Papers by Dimitrij Mlekuz Vrhovnik
International Journal of Heritage Studies 31(2), 2025
The paper traces the role of a prominent archaeological object, Vače situla in the formation of t... more The paper traces the role of a prominent archaeological object, Vače situla in the formation of the modern Slovenian state. It examines the material properties of the situla and the – often implausible and counterintuitive – ways it entered into heterogeneous networks that emerged and led to the formation of the Republic of Slovenia. Although the situla was mobilised by different groups and initiatives with different goals and ideas, the paper argues that the situla, with its own powers, was able to align these coalitions towards a common goal.
Environmental Histories of the DInaric Karst, 2024
The chapter explores the longue durée perspective of transformations of the Kras landscapes from ... more The chapter explores the longue durée perspective of transformations of the Kras landscapes from prehistory to the present, viewing the Kras landscape as a result and medium of a longstanding and complex interplay between the history, social and economic developments and ecological dynamics. The landscape is treated as a matter of history; the chapter focuses on the series of its transformations and modifications. We introduce new datasets in the discussion of the long-term history of the Kras landscape by confronting two complementary lines of evidence. First, we examine the elements of past landscapes that are still preserved in the modern landscape seen on airborne laser scanning imagery and face it with the data from doline infills, which provide a diachronic view of the development of prehistoric landscapes. The history of landscape transformation from prehistory to the present is not a smooth, unbroken development; instead, it is marked by qualitative remakings and reorderings. Our concern here is with two significant episodes of modification. The second and third millennium BC is the period of large-scale clearance and formation of the cultural landscape of the Kras plateau, structured around the rearing of domestic animals. The subsequent major landscape reorganization occurred since Middle Ages, but especially after 1500 AD. These accumulations can be associated with the historically documented process of formation of the modern Kras cultural landscape, with the time of intensive deforestation, overgrazing and farming, which turned some parts of the Kras into a stone desert.
Svetovi: revija za etnologijo, antropologijo in folkloristiko, 2023
Mleko je izhodišče raziskovanja intenzivnih sonastajanj različnih teles, vrst in stvari; tega, ka... more Mleko je izhodišče raziskovanja intenzivnih sonastajanj različnih teles, vrst in stvari; tega, kar običajno imenujejo udomačitev. Mleko je del skupka, ki povezuje živali, hormone, encime, bakterije, hrano, gene, tehnologije in materialno kulturo. Ta kompleksna sonastajanja producirajo nove, nepričakovane rezultate in učinke ter spreminjajo vse komponente v skupku udomačitve.
It was Sigmund Freud who recognised the significance of the concept of prehistory as a radical ch... more It was Sigmund Freud who recognised the significance of the concept of prehistory as a radical change in framework. No longer is the history entire past; beneath this discursive past lays, buried in the earth, a vast physical memory bearing witness to a different, alien, strange past that had, for the most part, escaped our historical conscience. And all this stuff, the stuff of which prehistory is made, is obscure; it is dark. It is like taking a look at something that can never be fully seized, that can never be brought to the clarity and light of understanding.
Petrification Processes in Matter and Society, 2021
Landscapes are not given but constituted. Things are brought together or assembled to give shape ... more Landscapes are not given but constituted. Things are brought together or assembled to give shape to a landscape with its own coherence and identity. They provide the context for social interactions, a material world where people, animals, and plants were born into; they fix the way people, animals, and plants interact; they reduce the number of possible outcomes of face-to-face interactions. Matter, by definition, is durable. People can delegate some of their skills to durable, material things and extend their presence even when they are not physically present in the social interaction. The nature of social interaction is stabilized by the use of durable, material resources and symbols. Material things-employed in the process of social complication-enable more durable social relations between humans and other things. Together, they amount to a certain custom, habit, or symbolic order which defines the behaviour of components in a landscape. Based on a case study from the prehistory of the Karst, the limestone landscape in western Slovenia, I want to explore how engagement with the landscape 'petrified', stabilized, and structured specfic social relations and created new landscapes of prehistoric Karst.
Academia Letters, 2021
Why were caves, dark, uncomfortable, damp places, so appealing to the people in the past? Somethi... more Why were caves, dark, uncomfortable, damp places, so appealing to the people in the past? Something special, something mysterious and something weird went on in caves. Which discipline should we turn to explain why people do (and did) weird things?
L. Büster, E. Warmenbol and D. Mlekuž (eds), Between Worlds: Understanding Ritual Cave Use in Later Prehistory. New York: Springer., 2019
The landscape is full of force, energy and process. These qualities come especially into being in... more The landscape is full of force, energy and process. These qualities come especially into being in places such as caves. Caves are places where landscape is folded into itself and where innards are exposed. Caves are places in a landscape where people can come into direct contact with alien, inhuman nature, and where the weirdness, power and horror of nature can be felt. Caves are places where non-human meaning bubbles forth in chaotic affective atmospheres that can best be described as spectral and haunting. Caves are places where this excess of non-human meaning must be brought under control. It is dangerous; it comes too close; it can break, dissolve or negate existing concepts, representations and ideas. It can shatter the symbolic order. It requires significant effort to contain. But if we are successful, it is an unlimited source of creativity, vitality and power; it offers all sorts of alien wisdom, insight and imagination. Human interaction with caves can be seen as attempts at domestication of this alien power. This relationship between caves and landscape is explored using a case study from the Škocjan Caves, Slovenia.
Archaeologia aerea, 2017
The high-resolution aerial datasets acquired using aerial and satellite platforms have been expan... more The high-resolution aerial datasets acquired using aerial and satellite platforms have been expanding exponentially both in volume, velocity and variety. This brings complex challenges to aerial archaeology. Massive, variable and complex datasets challenge traditional ways of doing aerial archaeology, this includes historically established practices of managing, processing, analysing and interpreting data. How to manage, process and analyse this huge loads of data? But even more critical, what potential new insights can this massive quantity of data provide? What new quality can emerge from the sheer quantity of data? What new conceptual frameworks do we need to accommodate Big Data? The paper addresses the challenge of Big Data in aerial archaeology data and argues that it opens a way towards new understandings of landscapes, archaeology and history.
