House and Home. The everyday life of historic objects in Domestic Space
Duncan Brown and Christopher Gerrard
Few excavated archaeological contexts reveal objects in situ, in the very place they were in use inside the home. It is rare to be able to say that a particular collection of historic artefacts was assembled in a certain suite of rooms unless some catastrophic event has engulfed the inhabitants or the site has been abandoned suddenly. This problem is particularly acute for the later periods when the activities which took place on the upper floors of buildings can rarely be commented upon by excavators. In most cases, particularly for urban sites, the best that can be hoped for is a convincing spatial association between a particular tenement with a documented history of occupancy and an excavated assemblage, though even here the excavator must reluctantly admit that many artefacts, even the broken ones, have been removed and re-cycled.
Archaeologists of the historic periods are fortunate in being able to look elsewhere for their clues and paintings and documents provide some useful pointers. Written sources such as probate inventories, for example, provide unrivalled detail for the use of household artefacts in the domestic environment, particularly for the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and North America. Theoretical stances too have an important bearing on the way a particular study might unfold. While traditional studies often include long and valuable catalogues of artefacts they tend to treat artefacts classes as isolated bodies of evidence quite removed from their social and cultural context. Processual approaches, on the other hand, while they brought a heightened awareness of quantification and methodologies, rarely considered household artefacts in their setting.
Much of the most profitable work in this field has been inspired by later post-processual theories, in particular structuralism, neo-Marxism and phenomenology and it is hoped that this symposium will draw upon this recent work. Particular attention will be paid to the interpretation of artefacts common on archaeological sites, such as pottery. Key questions to be addressed include: the relationship between status, ethnicity, gender and artefacts; the role of exotic and imported goods; the changing meaning of goods between their site of production, purchase and consumption; practices of home decoration; the positioning of items within houses; the extent to which consumption is intended to shape self-image rather than create an impression for others and; the interpretative challenges of the documentary, pictorial and archaeological record.
papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Behrens Foiling the 19th Century: Making sense of Johannesburg’s historical archaeology
Bickford What did people use in their houses in early Colonial Sydney? The archaeological evidence from the First Government House site and some convict huts.
Brown Pottery Illuminated
Gerrard House and Home. An introduction to the everyday life of historic objects in domestic space
Gutierrez Imported Mediterranean ceramics in English households
Swanepoel Building identity: gabled architecture and the rise of the Cape gentry, in context.