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Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm,
Follow the Material
Mat t Edgewort h
a
a
Depart ment of Archaeol ogy and Ancient Hist ory, Universit y of
Leicest er, Leicest er, UK
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Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm,
Follow the Material
MATT EDGEWORTH
Archaeologists do not have to look to external theory to kick-start the
interpretation of material remains. Greater confidence can be placed in the
meanings which emerge from our most basic encounters with archaeological
evidence, which impart a direction and trajectory to research fromthe very outset
realigning applied ideas and giving impetus to new intellectual currents. Such
emergent meanings already have intrinsic movement and vibrancy, deriving from
a strong grounding in an unfolding material world opened up through excavation
and direct contact with things. This paper explores the ways in which
archaeologists follow the rhythms and flows of cuts, artefacts and other material
entities.
Keywords: Theory, excavation, material, flow, embodiment, artefact
INTRODUCTION
So much of theory originates outside archaeo-
logy and is applied onto archaeological evi-
dence. From Latour to Lacan, from Lyotard
to Lvi-Strauss (and that is just the thinkers
beginning with L, who happen to be French),
theory is imported wholesale into the disci-
pline. In this essay I argue for a counterbalan-
cing movement. Not that we should ignore
developments in other subject areas rather
that any movement of ideas coming in should
be intermingled with ideas moving in the other
direction. Archaeology has such a strong evi-
dential base, and is grounded in such rich
engagements and encounters with the material
world, that it can feel ontologically secure. It
can have greater confidence in its own ability
to generate meanings of broader relevance,
sending these spinning out into the world as
well as pulling outside ideas in.
I must create a system or be enslaved by
another mans, wrote William Blake (in his
poem, Jerusalem, 1804), I will not reason
and compare: my business is to create. Those
who write archaeology do not have to take
such a radical stance as Blake did.
Archaeology is a better place for all the con-
nections it has forged with other disciplines,
and benefits greatly from those outside influ-
ences. The discipline is a nexus of the huma-
nities, social science and natural science, and as
such it is well placed to play a crucial role in
debate about some of the most important
issues facing human beings today. But Blake
points to the danger of too much reliance on
other systems of thought, leading to a form of
mental slavery. It has become customary for
almost every theoretical paper in archaeology
to take as its starting point a philosophical
position originating from outside the
DISCUSSION
Norwegian Archaeological Review, Vol. 45, No. 1, 2012
Matt Edgeworth, Department of Archaeology andAncient History, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK. E-mail: me87@le.ac.uk
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00293652.2012.669995 Norwegian Archaeological Review (2012)
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discipline, and then to see how archaeological
material is configured within such a conceptual
framework. Some theoretical texts apply a ser-
ies of external perspectives one after another,
each leading to a particular type of archaeol-
ogy (structuralist, post-structuralist, etc.). Yet
most theories applied thus to archaeological
data are profoundly non-archaeological,
thought by thinkers who however great
have never chopped the surface of the earth
with a spade, scraped away its covering of
subsoil, outlined archaeological features with
the tip of a trowel, jumped into a feature while
digging it out, followed down a cut in the
pouring rain or been astounded by the often
unexpected evidence that turns up as a result of
these material interventions. For all his cogni-
tive grasp of underlying structure manifested in
art and anthropology, Claude Lvi-Strauss
never quite had ancient material things in his
grasp in quite the same way as archaeologists
do. For all his adroitness at thinking and talk-
ing in terms of networks and material assem-
blages, Bruno Latour will never be quite as
embroiled in such entanglements as archaeolo-
gists are when engaged in the practical task of
excavating an archaeological site. When it
comes to level of engagement with and sheer
embeddedness in the material world, archaeol-
ogy has the edge over any other social science
discipline, no matter how theoretically
sophisticated.
To argue for placing greater emphasis on
essentially archaeological ways of seeing and
doing, less on the methods and perspectives of
some of the worlds great philosophers, may
sound a bit arrogant, and perhaps even hypo-
critical (for has not this paper itself already
gone for the insight of William Blake who,
whatever else he may have been, was never
an archaeologist). Yet what prompts the argu-
ment of this paper is not a belief in any parti-
cular intellectual brilliance or mental prowess
on the part of archaeologists, bright and crea-
tive thinkers though many are. It is rather a
belief in the meaning-generating character of
the archaeological encounter itself, and the
power of emerging evidence to re-shape our
actions and thoughts.
This is because an archaeological site is a
space where artefacts and structures from
other times and places break out into the
open, suddenly or gradually taking form for
the first time in our cultural universe. Ideas
and models can influence what is perceived, to
be sure, but there is also something that pushes
through from beyond the boundaries of our
social milieu, which our models of reality are
forced to assimilate. Theories are applied to
shape the evidence that emerges, but there is
the corresponding emergence of matter that
resists and re-shapes, and which, by virtue
of being partly unanticipated, can challenge
applied ideas to the very core. An encounter
takes place with material, and from that
encounter a form of knowledge is produced
that is more than merely a re-combination of
existing ideas. As the outcome of practical
work as well as theoretical reflection, such
knowledge has a material as well as a cognitive
component. People are shaped by the sites and
artefacts they encounter as well as the other
way round see Tom Yarrows important
paper in a previous issue of this journal on
artefactual persons (2003).
The archaeological site, like the scientific
laboratory, is a key site for production and
transformation of knowledge in the contem-
porary world. It is a formal if messy setting
(usually outside in the rain, wind and sun)
where the present confronts the material traces
of the past, which force themselves through
into the present moment. Every encounter
with material evidence at the so-called trowels
edge (Hodder 1997) is in this sense a potential
starting point, birth or moment of origin. In
the midst of the reproduction of existing
ideas, or the sculpting and shaping of evi-
dence to fit into established ways of thinking,
there is a hard materiality that refuses to be
accommodated by cognitive moulds pre-
pared for it, and which has the capacity to
surprise, resist, contradict and re-shape
knowledge (Edgeworth 2011a). At the same
time there is a flowof materials that can move
Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm, Follow the Material 77
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round the fixed categories and established
frameworks of thought like water swirling
round a rock. Beneath the moving blade of
the trowel, entities emerge which have a kind
of directionality to them, which orientate the
body, which point us in this way or that, and
which to a certain extent must be followed.
