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METAGEUM '07
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Conference presentation: Exploring the Prehistoric Maltese Mind on Beliefs in Death
Book now for whole or part of the Metageum event. |
At Metageum '07: Exploring the Prehistoric Maltese Mind on Beliefs about Death
Dr Stoddart will be giving an illustrated talk on the findings and interpretations that have come out of the excavation and analysis of the underground temple and mortuary in the Brochtorff Circle at Xaghra. Dr Stoddart was a co-director of the excavation of the Brochtorff Circle in the Gozo Project.
About Simon Stoddart
Dr Simon Stoddart is University Senior Lecturer in Archaeology (see www.arch.cam.ac.uk), and a Fellow of Magdalene College (www.magd.cam.ac.uk) at Cambridge University (www.cam.ac.uk). His research interests include Central Mediterranean (especially Italian and Maltese) archaeology, island societies and complex prehistoric societies, landscape archaeology, mortuary ritual; and the computer visualisation and analysis of archaeological landscapes. He was formerly University Lecturer in Iron Age Archaeology at the University of Cambridge. Before that, he was at the University of Bristol, where he was Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, and at the Univeristy of York, where he was Lecturer in Archaeology. He began his career as a Junior Research Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Dr Stoddart holds an MA in Archaeology and Anthropology and a PhD in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Anthropology from the University of Michigan. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
Dr Stoddart has played a leading role one of the most exciting projects in Maltese prehistoric archaeology: the Brochtorff excavations (see below).
Dr Stoddart's personal web page at Cambridge University's Department of Archaeology's web site is www.arch.cam.ac.uk/~ss16.
The Brochtorff Excavations
Dr Stoddart was one of the directors of the Gozo Project, the excavation and subsequent analysis of the Brochtorff Circle. The Gozo project has been the biggest and most important archaeological study of the Neolithic temples of Malta, which are the oldest megalithic structures in the world. The final report on this project will be published this year (see Mortuary ritual in Prehistoric Malta, below). Other directors of the project were Dr Caroline Malone, Professor Anthony Bonanno (University of Malta), the late Dr. Tancred Gouder (sometime director of the National Museum of Malta), Mr Anthony Pace (Superintendent of Cultural Heritage), and Dr David Trump (Cambridge).
[See summary page on this site: Gozo Project, and the official web site: www.arch.cam.ac.uk/projects/gozo.]
Published books (and chapters)
[For a full bibliography, please see: www.arch.cam.ac.uk/~ss16/publications.html.]
Mortuary Ritual in Prehistoric Malta. The Brochtorff Circle excavations (1987-1994) (2007, in press), edited by Caroline Malone, Simon Stoddart, David Trump, Anthony Bonanno, and Anthony Pace, to be published by the The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in the University of Cambridge.
The physical geography and environment of Republican Italy (2006), by Simon Stoddart, pp. 102-121 in: 'Companion to the Roman Republic', edited by N. Rosenstein and R. Morstein-Marx, 776 pp, published by Blackwell, Oxford. [Buy this book at 
.]
The Death Cults of Prehistoric Malta (2005), by Caroline Malone, Anthony Bonanno, Tancred Gouder, Simon Stoddart, and David Trump, in: 'Mysteries of the Ancient Ones', Scientific American Special Edition vol. 15(1), pp. 14-23 (February 2005). (See www.sciamdigital.com to purchase and download this special edition.)
Prehistory (January 2005), by Caroline Malone and Simon Stoddart, 320 pages, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 0297847368. [Buy this book at .]
Towards an island of mind? (2004), by Caroline Malone and Simon Stoddart, pp. 93-102 in: 'Explaining Social Change: Studies in honour of Colin Renfrew', edited by J. Cherry, C. Scarre, and S. Shennan, 240 pp, McDonald Institute, Cambridge, ISBN 1902937236. [Buy this book at .]