Taking milk as a point of departure, we set out on a journey to explore the ‘mutual becomings’ of... more Taking milk as a point of departure, we set out on a journey to explore the ‘mutual becomings’ of different bodies, species, and things. We argue that milk should be understood as a component in an assemblage that connects animals, humans, hormones, enzymes, bacteria, food, genes, technologies and material culture. These complex entanglements produced new, unexpected results and effects. Since they form part of this assemblage, all its components are profoundly changed. Focusing on this diversity of relations between humans, other creatures, things and substances is a key to an archaeology that does not radically separate humans and non humans.
Society & Animals, 2013
One of the most significant contributions of archaeology to the studies of human-animal relations... more One of the most significant contributions of archaeology to the studies of human-animal relations is the concept of the “domestication” of non-human animals. Domestication is often seen as a specific human-animal relation that explains the ways people and animals interact. However, I argue, that “domestication” does not explain anything but has to be explained or “reassembled” by focusing on the many historically specific ways human and animals live together. Thus, the paper tackles the emergence of a “herd”, an assembly of animals, humans and things that appeared in the Neolithic, by following the ways the different agencies—human, animal, material and composite—are involved in the creation of new sociality. Living with animals is always already a material practice. It includes material culture, bodies, gestures, actions, habits, and body skills. It requires new practices and skills of flocking, herding, closing, observing, separating, amassing, and forming a queue; skills to be learned and employed by the participants. However, numerous resistances and translations are encountered and employed along the way, changing everybody in the process. In this way new bodies and persons—human and animal—are created, ultimately leading to the “herd”, a new way of association of animals, people, and things. From this perspective the agency and power is distributed and not confined to one species or group. There is no single locus of power and agency and no hegemony or “domination” but power and resistance that works from everywhere. Living with animals is not a matter of management, control or domination, but it is about making hybrid society work, a matter of politics, for all the parties involved.
The Oxford handbook of Neolithic Europe, 2014
This paper is concerned with the way in which the rhythmic temporality of the seasonal course was... more This paper is concerned with the way in which the rhythmic temporality of the seasonal course was woven into the way European Neolithic people lived, experienced, and transformed their worlds. It focuses on Neolithic gardens as chronotopes, places where the seasonal temporality of the agrarian year is woven into the material fabric of the garden, making it clearly visible and palapable. Chronotope mediates the transfer of meanings and creates temporal relationships between routine seasonal practices of attending the gardens, and the life-courses of people and objects. But this rhythm of seasonal tasks has a breaking point—carnival, which implies a change from stability to new possibilities. It is a time when substances acquire new forms and where carnivalesque forces of laughter and parody provide the potential for renewal, new growth, and change.
By practice of landscape archaeology we are also involved in the making of landscape. Our practic... more By practice of landscape archaeology we are also involved in the making of landscape. Our practices are intertwined with the practices of past people that left traces in the landscape. Thus practice of landscape archaeology is necessary a messy job. We are not dealing with discrete features, but a landscapes, a continuum of the traces. And there is no chronological succession, but a mess of temporaries. Landscapes are not palimpsest, but messy, and we should change our practice and politics in order to deal with the mess. That is the real challenge.
Documenta praehistorica, 2019
The paper tackles the spatio-temporal patterns of Neolithic and Copper Age settlement dynamics in... more The paper tackles the spatio-temporal patterns of Neolithic and Copper Age settlement dynamics in the Western Carpathian Basin and Eastern Alps with spatially-explicit use of radiocarbon dates. It focuses on the spatial process of spread, movement, aggregation and segregation in the time frame between 8500 and 5000 cal BP. The distribution of Neolithic and Copper Age sites in the study area is clustered and patchy. The first Neolithic settlements appear as isolated islands or enclaves which then slowly expand to fill neighbouring regions. After 6300 cal BP the study area experienced a significant reduction in the extent of settlement systems associated with the Late Neolithic
to Copper Age transition.
Caves are not only unique sedimentary environments with good preservation of archaeological mater... more Caves are not only unique sedimentary environments with good preservation of archaeological material, but as archaeological record from caves testify – also special places where distinct activities were performed. What makes caves special? What makes them different from open air locales? How do caves act back on humans? How do humans and caves mutually constitute each other and create a sense of self and belonging in the world? This chapter touches these themes using examples from the archaeological record of the Karst in northeast Italy and western Slovenia. By exploring the ‘affordances’ that caves provide we can focus on the social and contextual role they played in the practical tasks of past people. Caves are not passive backdrops for the activities that people perform, they are not natural places, and they do not satisfy the generic needs of people such as ‘shelter’. We can understand caves as material culture where dwelling occurs. And, by focusing on the process of dwelling that they enable through the affordances they provide, they help us to challenge the dichotomies of the natural and built environment, or of the mundane and the sacred.
Good Practice in Archaeological Diagnostics, 2013
LiDAR—like photography and other visual technologies—not only produces pictures but extends our p... more LiDAR—like photography and other visual technologies—not only produces pictures but extends our power to detect, record, and imagine landscapes. It allows very precise three-dimensional mapping of the surface of the earth, generating as it does high-resolution topographic data even where surface is obscured by forest and vegetation. Interpretation of LiDAR data poses much more than just technical challenges. What makes LiDAR different from other topographic techniques is absence of selectiveness: data are typically gathered across complete landscape blocks recording landscape in an indiscriminate way. This allows us to address complex sites as integral parts of landscapes and as landscapes in themselves. In this way we can analyze complex sites as palimpsests, created through processes and practices that accumulated and inscribed new traces or erased old ones. Study of complex sites is thus part of the study of landscapes, landscape archaeology.
This paper discuses ways in which bodies – human and animal – were produced in the Neolithic of t... more This paper discuses ways in which bodies – human and animal – were produced in the Neolithic of the Karst. Bodies are seen as cumulative processes shaped by forces of encounters with the material world, rather than as biological givens. Thus, the paper focuses on the process of embo- diment mediated with other bodies and landscape, especially important places such as caves. It ex- plores the unique ways in which caves affect bodies, and how these affected bodies created new socie- ties. In the Neolithic Karst, everyday contacts and interactions between humans, animals, the land- scape and caves and rock shelters profoundly changed all the participants. A new hybrid society emerged, consisting of human and non-human bodies.
