DENUNCIAS MUNICIPALES POR INFRACCION DE LAS NORMAS DE TRAFICO

In the last chapter, I suggested that the intermediary period around death was something which involved the funerary rites carried out by living people but that it also involved the biological processes of bodily decay and the geological processes which go on within all caves. Any funerary rite where the body was placed in a cave would have ensured that the body was being acted upon by all these factors. Archaeologists studying funerary rites often treat taphonomic processes, such as bodily decay and cave sedimentation, as things which hinder our understanding. To adopt Michael Schiffer’s (1976, 11-12) terminology, they are the natural formation processes which need to be understood so that we are able to connect the archaeological record with past human activites. For example, Zemour (2008, 258-259) discusses whether Early Neolithic burials of south-western France were

deliberately buried in a flexed position and on their sides. She concludes that possible taphonomic changes in some bodies and the nature of the cave space they are buried in makes it impossible to identify any such cultural choice in the burial rite. Patrick (1985) has described the conventional understanding of archaeological research as following a

metaphor of ‘the record’. Human social action in the past is understood to have created a record. Archaeologists uncover fragmentary remains of this record and must ‘strip away’ the distortions created by everything that has subsequently happened to the objects they discovered. Once they have done this then it is assumed that the past social understandings which created the record can be reconstructed. Patrick (1985) and Barratt (2001) have both criticised this vision of the aim of archaeological research as unrealistic. Barratt (1988, 10- 12) in particular suggested that, rather than being regarded as a record to be transcribed, archaeological material should be regarded as objects which were actively used by past people to create their social structures. When Neolithic people chose to use caves for funerary rites they would have done so with a clear understanding of both how bodies decompose and how cave environments would influence that process. The taphonomy and geology are not accidents which conspire to prevent us understanding Neolithic cave burial properly but instead they would have been active and meaningful contributors to that funerary rite.

Previous studies in cave archaeology have suggested that cave systems can ‘act’ on people in different ways. In the Slovenian Neolithic example discussed in chapter 1, Mlekuž (2011) argued that the bodies of sheep and shepherds were created through repeated use of caves as shelters. The cave walls therefore become an important part of the creation of a bodily identity connected with Neolithic domesticity and pastoralism. In this case, caves were assumed to have the ability to act on living bodies. As discussed in chapter 3, Leach (2008, 39) has suggested that caves, and particular tufa deposition acted on dead bodies. At Cave

Ha 3, North Yorkshire, four individuals were buried within an actively forming tufa deposit while their bodies were still articulated. Leach (2008, 51) argues that the petrifying

properties of tufa springs were actively incorporated into the burial rites at this cave, deliberately invoking the agency of the cave system. This type of research leads to a wider range of questions about the agency of caves and bodies. What exactly do we mean when we talk about a cave having agency? Is agency an appropriate term to use to describe something inanimate like a rock formation? Agency is a useful and flexible descriptive term but it was developed in human social theory. By applying it to caves, artefacts and dead bodies I am pre-supposing that agency can be applied to both inanimate objects and living subjects. There are many different ways of describing agency and, importantly, many different ways of applying the concept. There are excellent general reviews of agency in archaeology by Dobres and Robb (2000), Gardner (2004) and Alberti and Bray (2009). In the first section of this chapter, I will review how some of the wider social theory about agency has been developed and applied in archaeology. In particular, I will focus on what we imply when we suggest that inanimate objects, geological structures and dead bodies have agency. I have discussed this literature in more detail in a recent publication (Peterson 2017) and therefore some of this chapter summarises arguments I have already explored.

However, to address the questions established at the end of chapter 3 it will also be necessary to explore the connections between caves, bodies and material culture through time. This draws on a wider literature about the material and embodied nature of memory and time.

What do we mean by ‘Agency’?

Theory about agency was introduced into archaeology in an influential paper by Barrett (1988). In this paper, he attempted to shift archaeological analysis away from studying patterns in artefacts and to find a methodology for thinking about the way that relationships between people were structured (Barrett 1988, 8-10). To do this Barrett drew to a large degree on the ‘structuration theory’ of Anthony Giddens (1979: 1984). Structuration theory is, in many ways, a classic example of the problem that I want to address in this chapter. It provides a holistic model of social institutions as they are constructed in specific human actions (Giddens 1984, 34). Therefore, it should be helpful to archaeologists trying to understand broader social issues from detailed evidence about particular human actions (Barratt 1988, 8). However, the sociological data used by Giddens to develop his argument is very different to the embodied material evidence we encounter in archaeology. Giddens (1979, 2-3) presented structuration as a way of creating a theory of action in the social sciences. He suggested that there were two different models within the human sciences in the late 70s which had such a small area of overlap that it was difficult to image how they could have impact on one another. Philosophy had developed models about individual

human intentions and actions and sociology was concerned with large-scale social structures and impersonal social forces. Structuration theory was Giddens attempt to bridge the gap between these two kinds of analysis (Giddens 1979, 51-53).

Individual human agency, as described by Giddens (1979, 56: 1984, 5), moves through three stages. First, there is the motivation for the action, then there is the rationalisation of the action and finally the reflexive monitoring of the action. However, these stages take place within a surrounding structure made up of the existing conditions within which the action takes place and its unintended consequences. This surrounding structure motives the action, provides the context for its rationalisation and the comparative standard which allows it to be reflexively monitored. This model provides a theoretical methodology for working out a recursive relationship between individuals’ thoughts and actions and the social structures around them. However, to provide the link which Giddens sought between philosophy of action and sociology, structuration theory needs to address four important themes. These are: human action; social structure; time and power.

