Belief in the Past

Theoretical Approaches to the Archaeology of Religion

David S Whitley, Kelley Hays-Gilpin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781598743425
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315433073
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Archaeology

Human actions are often deeply intertwined with religion and can be understood in a strictly religious context. Yet, many volumes and articles pertaining to discussions of religion in the archaeological past have focused primarily on the sociopolitical implications of such remains. The authors in this volume argue that while these interpretations certainly have a meaningful place in understanding the human past, they provide only part of the picture. Because strictly religious contexts have often been ignored, this has resulted in an incomplete assessment of religious behavior in the past. This volume considers exciting new directions for considering an archaeology of religion, offering examples from theory, tangible archaeological remains, and ethnography.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Chapter 1 Religion Beyond Icon, Burial and Monument: An Introduction
• Chapter 2 Religion and Archaeology: An Analytical, Materialist Account
• Chapter 3 Cross-cultural and Biogenetic Perspectives on the Origins of Shamanism
• Chapter 4 Supernatural Metaphors and Belief in the Past: Defining an Archaeology of Religion
• Chapter 5 Cognition, Emotion, and Belief: First Steps in an Archaeology of Religion
• Chapter 6 Centering Historical-archaeological Discourse: The Prehistory of Central Asian/south Siberian Shamanism
• Chapter 7 Text Versus Image: The Implications of Physical Evidence for Buddhist History
• Chapter 8 Delegitimizing Religion: The Archaeology of Religion as … Archaeology
• Chapter 9 Bodylore and the Archaeology of Embedded Religion: Dramatic License in the Funerals of the Vikings
• Chapter 10 Historical-processual Archaeology and Culture Making: Unpacking the Southern Cult and Mississippian Religion
• Chapter 11 Discontinuity Between Political Power and Religious Status: Mountains, Pools, and Dry Ones Among Venda-speaking Chiefdoms of Southern Africa
• Chapter 12 Shrines of the Land and Places of Power: Religion and the Transition to Farming in Western Europe
• Chapter 13 Northern Landscapes, Northern Mind: On the Trail of an ‘Archaeology of Hunter-gatherer Belief’
• Chapter 14 Archaeology and Women’s Ritual Business
• Chapter 15 Traditional Knowledge, Ritual Behavior, And Contemporary Interpretations of the Archaeological Record—an Ojibwa Perspective
• Index
• About the Contributors