FOLLOW THE CUT
It is important at this stage to make clear what
is meant by follow. Following, at least in this
paper, is not envisaged as a passive act nor
does it imply a passive follower. It should
perhaps be thought of more as a kind of active
searching like the tracking of an animal along
the trail or spoor it left behind. Take the art
of following the cut a phrase often used
on British excavations to describe a key skill
entailed in digging features like pits, postholes
and ditches. It is difficult to explain to anyone
not used to doing it what following the cut
means, because it is such an embodied skill.
The operation can only be performed while
the archaeologist is actually in touch with
evidence and engaged in working upon it,
through the use of trowels and other tools.
As with any skilled work, there is an applica-
tion of methods and techniques but there is
also a constant adaptation to the unfolding
and changing reality of the cut itself, as it
weaves this way and that, sometimes doing
what is expected of it but at other times wildly
at variance with expectations and predictions.
To say that the cut is followed is not to
return to a naive empirical view of archaeolo-
gical evidence. It does not in any way imply
that the cut is a theoretically neutral entity
merely uncovered and revealed by the archae-
ologist. On the contrary, there is a sense in
which the archaeologist (a theoretical as well
as a practical being) is actively materializing
the cut (Lucas 2001a). Having read and
absorbed ideas from a wide variety of sources,
the archaeologist cannot help but be partly
conditioned by ideas conceived outside archae-
ology. While some applied models are expli-
citly formulated, others may be in the form
of tacit knowledge, dispositions and rationales
(Bourdieu 1977). Such preconceived ideas are
undoubtedly embedded in interpretation of
material remains and give rise to expectations
as to what will be found next shaping ongoing
digging strategies. But that is not the whole
story. If it were, archaeological work would
consist merely of the reproduction of existing
knowledge. Fortunately, cuts and other kinds
of archaeological entity do not always do as
they are supposed to. They have a certain wild-
ness about them that can surprise, contradict,
challenge and confound preconceived ideas,
transforming knowledge.
The cut as it emerges from the ground is a
product of human agency (as well as other non-
human agencies such as erosion and accumula-
tionof sediments, chemical processes inthe soil,
etc.) in both the past and the present. It is some-
thing created long ago and it is the ongoing
product of archaeological work (Lucas 2001b,
p. 102), andthese twostrands are soinextricably
entangled it is virtually impossible to separate
themout. We cannot denyour ownrole inshap-
ing cuts, but that is not to say that cuts do not
alsoshape us. The fact that cuts can be followed
is important because it means we knowwhat to
doevenif there does not happentobe a relevant
theory lying around. We do not have to start
withanexplicit theory. The unfoldingcut, inthe
context of our work upon it, configures our
experience in such a way that we are obliged to
follow it and see where it goes, and in what
direction it takes us.
To fully grasp the significance of this, we
need to move away from a view of cuts as
static entities, with all their characteristics
known and recorded. That is how most cuts
are described on context sheets and depicted
on plans and sections. The implication is that
they have merely been uncovered or brought
to light by the archaeologist, without them-
selves playing any active part in the proceed-
ings. At least for the duration of this paper, I
ask the reader to consider the events of exca-
vation that occurred before the act of record-
ing, and to view the cut as an emergent entity
that unfolds in real time. Each scrape with the
78 Matt Edgeworth
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trowel brings new manifestations of the cut to
light, but the form it will take with the next
scrape though anticipated is far from cer-
tain. The flurry of soil particles continually
being drawn back towards the archaeologist
as he or she works can be thought of as a kind
of threshold or curtain of immanence, situated
on the very boundary of the known and the
unknown. This moving line of spoil is what
separates the visible and the invisible domains,
the known and the unknown. What emerges
next from the other side of that moving line
the particular turn the cut that is being fol-
lowed will take depends not only on what the
archaeologist does in working the material
field, but on what the cut does too.
Watch a skilled archaeologist at work in
following a cut with a trowel and observe the
rhythm. There is a back and forth motion, a
movement and a return, which constitutes a
kind of metronome for the task-in-hand, and
hence also for the emerging cut and unfolding
material field. But the rhythm and tempo of
following the cut are not just applied; rather
they arise out of the complex interaction
between the skill of the archaeologist and the
changing character of the material being
worked, mediated through the trowel. The
emergence of the cut is far from being wholly
under the control of the archaeologist. At any
moment it can disappear, diverge to one side
or shelve away beneath other layers. This is as
much to do with the human agency that cre-
ated it in the distant past as it is to do with the
agency of the archaeologist in re-materializing
it. The cut shapes and contributes to the
rhythm of its own unfolding.
Figure 1 shows the cut of a Bronze Age
cremation pit being followed down towards
the base of the feature, working up to the
pottery vessel contained within it and a verti-
cal section placed half-way across it. Note the
trowel marks and swirls of loose material
thrown up by the trowel, indicating that this
is an unfolding material field where materials
are flowing, rather than a static one where
flow has been abstracted out. A slight levering
motion with the tip of the trowel pushed into
the earth along the anticipated course of the
cut causes the dark fill to peel away from the
orange gravel sides. Ascraping action with the
edge of the trowel angled along the direction
of the cut is also effective. It is important to
note here that the cut is experienced by the
digger as much more than just a visual phe-
nomenon. It is felt as a difference in texture,
with the trowel becoming an extension of
the body for perception as well as action.
Sometimes the cut has a sound: the noise of
the scraping action of the trowel changes as it
meets the different soil on the side of the fea-
ture. Sometimes the new surface even has its
own smell, the more subtle of a range of multi-
sensory clues. Such clues can be followed.
