Broken bodies, places and objects demonstrates the breadth of fragmentation and fragment use in prehistory and history, and provides an up-to-date insight into the current archaeological thinking around the topic.
A seal broken and shared by two trade parties, dog jaws accompanying the dead in Mesolithic burials, fragments of ancient warships commodified as souvenirs, parts of an ancient dynastic throne split up between different colonial collections... Pieces of the past are everywhere around us. Fragments have a special potential precisely because of their incomplete format - as a new matter that can reference its original whole but can also live on with new, unrelated meanings. Deliberate breakage of bodies, places and objects for the use of fragments has been attested from all time periods of the past. It has now been over 20 years since John Chapman's major publication introducing fragmentation studies, and the topic is more present than ever in archaeology. This volume offers the first European-wide review of the concept of fragmentation, collecting case studies from the Neolithic to the Modern, and extending the ideas of fragmentation theory into new directions.
The book is written for scholars and students in archaeology but it is also relevant for neighbouring fields taking an interest in material culture, such as anthropology, history, cultural heritage studies, museology, art and architecture.
About the Author: Anna Sörman is a Wenner-Gren Postdoctoral Fellow at Nantes University (LARA/UMR 6566 CReAAH), France, and affiliated to Stockholm University, Sweden. Her research interests include the Bronze Age - Iron Age transition, craft organization and archaeological theory. Her ongoing research centres on the use and deposition of fragmented metalwork in Bronze Age communities of north-western France and southern Scandinavia.
Astrid A. Noterman is a human osteologist and researcher at Stockholm University, Sweden, and a collaborative member of the CESCM, France (UMR 7302). Her ongoing research centres on early medieval mortuary practices in western and northern Europe, Merovingian historiography and 19th century French archaeology. She is a founder member of the Scandinavian Archaeothanatology Working Group.
Markus Fjellström is a postdoctoral researcher at Lund University studying Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic reindeer with affiliations to the Archaeological Research Laboratory at Stockholm University and Silvermuseet/INSARC in Arjeplog. He has an interest in Sámi archaeology, diet and mobility studies, reindeer domestication and environmental changes. His previous postdoctoral position was at Oulu University during the development of this book.
