How did ancient peoples experience, view, and portray the night? What was it like to live in the past when total nocturnal darkness was the norm? Archaeology of the Night explores the archaeology, anthropology, mythology, iconography, and epigraphy of nocturnal practices and questions the dominant models of daily ancient life. A diverse team of experienced scholars uses a variety of methods and resources to reconstruct how ancient peoples navigated the night and what their associated daily—and nightly—practices were.
This collection challenges modern ideas and misconceptions regarding the night and what darkness and night symbolized in the ancient world, and it highlights the inherent research bias in favor of “daytime” archaeology. Numerous case studies from around the world (including Oman, Mesoamerica, Scandinavia, Rome, Great Zimbabwe, Indus Valley, Peru, and Cahokia) illuminate subversive, social, ritual, domestic, and work activities, such as witchcraft, ceremonies, feasting, sleeping, nocturnal agriculture, and much more. Were there artifacts particularly associated with the night? Authors investigate individuals and groups (both real and mythological) who share a special connection to nighttime life.
Reconsidering the archaeological record, Archaeology of the Night views sites, artifacts, features, and cultures from a unique perspective. This book is relevant to anthropologists and archaeologists and also to scholars of human geography, history, astronomy, sensory studies, human biology, folklore, and mythology.
Contributors: Susan Alt, Anthony F. Aveni, Jane Eva Baxter, Shadreck Chirikure, Minette Church, Jeremy D. Coltman, Margaret Conkey, Tom Dillehay, Christine C. Dixon, Zenobie Garrett, Nancy Gonlin, Kathryn Kamp, Erin Halstad McGuire, Abigail Joy Moffett, Jerry D. Moore, Smiti Nathan, April Nowell, Scott C. Smith, Glenn R. Storey, Meghan Strong, Cynthia Van Gilder, Alexei Vranich, John C. Whittaker, Rita Wright
Author(s): Nancy Gonlin (ed.); April Nowell (ed.)
Edition: 1st.
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: 442
City: Boulder
Tags: Night—Social aspects; Night—Religious aspects; Antiquities, Prehistoric.
List of Figures
List of Tables
Foreword
Jerry D. Moore
Preface
Nancy Gonlin
Section I: Introduction
1. Introduction to the Archaeology of the Night
Nancy Gonlin and April Nowell
Section II: Nightscapes
2. Upper Paleolithic Soundscapes and the Emotional Resonance of Nighttime
April Nowell
3. Classic Maya Nights at Copan, Honduras, and El Cerén, El Salvador
Nancy Gonlin and Christine C. Dixon
4. The Night Is Different: Sensescapes and Affordances in Ancient Arizona
Kathryn Kamp and John C. Whittaker
5. “La Luz de Aceite es Triste”: Nighttime, Community, and Memory in the Colorado–New Mexico Borderlands
Minette C. Church
Section III: The Night Sky
6. Nighttime Sky and Early Urbanism in the High Andes: Architecture and Ritual in the Southern Lake Titicaca Basin during the Formative and Tiwanaku Periods
Alexei Vranich and Scott C. Smith
7. Night in Day: Contrasting Ancient and Contemporary Maya and Hindu Responses to Total Solar Eclipses
Anthony F. Aveni
8. In the Sea of Night: Ancient Polynesia and the Dark
Cynthia L. Van Gilder
Section IV: Nocturnal Ritual and Ideology
9. Night Moon Rituals: The Effects of Darkness and Prolonged Ritual on Chilean Mapuche Participants
Tom D. Dillehay
10. Where Night Reigns Eternal: Darkness and Deep Time among the Ancient Maya
Jeremy D. Coltman
11. The Emerald Site, Mississippian Women, and the Moon
Susan M. Alt
Section V: Illuminating the Night
12. A Great Secret of the West: Transformative Aspects of Artificial Light in New Kingdom Egypt
Meghan E. Strong
13. Burning the Midnight Oil: Archaeological Experiments with Early Medieval Viking Lamps
Erin Halstad McGuire
Section VI: Nighttime Practices
14. Engineering Feats and Consequences: Workers in the Night and the Indus Civilization
Rita P. Wright and Zenobie S. Garrett
15. All Rome Is at My Bedside: Nightlife in the Roman Empire
Glenn Reed Storey
16. Midnight at the Oasis: Past and Present Agricultural Activities in Oman
Smiti Nathan
17. Fluid Spaces and Fluid Objects: Nocturnal Material Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa with Special Reference to the Iron Age in Southern Africa
Shadreck Chirikure and Abigail Joy Moffett
18. The Freedom that Nighttime Brings: Privacy and Cultural Creativity among Enslaved Peoples at Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Bahamian Plantations
Jane Eva Baxter
Section VII: Concluding the Night
Afterword: A Portal to a More Imaginative Archaeology
Margaret Conkey
List of Contributors
Index
