22 October 2011

The Experience of Technology

Two day conference to be held at Queen Margaret Union, University of Glasgow.

Organised by the Scottish Archaeological Forum. Cost £30 students; £40 non-students. For further details and booking form click here.

The year 2011 is the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of the Scottish Archaeological Forum’s Early Technology in Northern Britain (Kenworthy 1981), the proceedings of the 1979 conference entitled ‘Archaeology and Early Technology in Scotland’. The papers within the volume generally focused on the production and manufacture of material culture within economic frameworks. In keeping with the zeitgeist of the 1970s, technology was considered as a separate object for research divorced from the social dimensions in which things were made and given meaning.

In the intervening period technology has retained a focus for study in archaeology, history, anthropology, philosophy and the social sciences. As we embrace the second decade of the 21st century there appears to be considerable scope for developing further the theme of technology as a sensuous and somatic experience within the social dimension as opposed to an extra-somatic object of study. This conference seeks to explore how technology, as a sensuous embodiment, interfaces with the auditory, haptic and olfactory experiences, which may incorporate aspects of phenomenology, behaviour, practice and agency, identity, materiality, deterritorialisation, landscape studies and other concepts.

Programme:

Day 1 - Saturday 22nd October
8.45 - 9.20 Registration – Tea/Coffee
9.20 – 9.30 Introduction
9.30 – 10.30 Being born here, what else could I do? The strange destiny of a male pottery industry
in Central Niger
Keynote: Professor Olivier Gosselain, L’Université libre de Bruxelles
Session 1: A Question of Taste
Chair: Dr. Nyree Finlay, University of Glasgow
10.30 – 11.00 From Flints to Oysters – a natural progression?
Caroline Wickham-Jones, University of Aberdeen
11.00 - 11.30 Consuming Technologies: a comparison of culinary technologies and sensory
experience in early medieval Ireland and western Britain.
Alison Kyle, University of Glasgow
11.30 – 11.50 Tea/Coffee
11.50 – 12.20 Hot Stuff: Embodied Engagements at Burnt Mound Sites in Shetland.
Lauren Doughton, University of Manchester
12.20 – 12.50 Ceramic Technology and Style During the Early Roman Period: a case study from
Eastern Belgium
Barbara Borgers, Vrije Universiteit Brussel- Free University of Brussels
12.50 – 1.10 Discussion
1.10 – 2.00 Lunch
Session 2: Theorising Technology
Chair: Professor Peter Van Dommelen, University of Glasgow
2.00 – 2.30 Multiple materialities, meaningful relations and lithic iterations
Dr Nyree Finlay, University of Glasgow
2.30 – 3.00 Technology and the Buddha
Dene Wright, University of Glasgow
3.00 – 3.20 Tea/Coffee
3.20 – 3.50 The Relationship between the Design Technology and the Manufacturing Technology
of the Scandinavian Bronze-Age Lurs
Dr Peter Holmes
3.50 – 4.20 Might musical experience have driven ancient technological innovation? Some
striking musical moments in ancient technology, from human origins to the lyres and
harps of medieval Britain and Ireland.
Dr Graeme Lawson, Freie Universitaet Berlin
4.20 – 4.50 Late Bronze Age Horns – Presentation and Performance
Simon O’Dwyer, Ancient Music Ireland
4.50 – 5.10 Discussion
Day 2 - Sunday 23rd October
Session 3: Taskscapes – Experiencing Metalworking
Chair: Professor Audrey Horning, Queen’s University Belfast
9.30 – 10.00 Meanings from metals?: Experiencing bronze and iron in the British Iron Age
Michael Marshall, Museum of London
10.00 – 10.30 The Social Dimensions of Bronze Technology in Ancient China
Professor Mei Jianjun, University of Science and Technology Beijing
10.30 – 11.00 The arrangement of atoms in a confined space: the Forteviot dagger burial
Dr Kenny Brophy and Dr Gordon Noble, Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen
11.00 – 11.20 Tea/Coffee
11.20 – 11.50 Reconstruction of somatic technology aspects by results of manufacturing
techniques researching of belts (IX-XI b.c.).
Irina Saprykina & Olga Zelentsova, Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of
Sciences
11.50 – 12.20 Celtic Craftsmen Revisited: The Context of Craftworking in Early Scottish
Monasteries
Dr. Adrian Maldonado, University of Glasgow
12.20 – 12.40 Discussion
12.40 – 1.30 Lunch
Session 4: Bodily Engagements in the North Atlantic
Chair: Professor Ian Armit, University of Bradford
1.30 – 2.00 From Mighty Tusk to Riding Knight
Dr. Colleen Batey, University of Glasgow
2.00 – 2.30 Life at the Far Edge of the Earth: Identity and material culture in medieval
Norse Greenland
Dr. Elizabeth Pierce, University of Glasgow
2.30 – 2.50 Tea/Coffee
2.50 – 3.20 Dance of the Immaterial Bodies: a comparative study of Western Isles building
performances.
Mark Thacker, University of York
3.20 – 3.50 Engaging with the Visual: Reconstruction as an Interpretive Process in
Archaeological Research
Alice Watterson, Glasgow School of Art and University of Glasgow
3.50 – 4.40 Discussion and Concluding Remarks
Professor Olivier Gosselain, L’Université libre de Bruxelles