Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Body Parts

Personhood and materiality in the earlier Manx Neolithic

  • Chapter
Thinking through the Body

Abstract

What do archaeologists mean by the body? The body is most often discussed as a neutral template through which all people live, and have lived1. This template is an agglomeration of a number of assumptions (social and cultural — which includes biological) as to what the body involves (cf. Yates 1993). Bodies are bounded, integral and solid; they can be ‘written on’ culturally, but remain a biological fundament of being. The body is also treated as distinct from the rest of the material world. Here I will suggest an alternative understanding of bodies in a British prehistoric context.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Barrett, J. (1988) Fields of discourse; reconstituting a social archaeology, Critique ofSocial Anthropology 7(3): 5–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Battaglia, D. (1990) On the Bones of the Serpent: person, memory and mortality in Sabarlsociety Chicago: Chicago University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bender, B. (1993) ‘Stonehenge - Contested landscapes (Medieval to present day)’, in B. Bender (ed.) Landscape: Politics and Perspectives pp.245–80, Oxford: Berg Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bersu, G. (1947) ‘A cemetery of the Ronaldsway Culture at Ballateare, Jurby, Isle of Man’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 13: 161–9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird-David, N. (1993) ‘Tribal metaphorization of human-nature relatedness — a comparative analysis’, in K. Milton, (ed.) Environmentalism: the view from anthropology, pp.112–125, London: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • (1999) Animism Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology, Current Anthropology 40: 67–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bradley, R. (1998) The significance of monuments: On the shaping of human experience inNeolithic and Bronze Age Europ, London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bradley, R.(1997) Rock art and the prehistory of Atlantic Europe: signing the land London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Braidotti, R. (1991) Patterns of Dissonance Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruce, J., Megaw, E., and Megaw, B. (1947) A Neolithic site at Ronaldsway, Isle of Man, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 13: 139–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brtck, J. (1998) In the footsteps of the ancestors: a review of Christopher Tilleys A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments, ArchaeologicalReview from Cambridge 15(1): 23–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Busby, C. (1997) Permeable and partible persons: a comparative analysis of gender and body in South India and Melanesia, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 3(2): 261–278.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity New York and London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J.(1993) Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits ofSex New York and London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J.(1994)Bodies that matter, in C. Burke, N. Schor and M. Whitford (eds.) EngagingWith Irigaray: Feminist Philosophy and Modern European Thought, pp. 142–67 New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J.(1997) The Pyschic Life of Power: theories in subjection Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, G. (1935) The Prehistory of the Isle of Man, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 1: 74–80.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conkey, M. (1991) Contexts of action, contexts for power: material culture and gender in the Magdelenian, in J. Gero and M. Conkey (eds.) Engendering Archaeology, pp.57–92, Oxford: Blackwell..

    Google Scholar 

  • Cregeen, S. (1978) Ballaharra excavations 1971: A summary of work and results, in P. Davey (ed.) Man and Environment in the Isle of Man, pp. 141–51 Oxford: BAR British Series 54(1).

    Google Scholar 

  • Darvill, T. (1997) Billown Neolithic Landscape Project, Isle of Man, 1996 Bournemouth and Douglas: Bournemouth University School of Conservation Sciences and Manx National Heritage, Research Report 3.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deutscher, P. (1997) Yielding Gender: Feminism, Deconstruction and the History ofPhilosophy London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobres, M-A and Robb, J. (2000) (eds.) Agency in Archaeology, London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fleure, H. and Neely, G. (1936) Cashtal-Yn-Ard, Isle of Man, The Antiquities Journal16(4): 373–95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fowler, C. (2000) The individual, the subject and archaeological interpretation, in C.Holtorf and H. Karlsson (eds). Philosophy and archaeological practice:perspectives for the 21st Century, pp. 107–34, Gothenburg: Bricoleur Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fowler, C.(in press (2001) Personhood and social relations in the British Neolithic, in Journal ofMaterial Culture 6(2)