Making Journeys, 2021
Holloways are paths and tracks that were eroded and hollowed out by the flow of people, animals—p... more Holloways are paths and tracks that were eroded and hollowed out by the flow of people, animals—perhaps carts—and water. They usually run along ridges and avoid marshy valleys. This paper aims to think about landscape as something woven from those movements. Holloways do not represent fragments of primitive transportation networks, but traces of daily life in a landscape. As such, they can lead us into past landscapes. People moved from place to place and, moving along the tracks, they passed barrows, hillforts, limekilns and so forth. They related to these features in the same way they related to...
Documenta Praehistorica, 2003
The paper discusses the evidence for the presence of sheep and goats on east Adriatic coast durin... more The paper discusses the evidence for the presence of sheep and goats on east Adriatic coast during the Mesolithic and Neolithic, and possible routes of transformation from hunter-gathering to pastoral societies.
Arheo, 2016
Preventivna arheologija je konceptualna novost, ki
arheološke raziskave umesti v sam postopek nač... more Preventivna arheologija je konceptualna novost, ki
arheološke raziskave umesti v sam postopek načrtovanja posegov
v prostor. Ključna inovacija preventivne arheologije je faza
predhodnih raziskav, pri katerih se ne ukvarjamo s posameznimi
najdišči, temveč ugotavljamo arheološki potencial prostora. Ideja
arheološkega potenciala tako preusmerja pozornost iz izoliranih
najdišč na celoten prostor. Arheološki potencial lahko razumemo
kot potencialno, še ne-aktualizirano arheološko dediščino, ki se
mora šele aktualizirati skozi raziskave. V prispevku pretresemo
idejo arheološkega potenciala in na primeru raziskav na trasi
prenosnega plinovoda Rogaška Slatina–Trojane analiziramo
proces identifikacije in valoriziranja arheološke dediščine v loku
od predhodnih raziskav za ugotavljanja arheološkega potenciala do
izkopavanja. Analiziramo razmerje med ugotovljenim povišanim
arheološkim potencialom in aktualiziranimi arheološkimi sledovi.
Sklenemo, da je ugotavljanje arheološkega potenciala s pomočjo
ekstenzivnega vzorčenja površinskega zapisa učinkovito. Od 23
območij s povišanim arheološkim potencialom, ki smo jih zaznali
z ekstenzivnimi terenskimi pregledi, so se 4 izkazala za najdišča,
arheološke ostaline pa so bile prisotne tudi na štirih drugih lokacijah.
Le v enem primeru so se sledovi izmuznili metodam ugotavljanja
potenciala in smo jih zaznali šele pri nadzoru ob gradnji. /
Preventive archaeology is a recent concept in
archaeological heritage protection that renders archaeological
research a constituent part of the spatial planning process. The key
innovation is the phase of preliminary archaeological research,
which shifts attention from localised archaeological sites to the
archaeological potential of the area, i.e. from isolated sites to a
wider landscape. Archaeological potential can be understood as
potential archaeological heritage yet to become actualised through
the research process. In the contribution, we examine the concept of
archaeological potential and analyse the process of its actualisation
using the archaeological research on the Rogaška Slatina–Trojane
pipeline project as the case study. We examine the relations between
the areas of high archaeological potential and the actualised
archaeological traces. The examination showed that archaeological
potential assessment using artefact surveys proved very successful,
revealing 23 areas of high archaeological potential. These were
actualised into 4 sites and 4 off-site traces through further research.
Only in one case were archaeological traces not detected during the
archaeological potential assessment phase.
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Papers by Dimitrij Mlekuz Vrhovnik
to Copper Age transition.
arheološke raziskave umesti v sam postopek načrtovanja posegov
v prostor. Ključna inovacija preventivne arheologije je faza
predhodnih raziskav, pri katerih se ne ukvarjamo s posameznimi
najdišči, temveč ugotavljamo arheološki potencial prostora. Ideja
arheološkega potenciala tako preusmerja pozornost iz izoliranih
najdišč na celoten prostor. Arheološki potencial lahko razumemo
kot potencialno, še ne-aktualizirano arheološko dediščino, ki se
mora šele aktualizirati skozi raziskave. V prispevku pretresemo
idejo arheološkega potenciala in na primeru raziskav na trasi
prenosnega plinovoda Rogaška Slatina–Trojane analiziramo
proces identifikacije in valoriziranja arheološke dediščine v loku
od predhodnih raziskav za ugotavljanja arheološkega potenciala do
izkopavanja. Analiziramo razmerje med ugotovljenim povišanim
arheološkim potencialom in aktualiziranimi arheološkimi sledovi.
Sklenemo, da je ugotavljanje arheološkega potenciala s pomočjo
ekstenzivnega vzorčenja površinskega zapisa učinkovito. Od 23
območij s povišanim arheološkim potencialom, ki smo jih zaznali
z ekstenzivnimi terenskimi pregledi, so se 4 izkazala za najdišča,
arheološke ostaline pa so bile prisotne tudi na štirih drugih lokacijah.
Le v enem primeru so se sledovi izmuznili metodam ugotavljanja
potenciala in smo jih zaznali šele pri nadzoru ob gradnji. /
Preventive archaeology is a recent concept in
archaeological heritage protection that renders archaeological
research a constituent part of the spatial planning process. The key
innovation is the phase of preliminary archaeological research,
which shifts attention from localised archaeological sites to the
archaeological potential of the area, i.e. from isolated sites to a
wider landscape. Archaeological potential can be understood as
potential archaeological heritage yet to become actualised through
the research process. In the contribution, we examine the concept of
archaeological potential and analyse the process of its actualisation
using the archaeological research on the Rogaška Slatina–Trojane
pipeline project as the case study. We examine the relations between
the areas of high archaeological potential and the actualised
archaeological traces. The examination showed that archaeological
potential assessment using artefact surveys proved very successful,
revealing 23 areas of high archaeological potential. These were
actualised into 4 sites and 4 off-site traces through further research.
