International Colloquium BEAUTY AND THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER: PERSONAL ADORNMENTS ACROSS THE MILLENNIA (original) (raw)

History of personal adornments overlaps the history of Homo sapiens, with first adornments produced and wore by the most ancient modern humans in Africa and elsewhere. Such artefacts are an inexhaustible source of reflection as they carry the means of uncovering the symbolic and religious behaviors of prehistoric groups; they may reflect certain social aspects of human communities; they highlight cultural borders and network trades throughout the history of humankind. When moving from the general to the particular, the study of personal adornments may also yield information regarding the technical skills and economic development specific to a certain community. The economic aspects concern the means of obtaining raw materials, while the technical issues relate to identification of processing marks and their integration to the general operational sequence. The deciphering of all the elements of an operational sequence – blanks, preforms, finished objects and waste – offers the key to the analytical decryption of the manufacturing methods and techniques, and to the tracing of possible cultural options at technological level. Particularly meaningful are the ornaments discovered in funerary contexts, which may provide insights both on the life and the afterlife of individuals. Other than the mere correlations between such finds, and the sex and age of the defunct, usewear studies contribute to a further understanding of the purpose of the ornaments, revealing whether they were objects created exclusively for the afterlife or if they were as items used during everyday activities as well. Much can be inferred from the grave goods assemblages: one can speculate on the functions of the buried adornments – gifts, symbols of the social status and perhaps power, items offering protection during the afterlife, etc. Bearing in mind this multitude of meanings and research directions, we would like to invite you to contribute with a presentation in our colloquium, addressing any of the following topics: 1. characterization of past societies (e.g. cultural tradition, social and spiritual organization, exchange systems, etc.) through the study of personal ornaments found in both funerary and settlement contexts; 2. Sourcing, characterization and acquisition of raw materials; 3. Experimental approaches; 4. New methodologies regarding technology and usewear studies (microscopy, SEM+EDS , FTIR and RAMAN spectroscopy, etc.).