Performed at speed, repetition of scraping
and probing actions facilitates the rapid emer-
gence of the cut so that it appears almost as
if by magic under the moving blade of the
trowel. Yet while it is easy to assume that the
cut is merely being uncovered or revealed by
removing fill, that would be to ignore the
skilled accomplishment of it. Put too much
pressure on the trowel take too much soil
away and the cut effectively disappears. Too
little pressure and the cut cannot be found in
the first place. The skill of following the cut is
Fig. 1. Following the cut down.
Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm, Follow the Material 79
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neither to under-dig nor to over-dig, but to take
the narrowpath in-between; traversing this fine
line is a matter of practical skill and compe-
tence gained only by months or years of experi-
ence of working out in the field.
It would be a mistake, too, to assume that
following the cut is just a practical skill and
not at the same time an intellectual task. For
as archaeologists trowel they continually
make inferences about past human action,
and from these inferences predictions arise as
to how the material evidence will unfold, and
therefore how to dig it. Remember that the
cut itself is conceived of as a material trace of
an event or sequence of events that occurred
in the distant past: digging the cut entails con-
tinual reference to those inferred events. Why
would they dig it to go in this direction rather
than that? What were they thinking of in dig-
ging such a large pit for such a small pottery
vessel? Why would they make a pit so irregular
in shape? And so on. It is a kind of practical
problem-solving. Material evidence explored
by intelligent digging generates theoretical
trajectories, predictions, questions, paths of
movement, strategies and avenues of further
research.
Unexpected evidence, in contradicting and
confounding pre-conceived ideas, can lead to
changes in digging strategy, which can result
in different manifestations of material evi-
dence, which in turn can challenge developing
interpretative schemes yet further. Changing
interpretation and materialization of emer-
ging evidence are caught up in dynamic feed-
back systems which unfold through time, in
the context of which there is a very real sense
in which the thoughts and actions of archae-
ologists are following the flows of materials,
or are at least completely entangled with them.
But cuts are far from the only archaeological
entities to have directions and trajectories to
them which can be followed. The next part of
the paper looks at how artefacts too can
impart movement and rhythm to archaeologi-
cal research at the most fundamental level of
our encounter with them.
FOLLOW THE RHYTHM
Artefacts also have directionality to them,
pointing to uses to which they can be put and
rhythms with which they can be used, within
that practical space immediately in front of
the human body. A newly discovered artefact
fresh from the earth, grasped in the hands and
turned over in the fingers to try and work out
how it was held and used in the past, may
direct and predispose us to adopt particular
gaits or postures, or to enact specific sequences
of motor movements in order to manipulate it
and explore it further.
CASE STUDY 1
While working as a digger on the excavation
of a deserted medieval village at Stratton
in Bedfordshire, England, I was fortunate
enough to be given the task of digging a dis-
tinctive type of feature called a grubenhaus.
Such features often occur together in clusters,
and typically take the form of large rectan-
gular pits with postholes at either end. The
pits are thought to have formed cellars for
shed-sized buildings that were probably used
in most cases for craft purposes during the
early-middle Anglo-Saxon period.
Archaeologists enjoy excavating gruben-
hauser for several reasons. The fact that these
structures are known to have served as work
huts means that the sense of being close to
people of the past, or at least one of their
inhabited spaces, is very strong. You have to
actually get into the feature in order to follow
its cut down and dig out the fills. The techni-
que of digging known as quadranting (division
of the feature into four quarters and excava-
tion of each of these in horizontal spits) is
professionally satisfying to carry out. Such
features, furthermore, are fun to dig because
they are often artefact-rich. The rich loamy fill
of a grubenhauser may derive in part from the
collapse of what could have been a turf roof,
once the building had gone out of use. The
partially filled hollow would then have been
used as a convenient place to dump rubbish
80 Matt Edgeworth
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derived from elsewhere in the settlement. This
goes some way to explaining why the fills can
contain so many artefacts. But sometimes,
beneath the layers of collapse and infill at the
very base of the feature, artefacts are found
which relate to the actual use of the room
above the cellar.
In one of the grubenhauser, for example, a
long slender bone needle was found in a ver-
tical position. We surmised it had been in use
for weaving or sewing clothes and had sud-
denly been dropped in the course of that work.
Falling through the floorboards, it had landed
like a dart on its sharp point, sticking in the
earth just enough for it to delicately balance
there. It must have been too difficult to
retrieve from beneath the floorboards so it
was left and quickly became forgotten. Then
years later, when the hut went out of use, the
floor was taken up. The cellar was in-filled,
but somehow without dislodging the needle. It
was still sticking up when, over a thousand
years later, one of my colleagues found it.
Such objects seem to bring us so close to the
everyday rhythms and routines of everyday life
in a former age, almost as though no time has
elapsed between then and now. Does it really
matter whether it was an hour or a millennium?
An object was dropped and landed on its point.
It was still gracefully poised in that position
when pulled out of the ground by another per-
son. Something links the person who dropped it
and the person who picks it up, no matter how
short or long the time interval between the two
events. But this sense of proximity to the every-
day experience of past peoples can be illusory.
The object links the past and the present in
some way, yes, and we feel a sense of kinship
or empathy with the person who dropped the
needle. But can we realistically think ourselves
back into a cultural context so totally different
from our own? Is there something more to
archaeological interpretation of artefacts than
mere empathy?
Here I try to answer this question by refer-
ence to one of the finds from the grubenhaus
that I was excavating, looking at how its inter-
pretation developed and changed over time.
An assemblage of numerous artefacts and ani-
mal remains was found in the feature. In the
upper fill there was the partial skeleton of a
horse, its bones still articulated, and associated
with the horse were two iron spurs (though not
unfortunately fromthe same set), once worn by
a Saxon warrior. But these need not concern us
here. The object which I will focus on was much
more mundane and less spectacular a small
bone with a hole in it (Fig. 2).
On looking at it closely, it was clear that it was
a metatarsal or metapodial from the foot of a
pig the kind of bone left over after cooking and
eating a pigs trotter. It had a single hole drilled
in the centre, at the point of balance. There are
wear marks on both sides of the hole, where the
edges have been worn smooth. I identified it at
the time as a toggle, tied to the end of a cord and
used to grip when pulling it, or perhaps a fasten-
ing on an item of dress, somewhat similar to the
toggles used on English duffle coats today.
