER(S): Louise Søndergaaard^1,2 and Bo Jensen³

AFFILIATION: ¹Aarhus University; ²Museum Skanderborg; ³Kroppedal Museum

CONTACT: Louise Søndergaaard, los@cas.au.dk

ABSTRACT: 

Stones are often considered among the most inert and uninteresting materials of past cultures. Unless arranged in monumental forms like barrows or henges, or visibly worked into tools or sculptures, stones tend to escape archaeological attention. Yet in many societies — past and present — stones are anything but neutral. From healing crystals to protective amulets, from sacred landscapes to stones that “bleed” or “sing”, rocks and minerals have long been perceived as possessing particular powers, properties, or agencies.

This session invites contributions that explore how stones mattered in past worlds — not just as raw material, but as vibrant substances with specific qualities that shaped human practice, belief, and interaction. How were stones perceived, selected, worked, exchanged, or deposited? What properties — physical, sensory, or metaphysical — were attributed to different kinds of stone? And how might archaeological theory help us think beyond functionalist or symbolic interpretations to consider the active roles of materials in human history?

We welcome papers from all periods and regions that engage with the affordances, powers, and biographies of stone. Case studies, theoretical explorations, or cross-cultural comparisons are equally welcome.

09:30    Introduction

09:40    Robert Ashby

    A stone face tells its story: The role of narrative in the cognition, communication and culture system of hominins as reflected in the archaeological record of Achuelean handaxes in the Palaeolithic period.

10:00    Patrick Nørskov Pedersen

    Time-consuming stone: Between biography, use-life and life-histories of ground and polished stone tools 

10:20    Sarah Bockmeyer (ONLINE)

    The Role of Stones in the Transformation of Deceased in the Funnel Beaker West Groups 3500 – 3000 BCE

10:40    Sarah Botfield

    Breathing life into stone: Grooved Ware decorative motifs. 

11:00-11:30  Break

11:30    Shriya Gautam

    Networks of Stone: A Relational Approach to Rock Art in the Absence of Cultural Continuity

11:50    Cecilia Dal Zovo & Juliette Grieve 

    Brilliant Stones: Interacting with Desert Varnish, Colour, and Rock Art in the Gobi- Altai Mountains, Mongolia 

12:10    Raffaele Rizzo (ONLINE)

    Speaking Stones: Reconstructing Bronze Age Landscapes through Megaliths and GIS in Salento

12:30    Louise Søndergaard

    Protective powers of stone

12:50    Heather Ford

    More than a Medium: Centring stones in the Pictish symbol stone discussion 

13:10-14:10  Lunch

14:10    Introduciton

14:20    Emma Louise Thompson

    The Soft Powers of Stones: Mortuary Connotations in Northwestern Europe (c. 700- 1100 CE)

14:40    Bo Jensen

    Writ in stone: fossils, facts and folklore in Early Medieval Northern Europe

15:00    Katy Whitaker

    ‘Invested with a kind of glamour’; perceptions of sarsen stone during 6,000 years of rocky relationships

15:20    Robert Piotrowski (ONLINE)

    Erratic Boulders Between Nature and Culture: Ontological Transgression in a Postglacial Landscape in Northern Poland.

15:40-16:10  Break

16:10    Jacob Metson

    Scavenging Power from the Past: the social nature of expediency  

16:30    Chris Wood

    Lithic Legacies: Towards an Archaeology of Reception

16:50    Discussion

ORGANISER(S): Iseabail Wilks and Emily Mills

AFFILIATION: University of York

CONTACT: Iseabail Wilks, iseabail.wilks@york.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: 

In recent decades, we have witnessed exciting developments in the use of theory within funerary archaeology. The increasing application of frameworks drawn from other disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, and anthropology, has greatly benefitted the field, resulting in nuanced approaches to novel discoveries of human remains across prehistoric contexts. Frameworks incorporating ideas of agency, emotion and memory have been particularly valuable in providing new perspectives for considering funerary practices, and how they may provide insight into the complex ways in which prehistoric communities perceived themselves and the worlds they inhabited. It is also true that whilst many historic discoveries of prehistoric remains have well-established contemporaneous narratives and interpretations, these may not have been revisited. However, these assemblages may benefit greatly from reconsideration through the employment of modern theoretical frameworks. A growing sect of research attests to how interpretation of these remains can be enriched or even transformed through the application of fresh theoretical perspectives. This is exemplified by the re-evaluation of historic finds through lenses such as post-humanism and assemblage theory, with themes including emotion and the senses, agency of environments, and relational personhood. This session invites papers which revisit existing collections of human remains and their related archival material from prehistoric contexts. Contributions are not limited to a specific geographical location or site type, but should apply novel theoretical frameworks to existing burial records in order to provide new insight into attitudes toward death and the dead by their living contemporaries in prehistory.