¶
Over the past thirty years, social archaeology has become one of the central fields of archaeological research, placing human societies at the heart of our understanding of the human past. Colin Renfrew has been a key champion of social archaeology, and the present volume brings together a series of papers on the occasion of his retirement. They have been written by colleagues and former students, and touch upon many of the themes that he himself has studied and about which he has written so persuasively and engagingly: the development of the human mind, trade and exchange, social change, chiefdoms and states, and the archaeology of island societies. These studies focus not on earlier work, however, but reveal the new directions that have developed in recent years, bringing the study of social archaeology firmly into the twenty-first century.
Cycles of Life or Eternity: New Light on Prehistoric Maltese ortuary Ritual from the Brochtorff Cicle at Xaghra (2003) by Simon Stoddart, in: Proceeding of the conference 'Exploring the Prehistoric Maltese Temple Culture' (EMPTC) organised by the OTS Foundation in Malta, available as CD-ROM from the OTSF web site, www.otsf.org/EMPTC-conference.html.
Monuments in the prehistoric landscape of the Maltese islands: Ritual and domestic transformations (2002), by Simon Stoddart, in: 'Inscribed Landscapes: Marking and making place' edited by B. David and M. Wilson, pp. 176-186, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, ISBN 0824824725. [Buy this book at .]
¶
Landscapes all over the world are inscribed with enduring physical marks. Socially constructed and engaged, landscape inscriptions (monuments, roads, gardens, rock-art) are foci of social experience and as such are symbolic expressions that mold and facilitate the transmission of ideas. Through inscription, landscapes become social arenas where the past is memorialized, where personal roots, ambitions, and attachments are laid, and where futures unfold. Inscribed Landscapes explores the role of inscription in the social construction of place, power, and identity. Bringing together twenty-one scholars across a range of fields--primarily archaeology, anthropology, and geography--it discusses how social codes and hegemonic practices have resulted in the production of particular senses of place, exploring the physical and metaphysical marking of place as a means of accessing social history. Two major conceptual themes link the chapters of this book: social participation and resistance. Participation involves interrelationships between people and place, the way inscribed environments and social experience intertwine; resistance relates to the rejection of modes of domination and their inscription in the landscape. The volume explores these themes in three parts: the first focuses on rock-art, the second on monuments, and the third describes how the physical and metaphysical articulate to inscribe places with meaning.
The Xaghra shaman? (2002), by Simon Stoddart, pp. 125-135 in: 'Practitioners, Practices and Patients: New Approaches to Medical Archaeology and Medical Anthropology', edited by Patricia Anne Baker and Gillian Carr, 272 pp, Oxbow Books, Oxford, ISBN 1842170791. [Buy this book at .]
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Medical care in the past, and indeed present societies, can be studied in a number of different ways, including palaeopatholoy, palaeobotany, literary evidence, material culture and different medical ideologies and belief systems. These 15 papers from a conference held at Magdalene College, Cambridge in 2000 explore these diverse forms of interpretation, though largely focusing on material culture aspects.
Landscapes from Antiquity (2002), edited by Simon Stoddart, 380 pp, published by Antiquity Publications Limited, Cambridge, ISBN 0953976203. [Buy this book at .]
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This is the first volume of an exciting new project. Antiquity, drawing on its 75-year tradition of publishing articles of enduring value, has brought together twenty-four classic papers on a central archaeological theme. The papers have been selected to represent ancient and modern landscape approaches, organized into thematic sections: Early studies of Fox and Curwen, aerial photography of Bradford, Crawford and St Joseph, survey method, integrated regional landscapes, physical, industrial, contested and experienced landscapes. Each section is introduced with an overview and personal perspective by Simon Stoddart, the current editor of Antiquity. As he points out in the introduction, the editor of Antiquity has always drawn on the most exciting and relevant of current research. Consequently the frequency and content of landscape in Antiquity provides illuminating commentary on the definition and prominence of the theme landscape in archaeological research.
Analysing Rome's hinterland (2000), by M. Belcher, A. Harrison, and Simon Stoddart, pp 95-101 in: 'Geographical information systems and landscape archaeology' (Archaeology of the Mediterranean Landscape, Populus Monograph no. 3), edited by Mark Gillings, David Mattingly, and Jan van Dalen, 160 pp, published by Oxbow books, Oxford, ISBN 978-1900188647. [Buy this book at .]