Only in one case were archaeological traces not detected during the
archaeological potential assessment phase.
to Copper Age transition.
arheološke raziskave umesti v sam postopek načrtovanja posegov
v prostor. Ključna inovacija preventivne arheologije je faza
predhodnih raziskav, pri katerih se ne ukvarjamo s posameznimi
najdišči, temveč ugotavljamo arheološki potencial prostora. Ideja
arheološkega potenciala tako preusmerja pozornost iz izoliranih
najdišč na celoten prostor. Arheološki potencial lahko razumemo
kot potencialno, še ne-aktualizirano arheološko dediščino, ki se
mora šele aktualizirati skozi raziskave. V prispevku pretresemo
idejo arheološkega potenciala in na primeru raziskav na trasi
prenosnega plinovoda Rogaška Slatina–Trojane analiziramo
proces identifikacije in valoriziranja arheološke dediščine v loku
od predhodnih raziskav za ugotavljanja arheološkega potenciala do
izkopavanja. Analiziramo razmerje med ugotovljenim povišanim
arheološkim potencialom in aktualiziranimi arheološkimi sledovi.
Sklenemo, da je ugotavljanje arheološkega potenciala s pomočjo
ekstenzivnega vzorčenja površinskega zapisa učinkovito. Od 23
območij s povišanim arheološkim potencialom, ki smo jih zaznali
z ekstenzivnimi terenskimi pregledi, so se 4 izkazala za najdišča,
arheološke ostaline pa so bile prisotne tudi na štirih drugih lokacijah.
Le v enem primeru so se sledovi izmuznili metodam ugotavljanja
potenciala in smo jih zaznali šele pri nadzoru ob gradnji. /
Preventive archaeology is a recent concept in
archaeological heritage protection that renders archaeological
research a constituent part of the spatial planning process. The key
innovation is the phase of preliminary archaeological research,
which shifts attention from localised archaeological sites to the
archaeological potential of the area, i.e. from isolated sites to a
wider landscape. Archaeological potential can be understood as
potential archaeological heritage yet to become actualised through
the research process. In the contribution, we examine the concept of
archaeological potential and analyse the process of its actualisation
using the archaeological research on the Rogaška Slatina–Trojane
pipeline project as the case study. We examine the relations between
the areas of high archaeological potential and the actualised
archaeological traces. The examination showed that archaeological
potential assessment using artefact surveys proved very successful,
revealing 23 areas of high archaeological potential. These were
actualised into 4 sites and 4 off-site traces through further research.
Only in one case were archaeological traces not detected during the
archaeological potential assessment phase.
I will approach past identities using the Lacanian psychoanalysis.
Identities can be framed within two registers. The first is the “imaginary axis”; this is the domain of inter-subjectivity that functions to support and consolidate the images subjects use to substantiate themselves. This is the register of identity politics and it is usually invoked when we approach past identities (individual identity, visible through personal adornment and ornaments). This kind of identity is most fluid and prone to change.
The second register of identity occurs along the “symbolic axis”. This axis provides the subject with a symbolic framework, and it ties them into a variety of roles and social contracts. Importantly, it entails the radical alterity of what Lacan refers to as ‘the big Other’, as an amassed collection of social conventions and laws, an embodiment of authority and truth. It has a kind of supra-agency, of language, of the norms and rules – which speak through subjects and determine their position. This is what we usually refer to as a “culture” and appears to be static and rigid, yet, as Žižek insists, it exists only insofar as we act as if it exists.
What was the relationship between both registers in the past, especially as critics of identity politics insist that particular struggles effectively cover up the universal oppression embodied in the big Other? What is the role of material culture in negotiating to mean, both in intersubjective and trans-subjective (big Other) exchanges?
Leroi-Gourhan puts chaîne opératoire as the nexus of interaction between body, mind, social and material world. The gesture cannot be understood in isolation but rather as part of a chain of operations, a dynamic process that refers to the rules guiding the manufacturing process. These rules should be understood as a syntax, as rules about relationships that define the time-spatial organization of production.
In this way, it is isomorphic with language, which is defined by structural linguistics define as a structure composed of differential elements. Language is understood as “chain of signifiers”, a stream of signifiers combined following the laws of grammar.
The gesture is at once individual and collective, concrete and abstract. Leroi-Gourhan emphasizes the collective knowledge that stands behind individual human action.
This is another similarity it shares with language. Lacan uses the term "discourse" is to emphasize the trans individual nature of language. This is the “big Other” where a system of determining relationships between signifiers is put into place. The big Other is the structure that symbolically institutes the subject’s place in an established order with signifiers that pre-existed him.
Is there a material “big Other”? The individuals are born in a world transformed by a deep history of technological operations. Operational sequences are embodied in the material world, changed by previous gestures. Tools, artefacts, material culture, plays a role of technical big Other. The moment the subject begins to engage with the world enters into a relationship of dependency vis-à-vis this material big Other. This makes a relationship between technical and cognitive a recursive one, and structurally different from the language, with several interesting consequences.
The high-resolution aerial datasets acquired using aerial and satellite platforms has been expanding exponentially both in volume, velocity and variety. This scalar stress is providing new opportunities but also complex challenges to aerial archaeology. Massive, variable and complex datasets challenge traditional ways of doing aerial archaeology, this includes historically established practices of managing, processing, analyzing and interpreting data. How to manage, process and analyze this huge loads of data? But even more critical, what potential new insights can this massive quantities of data provide? What new quality can emerge from the sheer quantity of data? What new conceptual frameworks we need to accommodate massive data? Paper addresses the challenge of scalar stress proved with big data and argues that it opens a way towards new understandings of landscapes/archaeology/history. What is this carpet OGS Crawford was talking about?
Space syntax is helpful in describing and analyzing the configuration at both the building and the urban level. It is thus concerned with various spatial problems such as: how can we measure the configurational properties of spatial systems? What is the role of configuration in movement, co-presence and higher-order social phenomena? What is the nature of the relationship between social organization and spatial configuration?