09:30    Introduction

09:40    Michail Protopapadakis

    An investigation of human-nonhuman relationships in bioarchaeology: Revisiting a legacy collection from Pella, Jordan

10:00    Iseabail Wilks

    Caring for the dead: A combined retrospective archaeothanatological and histotaphonomical approach to the study of central European Linearbandkeramik burials

10:20    Frida Espolin Norstein

    Rethinking grave goods: Unearthing the potential of old excavations

10:40    Amy Allinson

    Processing the Cave: A Post-Humanist Perspective on Neolithic Cave Burials in Yorkshire

11:00-11:30 Break

11:30    Emily Mills

    Towards a fungal understanding of the past

11:50    Lindsey Buster

    Age-Old Stories: Harnessing the Past for a More Equitable Future

12:10    Discussion

ORGANISER(S): Owen Hurcum¹ and Thomas Dowson²

AFFILIATION: ¹University of York; ²Independent Scholar

CONTACT: Owen Hurcum, owen.hurcum@york.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: 

Whilst a few works had already been published in the late 1990s on the topic, queer archaeology formally announced itself to the broader discipline in 2000 through a special edition of World Archaeology entitled ‘Queer Archaeologies’. Contained within this volume was a selection of works outlining the necessity of queer theory in archaeology. Whilst specific attention was placed on challenging archaeology’s complicity in anti-LGBTQ+ politics, the volume used the queer position at its broadest sense to champion an overtly political archaeology that confronted all damaging normatives in the discipline and sought to situate archaeology as a tool for any marginalised community. 

Twenty-five years on from this publication the landscape which archaeology finds itself in has shifted. The emergence of social-media and the normalisation this has brought to cultures of harassment, explicit bigotry in public discourse, and the far-right in mainstream politics, demands the attention of the discipline and our role in broader social activism. It again raises the question of queer theory in archaeology.

Being the quarter-centennial of ‘Queer Archaeologies’, this session proposes to elicit submissions that critically engage with the legacy of queer archaeology and its place moving forward. We encourage submissions that engage with queer theory at its broadest to directly highlight how archaeology can challenge the normalisation of far-right authoritarianism. All marginalized voices, such as LGBTQ+, refugee, feminist, working class, disabled, people of colour, et cetera, are welcome and encouraged. Presentations of all formats will be considered with presenters given a twenty-minute slot to manage at their discretion. 

09:30    Introduction

09:40    Júlia Peris Barro

    Tra(ns)versing Barcelona’s “queer” landscape

10:00    Sahal Abdi

    Notes to a TransQueer Materialist Archaeology

10:20    Forest Bird 

    Queering Forensics: Transgender Representation in Forensic Anthropology

10:40    S. K. Marley

    Our Transcapes: a queer exploration of British prehistory

11:00-11:30  Break

11:30    Romane Betbeze & Uroš Matić (ONLINE)

    Among queer women? Female same-sex intimacy in ancient Egypt

11:50    Owen Hurcum

    Non-Binary Archaeology or An Archaeology of Non-Binary? The Re-Que(e)rying of Gender in Archaeology

12:10    Isavella Voulgareli

    Queer Heritage, Gendered Craft, and the Archaeopolitics of Marble in Tinos, Greece

12:30    Naomi Allman 

    Re-membering Hermaphroditos: Encountering an Intersex Deity in the 21st century

12:50    Discusison

ORGANISER(S): Matilda Siebrecht¹ and Amber Roy²

AFFILIATION: ¹EXARC; ²Stockholm University

CONTACT: Matilda Siebrecht, matilda@thearchaeologiststeacup.com

ABSTRACT: 

Experimental archaeology is a dynamic and evolving field and is still relatively young in terms of methodological frameworks and approaches (Coles 1973). This youth comes with associated challenges; for example a lack of universal standardisation in data collection, peer-distrust of scientific rigour, and limited international collaboration. However, its youth has also enabled it to develop alongside the contextual development of modern society. This allows it to evolve without the restrictions of out-dated assumptions or frameworks that are often linked with more traditional archaeological approaches. In this way, experimental archaeology is more adaptable and compatible when engaging with topics related to issues in the modern world. 