Beyond historical demography: The contribution of archaeological survey (1999), by Simon Stoddart, pp. 129-131 in: 'Reconstructing past population trends in Mediterranean Europe' (Archaeology of the Mediterranean Landscapes, Populus Monograph no. 1) edited by J. Bintliff and K. Sbonias, published by Oxbow Books, Oxford, ISBN 978-1900188623. [Buy this book at .]
The articulation of disarticulation. preliminary thoughts on the Brochtorff Circle at Xaghra (Gozo) (1999), by Simon Stoddart, M. Wysocki, G. Burgess, G. Barber, C. Duhig, Caroline Malone, and G. Mann, pp. 94-105 in: 'The loved body's corruption: Archaeological contributions to the study of human mortality' edited by J. Downes and A. Pollard, published by Cruithne Press, Glasgow, ISBN 1873448066. [Buy this book at .]
Long term dynamics of an island community: Malta 5500 BC-2000 AD (1999), by Simon Stoddart, pp 137-147 in: 'Social Dynamics in the Central Mediterranean' (Accordia Specialist Studies on the Mediterranean, volume 3), edited by R.H. Tykot, 240 pp, published by the Accordia Research Institute at University College London, ISBN 1873415192. [Buy this book at .]
Mortuary customs in prehistoric Malta (1999), by Simon Stoddart, pp 183-190 in: 'Facets of Maltese Prehistory' edited by Anton Mifsud and Charles Savona-Ventura, 239 pp, published by the Prehistoric Society of Malta, Mosta, ISBN 9993215007. [Buy this book at .]
The Conditions of Creativity for Prehistoric Maltese Art (1998), by Caroline Malone, and Simon Stoddart, pp 241-259 in 'Creativity in Human Evolution and Prehistory' edited by Steven Mithen, published by Routledge, ISBN 978-0415160964. [Buy this book at .]
Malta in the Dawn of Civilisation (1995), by Caroline Malone and Simon Stoddart: catalogue for an exhibition of the same name held for the opening of the new Maltese High Commission in Piccadilly, London; published by the Ministry of Justice and the Arts, Malta.
¶ The exhibits included a display of a virtual-reality reconstruction of Brochtorff Circle, created by the INSITE project team at the University of Bristol. I am not aware of an ISBN, and the catalogue was probably not made available outside the exhibition. The only report is that from Bristol: University of Bristol Department of Archaeology, VLP Repor No. 3, June 1995, written by Martin Belcher (www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~alan/Arch/INSITE).
Territory, Time and State: The Archaeological Development of the Gubbio Basin (October 1994), edited by Simon Stoddart and Caroline Malone, 244 pp with 62 line diagrams, 9 half-tones, 21 tables and 36 maps, published by Cambridge University Press, ISBN: 978-0521355681. [Buy this book at .]
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A study of long-term archaeological history in the remote and beautiful upland valley of Gubbio within the Umbrian Apennines of Italy. The aim of the work is well defined by the natural constraints of this mountainous region. The authors have developed a multi-disciplinary approach to study the human and physical characteristics of the valley from the paleolithic to the medieval period. They integrate the analysis of a unique text (the Iguvine Tables) with excavation, field survey and environmental reconstruction to provide a synthesis of current knowledge. They break boundaries of time and tradition which are normally compartmentalised between different scholars. Although the linkage is sometimes controversial, it is always stimulating. The book has two major focuses: the first is on the Bronze Age landscape where spectacular sites and finds have contributed very significantly to our knowledge of pre-state Italy; and the second is on the identity and character of the early city state of Gubbio and its incorporation into the Roman world. Includes: Introduction - Caroline Malone, James McVicar, & Simon Stoddart; The transition to Agriculture - Caroline Malone & Jenny Harding; Site Relationships - Caroline Malone & Simon Stoddart; The Regional Setting - Caroline Malone & Simon Stoddart; Colonisation, Formation and Incorporation - Caroline Malone & Simon Stoddart.