Similar objects had been found before, by me
and my colleagues, on this and other sites, not
only of Anglo-Saxon but also of Iron Age date.
We always called them toggles, almost as a
matter of course. I gave it a registered find
number and put it into the finds bag, without
thinking too much about it.
Back in the finds room, however, something
about the object did not register as a toggle
with the finds supervisor. She looked at the
patterns of wear around the hole with a more
expert eye than mine, noticing the same wear
not just on the inside of one side but both sides
of the hole. Did this mean the toggle had been
turned around and used both ways? Or could
the object have had some other use? The
apparent anomaly prompted her to do some
research. A discussion sheet by ethnomusico-
logist Graham Lawson (1995) described pig
foot bones just like this, with one or sometimes
two drilled holes in the middle, dating from
the Bronze Age right through to the medieval
period often in domestic deposits or close to
habitations and usually identified as toggles.
Lawson used various historic and ethno-
graphic analogies to argue that when pig trot-
ters were eaten at feasts, bones like these were
Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm, Follow the Material 81
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sometimes picked out for special customary
purposes (rather as wishbones are picked out
from cooked chickens at Christmas time
today). When drilled and strung up in a cer-
tain way, he claimed, such bones might have
been used as childrens toys perhaps even as
rudimentary musical instruments.
As with any activity that involves some mea-
sure of practical skill, it is actually much easier
to demonstrate than to explain. In the following
illustrations, a homemade replica of the discov-
ered object is used. This was made by boiling up
a pigs trotter and picking out and cleaning the
appropriate bone, then drilling the hole to make
a replica as close as possible to the original.
As shown in Figure 3, the hole in the bone is
for a string or cord to go through. The string
has to be looped through the hole in a parti-
cular way. The user holds the looped string
in the hands at either end with the artefact
suspended in the middle. He or she then starts
the bone travelling in a wide circle through
the air by rotating both hands at the wrist
in unison, with the string held loosely. After
several revolutions of the bone the hands are
suddenly moved apart to pull the string taut. If
done at exactly the right moment and with the
right amount of force, this sets the bone spin-
ning rapidly about its own centre.
Once going properly, as shown in Figure 4b,
the momentum of the bone spinning in one
direction builds up enough coiled energy in
the wound-up string to send it spinning in
the other direction, which builds up enough
energy to send it back again, and so forth.
Only the slightest in-and-out movement of the
hands is required to perpetuate the motion (if
you pull too hard or not enough the rhythm
Fig. 2. The bone with drilled hole.
82 Matt Edgeworth
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Fig. 3. Stringing and holding the artefact.
Fig. 4. Circling (a) and spinning (b) the artefact.
Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm, Follow the Material 83
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will be broken, the bone will lose its aerody-
namic quality and start to tumble through the
air, tangling the string).
The object-in-motion produces at times
an interesting, almost stroboscopic, optical
effect as the bone can sometimes appear
to be spinning in the opposite direction to that
which it really is. But this is not just a visual
experience. Hearing is also important. As it
spins, the bone starts to hum audibly, making
a curious rhythmic buzzing sound rising and
falling in pitch with each revolution. The sound
is remarkably similar to that of human breath-
ing, which may be why objects like these are
known in Orkney folklore as snorie-banes or
snoring-bones (Fenton 1978, pp. 503504).
Other senses besides sight and hearing are
involved too. The person using the artefact is
engaged in a multisensory activity (see Tilley
2004). As well as sight and sound the experience
involves taste (the eating of the meat on the bone
as part of the cleaning and making of the arte-
fact, using the teeth to tear it off) and smell (the
smell of cooked meat, as bits of hot fat and
gristle fly off the spinning bone). It also involves,
of course, the sense of touch the tactile quality
of the bone and string as these are manipulated
in the hands, not to mention the fanning effect of
air blown against the cheeks. All these apply just
as much to archaeological experimenters as to
the people in the past that might have made and
used such artefacts.
Then there is the kinaesthetic or proprio-
ceptive sense of where ones body is and
what its muscles are doing in relation to the
artefact that is being used. For, while the spin-
ning action is accomplished mainly through
muscles in the fingers, hands and arms, with
associated rotary movements of the wrist,
elbow and shoulder joints, reverberations are
felt also in the back of the legs, the base of
the foot and the subtle shifts in position of
the head on the neck, as the body makes tiny
adjustments to its posture and balance in
response to the rhythmic movements involved
in using the artefact. To use the artefact is to
interpret it with the body not just to inter-
pret, of course, but also to enact and perform.
Whether we see it as a performance or an
interpretation the enactment of meaning or
the perception of it it is without question an
embodied experience, literally using the whole
body. At the same time it is a transformation
of the body. The acquisition of a new skill an
embodied skill is the direct result of pro-
longed use of the artefact and practice with
its specific modes of operation.
Here is the nub of the argument of this part
of the paper. The user is not just applying or
imposing an interpretation and mode of use onto
the artefact. The artefact itself imposes certain
limitations, paths of movement and trajectories
of action on the rhythm of spinning, which have
to be followed and conformed with, structuring
the actions of the person doing the spinning. If
the rhythm is not got exactly right, the artefact
will not spin, and without spinning it will not
produce the impressive optical and auditory
effects noted before. Importantly, the required
rhythm is the same no matter who uses it or
what culture the user comes from. Go too fast
or too slowand the rhythmwill be lost. Given a
certain size, shape and weight of object and a
particular length of string, the tempo is pre-
scribed. The user might be under the impres-
sion that, in doing the requisite bodily actions
and providing the motive force, he or she is
guiding the movement and setting the tempo.
That of course is partly true, but the artefact in
turn is exerting its influence and resistance to
shape those actions. As the artefact acquires its
spin, so the users body in its posture and
actions is aligned accordingly too. If per-
formed frequently, the practice literally shapes
the person by developing the muscles of the
arm and neural connections in the brain.
Something is happening here which is not
accounted for in conventional methodologies,
including those of post-processualism. Ian
Hodder and Scott Hutson (2003, p. 119)
argue against assuming our own personal sen-
sations to be isomorphic with those of people
who lived in the distant past. In warning of the
danger of constructing a kind of universal
body, they correctly point to the multiple
meanings specific bodily actions may have
84 Matt Edgeworth
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had in different cultural and political contexts.
In the case of the bone artefact, for example,
they would argue that a child whirling it in the
context of Anglo-Saxon feasting traditions is
different from Saami shamans using it to scare
away trolls from sauna houses in Lapland (an
ethnographic example given by Lawson
1995), and this in turn is different from an
archaeologist whirling it in the context of
experimental research, or indeed at an aca-
demic conference (as I once did in giving a
presentation at the Theoretical Archaeology
Group). Actions involved are elaborated upon
culturally and politically in manifold ways,
generating different meanings. But here is a
definite instance of something common to all
those different contexts of use something
that derives not just from the bodily actions
themselves but also from the material object
structuring human actions. The rhythm of
whirling the artefact is essentially the same in
all cultural contexts; given the same length of
string there is only one way for the object to be
spun in order to produce the rhythmic breath-
ing noises (though, of course, it is true that the
noises produced can be elaborated upon cul-
turally in a multitude of different ways). The
paradox here is that we have something that is
clearly a cultural skill, passed on from one
person to another through demonstration and
tuition, but there are aspects that are the same
whatever the social context of its learning and
performance. Whether the whirling of the arte-
fact is done in for the purposes of play, ritual or
scholarly research and whether by a Saxon
child or a Saami shaman or an experimental
archaeologist all users of the artefact, if they
have successfully mastered the skill, are pulled
into the same rhythm, the same position and
posture, the same muscular movements and the
same tempo. This is more than just the percep-
tion of affordances (Gibson 1977, Knappett
2005, pp. 4558). It is much more, too, than
mere empathy. Tim Ingold puts it like this:
Practical skill, in bringing together the resis-
tances of materials, bodily gestures, and the
flows of sensory experience, rhythmically cou-
ples action and perception along paths of
movement (2011a, p. 16). These paths of
movement can be followed.
The spinning bone is by no means unusual
in this respect. Many archaeological artefacts,
when activated in that practical space just in
front of the body or, to put it the other way
round, when action capabilities of the body
are activated by holding and using the artefact
have their own characteristic rhythms, align-
ing and structuring the movements and
postures of the body. Once tacitly grasped by
embodied perceivers/actors, such rhythms can
form an unspoken basis for archaeological
interpretation. As already intimated, even
digging tools used in the opening up of the
material field during excavation (such as tro-
wels and spades) have a rhythm to their use,
which means that the unfolding material field
from which patterns are emerging is itself
synchronizedwithrhythms of work and skilled
practices (Edgeworth 2003, pp. 3435).
Now it might be said that the embodied use
of the artefact described above and its practical
reinterpretation came about as the result of the
application of a theory, partly derived from
sources outside archaeology. The theory that
the bone object could be spun and used for
optical effect and noise production, perhaps
as a plaything or crude musical instrument or
both (rather than being merely a toggle), was
set down in the fact sheet written by Lawson
and read by the finds specialist who reinter-
preted the artefact. The theory was based on
numerous ethnographic and historic analogies,
and generated predictions which could be prac-
tically tested. All of this is true. So does that
mean that this is simply a case of the reproduc-
tion of existing knowledge?
The partial answer is yes, in so far as all
knowledge is based in part on pre-existing
ideas, whether these are explicitly formulated
or tacitly assumed. It is a product too of the
practices and tools of archaeology which,
along with the emerging material evidence,
also participate in the interpretative process.
These are all components of what Deleuze and
Guattari (1987), Latour (2005) and Bennett
(2010, pp. 2324) call assemblages a term
Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm, Follow the Material 85
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familiar to us because partly appropriated
from archaeology and material culture studies,
then broadened out to describe groupings of
vibrant materials, flows, forces and agencies
of all kinds, both human and non-human,
material and cognitive. Archaeological inter-
pretation itself can be understood as the unfold-
ing of such dynamic assemblages of ideas and
things, in the context of everyday work. It is
the character of archaeological work that one
thing always leads on to another, and new
avenues of research continually open up, lead-
ing in particular directions, giving rise always
to further questions as investigation of things
and materials proceeds. What range of sounds
and other perceptual effects can be produced
by the artefact? To what other purposes might
the artefact have been put? Such questions
might be partially answered by further explora-
tion of the artefact in use, by following its
tempo and its rhythm, and its particular form
of rotating movement.
The theoretical character of archaeological
inference is well known and widely acknowl-
edged. But it is the way the artefact imposes its
own unique character and tempo on the user/
perceiver even in the midst of all that applied
theory that needs to be taken account of by
archaeological epistemology. What has been
missing up to now is an acknowledgement of
what Bjrnar Olsen calls the thingly otherness
of things and the thingly aspect of our own
being (2010, pp. 54, 67; see also Olsen 2003)
in conventional accounts of archaeological
inference. A return to things, as formulated
by Olsen, is needed to counterbalance the cur-
rent overemphasis on ideational entities and
material symbolism. The associated argument
for a more symmetrical archaeology has been
made by Witmore and Webmoor (2008; see
also Witmore 2007), and it should be noted
here that symmetry and rhythm are con-
nected. Rhythm is to time what symmetry is
to space. Archaeological rhythms discussed
in this paper derive precisely from interplays
between what would otherwise be taken as
opposed pairs of terms (ideas/materials,
humans/non-humans, nature/culture, subject/
object) ravelling and unravelling through time
in practical engagements with artefacts and
other material evidence.
FOLLOW THE MATERIAL
On an archaeological site, everything is in flux
(Hodder 1997, 1999). Ground surfaces are
raised or lowered. Formerly significant sur-
faces are covered up with spoil or chopped
away by mattock or machine as fresh surfaces
are revealed. Cuts meander this way and that as
archaeologists try to follow them, dipping
beneath other features or cutting right through
them in a topological dance performed at the
tip of the moving blade of the trowel. Ideas
are intermingled with these material convolu-
tions, shifting to fit changing evidence which
in turn is sculpted to fit changing interpreta-
tions. Patterns of evidence do not respect the
neat lines, grids and box-like shapes applied,
but head into the sides of trenches or shelve
down into invisible regions beyond the level
reached. New trenches are dug and old ones
extended. Spoil is thrown into wheelbarrows or
tipped through sieves. Spoil heaps grow, then
are used for backfilling. Sections dug with great
care collapse and fall in to excavated halves of
features, where weeds start to grow. Fallen rain
erodes rivulets down slopes of bare earth, while
floodwater deposits layers of silt on lower parts
of the site. In dry weather, cracks appear in
clay. In windy weather, dust is blown over the
surfaces almost as soon as they have been
worked. It is in the context of all this movement
and flux of materials that archaeological pat-
terns emerge. Emerging evidence is itself a
movement of materials.
Archaeologists engaged with the evidence,
through their work upon it with trowels and
spades and other tools, are caught up with that
movement. Excavation is the most embodied
and tactile of all scientific methods, yet it tends
to be seen in terms of an ontology of observer
and observed, or reader and text or some
other inappropriate variant of visual meta-
phor. Only when archaeological practice is
reconfigured more accurately in terms of
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touch as well as vision, with archaeologists
understood to be in direct contact with mate-
rial evidence (instead of detached from it), can
the real significance of following materials can
be grasped.
The crucial thing that touch entails is move-
ment. To demonstrate this to yourself, next
time you are out on site, stoop down and pick
up a piece of earth. Roll it between the fingers
and thumb to get a feel for its texture and
consistency, then try stopping the movements
of your fingers the downward pressure and
the sideways rotation. You are still in touch
with the material and there is still some feeling
there, but the sense of texture the smoothness
or roughness of the material is largely gone.
While vision can be achieved from the point of
view of a static observer, touch is bound up
with movement of the skin against the material,
and vice versa. The material has a certain resis-
tance to it which pushes back against the pres-
sure, yet it also has a pliability that yields to it.
Much the same could be said for the perceiver
himself or herself, who partly resists and partly
yields to the flows of materials. This is not a
case of archaeologists merely applying mean-
ing onto material evidence nor is it the case of
them merely reading meanings from it that are
already given. Such models of inference are
based on the idea of an observer separate
from the observed, or a reader separate from
the text being read, but here we are talking
instead of someone in touch and directly
engaged with the moving material through the
sense of touch. Thinking in terms of the tactile
as well as the visual dimension allows us to
understand the relationship between archaeol-
ogist and material evidence as much more con-
nected and fluid. It is a push-and-pull kind of
situation.
The following account is drawn from an
ethnography of archaeological practice carried
out by the author. The fieldwork took place in
1990 during the excavation of a Bronze Age
barrow cemetery at Brightlingsea in Essex, and
the report remains the only full book-length
consideration of an excavation written from
the viewpoint of an ethnographic participant-
observer (Edgeworth 2003). I rework an exam-
ple from that report here because it contains
detailed accounts of interactions between
archaeologists and materials not documented
or available elsewhere.
CASE STUDY 2
When I first visited Bs part of the material
field, he was involved in the task of trying to
find the edge of a ring-ditch. As he explained,
much of the ring-ditch cut was visible on the
ground surface. But a portion of it was only
vaguely defined, and it was this problematic
area that he was working on. He had initially
tried to distinguish the archaeological fill of
the feature from the natural gravel surround-
ing it by using a trowel to clean over the
horizontal ground surface. The trouble was
that the fill consisted mostly of re-deposited
natural gravels, almost impossible to tell apart
from the undisturbed gravel. This meant that
the outline or cut of the ring-ditch was difficult
to perceive. The ring-ditch was not standing
out as it should from the natural background.
In order to solve the problem B had dug a
box section through from the known fill of the
feature to the supposedly undisturbed gravel
outside, hoping to discern the cut of the ring-
ditch in the vertical section. It had taken him
several days. By the time I arrived on the
scene, B thought he had found what he was
looking for. He showed me the cut of the ring-
ditch in the section (Fig. 5). All he had to do
nowwas to clean up the box section for photo-
graphy and other recording. It looked like his
task was nearly finished.
Then something happened which changed
everything. When I returned two days later to
this part of the site, I was surprised to find B
still hard at work on an area of ground that
he had previously assured me consisted of
natural gravels. I asked him what had hap-
pened. He explained a detail about the unfold-
ing evidence that he had not thought to
mention on my previous visit. All the time
that he had been working in the constricted
space of the box section, he said, there had
Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm, Follow the Material 87
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been a sharp stone, sticking out of one of the
vertical sections where the natural gravel was
supposed to be. He had not really thought
about it or looked at it closely, but after he
had scratched himself on it a few times and
even drawn blood he decided to pull it out and
get rid of it once and for all. As soon as he
pulled the object out, however, he realized
straight away it was a very significant find.
He showedme the artefact inquestion. It was
a barbed and tanged arrowhead. The discovery
of the arrowhead, B said, completely changed
his understanding of the evidence because it
was found in a place where it was not supposed
to be. Its position within the supposedly natural
gravel had led him to review the status of that
area of the site. Was the natural gravel really
natural, he now wondered, or was it in fact the
fill of an as yet unidentified feature? More
detailed examination of the gravel where the
arrowheadcamefrom, first of all withthefingers
and thenwiththe tip of the trowel, revealedthat
there were in fact many patches of dark silty
earth withinit that had formerly been dismissed
as root-disturbances, but which could now be
taken as evidence that the gravel had been re-
deposited, possibly as the fill of a ring-ditch. At
the time I spoke with him, B was alternately
shovel-scraping, hoeing and trowelling over
this patchy natural to find out if there really
was a second ring-ditch adjacent to the one that
was already known.
On my third visit the next working day, B
had opened up another box section, as an
extension of the first, and was still in the process
of finding and following along the cuts of the
second ring-ditch with spade, mattock and tro-
wel. The existence of this second ring-ditch was
no longer in question, even though its outline
and overall shape had yet to be fully defined.
Fig. 5. The box section, as depicted on an ethnographic sketch-plan. Both this figure and the next were
intended to depict the practical context of knowledge production as well as the unfolding material evidence
itself. It shows the archaeologist, B, at work within the material field, the direction he is facing, the tools being
used and the direction in which the material field is unfolding as it is being worked at the time of interview. The
hand-produced quality of the sketch is retained so as not to lose all sense of the temporal character of the
events recorded (Edgeworth 2003, p. 56).
88 Matt Edgeworth
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Several burnt flint flakes showing signs of hav-
ing been worked had been found in what had
previously been thought to be the natural
gravel, confirming it as the fill of newly discov-
ered archaeological feature now in the pro-
cess of emergence and starting to take shape
(Fig. 6). We leave B at that point, with the
outcome of his work still uncertain. Will the
outline of the second ring-ditch emerge as
expected? Or will the unfolding evidence take
further unexpected twists and turns, forcing
more re-interpretations and shifts in strategy?
In a thoughtful paper entitled The great
dark book, Julian Thomas (2004) comes
close to describing the nature of the encounter
with materials in archaeological practice. But,
although he discusses the Heideggerian con-
cepts of grounding presence and disclosure
of worldly things, he never quite escapes from
the metaphor of material remains as text the
great dark book referred to in the title of his
paper. Built into the textual metaphor is the
notion of excavation as a kind of reading.
Thus conceived excavation comes to be seen
as a primarily interpretative rather than prac-
tical endeavour. Although it admits of various
interpretations by the reader, textual evidence
is viewed as essentially passive and stationary
rather than active and moving around. In a
world where everything is written, there is
little room for material flows to come in and
shape or lead interpretative schemes. Thus
Thomas states that as archaeologists we do
not encounter things in isolation or in a state
of raw materiality that precedes culture and
interpretation (2004, p. 29).
Fig. 6. The material field transformed. By returning again and again to the same part of the site, each time
sketching the current state of emerging material evidence and re-interviewing the archaeologists working
there, I was able to get a glimpse of the ways in which the site unfolded over time (Edgeworth 2003, p. 57).
Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm, Follow the Material 89
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In the example recounted above, however,
B did exactly that. He did encounter things in
a state of rawmateriality that preceded culture
and interpretation. The barbed and tanged
arrowhead that B found was not encountered
as a significant and meaningful object in fully
fledged being all at once. It was initially
experienced in the periphery of awareness as
a sharp stone sticking out of the section, the
cause of considerable discomfort to him as
he moved around in the constricted space of
the trench. There was no place for a significant
artefact to appear in the side of the trench, at
least in terms of his interpretation of the mate-
rial field at that time. Accordingly he did not
perceive it as significant. It was only when it
scratched him yet again and actually drew
blood that he pulled it out of the section to
get rid of it once and for all that he recognized
it for what it was, forcing him to change his
interpretation of that part of the site radically,
leading on to further discoveries that would
not otherwise have been made.
The same applies to the second ring-ditch.
This was initially encountered as an area of
natural gravels, on the outside of the first
ring-ditch that was the focus of Bs attention
at that time. It was part of the background,
against which the significant archaeological
features stood out. Only when B found the
arrowhead and realized its significance (or, to
put it another way, only when the arrowhead
imposed itself on his perception, despite his
resistance to noticing it) did the possibility
arise of that context being an archaeological
fill of an as yet unknown feature. The arrow-
head was only one of a range of pointers or clue
to be followed. Following that pointer, and
other evidence such as the distribution of
worked flint flakes within the newly identified
fill, the second ring-ditch began to emerge as a
significant object in its own right not in an
instant but rather over a period of many hours
and as the result of much work, as B followed
the cut along. Even as we leave the scene the
ring-ditch is not yet fully formed. It is in a state
of emergence, its overall shape and its status as
an archaeological feature somewhat uncertain,
subject to further work. The cut still has to be
followed round until it completes its expected
circuit or does something else entirely. Then it
has to be followed down to the base of the
feature. It is still possible for further evidence
to emerge which will change interpretation all
over again. Perhaps the cut will turn in unex-
pected directions, or perhaps it will disappear
or morph itself out of the form of a ring-ditch
into something quite different. More surprises,
adjustments and changes of strategy may be in
store for B along the way.
CONCLUSION
This paper has focused on the emergence of
cuts and practical interpretation of artefacts,
both of which tend to take place in the prac-
tical space within reach of the hands immedi-
ately in front of the body. No apologies are
made for taking the subject of archaeological
inference out of the realm of abstract thought
and placing it instead in the muddy material
flux of excavation, or the embodied encoun-
ters with artefacts that characterize so much of
archaeological practice. It is precisely because
archaeological thought is grounded in such
physical transactions that archaeology is so
special, and has a material edge over other
more abstract disciplines.
In focusing on relatively small-scale mate-
rial transactions, it should be acknowledged
that archaeological materials shape us on
other levels and scales too. Chris Tilleys
(1997) phenomenological discussion of the
Neolithic Dorset Cursus, channelling move-
ments of bodies ancient and modern, is an
excellent example of how landscapes (and
monuments in the landscape) can have direc-
tionalities and rhythms in our experience of
them. These directionalities and rhythms
influence the perceptual orientations and phy-
sical movements of archaeologists traversing
the landscape as much as they once did those
of people in the past. The same applies to
architecture: try moving through the con-
stricted spaces of a Neolithic passage-grave,
as Julian Thomas (1990) describes doing in
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an early paper of his, and you will find your
own body channelled this way or that, your
practical interpretation of the inhabited space
conditioned and shaped by the material con-
figurations all around you.