Through this session, we hope to foster a community of experimental archaeologists who are actively using traditional knowledge from the past to engage with social issues in the present, in the hope of working towards a better future. We are looking for papers sharing projects and research where experimental archaeology plays an active role in promoting inclusion, equitability, wellbeing, social justice, and decolonization and which engage with the political and ethical challenges that face the discipline (Crellin et al. 2021). For example, papers which include:

• Experimental archaeology as a framework for promoting social justice
• Working with marginalized communities through experimental archaeology
• Approaching the decolonization of archaeology through experimental archaeology
• Representational archaeology that avoids othering.

14:10    Introduciton

14:25    Jennifer Beamer

    Spindling for Weaving: Foregrounding Intentionality in the Operational Sequence

14:40    S. Udayakumar (ONLINE)

    Exploring ancient technology through an experimental archaeology and ethnographic perspective: Iron smelting process, Bone tool making process and Pottery techniques

14:55    Ana Rosa (ONLINE)

    Techniques, Processes, and Gestures of the Past: The Experimental Archaeology Program Applied to the Polished Stone Collection from Vila Nova de São Pedro (Azambuja, Portugal)

15:10    Madison Paige Scrabeck

    Hearts of Oak: A Case Study of the People Aboard the Kyrenia Liberty

15:25    Frances Gill (aka Frances Flute the Bellows Mender)

    Pipes of Peace, and the Return of the Flute: An Aurignacian Rhapsody.

15:40-16:10  Break 

16:10    Amber Roy

    Who Gets to Make the Past? Collaborative Knowledge-Making in Experimental Archaeology

16:25    James M. Harland

    Making Abstract Ideas More Concrete: Using an experiment to make opus signinum as a pedagogical tool for introducing humanities students to archaeological theory and methods

16:40    Matilda Siebrecht 

    Sewing with Sealskin: Prioritising traditional indigenous knowledge in interpretations of Paleo-Inuit sewing technologies

16:55    Ekta Bagri(ONLINE)

    Listening to the Kiln: A Co-designed Bizen Firing Experiment that Translates Embodied Cues into Mineral Evidence

17:10    Discussion

ORGANISER(S): Kit Ackland, Andy Sherman and Lawrence Northall

AFFILIATION: Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA)

CONTACT: Kit Ackland, kackland@mola.org.uk

ABSTRACT: 

For many communities engaging with heritage, particularly intangible heritage, can often feel unintuitive and inaccessible. As heritage practitioners we often struggle to navigate emotional barriers and fail to open dialogue with the unheard voices in society.  Creative expression offers a powerful way to communicate complex topics through emotion and experience. Whether as creators or audiences, people can use creative media to transcend language, socio-political relationships and individual experience. Therefore, creative practice is immensely valuable for widening access to heritage and empowering communities.

Whilst art and audio have long been incorporated into historical spaces, they are typically produced by professionals on commission. Only recently have heritage practitioners embraced creative co-creation to meaningfully involve broader communities, amplifying unheard voices. Nevertheless, there is still no widely established methodology for successfully bridging the gap between underserved communities, traditional audiences, creative practitioners, and other organisations.

This half-day session invites heritage and creative practitioners to share the successes and challenges of developing co-designed creative practices within the heritage industry.

We will explore questions such as:

• How can creative practice make heritage more accessible?

• What role does art play in building community resilience to climate change?

• How can community art enhance heritage engagement?

• How do we sustain community bonds built through co-creation?

Presentations may be between 10 – 15 mins long. Non-academic formats are welcome, and we particularly encourage contributions from creative practitioners, artists, and early career researchers. We would like to allow small displays or demonstrations of creative work featured in the talks.

