Making a Mark: Process, Pattern and Change in the British and Irish Neolithic

Jones, Andrew Meirion; Díaz-Guardamino, Marta

Abstract

This paper presents key results of the Making a Mark project (2014–2016), which aimed to provide a contextual framework for the analysis of mark making on portable artefacts in the British and Irish Neolithic by comparing them with other mark-making practices, including rock art and passage tomb art. The project used digital imaging techniques, including Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), and improved radiocarbon chronologies, to develop a new understanding of the character of mark making in the British and Irish Neolithic. Rather than considering this tradition in representational terms, as expression of human ideas, we focus on two kinds of relational material practices, the processes of marking and the production of skeuomorphs, and their emergent properties. We draw on Karen Barad's concept of ‘intra-action’ and Gilles Deleuze's notion of differentiation to understand the evolution and development of mark-making traditions and how they relate to other kinds of social practices over the course of the Neolithic.

Citation

Jones, A. M., & Díaz-Guardamino, M. (2022). Making a Mark: Process, Pattern and Change in the British and Irish Neolithic. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 32(3), 389-407. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774321000512

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 7, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Oct 13, 2021
• Publication Date: 2022-08
• Deposit Date: Nov 22, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 22, 2021
• Journal: Cambridge Archaeological Journal
• Print ISSN: 0959-7743
• Electronic ISSN: 1474-0540
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 32
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 389-407
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774321000512
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1221027