Changing Assemblages: Vibrant Matter in Burial Assemblages

2017/01/11 by Rachel J. Crellin · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

paper · doi:10.1017/s0959774316000664

openalex publication_date 2017/01/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

In this paper the notion of assemblage, as derived from the work of Gilles Deleuze, is explored in order to consider change in prehistory. An assemblage-based approach that draws on the concept of ‘vibrant matter’ is implemented as the means of understanding change. In this approach all materials are viewed as vibrant and in flux. These ideas are used to create a heterogeneous view of change where assemblages, or parts of assemblages, may change at varying speeds and rhythms and at many different scales. These ideas are explored through the case study of changing burial practices between 3000 and 1500 cal bc on the Isle of Man. I suggest that this kind of thinking allows us to study change differently, and explore the advantages of this approach for archaeology.

Cited by

• Households in Transition: Persistence and Change of Dwellings in the City of Old Dongola (Sudan, 14th–17th Century)
• Kerbing Relations through Time: Reuse, Connectivity and Folded Time in the Viking Age

Related

• Becoming Dead: Burial Assemblages as Vitalist Devices
• Contemporary Archaeologies and Cultural Heritage in the Anthropocenic Age
• Bogs, bones and bodies: the deposition of human remains in northern European mires (9000 BC–AD 1900)
• Lecture anthropologique des assemblages céramiques
• Covering the Dead in Later Prehistoric Britain: Elusive Objects and Powerful Technologies of Funerary Performance