11:30     Introduction

11:45    Harry Farmer 

    Upping Shanty: A co-created memory singing walk and workshop exploring local’s perspectives of coastal change through the collaborative composition of an original sea shanty

12:00    Katerina Valentza (ONLINE)

    Community Waterscapes: Co-creating an interactive record of water heritage in Hull and the Humber region 

12:15    Roshani Carmen Ramass

    Young Voices in Heritage: An Audio-First Methodology for Intergenerational Co-Creation

12:30    Rhowan Alleyne (ONLINE)

    Communicating climate risk and heritage loss

12:45    Katharina Zinn

    Dance in Dialogue with Archaeology – art and movement as a powerful medium of emotion, knowing, imagination and introspection

13:10-14:10 Lunch

14:10    Rob Sutton 

    We've seen it all; time to listen harder 

14:25    Sophie Jackson

    BROWN: An archaeological perspective in four layers

14:40    Domiziana Rossi (ONLINE)

    Soundscapes of Antiquity 

14:55    Katie Green (ONLINE)

    Gathering Place 360 – choreography and archaeology

15:10     Kelly Griffiths

    Scuttled

15:25   Discussion- Andy Sherman

15:40-16:10 Break

16:10     Introduction- Kit Ackland

16:25    Jennifer Morrison

    Mind, Memory and the Material World - how heritage inspires the current and the future

16:40    Maddy Molyneux

    Timescape

16:55    Lizzie Lovejoy

    Fossil flash fiction 

17:10    Discussion

ORGANISER(S): Graham Shackell¹ and Nicolas Zorzin²

AFFILIATION: ¹University of Southampton; ²University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne 

CONTACT: Graham Shackell, gs1n24@soton.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: 

As indicated by performance practitioner Peter Brook (1972 [1968]), performance is movement through space, witnessed. Humans are constantly performing, whether consciously and deliberately, or in the more nuanced forms of the ‘presentation of self’, or gender. Performance reflects and generates the culture and cosmology from which it derives. Performance is of itself ephemeral, past performance in its quintessential sense is lost to us, therefore, archaeological performance is only investigable through its associated performative materiality – the sites, props, costumes, masks, and contemporary visual and textual records. This performative materiality acts as an embodied record, a mnemonic database of the changes occurring within a specific culture’s performance life, and therefore cultural and cosmological life, over time.

Performance archaeology lies at the nexus of three disciplines and practices – archaeology, anthropology and performance (studies). 

Performance archaeology can be described as having three facets:

1. The dissemination of archaeological data and interpretation through performance.
2. The study of past performance through the utilisation of performance theory, ethnography, archaeology data, and the combination of experimental archaeology and performance analysis in the replication and performance testing of past performative materiality
3. The integration of performance and performance anthropology theory into archaeological investigation to facilitate deeper understanding of past cultures in a broader performative sense.

This session will present papers and performances exploring these aspects of performance archaeology. From the dissemination of archaeological data and interpretation via end of excavation performances; to replication and performance analysis of past performative materiality; to the application of performance theory and anthropological performance theory to archaeological interpretation. 

14:10    Introduction

14:20    Eloise Moody

    ‘Breaking Bread - All of It Happened and Some of It’s True: Hospitality as Performance Archaeology at Toumba Serron’

14:40    Elektra Angelopoulou

    ‘A site specific performance for the museum of Mesara’

15:00    Thanos Vovolis

    ‘Ancient Greek Theatre as masked Performance’

15:20    Antje Wilton  

    ‘Performing the Past as Situated Interaction’

15:40-16:10  Break

16:10    Graham Shackell

    ‘The Performative Network of Minds, Bodies, and Things’

16:30    Ashley Thorpe

    ‘Corporeal Archaeology: the Japanese Noh Actor as Archaeological Chronotype’

16:50    Gustaf Broms 

    ‘Body as tool - an expanded language’

17:10    Efthimis Theou

    ‘Performing theatre/archaeology in Greece (2009-2025): trajectory and reflections’

17:30    William H. Walker

    ‘Migration: Tracking the Spiritual Lives of Ceramic Bowls’

ORGANISER(S): Izzy Wisher and Derek Parrott

AFFILIATION: Aarhus University

CONTACT: Izzy Wisher, izzywisher@cas.au.dk

ABSTRACT: 

Art was, and continues to be, an active agent in societies. The first traces of artistic behaviour can be glimpsed in etched patterns produced nearly 100,000 years ago, and flourished into the rich, material culture visible in a wide array of both prehistoric and historic societies. It has the relational power to build new connections between individuals, generate cultural identities, or exert political or religious authority over a population. There have been significant efforts in recent years to shift away from “grand theories” of art – whether typological or narrative in nature – to instead appreciate the dialogical, multisensorial, and distributed engagements of art making and reception. Yet there remains a central challenge. In the fragmentary archaeological evidence of past artistic actions, how can we visualise individual artisans? 

