Sunday 1 November 2020

When will PAS Use Archaeological Artefacts as Archaeological Evidence and not Merely as Illustrations?


"The seal matrix measures 33mm x
 21mm (1.2 x 0.8in) and the
Latin inscription on it translates
as "Seal of Margerie Pevrel"
 

Retro-archaeology in action (BBC, 'Silver seal find at Hambleden 'gives life' to medieval woman', 11 September 2020). 
The discovery of a "not-far-off perfect" medieval artefact "gives life to someone dead for 700 years", an archaeologist has said. The silver seal matrix, inscribed with the name Margerie Pevrel, was found on her family's land at Hambleden, Bucks, by a metal detectorist. [...] Miss Byard, an Oxford Archaeology South small finds expert [...] knew the Pevrel family were "significant landowners" in the Hambleden area between 1248 and 1348, when the seal was made. [...] Her research found a grandmother and granddaughter - both called Margaret or Margerie Pevrel - either of whom could have been the owner [...] believes the younger woman was its owner. She was born in about 1321 during the turbulent reign of Edward II. The records show Margerie lived at Yewden Manor, now part of Henley Business School, on land where the metal detectorist found the seal. Miss Byard said the "find helps a 14th Century woman live again"
Does it? It seems to me that here we have yet another egregious example of a find (in this case an addressed source - with writing on it) being used to illustrate the written record (see - among others - Champion 1990). This is a tendency of the PAS when they are dealing with Medieval artefacts (Leahy and Lewis 2019; Lewis 2018). But then:
Miss Byard [...] said: "Although personal seal matrices are not uncommon finds, one in silver of an identifiable individual, and, indeed, an identifiable context for the loss, is a very unusual occurrence. "It conjures up romantic ideas of how she lost it - was she out riding or walking? "It would have been an expensive item and was hardly used, so how did she react?"
So a bit of speculative narrativisation. Story-invention. Anyone can do that. My version, when the old woman died there was a heap of stuff in her room, an much of it was cursorily cleared, and ended up on a bonfire made on the midden, which was later spread on the fields as manure. What was the distribution of material in the topsoil related to manuring episodes (Jones 2004; 2011)? Unlike the FLO's, this one has testable empirical evidence relating to social practice. 

When will PAS start more frequently using archaeological artefacts as archaeological evidence and not merely as illustrations?


References:

Champion, T. (1990). Medieval archaeology and the tyranny of the historical record. In Austin, D., and Alcock, L. (eds.), From the Baltic to the Black Sea, Studies in Medieval Archaeology, Unwin Hyman, London, pp. 79–95. 

Jones, R. 2004 Signatures in the Soil: The Use of Pottery in Manure Scatters in the Identification of Medieval Arable Farming Regimes. Archaeological Journal, 161:1, 159-188.

 Jones, R. 2011 Elemental theory in everyday practice: food disposal in the later medieval English countryside. In Klápšte, J. Sommer, P. (eds.) Food in the Medieval Rural Environment: Processing, Storage, Distribution of Food (p. 145-154). Turnhout: Brepols. 

Leahy, K. and Lewis, M. 2019, 'Finds Identified' Greenlight Publishing (!). ]  

Lewis, M. 2018 50 Medieval Finds from the Portable Antiquities Scheme. London

 

 

 



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