Ideal Homes: Domestic Materiality and Past Identities

Edited by Rena Maguire

(Queen's University Belfast, University College Dublin)

ABOUT THE VOLUME

Mobile societies of the past may well have defined their sources of security and socialisation in different terms than later agricultural peoples, as an entire landscape was ‘home’ for them. 

Structures which had provided temporary shelter for those who followed herd and shoal became permanent (or even semi-permanent) formalised nodes of domestic relationships, security, nurture, personal maintenance, and industry from the Neolithic onwards. The combination of activities and social relations produced considerable innovation in domestic objects and how they were used, some of these even being taken to the grave, presumably for use in an afterlife. 

Did the objects generate the concept of ‘home’, or did the type of dwelling influence the style and use of the artefact?  Did activity and artefact generate identities and roles? To what extent can experimental and experiential archaeology give a genuine flavour of domestic life in the past? 

This volume invites scholars exploring the relationships between domestic activity, crafts and artefacts of peoples of the past, each paper illustrating different aspects of the process of domestic life and artefactual innovation which occurred through everyday life. 

Non-European perspectives and contributions are particularly welcome.

SUBMISSION INFORMATION

Please send us your titles and abstracts, accompanied by a short author bio by October 31st, 2022.

Please email the editor at: rena.maguire@qub.ac.uk

Once your abstract is accepted, you will be informed about the full paper submission deadline.

PUBLICATION INFORMATION

The volume will be published in the book series VIA ARCHAEOLOGICA, edited by Rena Maguire

You can download the PDF Call for Papers here.