Dwelling: Heidegger, Archaeology, Mortality

184 Pages·2017·1.61 MB·English

by  Philip Tonner

Dwelling
Dwelling: Heidegger, Archaeology, Mortality negotiates the discourses of
phenomenology, archaeology and palaeoanthropology in order to extend
the ‘dwelling perspective’, an approach in the social sciences particularly
associated with Tim Ingold and a number of other thinkers, including Chris
Tilley, Julian Thomas, Chris Gosden and Clive Gamble, that developed out
of an engagement with the thought of Martin Heidegger.
This unique book deals with Heidegger’s philosophy as it has been explored
in archaeology and anthropology, seeking to expand its cross-disciplinary
engagement into accounts of early humans and death awareness. Tonner reads
Heidegger’s thought of dwelling in connection to recent developments in
the archaeology of mortuary practice amongst our ancestors. Agreeing with
Heidegger that an awareness of death marks out a distinctive way of ‘being-
in-the-world’, Tonner rejects any relict anthropocentrism in Heidegger’s
thought and seeks to break down simple divisions between humans and
pre-humans.
This book is ideal for readers wishing to cross disciplinary boundaries and
to challenge anthropocentric thinking in accounts of human evolution. It
would be ideal for professional researchers in the fields covered by the book
as well as for graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
Philip Tonner is Head of Philosophy and Religion at Hutchesons’ Grammar
School in Glasgow. His work explores the relationships between philosophy,
archaeology, museology and education. He is the author of Heidegger, Meta-
physics and the Univocity of Being (Continuum 2010) and Phenomenology
Between Aesthetics and Idealism (Noesis Press 2015).
Routledge Studies in Archaeology
For more information on this series, please visit www.routledge.com/Routledge-
Studies-in-Archaeology/book-series/RSTARCH

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Heidegger, Archaeology, Mortality
Philip Tonner
Dwelling
Heidegger, Archaeology, Mortality
Philip Tonner
First published 2018
by Routledge
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© 2018 Philip Tonner
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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ISBN: 978-1-138-70542-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-10591-8 (ebk)
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Contents
List of figures vii
List of tables ix
Acknowledgements xi
1 Introduction 1
2 Heidegger and the dwelling perspective 21
‘New archaeology’ 23
Some recent archaeologies 25
Heidegger and three phenomenological archaeologists:
Tilley, Gosden and Thomas 26
Phenomenology, archaeology and Gamble’s Palaeolithic
Societies of Europe 41
3 Origins 55
Dwelling 56
Interpretive archaeology 62
Minds 65
Mortuary activity in evolutionary perspective 70
4 Dwelling and mortality 89
Heidegger, phenomenology and ‘primitive Dasein’ 104
5 Modernity, dwelling and phenomenological archaeology 117
The Sima de los Huesos as heterotopia 120
Phenomenological archaeology 125
vi Contents
Anatomically modern humans, evolution and the dwelling
perspective 141
Dwelling 149
6 Conclusion 161
Index 167
Figures
3.1 The Makapansgat pebble and the Berekhat Ram figurine 80
5.1 A possible construction of heterotopic ‘burial’ space 121
5.2 Heideggerian relations of reference in a contemporary
Dasein’s world 128
5.3 Heidegger’s notion of the ‘For-the-sake-of-which’ 131
5.4 Heidegger and Gamble: combining Heidegger’s and
Gamble’s analyses 135
5.5 First stage of a phenomenological amplification of the
function of an item of material culture 137
5.6 The combination of descriptions 139
5.7 Phenomenological categories in archaeology 140
5.8 The phenomenological method as deployed in archaeology 142
5.9 For-the-sake-of relation applied to a stone lamp recovered
at La Mouthe 142
5.10 A phenomenological approach to the relationships between
action and production in the Palaeolithic 148
5.11 A possible phenomenological interpretation of the Sima
de los Huesos 152

Tables
3.1 The five apparent phases of human evolution 66
3.2 Table of human cultural evolution 70
3.3 Remains bearing cut marks from Lower to Middle
Palaeolithic sites 71
3.4 Pettitt’s phases of mortuary activity 72
3.5 Pettitt’s heuristic concepts for mortuary activity 73
3.6 Klein’s 10-point checklist of fully modern human behavioural
traits represented in the global archaeological record
beginning 50–40,000 years ago 75
3.7 The Orders of Intentionality 77
3.8 Subsistence activities, ranging behaviour, (hypothetical)
use of space and technologies amongst hominins 81
4.1 The Sima de los Huesos (Pit of the Bones): some key
points 99
5.1 How to spot an anatomically modern human (AMH) 143
5.2 Traits noted as indicators of Behavioural Modernity 143
5.3 Cognitive and cultural capabilities of fully modern
humans and their archaeological traces in Africa 146