Call for papers

Call for papers

Adornments make the human body more beautiful, more impressive or more desirable. In combination with all the other elements that make up Metal Age dress (clothes, embellishments, tattoos, etc.), ornaments and what they symbolize make it possible to identify at first glance the status or function of the wearer, his or her alliance with an ethnic or social group, gender and age. Body ornaments are polyvalent and polysemous that carry a potentially huge amount of information as well as the relevant tools for perceiving protohistoric mobility and identity, both individual and collective.

Following on from the APRAB 2022 study day "Disembodied adornments", this 2023 international workshop aims to focus on exchange during the Bronze Age, by reincarnating body ornaments throughout Protohistory: how were they worn, exchanged and abandoned? By whom and why? Do they reveal societal structures and functions? What do they tell us about networks and symbolism in the Metal Ages? The workshop "Reincarnated adornments" is deliberately diachronic, from the first metalworking societies to the end of the Iron Age, and is without geographical limits, in order to bring together researchers who rarely have the opportunity to meet. We would like to encourage ethnographic perspectives to demonstrate the potential of ornaments to provide information on contemporary societies, but also to question our interpretative models.

To this end, a detailed study of ornaments (materials, forms, decorations), of the intentions and actions that are fossilized through them (traces of use) and around them (methods of burial or abandonment, features and elements associated with them) is essential. From the interdisciplinary focus on these valued goods, we wish to apprehend identities and mobility and an important role will be given to the detailed analysis of archaeological contexts, notably funerary but also domestic and hoards. Similarly, innovative approaches (archaeometry, paleogenetic, isotopes, etc.) question these aspects through case studies of burials, sites or on a regional scale. We will favour papers that take a global approach to dress, considering its archaeological and chrono-cultural context from which we hope to learn more about identities, movements and networks. We propose to structure these cross-views on dress in three axes.

Axis 1: From personal panoplies to dress, from individual to collective identities

"That a woman puts a flower in her hair remains a fact of pure and simple adornment, as long as the use (bridal crown) or the place (flower on the ear in for a gypsy costume) has not been regulated by the social group itself: only then does the fact of adornment become a fact of costume" (R. Barthes, Histoire et sociologie du vêtement. Quelques observations méthodologiques, Civilisations, 12-3, 1957, p. 434).

Studied in their archaeological context, the items worn by an individual make it possible to discuss individual identities (gender, age group, ethnic, social, economic, religious or political group, family status, etc.) and even in some cases their life story. Disconnected from their context, is it nevertheless possible to make these objects talk? The question of gender will be central here, and we would like to discuss giving a gender to ornaments or panoplies. Personal panoplies in hoards will also be discussed.

The personal objects worn by an individual make it possible to understand dress that projects the codified signs understood by a social group at a given time as well as collective identities on the scale of a site, a micro-region or a vast geographical area. All aspects relating to dress in the broadest sense will be considered here: ornaments and other objects directly linked to the body, clothing and embellishments, tattoos and other interventions on the body, etc.

Ornaments discovered in funerary contexts, biological, aDNA, paleopathological and isotopic data, when available and analysed with archaeological data provide important information. We can perceive the identity of the deceased and part of their biography from burial or on a larger scale from necropolises or on a regional level, which allows us to question funerary recruitment, systems of filiation and the rules that govern the social makeup of dress and protohistoric socio-economic structures. Innovative, interdisciplinary approaches, bringing together archaeological and biological parameters will be a priority.

Axis 2: Adornments, social practices and socio-economic mechanisms

"Objects that are exhibited, given or redistributed to create a new social relationship (marriage, entry into a secret society, political alliance between tribes), to erase a break in social relations (offerings to the ancestors, compensation for murders or offences), to create or symbolize a superior social position (potlatch, luxury objects accumulated and redistributed by important men or chiefs or kings), the precious objects of primitive societies [. ...] functioned as means of social exchange, of multiple and complex symbolic value, but of compartmentalized use and circulation, with limits determined by the very structure of social relations of production and power." (Godelier, "Monnaie de sel" et circulation des marchandises chez les Baruyas de Nouvelle-Guinée, Cahiers Vilfredo Pareto, 8, 21, 1970, p. 121-147).

As a reserve of mobile and ostentatious wealth, past cultures as well as present-day societies regularly use ornaments within the context of transactions and social obligations between individuals and groups: dowries, "bride price" or "blood price", matrimonial exchanges, etc. For this reason, ornaments constitute a privileged means of understanding certain socio-economic mechanisms of the Metal Ages. Nevertheless, such practices often remain difficult to identify from archaeological artefacts alone: this is why we will call on social anthropology to shed light and open up our interpretative field in this second axis.

We aim to discuss buried ornaments in non-funerary contexts: are they still personal objects when they are selected for a hoard or are they precisely "disembodied" for burial or immersion, through visible (mutilations, deformations) or invisible actions? Could it be that a more or less substantial part of these ornaments was never intended to be worn? If this is the case what is the real function of these objects? Do indications of use (or non-use) allow us to determine the function of these objects? There is the pre-monetary dimension of certain categories of ornaments in particular such as torcs, chains, etc. that are particularly invested as media of exchange and reserves of value. Considering the archaeological contexts of the ornaments will be essential here.

Axis 3: Mobility of ornaments, individuals and ideas

"In traditional societies, body objects and adornments, including textiles, are the elements of material culture that travel the longest distances" (Vanhaeren & D'Errico, The Emergence of the Adorned Body, Civilisations, 59-2, 2011, p. 65).

Body ornaments are objects whose aesthetic and symbolic vocation is often coupled with a strong investment in their realization, both from the point of view of the materials used (precious, rare, difficult to obtain and/or of distant origin) and the techniques employed. They bear witnesses to supply networks and to the evolution craftwork in time and space.

Analyses of the raw materials used to make the ornaments (amber, metal, glass, coral, carbonates, etc.) will make it possible to discuss the circulation of materials. When placed within the framework of statistical and spatial approaches, technological and morpho-typological studies of the elements making up dress can identify potential areas of discovery. These can sometimes be linked to production (manufacturing waste, moulds, etc.), but more generally, they allow us to detect norms and variables that indicate the circulation of objects (imports/exports) or ideas (imitations, influences, technical transfers). These considerations with available aDNA and isotopic data should allow for discussion on the mobility of individuals (adorned persons, craftspeople) who contribute to spatializing the structuring networks of Protohistory.

In summary, this international workshop about ornaments from the Metal Ages aims to demonstrate the full potential of this particular category of objects in the study of Protohistoric societies, both through regional and/or material overviews, interdisciplinary approaches and specific case studies (recent or unpublished discoveries, original approaches). As for the call for papers of the study day "Disembodied adornments" 2022, we wish to underline the importance of collective works presenting a transversal and interdisciplinary approach.

-----------

Two formats of papers are possible:

- 20-minute papers followed by 10 minutes of discussion, aimed at presenting a synthesis about an ornament category, an aspect or a geographical area;

- “Flash” papers of 10 minutes followed by 5 minutes of discussion, to present a site or a case study.

Proposals should be sent in the form of abstracts of no more than 3000 characters (including spaces), possibly accompanied by a figure, before October 16th 2022 to the following address: parures.aprab@gmail.com. Please specify which axis you have chosen, even if these are subject to change according to the proposals received.