Archaeology and Folklore

299 Pages·1999·8.88 MB·English

by  Amy Gazin-Schwartz

ARCHAEOLOGY AND FOLKLORE
THEORETICAL ARCHAEOLOGY GROUP (TAG)
In this series:
The Archaeology of Human Ancestry
Power, Sex and Tradition
edited by James Steele and Stephen Shennan
The Archaeology of Iberia
The Dynamics of Change
edited by Margarita Díaz-Andreu and Simon Keay
Cultural Identity and Archaeology
The Construction of European Communities
edited by Paul Graves-Brown, Siân Jones and Clive Gamble
The Cultural Life of Images
Visual Representation in Archaeology
edited by Brian Leigh Molyneaux
Managing Archaeology
edited by Malcolm A.Cooper, Antony Firth, John Carman
and David Wheatley
Theory in Archaeology
A World Perspective
edited by Peter J.Ucko
Time, Tradition and Society in Greek Archaeology
Bridging the ‘Great Divide’
edited by Nigel Spencer
Creativity in Human Evolution and Prehistory
edited by Steven Mithen
ARCHAEOLOGY AND
FOLKLORE
edited by
Amy Gazin-Schwartz
and Cornelius Holtorf
London and New York
First published 1999
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection
of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 1999 Selection and editorial matter,
Amy Gazin-Schwartz and Cornelius J.Holtorf;
individual chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-98384-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-20144-6 (Print Edition)
A reputed Roman road at Henley in West Sussex has recently been
proved by excavation to be medieval. A lady living in the locality
had occasion to inform her maid of this fact, only to hear—‘Well,
miss, it has been a Roman road as long as ever I’ve known it!’
Cecil Curwen in Antiquity 11 (1937):86
Niels Milan Pedersen, 1990
CONTENTS
List of illustrations xiv
List of contributors xvi
Part I: Archaeology and folklore studies 1
1 ‘As long as ever I’ve known it…’: on folklore and 2
archaeology
Amy Gazin-Schwartz and Cornelius Holtorf
Constructing the past in folklore and archaeology 2
Definitions 4
Historical perspectives 5
Defining new fields: folklore and archaeology in the 6
nineteenth century
Folklore and archaeology in the twentieth century 8
Folklore as a source for the study of (pre-)history: problems of 9
reliability
Folklore as relic 10
Folklore as invention 11
Accuracy and interpretation 12
Folklore as another way of understanding time and ancient 13
monuments
Folklore and the politics of archaeology 15
Collective identity 15
Multiple pasts 16
The folklore of archaeology 17
Conclusion 18
viii
Acknowledgements 18
References 19
2 Folklore and world view 24
Robert Layton
Introduction 24
Time and ‘the other’ 25
Translating folklore 27
Archaeology and folklore 28
References 30
3 Focusing on time: disciplining archaeology in Sweden 33
Mats Burström
Introduction 33
Pre-modern archaeology 34
Disciplining archaeology 35
Focusing on time 37
Disregarding folklore 38
Focusing on meaning 43
References 43
4 Back to the future: resonances of the past in myth and 46
material culture
Miranda J.Green
When pasts collide 48
Medieval myth and the archaeology of pre-Christian paganism 50
Ancestral voices: medieval storytellers and ancient survivals 55
Conclusion: corridors of time 59
Notes 59
References 60
5 Of thunderbirds, water spirits and chiefs’ daughters: 65
contextualising archaeology and Ho-Chunk
(Winnebago) oral traditions
John Staeck
Introduction 65
ix
Oral traditions as a corpus of data 67
Connecting social structure, oral traditions and archaeology 68
Results 70
Matricentred behaviour 70
Hierarchical behaviour 71
A structural caveat? 74
Conclusions 75
Note 76
References 76
6 Feminism, paganism, pluralism 80
Lynn Meskell
Feminist forays 82
Visions of Çatalhöyük 83
References 86
7 Apocalypse past/future: archaeology and folklore, writ 87
large
Kathryn E.L.Denning
The millennium cometh 88
Apocalypse 90
Popular archaeology, revelation and eschaton 91
Apocalypses within social history 93
Archaeology and apocalypse: adapting the formula and 95
changing the ending
Conclusion 99
Notes 99
Acknowledgements 100
References 100
8 Songs remembered in exile? Integrating unsung 103
archives of Highland life
James Symonds
The fairy-egg, and what became of it 104