The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture

14. Innovation and Identity: The Language and Reality of Prehistoric Imitation and Technological Change

318 14. Innovation and Identity: The Language and Reality of Prehistoric Imitation and Technological Change Catherine J. Frieman Abstract: Skeuomorphism—defined here as the conscious imitation in one material of objects typically made in another—is frequently invoked by archaeologists seeking to explain changes in technology and value systems in the past. I will focus on the use of skeuomorphism as a “one-size-fits-all” interpretative tool for understanding culture change and the introduction of novel materials, techniques, and concomitant value systems. Stone objects and ceramics from the Neolithic–Bronze Age transition (c. 2500–1700 b.c.) in prehistoric Europe have frequently been proxies for studying the introduction of metal and metallurgy into society in much the same way basketry is frequently invoked in discussions of early potting. I will examine this material relationship in the context of archaeological studies of prehistoric innovations. Finally, I will propose that a more contextual approach to imitation, one based in social and technological interpretations of material culture, can open new interpretative doors and radically alter the way skeuomorphism is understood. The example of British Early Bronze Age crescentic necklaces in jet and gold illustrates how this social and technological approach can nuance our understanding of prehistoric material culture, technology, and society. Introduction Recognizing hybridity in prehistoric material culture may open new avenues for archaeological research into material production systems and prehistoric conceptions of material culture and technology. However, in going down these new routes, we must triangulate a position between our modern understanding The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture, edited by Jeb J. Card. Center for Archaeological Investigations , Occasional Paper No. 39. © 2013 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University. All rights reserved. ISBN 978-0-8093-3314-1. Innovation and Identity 319 of different materials and technologies and the fragmentary traces of those of the prehistoric people we study. In order to approach this challenge from the foundations , I have chosen to focus on one the most basic sorts of material hybridity: simple, morphological imitation. Conscious, cross-media, morphological imitation , termed skeuomorphism, has been widely used in the development of typochronologies and of sequences of technological diffusion and change. In this chapter, I will unpick the traditional definitions of skeuomorphism in order to clarify its implications for theorizing technological innovation. I will propose a new approach to imitative morphology and production, emphasizing technological and social contexts and demonstrated by a reanalysis of Early Bronze Age British spacer bead necklaces in jet and their traditionally indentified prototype, the Irish gold lunula (Frieman 2012a, 2012b). Skeuomorphism and Technological Change In the nineteenth century, a growing interest in material culture produced a vocabulary for interpreting and classifying different archaeological artifacts . In studying ornamental motifs on artifacts and in architecture, H. Colley March (1889) found that many designs seemed to originate in shapes native to other materials, such as stone lintels shaped like wooden beams. He called this phenomenon skeuomorphism and suggested that such objects were derived from previously crucial structural elements that had been rendered obsolete with the adoption of new technologies. It was Colley March’s belief that aesthetic tastes, nurtured on older objects, did not immediately adapt to new technologies and that skeuomorphism was a result of this craving or desire for older forms (Colley March 1889). A broader definition of skeuomorphism has developed over the last hundred years, taking into account the morphology of the whole object and not limiting it to only ornamental motifs. In this technological evolutionary perspective, skeuomorphism is an active part of the adoption of new materials and technologies rather than being a passive reflector of it. Evolutionarily, a skeuomorph is a feature that embodies a formerly useful technique or material, robbed of function, purpose, or meaning by technological improvement. Thus, skeuomorphs are frequently characterized as analogous to vestigial biological organs in animals and plants, such as the tails human embryos develop (and generally lose) in the womb (cf. Steadman 1979). In a more extreme interpretation, Childe (1956:13) called skeuomorphs “objects . . . aping in one medium shapes proper to another.” This highly influential description obviated efforts to study imitation and its implications for developing a better understanding of prehistoric material culture. Only recently has serious attention been devoted to unpicking prehistoric imitation. Archaeologists have also made the inverse argument: that is, that people were unwilling to accept or unable to cope conceptually or technically with a new material and chose to decorate it in ways that evoked an older, better understood technology. Tim Taylor (1999) calls...