School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses

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Author: Fagan, Anna × End date: 2019 × Start date: 2010 × Type: PhD thesis × Subject: ritual ×

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    Relational ontologies in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Middle East
    Fagan, Anna ( 2016)
    The subject of this thesis considers the application of a relational approach to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic material from the Middle East. Based on depositional practices, iconography, and the treatment of human and animal remains, it appears highly plausible that the Neolithic world was one that was saturated with powers of sentience and intentionality. Manifest in the archaeological record is evidence of complex social relations that existed between humans and the non-human animals, entities, and agencies that populated their world. This thesis explores this material in three parts. Firstly, the archaeological evidence is presented through a case-study analysis of the pertinent Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites in the Upper Mesopotamian region. Subsequently, attention moves away from the Neolithic temporarily to examine the far less frequently considered rock art corpus from Eastern Anatolia. In the third section, archaeological interpretation is undertaken through analysis of ‘genealogies of practice’ – a comparative approach that explores the reproduction and transformation of relational practices, both between sites and through time. Throughout the thesis, it becomes steadily apparent that key ontological relational principles such as predation, perspectivism, and vitality, structured and directed building conventions, mortuary customs, image-making practices, underpinned perceptions of personhood, human-animal and hunting relations, materiality, and communality.