In this session, we intend to bring together a diverse range of perspectives that examine art from a range of spatial and temporal contexts to identify the actions of individual artists in the past. We particularly encourage submissions that have developed new theoretical and high-resolution methodological approaches to address this challenge. Our session will not be limited in period or object type – the organisers themselves specialise in Palaeolithic art (IW) and Viking Age art (DP), but share a common theoretical thread in their conceptions of art. 

Themes could therefore include, but are not limited to:

• Material engagements in artistic practices 
• Art and agency perspectives 
• Craft networks and the role of the artisan
• High-resolution digital modelling 
• Archaeometric approaches to art

14:10    Introduction

14:20    Allen Speight

    Material Entanglement and the Agency of Art

14:40    Barbara Oosterwijk

    Partible Bodies, Storied Walls: Rethinking personhood through embodied cave markings

15:00    Izzy Wisher

    Individual Artists, Communities of Practice, and Cultural Evolution in Early Prehistoric Art?

15:20    Rachel Phillips

    Burial as Artistic Action: A Mycenaean Case Study 

15:40-16:10    Break

16:10    Joana Valdez-Tullett

    Rings of connection – crafting an inter-regional tradition

16:30    Julián Moyano Di Carlo

    Tracing the artistic creativity of rock art carvers in the Nordic Bronze Age through multi-scale exploratory data analysis

16:50    Vasiliki Georgiopoulou

    It’s all in the details, isn’t it?: Identifying artistic intention in the decoration of Knossos’s Throne Room through 3D visibility analysis and a theoretical reassessment

17:10    Derek Parrott

    Mass Production and Typology in the Viking Age – A Dynamic Duo?

17:30    Discussion

ORGANISER(S): Émilie Page-Perron¹ and Anne Baillot² 

AFFILIATION: ¹University of York; ²DARIAH

CONTACT: Émilie Page-Perron, emilie.page-perron@york.ac.uk

ABSTRACT: 

Humanities disciplines generally minimize the environmental impact of their activities by comparing them with natural sciences fields that rely on equipment or heavy computing. By doing so, they discard the systemic character of the environmental impact of scientific activities – the first issue we would like to tackle in this session. To what extent should scientists concern themselves with the environmental footprint of their research activities? Can this lead to epistemological shifts?

Secondly, when it comes to Archeology, the importance of field work (involving carbon-emitting travel) and of the reliance on digital technologies (e.g., for 3D reconstruction or to archive digital surrogates) make it a research area prone to higher emissions than other Humanities disciplines. Which archaeological activities impact the environment, and how could emissions and effect on local biodiversity/water resources be considered in the conception of research settings?

Finally, one way to reduce the environmental footprint of a project is to make it reusable. Sharing resources and infrastructures is key to move towards a more resource-saving way of conducting archeological research. In fact, not everything can be preserved, and the choices in what is made reusable are likely to shape the cultural canon. It requires us to interrogate our own colonial biases, which the technological dimension also emphasizes: while relying on open science tools and FAIR data favors their accessibility and reuse, they suppose a digital literacy that is, in turn, anything but universal. To what extent do digital technologies truly facilitate a sustainable approach to Archeology?

16:10    Maluku Chalo

Towards Climate-Conscious Archaeological Research through Reuse and FAIRness"    

16:30    Mary Macharia Nyambura    

    Assessing the Environmental Footprint of Archaeological Methods in Kenya’s Tana Delta    

16:50    Claire Boardman    

    Archaeological ‘Sliding Doors’: Speculative Re-Engineering for Digital Sustainability    

17:10    Julian D. Richards (Émilie Pagé-Perron or Holly Wright)    

    Environmental Ethics for Digital Preservation: Applying the GREENER Principles to Archaeological Archiving    

17:30    Stelios Lekakis    

    Tracing Change: Climate, Perception, and the Rhythms of Heritage Practice    

17:50    Discussion