For Giddens (1984, 4), the fundamental thing about human beings is that they are

‘knowledgeable actors’. They have practical and discursive knowledge that they use to carry out their everyday lives. As discussed above, they understand the conditions and

consequences of their actions within wider social structures and they know how to use and influence them to achieve their own ends. This understanding allows Giddens (1984, 25) to analyse social structures as institutions made up of the actions of knowledgeable actors. Giddens’ key concept for the analysis of social structures is the idea of the ‘duality of

structure’ (Giddens 1979, 69). This states that social structures are both the medium within which actions take place and are created from the outcomes of these actions. Time and memory are also important components of analysis in structuration theory. Actions take place over time, they are influenced by the memory of past actions and they will have consequences for future actions. Giddens (1984, 35-36) makes an important distinction between empirically measured clock time and time as it is experienced by humans. Day to day individual experience is regarded as reversible but an individual’s life has a clear directionality arising from memory and bodily changes. Institutions, with their periodic cycles of operation, have their own form of reversible time. Therefore, the duality of structure operates within time. The repetitive nature of reversible institutional time is an important part of the way that existing structures provide the context for actions to take place. On the other hand, the directionality of individual lifespans and memory enables the outcomes of actions to create structure. The final component of Giddens’ analysis is about power. According to Giddens (1984, 15-16), power is present in all kinds of action: it is not something that can be restricted to particular kinds of behaviour such as domination or

resistance. Social rules and conventions are not neutral; they will always favour some person or group’s ends. However, as they are created from the actions of people they will

therefore be open to being reworked and renegotiated during this process (Giddens 1979, 88-91). Once again, the duality of structure shows how power can constrain and enable people in different ways and to different degrees.

I would argue that the central contribution of structuration theory to an archaeological analysis of agency is the way that the duality of structure uses memory and the experience of time to connect human action, bodily experience and social institutions (Giddens 1984, 25-26). However, archaeological writers have also perceived a number of areas where Giddens’ work requires elaboration to fit with archaeological concerns and evidence. Barratt (1988, 27) was critical of a lack of engagement with the material world. Similarly, Gardner (2004, 7) suggested that problems of subordination and domination needed a more in depth analysis. Both these writers adopted elements of the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1977) on the daily practice of everyday life into their analysis to address these concerns. The relevant parts of Bourdieu’s (1977: 1990) work are concerned with developing a theory of practice for the study of society. For archaeologists his most influential idea has been the concept of ‘habitus’, the analysis of daily routines of everyday life. Habitus is ‘knowing how to go on’: the unconscious knowledge of what constitutes appropriate behaviour used by people to get through their day to day life. As such, it is generally not consciously articulated and is very variable between different cultures (Bourdieu 1977, 72). Like Giddens, Bourdieu moved away from a top-down view of society by studying the routines of daily life. To adopt his terminology, habitus becomes not only the ‘structuring structure’ but also the

‘structured structure’ of society (Bourdieu 1984, 170). Social structures and institutions constrain the actions of habitus. However, they are also created from and reinforced by the actions of habitus. Giddens and Bourdieu both use the action of memory to overcome the apparent circularity of this argument. Bourdieu (1977, 87) discusses the concrete example of the way in which the memory of learning within the family underpins the way learning is experienced in school, which in turn creates new memories which underpin the way learning is experienced in later life. Bourdieu (1985, 14) has also discussed the need for theory about society to develop more from engagement with specific data from particular situations, rather than from abstract theory.

For archaeologists, one positive result of Bourdieu’s focus on theory as practice is that it provides a description of agency which is closely linked to material objects. In his detailed examples, the structures which are developed in and from habitus are concrete physical things. Relationships between people are mediated through objects and architecture.

Therefore, for example, one of the ways in which he analysed the differences in social norms between different classes in France was to look at the unspoken practices around social dining (Bourdieu 1984, 193-200). To do this he examined the contrasting expectations of each class for how people would speak and behave, what they would wear, the kind of food that would be prepared and how it would be presented. In essence, the ‘habitus’ of social class was presented as something that was articulated through bodies, food and material culture. Figure 4.1 shows the results for one part of that analysis, examining choices about which kinds of tableware were thought appropriate for each broad social class.

Figure 4.1: the material culture of class as expressed in choices of tableware for social dining in France. Based on data in Bourdieu (1984, table 19)

Returning to my original question, and thinking once again about how caves, bodies and objects act, Bourdieu’s theories of practice represent an important further step. I would argue that Giddens is right to stress the importance of the experience of time in the way the agency and structure interconnect but he couches his description of action and motivation in terms which only make sense when applied to human action. Bourdieu’s description of ‘habitus’ shows that it is expressed through bodies and material culture. This is much more helpful in interpreting the way that living people may have interacted with caves. However, even in this case, agency is primarily something which people have. They may express it through material culture but the material culture itself does not act. The examples in chapter 3 show that caves and bodies were active in a different kind of way; they are not merely expressions of the agency of living people. Fortunately, there are other approaches to agency which address the agency of non-human actors more directly.

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

silverware crystal glasses china glassware earthernware

% o f re sp o n d an ts