The archaeology of religion and ritual is a growing field of study within archaeology that applies ideas from religious studies, theory and methods, anthropological theory, and archaeological and historical methods and theories to the study of religion and ritual in past human societies from a material perspective.
Definitions
Religion may be defined as "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs,"Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Religion) Based on the Random House Dictionary, Random House, Inc. 2010 whereas ritual is "an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite."Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ritual) Based on the Random House Dictionary, Random House, Inc. 2010 Archaeologists may study the material traces of religious ritual (for example, the ritual destruction of ceramic vessels during the Aztec New Fire ceremonyElson, Christina and Michael E. Smith (2001) Archaeological Deposits from the Aztec New Fire Ceremony. Ancient Mesoamerica, Vol. 12, Issue 2, pp. 157–174) or the material correlates of religion as a totalized worldview (for example, Elizabeth Kyder-Reid's study of the Southern Redemptorists’ reconfiguration of landscape and artifacts to reflect their ideals of community and poverty in material formKyder-Reid, Elizabeth (1996) The Construction of Sanctity: Landscape and Ritual in a Religious Community. In Landscape Archaeology: Reading and Interpreting the American Historical Landscape. Rebecca Yamin and Karen Bescherer Metheny, eds. University of Tennessee Press.).
As in religious studies and the Anthropology of religion, many archaeologists differentiate between "world religions," and "traditional" or "indigenous religions." "World religions" are defined by Bowie (2000: 26)Bowie, F. (2000) The Anthropology of religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Quoted in Insoll, Timothy (2004) Archaeology, Religion, Ritual. New York: Routeledge, page 8 as:
Based on written scriptures. Has a notion of salvation, often from outside. Universal, or potentially universal. Can subsume or supplant primal religions. Often forms a separate sphere of activity.
while indigenous religions are defined as:
Oral, or if literate, lacks written/formal scriptures and creeds. ‘This worldly’. Confined to a single language or ethnic group. Form basis from which world religions have developed. Religious and social life are inseparable.
However, Timothy Insoll (2004: 9) Insoll, Timothy (2004) Archaeology, Religion, Ritual. New York: Routeledge has argued that these categorizations arise from a much-critiqued neo-evolutionary perspective. Strict dichotomies of religious forms may also contribute to skewing research toward state religions, leaving household religious practice, and the relationships between these, under-investigated (a trend noted by Elson and Smith, 2001 Elson, Christina and Michael E. Smith (2001:157) Archaeological Deposits from the Aztec New Fire Ceremony. Ancient Mesoamerica, Vol. 12, Issue 2, pp. 157–174). Insoll (2004:9) argues that archaeologists may contribute to blurring the boundaries of world and indigenous religions.
The archaeology of religion also incorporates related anthropological or religious concepts and terms such as magic, tradition, symbolism, and the sacred.
Theory
Anthropology of religion
Theory within the archaeology of religion borrows heavily from the Anthropology of religion, which encompasses a broad range of perspectives. These include: Émile Durkheim's functionalist understanding of religion as serving to separate the sacred and the profane;Durkheim, Émile. (1998) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Oxford University Press Karl Marx's idea of religion as "the opium of the masses" or a false consciousness,Marx, Karl (1992) Early Writings. Penguin Classics. Clifford Geertz's loose definition of religion as a "system of symbols" that orders the world,Geertz, Clifford (1973:90) The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. P. 90 Victor Turner's work on ritual, including rites of passage and liminality,Turner, Victor (1995) The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Aldine Transaction. Max Weber's religious types Heydebrand, Wolf (1994) Sociological Writings: Max Weber. Continuum Press. and thoughts on the relationship between economics and religion;Weber, Max (2002) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: and Other Writings. Trans. Peter Baehr. Penguin Classics. Claude Lévi-Strauss’ structuralist understandings of totemism and myth;Tremlett, Paul-François (2008) Lévi-Strauss on Religion: The Structuring Mind (Key Thinkers in the Study of Religion). Equionox Publishing. and Mary Douglas’ idea of the division of "purity and danger".Douglas, Mary (2003 ) Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concept of Pullution and Taboo. Routledge Classics
Religion, identity, and practice
Archaeological studies of religion increasingly recognize religion as an organizing principle in social life, rather than as a separate sphere of activity. They include religion as an axis of identity that structures social life and personal experience. Therefore, entire artifact assemblages (rather than specifically "religious" artifacts, such as rosary beads) can be interpreted according to the ways that they simultaneously create, display, and constrain notions of self according to religious ideas. For example, John Chenoweth (2009) Chenoweth, John M. (2009) Social identity, material culture, and the archaeology of religion: Quaker practices in context. Journal of Social Archaeology 9: 319 interpreted ceramic assemblages and burials according to Quaker ideals of plainness and modesty.
