Peatland archaeo-environmental studies and ecocritical thought Phil Stastney, Dept. of Archaeology, University of Reading. UK

Types and scales of evidence Archaeology/Palaeoecology Ritual/Vernacular Micro-scale/Global-scale Individual lifespan/Holocene

The problem

1) Ecocriticsm. 2) Ecophobia. 3) Scale framing 1) Ecocriticsm? 2) Ecophobia? 3) Scale framing? 4) Narrativizing Science!

Simply put, ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment Glotfelty 1996 cited in Garrard, G. 2004. Ecocriticism. London: Routledge, p.3. Change the ‘social imaginary’ to address ecological issues

ECOPHOBIA? BIOPHILIA?

Late Prehistoric ecophobia? You can take the man from the bog, but you cannot take the bog from the man.

A vernacular landscape

Timber trackways and environmental change Littleton bog, Co. Tipperary Testate amoebae analysis  reconstruction of bog water table Human activity  Early + Mid/Late Bronze Age plank trackways & Iron Age structures

Bog bursts? BA trackways IA platforms + tracks

“Scale framing”

Scale framing Personal – the story is about the man and his family (naïve) National – the story is about late 20th C USA, consumerism, automobiles etc. Global/Long timescale – “unframing” – the real story that underpins and determines the action in ‘Elephant’ are the global changes wrought by humans over the last few centuries

Plunkett et al. (2013) Quaternary Science Reviews 61, 17-31 Peatland trackway construction in Ireland Plunkett et al. (2013) Quaternary Science Reviews 61, 17-31

Plunkett et al. (2013) Quaternary Science Reviews 61, 17-31 Environmental indifference? Plunkett et al. (2013) Quaternary Science Reviews 61, 17-31

How have our attitudes towards peatlands changed?

Narrativizing Science “If there is anything this is going to cause real changes, it is going to be the narrativization of science; if there is anything that is going to make tangible the seriousness of the problems we have created, it is narrative” Estok (2010) Configurations 18(1-2), 150.

Clark, T. (2015) Ecocriticsm on the Edge: the Anthropocene as a threshold concept. London: Bloomsbury Estok, S.C. (2010) Narrativizing Science: The Ecocritical Imagination and Ecophobia. Configurations 18(1-2), 141-159. Garrard, G. (2004) Ecocriticism. New critical idiom. London: Routledge. Gearey, B. & Richer, S. (2016) Towards an Ecocritical Palaeoecology. Conference presentation TAG Southampton, UK, December 2016 Green, M. (1986) The Gods of the Celts. Heaney, S. (1999) The Man and the Bog. In B. Coles, J. Coles & M.S. Jørgensen (Eds) Bog Bodies, Sacred Sites and Wetland Archaeology. WARP Occasional Paper 12. Plunkett, G. et al. (2013) Environmental indifference? A critique of environmentally deterministic theories of peatland archaeological site construction in Ireland. Quaternary Science Reviews 61, 17-31. Ravn, M. (2010) Burials in Bogs. Acta Archaeologica 81, 112- 123 Sanders, K. (2009) Bodies in the Bog and the archaeological imagination. Chicago: Chicago University Press.