    Google Scholar 

  • Garrad, L. (1987) Rescue excavations 1980–1983, Isle of Man Natural History andAntiquaries Society 9: 157–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gell, A. (1998) Art and agency: an anthropological theory Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grosz, E. (1994) Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hodder, I. (2000) Agency and individuals in long-term processes, in M.-A. Dobres and J. Robb (eds.) Agency in Archaeology, pp. 21–33 London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, M. (1927) [Trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson 1962] Being and Time, Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ingold, T. (1996) Growing plants and raising animals: an anthropological perspective on domestication, in D. Harris (ed.) The Origin and Spred of Agriculture in Eurasia, pp. 12–24, London: University College of London Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Irigaray, L. (1977) [Trans. C. Burke 1985] This Sex Which is not One London: Athlone Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Irigaray, L.(1984) [Trans. C. Burke and G. Gill 1993] An Ethics of Sexual Difference, London: Athlone Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jeffcott, J.M. (1866) The Circle on the Mule, Isle of Man, Archaeologia Cambrensis XII: 306–9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kermode, P.M.C., and W.A. Herdman (1914) Manx antiquities Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kopytoff, I. (1986) The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process, in A. Appadurai (ed.) The Social Life of Things: commodities in cultural perspective, pp. 64–94, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis-Williams, J. and T. Dowson (1990) Through The Veil: San Rock Paintings and the Rock Face, South African Bulletin 45: 5–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962) Phenomenology of Perception London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parker Pearson, M. and Ramilisonina (1998) Stonehenge for the ancestors: the stones pass on the message, Antiquity 72: 308–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Piggott, S. (1954) The Neolithic cultures of the British Isles: a study of the stone-usingagricultural communities of Britain in the second millenium BC Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Piggott, S.(1935) The Mull Hill Circle, Isle of Man, and its Pottery, Journal of Antiquarians 12: 146–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ray, K. (1987) Material Metaphor, Social Interaction and Historical Reconstructions:Exploring Patterns of Associations and Symbolism in the Igbo-Ukwu Corpus, in I.Hodder (ed.) The Archaeology of Contextual Meaning, pp.66–77, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richards, C. (1988) Altered images: A re-examination of Neolithic mortuary practices, in J. Barrett and I. Kinnes (eds.) The archaeology of context in the Neolithic andBronze Age: recent trends, pp. 42–56, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shanks, M. and Tilley, C. (1982) Ideology, symbolic power and ritual communication — a reinterpretation of Neolithic mortuary practices, in I. Hodder (ed) Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, pp. 129–54 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Shanks, M.(1987) Social Theory and Archaeology. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shanks, M.(1992) Reconstructing Archaeology: Theory and Practice (Second Edition), London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sharpies, N. (1985) Individual and community: the changing role of megaliths in the Orcadian Neolithic. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 51: 59–74.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spector, J. (1993) What this Awl Means: Feminist Archaeology at a Wahpeton DakotaVillage St Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spector, J.(1991) What this Awl Means: Towards a Feminist Archaeology, in J. Gero and M. Conkey (eds.) Engendering Archaeology, pp. 388–407, Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strathern, M. (1999) Property, substance and effect: anthropological essays on persons andthings London: Athlone Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strathern, M.(1992) After Nature: English Kinship in the Late Twentieth Century Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strathern, M.(1988) The Gender of the Gift: Problems with women and problems with society inMelanesia, Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, J. (1993) The politics of vision and the archaeologies of landscape, in B. Bender (ed.) Landscape, Politics and Perspectives, pp. 19–48, Oxford: Berg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, J.(1996) Time, Culture and Identity: An Interpretive Archaeology London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, J.(1998) An economy of substances in earlier Neolithic Britain, in J. Robb (ed.) Material symbols: Culture and Economy in Prehistory, pp. 70–89 Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, J.this volume. Archaeologys humanism and the materiality of the body.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilley, C. (1989a.) Archaeology as socio-political action in the present, in V. Pinsky and A. Wylie (eds.) Critical traditions in contemporary archaeology, pp. 106–16, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilley, C.(1989b.) Discourse and power: the genre of the Cambridge inaugural lecture in D. Miller, M. Rowlands, and C. Tilley (eds.) Domination and resistance, pp. 41–62,London: Unwin Hyman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trigger, B. (1989) The History of Archaeological Thought Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tringham, R. (1991) Households With Faces: The Challenge of Gender in Prehistoric Architectural Remains, in J. Gero and M. Conkey (eds.) Engendering Archaeology, pp. 93–131, Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vasseleu, C. (1998) Textures of light: Vision and touching in lrigaray, Levinas and Merleau-Ponty London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Weiner, A. (1992) Inalienable possessions: The paradox of keeping-while-giving Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Yates, T. (1993) Frameworks for an archaeology of the body, in C. Tilley (ed.) Interpretative Archaeology, pp. 31–72, Oxford: Berg.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Chris Fowler
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southampton, Southampton, England

    Yannis Hamilakis

  2. University of Wales, Lampeter, Wales, UK

    Mark Pluciennik

  3. University of Leicester, Leicester, England

    Sarah Tarlow

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Fowler, C. (2002). Body Parts. In: Hamilakis, Y., Pluciennik, M., Tarlow, S. (eds) Thinking through the Body. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0693-5_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0693-5_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-5198-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-0693-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation