![]() ![]() ![]() This in turn may tell us about contact with other regions (if, for example, the clay or tempering needed to be traded elsewhere) and production/consumption taking place most likely involving liquids (a hole in the bottom of the vessels suggests this). If we examine the shape, clay and technique used to make the pot, we can learn much about ancient skills in pottery production – whether they used handmade or wheelmade methods, where they obtained their clay and what they chose to temper it with, firing temperatures and the kinds of vessels priorities by the residents at this point in time. For each of the points concerning the object, we could tell a corresponding story involving the people it has met and the places it has travelled to: In this case, the gaps between selected high points are mostly due to gaps in knowledge and gaps in how this object has been examined using scientific methods. ![]() An example of the time line for a ceramic vessel could look something like this: Image of A8q122.4 courtesy of IIMAS These kinds of biographies can be applied to animals (including humans), objects, assemblages, sites or even larger environments or regions – it simply depends on the imagination of the storyteller-archaeologist. And that’s not here getting into the choices made for which material and information to record in the first place! In archaeology, vertical narratives similar to a biographical time line of Agatha Christie are sometimes called object biographies or life histories. The choice of which points to include (and exclude), and how to interpret them, is what can lead to varying narratives, even using the same material and information. Not only is it not possible to record everything, many things are simply also not recordable, not preserved. It is also part of archaeological conditions. This is partly a feature of compelling and meaningful narrative, and partly a feature of the human condition in general: filtering is necessary for meaning to be possible. For every point we include, there is a multitude of things we don’t include. Storytelling is as much about what we choose not to say, as it is about what we do say. There is nothing about her enigmatic 11 missing days, for example. ![]() If you know anything about Agatha Christie, you will probably note that for all the points mentioned, many are missing. The storytelling is in this case unilinear and diachronic. This can be illustrated with a time line highlighting selected important points in her life. We can tell a vertical story of the life of mystery writer and playwright Agatha Christie. The best examples are person biographies. The two of course overlap, but for the sake of clarity, I will here discuss them separately.Ī vertical story flows diachronically through time. The stories can, very broadly speaking, be categorised as what I here call ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’. Different version of the story is created depending on the format and audience. Often this means putting together large amounts of data from various kinds of investigations and expert analyses. We have to put things together into a coherent and appealing narrative. When relating the discoveries, archaeologists essentially also have to be storytellers. Archaeologists don’t only dig in the ground and make exciting discoveries. ![]()
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