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Animal transformations and social concepts
It is important to recognise that animals, as well as being biological entities, are also social human concepts. My current research involves using a biographical approach to investigate how transformations of animals are linked to changing social concepts (i.e. the change from a living animal to food or raw materials). This is also linked to the concept of animals as material culture and has developed out of my PhD research into ABGs and the use of meta-level explantions of ritual.
It starts with the proposition that at present the majority
of ABGs are viewed in a single time frame, i.e. their final resting place prior to archaeological recovery. However, in interpreting the meaning of ABGs, archaeologists discuss activities which occur in a multitude of time frames. For example, Hill (1995) suggests that ABGs may represent animals which have been sacrificed, feasted upon and then possibly deposited as offerings. These are three separate events, which would have resulted in changes to the animal (recovered as an ABG) and all the events would have had different meanings and actions associated with them. In effect the ABG is the end result of an animal’s ‘life history’.
Using a biographical approach can help us investiage the animal's life history. Normally, archaeology looks at material cultural in what Gell (1998, 11) would describe as supra-biographical manner, looking beyond the ‘life cycle’ at longer chronological trends. Zooarchaeologists have for a long time been building supra-biographies of animals, investigating herd patterns by looking at species proportions, age and sex patterns. However, the biological data upon which zooarchaeology is built can offer an advantage when constructing biographies. Humans do not physically create animals, but they can, over a long period, alter their skeletal morphology through domestication and selective breeding, and this can be observed by the zooarchaeologists. In effect the biological nature of animals, compared to other forms of material culture, offers us a baseline, upon which we can view the humanly created transformations which result in differing forms of faunal deposits.
Gell, A. 1998. Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
Hill, J. D. 1995. Ritual and Rubbish in the Iron Age of Wessex. Oxford, BAR British Series 242.
Relevant Presentations
Animal biographies. In, Grounding social archaeozoology: bringing methodology to bear on social questions. International Council of Archaeozoology (ICAZ) conference, 2010, Pierre et MarieCurieUniversity, Paris.
Animal biographies.Association for Environmental Archaeology seminar series. University of Leicester, March 2010.
Investigating moments of transition; animal biographies. The biographical approach where do we go from here? Session 2, session. EAA (European Association of Archaeologists) meeting, 15th-20th, September, 2009, Riva del Garda, Italy.
Transitional identities; Animal biographies. Body as Object:Object as Body. TAG (Theoretical Archaeology Group), 2008, Southampton University.
Animal biographies and the zooarchaeologists use of theory. Theorising in Animal Bone Research Session. Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG). 2007, York University
Relevant Publications
Morris, J. 2010. Associated bone groups, beyond the Iron Age. In. J, Morris. and M, Maltby. (eds.). Integrating Social and Environmental Archaeologies; Reconsidering Deposition. Oxford. British Archaeological Reports International Series 2077. 12-23
Morris, J. (in press, 2010). Associated Bone Groups in southern England and Yorkshire, c.4000BC to c.AD1550. Oxford. British Archaeology Reports.
Morris, J. (in press, 2010). The problem with ritual. In J, Morris and C, Randall (eds.). Ritual in Context: Explaining Ritual Complexity in Archaeology. Oxford. Oxbow.
Morris, J. (in press, 2011) Animal 'ritual' killing; from remains to meanings. In. A, Pluskowski. (ed.). Animal Ritual Killing: European Perspectives. Oxford. Oxbow.
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