Archaeology of Spiritualities

Archaeology of Spiritualties provides a fresh exploration of the interface between archaeology and religion/spirituality. Archaeological approaches to the study of religion have typically and often unconsciously, drawn on western paradigms, especially Judaeo-Christian (mono)theistic frameworks and academic rationalisations. Archaeologists have rarely reflected on how these approaches have framed and constrained their choices of methodologies, research questions, hypotheses, definitions, interpretations and analyses and have neglected an important dimension of religion: the human experience of the numinous - the power, presence or experience of the supernatural.

Within the religions of many of the world's peoples, sacred experiences - particularly in relation to sacred landscapes and beings connected with those landscapes - are often given greater emphasis, while doctrine and beliefs are relatively less important. Archaeology of Spiritualities asks how such experiences might be discerned in the archaeological record; how do we recognize and investigate 'other' forms of religious or spiritual experience in the remains of the past?

The volume opens up a space to explore critically and reflexively the encounter between archaeology and diverse cultural expressions of spirituality. It showcases experiential and experimental methodologies in this area of the discipline, an unconventional approach within the archaeology of religion. Thus Archaeology of Spiritualities offers a unique, timely and innovative contribution, one that is also challenging and stimulating. It is a great resource for archaeologists, historians, religious scholars and others interested in cultural and religious heritage.

Section I: Life, Death and Ancestors. - Chapter 1. The Spirituality of Prehistoric Societies: A View from the Irish Megaliths. - Chapter 2. Fragmentary Ancestors? Medicine, Bodies and Personhood in a Koma Mound, Northern Ghana. - Chapter 3. Negotiating Archaeology/Spirituality: Pagan Engagements with the Prehistoric Past in Britain. - Section II: Relational Ontologies and Engagements with Landscape. - Chapter 4. Spirituality and the Material World in. - Chapter 5. Breath and Being: Contextualizing Object Persons at Paquimé, Chihuahua, Mexico. - Chapter 6. In Search of Cosmic Power: Contextualizing Spiritual Journeys between Cahokia and the St. Francois Mountains. - Section III: Playing the Field: Archaeology, Ethnography and Oral Traditions. - Chapter 7. Accessing Past Cosmologies through Material Culture and the Landscape in the Philippines. - Chapter 8. From Holy Hiis to Sacred Stone: The Diverse and Dynamic Meanings of Estonian Holy Sites. - Chapter 9. Magical Signs in Prehistory: Near Eastern Celestial Symbols in the Ancient Carpathian Basin. - Section IV: Embodied Spiritualities: The Case of the Minoans. - Chapter 10. `Nature , the Minoans and Embodied Spiritualities. Chapter 11. Dynamic Spirituality on Minoan Peak Sanctuaries. Chapter 12. Dusk at the Palace: Exploring Minoan Spiritualities.