This paper is an attempt to apply the space syntax concepts for the study of larger spatial scales entire landscapes. Although traditionally developed and used on a building or urban scale, I argue that the same conceptual apparate and tools can be applied on a landscape scale in order to understand the landscape as a spatial configuration and measure its topological properties. I argue that tools developed by space syntax can help us to better understand the cognitive import of physical properties of the landscape like complexity, visibility, legibility, and intelligibility.
The case study is focused on the Iron Gates Mesolithic-Neolithic transition as the specific character of the material culture and is often attributed to the particular geomorphological, ecological and spatial features of the Iron Gates gorge. I explore the role of landscape configuration in the understanding of complex social processes during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the region, discussing the visual connectivity, legibility of the landscape and the role of spatial configuration in aggregation patterns and movement during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition.
The subject, constructed in a process of creating the meaning of the world, through representations, is constantly faced by abjection. Abject refers to the the raw vitality of material, to the powers of the earth, the meaningless chaotic nature, sublime non-human powers, the meaningless otherness which haunts caves and threatens the symbolic order and culture. Performances and representations emerge as ways of approaching the experience of ultimate alterity, erosion of certainty. Notions of sacred, numinous are ways of approaching the uncanny, sublime or abject. The subject is born out of a traumatic event of an encounter with the haunted, that makes it yearn for a return to someplace before entering into the symbolic order. Human subjectivity is something that emerges as the effect of the symbolic order, constituting a break from the immediate encounter with the ultimate other.
In the end, can archaeology contribute to the questions of subjectivity? How can be located within the current landscape dominated by neuroscience on one hand and psychoanalysis on the other?
settlement dynamics in the Western Carpathian Basin and Eastern Alps
using spatial explicit use of radiocarbon dates. It focuses on the
spatial process of spread, movement, aggregation and segregation in
the time frame between 8500 and 5000 cal BP.
The settlement dynamics proxies that revealed these changes are based
on the temporal frequencies of radiocarbon-dated archaeological sites,
which are represented as summed probability densities (SPDs). The
underlying assumption is that the number and distribution of radiocarbon
dates in time and space indicate the existence of settlement systems
and reflects demography, as more people, more settlements results in
more activity and more radiocarbon dates. This is an explorative
study. Its goal and focus is to identify large spatio-temporal
patterns and changes in the process of Neolithic settlement in the
area around E Alps and not to test mono-causal explanations for
dynamic processes of cultural change. In this way, it is an open-ended
study without definite explanations.
My point of departure is Strum and Latour’s difference between complex and complicated societies. Complexity in this context mean that society is performed only through bodies, using social skills and social strategies. Society is performed ex nihilo at every social encounter, every face-to-face interaction. The society can disappear if not performed. Nothing fixes and stabilizes it. Stable society emerge only when additional, material, resources are mobilized. Material resources can be used to reinforce a particular form of society. They permit the shift of social life away from complexity to what Strum and Latour call “complication”, i.e. social life made out of succession of simple operations. Individuals continue to perform society, but on much more durable and less complex scale.
I want to explore how the landscape is used to simplify task of ascertaining and negotiating the nature of social order. Nature of social interaction is stabilized by the use of durable material resources. Based on a case study from prehistory of Karst, carstic stony landscape in in western Slovenia, I want to explore how the use of landscape features, use of stone, manipulation of landscape texture and building of landscape structures has “petrified”, stabilised and structured specific social relations. I will explore the relations between landscape and social order, focus on questions of inertia and long term stability, but also change, resistance and creative improvisation in such landscapes.
You have submitted the following paper:
Paper title Archaeological carpentry. Doing theory with your hands
Author Dr. Mlekuž, Dimitrij, University of Ljubljana, Institute for the protection of Cultural heritage of , Ljubljana, Slovenia (Presenting author)
Topic Theoretical and methodological perspectives in archaeology
Keywords TH3-13
theory
carpentry
art
Presentation Preference Oral
Abstract text
In the introduction to his book “Alien Phenomenology” (2012) Ian Bogost suggests that philosophers ought not just write philosophy, at least not without practicing, doing, or making. He urges engagement in carpentry: constructing artifacts that do philosophy. This is more than artistic practice, carpentry is a perspective on creative work that asks philosophical questions. Or put in another way, carpentry is what you call it when things (including art) are used or made for philosophical use. I want do explore the use of carpnetry as a new forms of creative practice in archaeology, playful practice, that can help us to develop and archaeologival concepts.
I want to explore the use of “philosophical carpentry” using an example from my own work on archaeology of milk (Mlekuz 2015). I explore the notion of milk as an assembage or ecology, using crafted objects. Exploring the relational nature of milk assemblage, I focus on the idea that nothing exists in and of itself, things exists only in assemblages. Things exist and take the form that they do by participating in an emergent web of materially heterogeneous relations. Use of miniatures (of bacteria, enzymes, cows, strainers, lactose, guts, calfs, genes, fat, cheese …), all made on the same scale, instead of using words or cencepts, allows playful exploration of connections between objects through their material and sensous qualities. Open-ended practice associating and realting objects creates surprising new assemblages, ecologies and associations and opens ways to new, creative understandings of milk assemblage.
People, things, animals and places are mutually constituted. When comes to leaving traces, people are not privileged. Animals leave traces too. Thus, in our paper we would like to present reflections on archaeology of animals from the perspective of aerial archaeology and human-animal studies. Remote sensing allows us to study the issues of how wild as well as domestic animals leave their traces behind, how they change and inhabit landscape, as well as, how they interact with humans in it.
Archaeological and remote sensing approach to the landscape enables us to understand places that we dwell not as assemblages of sites, but as assemblages of traces produced by people, animals, machines and their various mixes and hybrids. We should be open to any entities that may participate in a world we dwell. Only when multiplicity of things is included, landscapes become pluralistic, relevant and democratic. This point of view not only reconstitutes our approach towards landscape and its perception but it also provokes new questions towards heritage management.