Because social identity is both imposed and negotiated through social practice, including material practice, archaeologies of religion increasingly incorporate practice-based theory. Building upon Anthony Giddens’ idea of structuration Giddens, Anthony (1986) The Constitution of Society: Outline of A Theory of Structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press. and Pierre Bourdieu's ideas of both practice Bourdieu, Pierre (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press. and cultural capital,Bourdieu, Pierre (1987) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Harvard University Press. theories of material practice posit that people use material goods to negotiate their places within social structures. Examples of the archaeological interpretation of religion and ritual as part of social negotiation, transformation or reinforcement include Chenoweth's work on Quaker religious practice, Kyder-Reid's work on the Southern Redemptorists, and Timothy Pauketat's work on feasting in Cahokia (Pauketat et al., 2002 Pauketat, Timothy, Lucretia S. Kelly, Gayle J. Fritz, Neal H. Lopinot, Scott Elias, and Eve Hargrave (2002) The Residues of Feasting and Public Ritual at Cahokia. American Antiquity, Vol. 67, No. 2, pp. 257–279).
Religion, power, and inequality
Because religion and political power are often intertwinedFirth, Raymond (1981) Spiritual Aroma: Religion and Politics. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 83, No. 3, pp. 582–601Wolf, Eric (1991) Religious Regimes and State Formation: Perspectives From European Ethnography. State University of New York Press (August 13, 1991) particularly in early states, the archaeology of religion may also engage theories of power and inequality. John Janusek's study of Tiwanaku religion, for example, explored the ways that religion served to integrate societies within the Andean state.Janusek, John Wayne (2006) The changing ‘nature’ of Tiwanaku religion and the rise of the Andean state. World Archaeology Vol. 38(3): 469–492 Colonial regimes frequently justified expansion through a commitment to religious conversion; archaeologies of coloniality may therefore intersect with the archaeology of religion. James Delle's 2001 article on missions and landscape in JamaicaDelle, James (2001) Race, Missionaries, and the Struggle to Free Jamaica. In Race and the Archaeology of Identity. Charles E. Orser, Jr., ed. Pp. 177–195. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press and Barbara Voss’ work on missions, sexuality and empireVoss, Barbara (2008) Domesticating Imperialism: Sexual Politics and the Archaeology of Empire. American Anthropologist 110(2): 191–203 demonstrate how religion has intersected with colonial regimes.
Historical method and theory
Historical archaeologists have made major contributions to the understanding of the religion and ritual of peoples who have remained underrepresented (or misrepresented) in the historical record, such as colonized peoples, indigenous peoples, and enslaved peoples. Mandatory religious conversion was common in many colonial situations (e.g. the Spanish colonization of the Americas), which led to syncretic religious practice, rejection or resistance to new religions, covert practice of indigenous religions, and/or misunderstandings and misinterpretations of both indigenous and colonizer religions (Hanks 2010 William F. Hanks, Converting Words: Maya in the Age of the Cross (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). Klor de Alva 1982,J. Jorge Klor de Alva, "Spiritual Conflict and Accommodation in New Spain: Toward a Typology of Aztec Responses to Christianity", in The Inca and Aztec States, 1400–1800: Anthropology and History, eds. George A. Collier, Renato Rosaldo, & John D. Wirth (New York: Academic Press, 1982). Wernke 2007Steven Wernke, "Analogy or Erasure? Dialectics of Religious Transformation in the Early Doctrinas of the Colca Valley, Peru", International Journal of Historical Archaeology, vol. 11, no. 2 (June 2007).).
This research combines archaeological and anthropological method and theory with historical method and theory. In addition to recovering, recording, and analyzing material culture, historical archaeologists use archives, oral histories, ethnohistorical accounts. Researchers read texts critically, emphasizing the historical context of the documents (especially regarding underrepresented peoples whose voices may be distorted or missing) in order to better understand religious practices that may have been discouraged or even severely punished. Combined archaeological, historical, and anthropological data sets may contradict each other, or the material record may illuminate the details of covert or syncretic religious practice, as well as resistance to dominant religious forms. For example, our understanding of the religious practice of enslaved peoples in the United States (e.g. Leone and Frye 2001,Mark P. Leone & Gladys Marie Frye, "A Coherent Religion among African Slaves," in Race and the Archaeology of Identity, ed. By C. Orser (University of Utah Press, 2001). Fennell 2007 Christopher Fennell, Crossroads and Cosmologies: Diasporas and Ethnogenesis in the New World (University of Florida Press, 2007).) has increased dramatically thanks to research in historical archaeology.
Material correlates
Because archaeology studies human history through objects, buildings, bodies, and spaces, archaeologists must engage theories that connect anthropological and sociological theories of religion to material culture and landscapes. Theories of materiality Meskell, Lynn (2005) Archaeologies of Materiality. Wiley-Blackwell. and landscape Johnson, Matthew (2006) Ideas of Landscape. Wiley-Blackwell serve to connect human activities, experiences, and behaviors to social practices, including religion. Theories of embodimentHammelkis, Yannis, Mark Pluciennik, and Sarah Tarlow (eds) (2001) Thinking Through the Body: Archaeologies of Corporeality. Springer. also serve to interpret human remains as they relate to religion and ritual.