Lithics and personhood in the lateglacial of north west Europe

Abstract

This thesis examines aspects of human personhood as expressed through lithic artefacts in north west Europe during the Lateglacial. The research sites are Hengistbury Head in Britain, Rekem in Belgium and a cluster of sites in the Neuwied Basin, in Central Rhineland. The case studies cover the period of the Lateglacial Interstadial complex, about 15,500 -13,000 cal years BP.

The work aims at exploring the social practice of creating hunter-gatherer personhood in given social, temporal, spatial and material contexts. The discussion centres on the social and embodied nature of lithic technology as a means of negotiating the human person. In doing so, this study situates the discourse of the reciprocal and mutually constructing relationship between humans and objects at the core level of the individual.

Placed within social archaeological theory, the research adopts an outlook of social practice as an active manner of involvement. Relational entanglements between humans and things can accumulate or enchain the physical and metaphorical resources of the world, consequently leading to stasis or transformation. Therefore this thesis demonstrates that continuity and change in the archaeological record are associated with expressions of self ontologies. Further, the work suggests that, in order to comprehend this material variability, it would be helpful to consider the Lateglacial as a dynamic process of hybrid engagements instead of a fixed chronological and cultural unit.

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