Moving, Making, Meaning: Manuports in the Archaeology of the Bronze Age Aegean

CANCELLED: Aegean Archaeology Group, Monday 21 November

Dear all, Dr Ellen Finn has to postpone her talk, that was scheduled for today, for personal reasons. Her talk, Moving, Making, Meaning: Manuports in the Archaeology of the Bronze Age Aegean, will now take place next term. We apologise for the short notice.

With all best wishes, Polina & Andriana

Defined as ‘an artefact or natural object that is transported, but not necessarily modified, and deposited by humans’, manuports offer us an opportunity to reconsider the power of manufacture in archaeological interpretations of the material record. Manuports are ‘made’ through human action, yet not through the processes of manufacture or physical modification we usually associate with production. Rather, they are changed through their conscious movement from one place to another, a process which in turn enacts a conceptual transition between (our) ontological categories of ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’. 

Through reference to newly-studied pebbles excavated from sites across Bronze Age Crete, this talk will illustrate that in many cases, manuports’ lack of manufacture has contributed to their exclusion from both definitions of ‘artefact’ and archaeological excavation and interpretation. This marginalisation is compounded by the practical and interpretative complexities in recognising their unmodified forms within the material record, frequently overlooked in favour of crafted items which might conform more comfortably with traditional understandings of ‘material culture’. 

In recognising this particular archaeological hierarchisation, this talk will explore the very many ways in which ‘artefacts’ are brought into being without physical modification or manufacture, highlighting the diversity in human perspectives and prompting a reconsideration of the implications of archaeological terminology, practice and interpretation.