Textures are most immediate and close physical contact with the landscape. Ploughing, grazing, clearance – create distinctive textures of surface, some of them deliberately created for the properties of the texture itself. Textures incorporate time; they are result of a slow but constant change of the very texture of surface. Mundane practices which might have a minimum impact on the surface can in a long term combine to form a distinctive textures. Aerial photographs and high resolution topographic data is full of textures. We tend to ignore them and focus solely on "features", traces. What can we do with textures? How can they be harnessed for deciphering the biography of surfaces and the way people interacted with the land in close physical contact?"
In the paper we combine remote sensing data and a series of GIS analyses to explore how the relations between movement, visibility, proximity and connectedness of places, meaning and memory intertwine and create a “sense of place” in landscape around the Iron Age Poštela hillfort near Maribor in North-eastern Slovenia. The landscape around Poštela was used to express first of all the idea of group identity, but also of competing, fluid identities within the community, playing an active role in identity politics.
"Land@ as we see it on lidar offers the potential not to study only the landscape, but also practices and bodies. High resolution lidar data thus enables understandings of living in the thick landscapes that are not only ours but shared with other agencies: animal, tool, machine, and land agencies.
The present-day landscape is not just a series of fragments of different periods, each surviving to varying degrees, according to their age. The landscape is not just a palimpsest of scrapes, features, but a palimpsest of multiple temporalities.
There are no discrete features but a continuum of them, there is no chronological succesion but a mess of temporalies.
underground are part of single landscape. Where underground (caves, shafts...) played an important role in the development of surface. Landscape where natural an anthropogenic processes worked hand in hand. Caves were often treated as being separate from the outside landscape, recorded in isolation form landscape which they are part of. However, this complex heritage requires integrative methodologies, that would integrate cave record with the landscape.
Most common traces of prehistoric field divisions are cairnfields, scattered heaps of stones, result of surface clearance. Cairinfields are sometimes associated with unenclosed elements, such as low stone walls and short flights of lynchets (cultivation terraces). In some cases irregular accreted field systems can be identified, defined largely by low, curving earthworks, that delineate small irregular conjoined field plots. Frequently, traces of field division are related to other features; they cluster around open settlements or hillforts, incorporate trackways and are associated with linear boundary earthworks.
Traces of prehistoric field divisions are truncated by medieval ridge and furrow fields or overlaid by low stone walls that demarcate modern field division.
Study of land divisions opens new questions related to castellieri landscapes such as land tenure, interactions between land use, kinship and community as well as day-to-day agricultural practice. Creation of material traces through daily practices of agriculture and clearance reinforced bounded places, imposed ideas of social order and, materialised social relations in the texture of the land.
and features that constitute it, all protection is useless. Centre for Preventive Archaeology at the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia (CPA ZVKDS) uses a range of methods for the detection and study of archaeological traces. Preventive archaeology, as part of the public service, integrates archaeological research in the process of development planning. Preliminary archaeological research recognises and evaluates archaeological traces before spatial interventions and thus integrates archaeology into spatial planning. Using remote sensing techniques (including laser scaning ), we discover and precisely document a mass of traces of human activities in the past. A large quantity of traces brings a new quality to our understanding of these traces. If the number of traces is sufficiently large, we begin to understand the landscape as a whole, no longer as the sum of a relatively few, well-delimited sites in empty space. The landscape thus becomes a whole in which uninterrupted traces of human activity in the past appear.
Škocjan park is one of the most interesting and complex landscapes in Slovenia. Here, traces of past human activities from different periods are preserved. It turns out that nowhere is the landscape empty; everywhere it is full of traces of practices and activities that have been materialised in the landscape. These scars and traces range from “ordinary” archaeological sites such as castles, settlements, mounds, etc. to traces of human activities such as clearance cairns, field boundaries, lime kilns,, ridge and furrow, and so on. For the most part these traces are not ordinary archaeological sites. Often they are part of the modern, “living” landscape and are still in use today.
Our work is to make forgotten, lost, concealed and erased traces in the landscape active again; forgotten traces once again become part of the living landscape. In this way they can intertwine with the interests, work and life of the people and other creatures in the landscape. Only in landscapes of this kind can everyone find his or her place, interest, identity, work, opportunities for development. In the long term, the most sustainable and productive method of protecting landscapes is education and familiarising people with their complexity and time depth. This is our contribution to the at the centenary of the organised cultural heritage protection in Slovenia.
Embodiment depends on how the body is used. Our bodies are mutable because living in a body means being affected, moved, put into motion and shaped by its total surroundings. The disclosive nature of being in the world is available only through bodies and bodily competencies. Think how the skill of ski-ing completely changes our landscape by transforming an impassable, hostile wasteland into a locus of fun and enjoyment.
We are interested in archaeological case studies which examine how skilled bodies emerge with the landscape by engaging the practices and technologies of bodily becomings. Relevant case studies could include:
(1) The practices and material culture of swimming, sailing, diving, and fishing, which shape our interactions with land- and sea-scapes.
(2) relationships between hot springs, swimming, pleasure and the body (e.g., settlements related to hot / mineral springs).
(3) Embodiment in a specific landscape, where bodies in upland landscapes must learn the skills of negotiating steep terrain in order to follow animals, hunt or search for minerals.
(4) The example of how the stonemason’s craft co-constructs their body in the course of building a great Mediaeval cathedral.
In this multi-period, multi-regional and multi-disciplinary session, we encourage profound new reflections creating a deeper understanding of embodiment and lived bodies.
That is the space for psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis can be approached as a framework and practice that confronts individuals with the most radical dimensions of human existence. Psychoanalysis does not reveal some deeply buried traumatic truths, instead is a way to explain how dimensions of truth emerge in human reality and how something as "reality" constitutes itself in the first place,
Human integration into a culture requires negotiating a certain distance towards what Jacques Lacan calls the "big Other", a (nonexistent) locus of symbol rules and prohibitions. For Jacques Lacan, the Other is the organising principle of the symbolic order (culture, language, the law), and for subjects who have been castrated by the symbolic, there is no way to really escape the reach of the Other.