Another instance is provided by Tilleys
account of the movement of people around
rock carvings in Sweden. He noted that the car-
vings were effectively choreographing the move-
ments of those who came to study or viewthem,
sothat different people tended to adopt the same
stances and postures circling, crouching, tilting
the head, twirling around, reaching out to touch
the carvings, and so on. What I had experi-
enced, they were experiencing, writes Tilley.
The images themselves were orchestrating a
spatial dance (Tilley 2008, p. 17).
Many examples of ways in which material
traces of flows of water, people and animals
give directionality to human perception of the
environment, imbuing it with axes of percep-
tion and action, are described in a new book
on archaeology of flow (Edgeworth 2011b).
The archaeological record is full of evidence
of material fluxes and flows which in prac-
tical engagements with them orientate our
perceptions, direct our movements and shape
our responses, sometimes surprising or contra-
dicting established viewpoints and stand-
points, forcing us to shift theoretical as well
as physical postures. Indeed, such vibrant
matter has the potential and in the case of
flowing water, a vital energy and power to
re-shape applied ideas and models. Such
flows help us to orientate ourselves and our
research. They push or pull us in various direc-
tions. They can be resisted and wrestled with.
They can be followed.
Material remains tend to be viewed as a
wholly inert form of matter that needs to be
activated by theory, but actually we never
encounter archaeological evidence in that life-
less form. As we have seen, the practices of
digging a feature or interpreting artefacts or
exploring landscapes are dynamic and creative
entanglements of mind and matter which
unfold through time. Such encounters can
themselves be conceived of as practical flows,
heading in particular directions (following cuts,
rhythms, materials and so on). What this
means is that we do not need to take our lead
all the time from theories brought in
from outside the discipline. Archaeological evi-
dence as it is experienced already has intrinsic
trajectories to it. It is true, as constructivists
insist, that theory is present at all stages of
archaeological work, and that unfolding evi-
dence is shaped and sculpted to fit applied
ideas, but this is only part of the story. Our
basic stance in the world and orientation
towards things is given in part by directional-
ities and flows that emerge fromour encounters
with material evidence an especially vibrant
form of matter, partly wild and not entirely
amenable to applied frameworks, capable of
pushing and pulling us this way or that. Thus
anthropologist Tim Ingold, echoing insights of
Deleuze and Guattari (1987), exhorts us to
follow the flows and follow the materials
(2008). But one does not have to be Deleuzian
or Ingoldian to take these lines. Archaeologists
followcuts of features, affordances of materials
and rhythms of artefacts, irrespective of what
scholars say about the matter.
Too much emphasis on the influence that
applied theory has in shaping archaeological
interpretation has led to a number of theore-
tical difficulties, not least the so-called pro-
blem of relativism that is, the conundrum
of how to distinguish between several compet-
ing interpretations, when all might be taken to
be equally valid. It has been claimed that dif-
ferent interpretations of the past can be eval-
uated only on political grounds (Shanks and
Tilley 1987, p. 195), though the authors would
probably modify that position now that post-
processualist theory has undergone its own
material turn and return to things. Such a
strong relativist stance can be maintained only
by supposing that material evidence (to which
theory is applied) plays no part in the inter-
pretative process. That is clearly wrong, and
both of the case studies in this paper showhow
the rhythms and flows of materials shape and
structure the very theory that is shaping and
structuring it.
Follow the Cut, Follow the Rhythm, Follow the Material 91
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Another strategic mistake has perhaps been
to give too much credence to powerful philoso-
phies framed by non-archaeologists, and not
enoughtothe power of archaeology tochallenge
and transform those ideas. I have argued
strongly here for a greater value being accorded
to interpretations made on the basis of engage-
ments with archaeological evidence, relative to
theories originating from outside of the disci-
pline. This is a counterbalancing move, intended
to put right existing imbalances. Instead of rely-
ing on external theory to kick-start interpreta-
tion and frame ideas about the past from the
outset, our own encounters with archaeological
materials are so rich that we already have plenty
to go on. We already have flows and trajectories
to follow; we are already moving in particular
directions and have some force behind develop-
ing ideas irrespective of the application of
broader philosophical systems. At many
moments in the intellectual enterprise of
writing and thinking archaeology, we have the
option of re-engaging with materials, ground-
ing theory and revitalizing our thoughts with
material resistances, flows and rhythms. Of
course our archaeological interpretations still
need to meet, be merged with and challenged
by wider theoretical models, perhaps developed
in the context of other disciplinary studies, but
the imperative to take up starting positions
within external theory is unnecessary.
Archaeology, as a way of opening the world,
has its own abundance of points from which to
set materials and ideas in motion, and to be set
in motion itself, spinning its own theoretical web
as well as weaving in strands borrowed from
elsewhere. It follows that convergences of flows
of ideas from inside and outside the discipline
can perhaps be thought of in more equal terms
as confluences of intellectual currents, each with
energy and power to shape the other.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Randi Barndon and Bjrn Nilsson
for thoughtful comments and suggestions on the
first draft of this paper, to Albion Archaeology
for permission to photograph the small bone
artefact, and to Joe Harrison for demonstrating
the use of a replica in Figures 3 and 4.
Comments on Matt Edgeworth: Follow the
Cut, Follow the Rhythm, Follow the
Material
ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELDWORK AN
IMBALANCED STORY
SA BERGGREN
Matt Edgeworth dares put into words the
most banal part of archaeological work. He
describes the place between the theoretical and
the material; where the work has to be done;
where the scraping and the shovelling takes
place.
Archaeological work can be very basic. The
earth has to be moved, the fill has to come out,
the section has to be cleaned and so on. To
execute this well demands certain skills and
knowledge, acquired during many hours of
fieldwork. To describe this practical, silent
knowledge in words is difficult, with or with-
out using a theoretical framework. How do
you put into words something that is charac-
terized by being wordless, something that
escapes words? It seems we are left with the
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00293652.2012.679425 Norwegian Archaeological Review (2012)
sa Berggren, Sydsvensk arkeologi, Malm, Sweden. E-mail: asa.berggren@sydsvenskarkeologi.se
92 Matt Edgeworth et al.
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