I just finished reading David Swartz’s superb article, “Bridging the Study of Culture and Religion: Pierre Bourdieu’s Political Economy of Symbolic Power” (open access), and must recommend it not only to cultural theorists but to archaeologists as well. Several aspects of Bourdieu’s thought lend themselves readily to novel interpretations of what otherwise might appear to [...]
Tags:archaeological theory·behavorial modernity·Bridging the Study of Culture and Religion·cultural theory·David Swartz·embodiment·Foucault·Marx·materialist history·Nietzsche·paleolithic hominids·Pierre Bourdieu·political economy·ritual objects·sociology of religion·spiritualist history·symbolic power·symbolism·Weber
Archaeologists working in Europe have it good, really good. Depending on one’s interests, you can research just about anything. Paleoanthropologists can work on hominid evolution (i.e., Homo heidelbergensis, H. antecessor, H. neanderthalensis), while their colleagues can study a host of fascinating subjects, including the Upper Paleolithic transition, mesolithic hunter-gatherers, incipient agriculturalists, and the usual smattering [...]
Tags:afterlife·axes·barrows·celts·complex hunter-gatherers·cosmology·European archaeology·flints·folk beliefs·grave goods·hominid evolution·Homo antecessor·Homo heidelbergensis·Homo neanderthalensis·Iron Age·Kate Ravilious·Kwakiutl·magic·megaliths·mesolithic·mortuary practices·mythology·myths·Neanderthals·oldest house in Britain·pagans·ritual objects·ritualism·Romans·Sean Coughlan·sedentism·shamanist·shamans·soul·spirit·Stone Age·superstition·talismans·thunderstones·Upper Paleolithic·Vikings
In a previous post, Religious Wars and Nationalism, I discussed two factors that play a major role in group cohesion. The first factor, which played a dominant role for the majority of human evolution, was extended and fictive kinship. This is what primarily held groups together during the Paleolithic. After the Neolithic Revolution, another factor [...]
Tags:Benedict Anderson·Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Revisiting Civil Religion·Carolyn Marvin·Civil Religion·David Ingle·Durkheim·group cohesion·group identity·group level selection·guardians of faith·high priests·hymnals·Imagined Communities·kinship·liturgy·nationalism·Neolithic Revolution·Paleolithic·patriotism·patriots·religion·religiosity·religious violence·ritual leaders·ritual objects·Robert Bellah·sacred places·sacred texts·saints·temples·totemism·totems
What we today call “religion” obviously has a history that pre-dates societies that had writing and which left us with religious texts. The archaeological record consists of material objects that may clearly indicate (or merely suggest) that those who created the objects did so under the influence of supernatural beliefs or in the course of [...]
