Ceramic Technologies and Technologies of Remembrance - an Iroquoian Case Study

Summary

The patterned deposition of certain objects, often in association with materials or structures that are seen to have symbolic associations, is an act of memorialization seen in many Neolithic and broadly shamanic societies throughout the world. This paper uses petrographic and contextual data to explore how objects manufactured with certain material qualities may have served as symbolic referents to memories related to Ontario Iroquoian ritual and social practices, both at the object level, and in the built environment of the Iroquoian longhouse. Through these associations, Iroquoian encounters with "bundled" material qualities precipitated remembrance. The participatory experience of creating (and by extension, re-encountering) structured deposits containing such objects resulted in the creation, modification, or destruction of other social relationships. For its occupants, the spaces inside an Iroquoian longhouse were filled with unseen subterranean deposits, containing materials and memories that reflected and reified Iroquoian cosmologies, and influenced quotidian social practices.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Unraveling Social Dynamics through Archaeological Science

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16493