We are never at home in culture as such. Sigmund Freud's notion of the "uneasiness in culture" explores this notion. There is nothing normal in culture. What appears as normal involves a whole series of pathological cuts and distortions. Culture, as such, has to be interpreted.
This session aims to bring together the cultural criticism, psychoanalytic and especially Lacanian approaches to studying past cultures. We are interested in how Lacanian/Žižekian/cultural studies approaches can identify and address the "surplus" of being human that escapes archaeology.
Topics connecting the various papers are properties of materials, preferences and choices of actors, the temporality of matter, being and becoming, the relationality between actors, matter, things and space (landscape, urban space, built space), and perceptions of the following generations dealing with the petrified matter, practices, and social relations. Contributors to this volume study specifically whether particular processes of petrification are confined to the material world or can be seen as mirroring, following, triggering, or contradicting changes in social life and general world views. Each of the authors explores – for a period or a specific feature – practices and changes that led to increased conformity and regularity. Some authors additionally focus on the methods and scrutinize them and their applications for their potential to create objects of investigation: things, people, periods, in order to raise awareness for these or to shape or “invent” categories. This volume is of interest to archaeologists, geologists, architectural historians, conservationists, and historians.
Rivista annuale / A Yearly Journal
Direttore / Editor-in-Chief Angela Bellia (National Research Council, Italy)
Comitato scientifico / Editorial board:
Erica Angliker, University of London; Eleonor Betts, The Open University; Sheramy D. Bundrick, University of South Florida St Petersburg; Licia Buttà (University of Tarragona); Margarita Díaz-Andreu, University of Barcelona; Ingrid Furniss, La Fayette College, Pennsylvania; Agnès Garcia-Ventura, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Laura Gianvittorio-Ungar, Austrian Archaeological Institute of Wien; Michael Given, University of Glasgow; Audrey Gouy, University of Copenhagen; Ewa Anna Gruszczynska-Ziólkowska, University of Warsaw; Raquel Jiménez Pasalodos, University of Barcelona-University of Valladolid; Cristina Manzetti, Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas, Institute for Mediterranean Studies; Clemente Marconi, New York University - University of Milan; Tommaso Mattioli, University of Barcelona; Manolis Mikrakis, National Technical University of Athens; Steve Mills, University of Cardiff; Dimitrij Mlekuz, University of Ljubljana; Riitta Rainio, University of Helsinki; Arnaud Saura-Ziegelmeyer, University of Toulouse II Jean Jaurès; Karin Schapbach, University of Fribourg; Lamberto Tronchin, University of Bologna; Fábio Vergara Cerqueira, University of Pelotas; Alexandre Vincent, University of Poitiers.
Redazione/Associate Editors
Arnaud Saura-Ziegelmeyer (University of Toulouse II Jean Jaurès)
Daniel Sánchez Muñoz (University of Granada)
«Telestes» is an International Peer-Reviewed Journal
https://libraweb.voxmail.it/user/ws1nagy/show/jkeix4?_t=a44c59e9&fbclid=IwAR3ROScD8xY5bqPXBJaoNTdVoYFsueyPYDdAQgRb942ThCkDvVZKPj9Ul34
«TELESTES» seeks to fill the gap between existing treatments of the sub-discipline of ‘archaeomusicology’, or ‘music archaeology’ – rooted quite self-consciously in the methods of ancient music and dance scholars – and the possibilities offered by the rather different perspectives that have recently emerged within archaeology, art history, archaeology of performance, and sensory studies. Although over the last decade various scholarly disciplines have devoted increasing attention to ancient music and dance, they have done so by focusing on textual sources. However, in reconstructing features of ancient music and dance performances, the evidence offered by material culture within its archaeological context, although overlooked in previous studies, should play a critical role.
Considering music and dance performances in the ancient world, this new international journal will explore material evidence for music and dance, and highlight the contribution of this evidence to a deeper understanding of the cultural and social meanings and functions of music and dance within activities of ritual and everyday life, reconstructing the many different ways and contexts in which they were experienced.
Thus, through an archaeological approach to performance that places musical and dance activities within an actual or symbolic space, the study of material evidence of music and dance interests constitutes a valuable investigation that can shed light on the ritual meaning and social function of sonic events, as well as on the role of musicians and dancers in antiquity.
«TELESTES» also aims to explore how the study of instruments and sound objects has involved a wide variety of disciplines within and beyond the boundaries of anthropology and archaeology, including sound and acoustics studies, archaeomusicology (such as, among others, ethnoarchaeomusicology), history of religion, classics, history, digital humanities, and digital heritage.
The range of different contexts that will be presented in this new journal will allow us to improve our knowledge with regard not only to the nature of the evidence and the different forms of documentation and sources related to instruments and sound objects, but also how sound contributed to giving a contextualised sense of ritual and social place. Investigating the role of music and dance as more than a mere accompaniment or a means of entertainment, this journal will be particularly revealing in terms of how musical and dance performances are intertwined and inseparable from ritual aspects, each serving as a structure and framework for the other and providing set forms of action that are related to the religious and social beliefs of a given culture.
Furthermore, the journal publishes papers on the study of sound and hearing along with related sensorial aspects in archaeological contexts and on past soundscapes and sonic fabrics (anthrophony, biophony, and geophony): this includes subject areas that range from the behaviour of sound in a sonic space and aural architecture to auditory experience and physical acoustics, as well as auditory archaeology and the importance of sound as a medium of social interaction in the past.
The journal welcomes research on the broadly defined Mediterranean region and from other areas of the world, such as Northern Europe, Central and South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Rim. Contributions pertaining to different periods are welcome. Cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches would be particularly appreciated. The preferred language for the contributions is English, but other languages (including German, French, Italian and Spanish) are acceptable. Special issues focused on a specific research area are also envisaged.
As a guarantee of the high scientific value of the journal, the rigorous application of these methodologies will be surveyed by an International Scientific Committee whose scholars have welcomed the initiative with approval and enthusiasm, as a guarantee of the high scientific value of the journal, and will edited in Italy by Fabrizio Serra editore, a well-established international publishing house of authoritative tradition.
Last but not least, this new international publication also aims to encourage young scholars to submit their work, thus offering a valuable opportunity to disseminate their research findings in the hope that they will respond with enthusiasm to this new editorial project.
CONTENTS
FERNANDO A. COIMBRA, The Contribution of Rock Art for Understanding the Origins of Music and Dancing
ANGELIKI LIVERI, Soundscape of Public Festivals in Athens (Panathenaia and City Dionysia)
FÁBIO VERGARA CERQUEIRA, The ‘Apulian Cithara’ on the Vase-Paintings of the 4th c. BC: Morphological and Musical Analysis
ANGELA BELLIA, Sounds of Childhood in the Ancient World
CLAUDINA ROMERO MAYORGA, Music in Mystery Cults: Towards a Comprehensive Catalogue
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VALIÈRE, BÉNÉDICTE BERTHOLON, VASCO ZARA, DAVID FIALA, Experimenting with the Acoustic Pots Chamber of Noyon Cathedral (late 16th c.?): An Archaeoacoustic and Musicological Investigation
JOSÉ NICOLÁS BALBI, ISABELLA LEONE, GUSTAVO MANUEL CORRADO, Sound of the Stones: A Preliminary Survey in an Inka Temple of the Argentine Andes
The studies have a broad span in their interpretative approaches; however, they all bring important new results on the Early Iron Age landscapes of the Danube region and present a fundament for further research of archaeological landscapes in the region and beyond.
The Iron-Age-Danube project — its full title is “Monumental Landscapes of the Early Iron Age in the Danube Basin” — was initiated in 2017 by 20 partners and associated partners from five countries in the Danube region. The project was co-financed within the framework of the Interreg Danube Transnational Programme with EFRE funds in the amount of € 2,169,200. One of the major focuses of the project was the exploration of the rich archaeological heritage of the Early Iron Age (i.e. Hallstatt Period) in the Danube region using modern archaeological methods. For that purpose, a new format, the Archaeological Camps, was introduced to the region. This format for the first time combined various types of activities and comprised, in addition to research campaigns, a wide variety of heritage protection activities as well as actions to promote the inclusion of Iron-Age landscapes into the touristic offers of these regions. The camps were organized in four countries at selected locations within the nine preselected micro-regions and lasted one or two months. In this period, the institutions involved had the opportunity to combine their technologies, methodologies and expertise as well as to exchange their experiences and views. These chosen sites and their surrounding landscapes are embedded in a variety of environments of the Danube region, which in fact had a strong impact on the populations settling in these areas in the Early Iron Age, as well as on the archaeological research approaches. Combining their knowledge and specific skills, the experts have in this intensive cooperation established new strategies, which are tailored to each of the micro-regions. One of the results of this cooperation is also the monograph Researching Archaeological Landscapes across Borders (Budapest: Archaeolingua, 2019), which should help other researchers and heritage experts with planning their projects on archaeological landscapes.
V novem zvezku Monografij Centra za preventivno arheologijo predstavljamo minimalne standarde izvedbe raziskovalnih metod, ki so na področje preventivne arheologije pri nas vključene v vskodnevni procesa dela.
In the new volume of the Monographs of the Centre for Preventive Archaeology, we present the minimum standards for the implementation of the research methods, which have been incorporated into daily work process on the field of preventive archaeology in our Institute.
New research strategies have emerged to help broaden our understanding of the First World War. Multidisciplinary approaches have been applied to material culture and conflict landscapes, from archive sources analysis and aerial photography to remote sensing, GIS and field research. Working within the context of a material and archival understanding of war, this book combines papers from different study fields that present interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches towards researching the First World War and its legacies, with particular concentration on the central and eastern European theatres of war.
Caves represent a very particular type of archaeological site and thus require specific approaches to their recording, interpretation and presentation. This is especially true when studying the ritual use of caves, during which the more intangible and experiential aspects of these environments are likely to have been fundamental to the practices taking place within them. Theoretical frameworks must include consideration of the agency of these ‘natural’ places, for example, and the interplay between environment, taphonomy and human activity. Meanwhile, the development and increasing use of innovative technologies, such as 3D laser-scanning and acoustic modelling, is providing new and exciting ways of capturing the experiential qualities of these enigmatic sites and allowing not only for more nuanced understandings of the role of caves in prehistoric ritual, but also for more effective communication of cave archaeology to academic and public audiences alike.
This edited volume draws together papers presented at the 20th annual conference of the European Association of Archaeologists, and additional contributions from outside of Europe, showcasing the application of cutting-edge theoretical frameworks, methodologies and audio-visual techniques in a variety of cave environments from around the globe. The title aims to reflect caves as liminal places- places that were literally ‘between worlds’; the world of the living and the dead, of above and below, of dark and light. It also serves to recognise caves as specific kinds of archaeological site which require the combination of a broad range of theoretical and recording methods.
The volume is organised into two complementary parts. The first concerns the theoretical considerations that must be borne in mind when working in dynamic subterranean environments; concepts such as agency and liminality, and the particular taphonomic phenomena which play an active role in the human use of these spaces. The second part of the volume showcases new digital methods of recording, interpreting and presenting cave archaeology. Digital capture and presentation technologies are on the rise in all aspects of archaeology, but are particularly effective and have some of the greatest potential in cave archaeology. Though traditionally seen as part of the spectrum of more scientific methods of analysis, the qualitative aspects of digital capture technologies are in fact unlocking the more experiential aspects of cave use, particularly in relation to ritual activity.
bimillenary of the foundation of Emona (Colonia Iulia Emona), the Roman-period predecessor of the
modern Ljubljana. The territory of Emona has witnessed numerous archaeological investigations over the last two
decades, both in the urban areas, the suburbs and the adjacent cemeteries.
in najzapletenejša stvar, kar smo jih zgradili ljudje. Mesta ljudi
zgostijo in postavljajo v nove situacije; nas prisilijo, da iznajdemo
nove načine sobivanja, da postanemo politična bitja. Mesta
omogočajo nove užitke intenzivnega družbenega življenja.