Powerful Stones: Placement, Organisation, and Associated Rituals

10 November 2021, 8.30am-12.30pm (UK); 7.30pm-11.30pm (AUS, Canberra)

Ritualisation of practice through the medium of sacred stones, including for example stone enclosures, arrangements of standing stones, and the appropriation of boulders and outcrops, is found at sites around the world and throughout human history, and has been widely discussed (e.g. Allen 1890; Bedford 2019; Darvill 2016; Eliade 1959; Kavocheva 2013). Familiar examples include megaliths in Europe (e.g. Stonehenge, Avebury, Carnac), Moai statues of Easter Island, and stone jar-burials in Laos. However, comparable sites and features are recorded across all continents. Intriguing and globally relevant elements emerge about the people behind the stones. Scholars in research areas spanning England, Laos, Torres Strait, and Hawaii for example have examined what motivated construction, transportation, and placement of local and/or exotic stones and the associated ritual activities. Stone may encode information about human relationships, evident in megaliths taken from bluestone quarries in west Wales to Salisbury Plain in England some 250km away (Darvill 2016), while ritual movement is evident in the ethno-archaeologies of mana-laden heiau stones in Hawaii and the zogo stones in Torres Strait (e.g. Becket and Singer 1999; Haddon 1904). The powerful symbolism of stone arguably extends to artefacts, evident for example in intricately carved and highly polished red stone “calumets” or pipes in the North American Midcontinent (Emersonet al 2020) and remarkable stone-axe distributions across western Europe as reported by Pétrequin et al (2011). In this people-centric roundtable we focus not on stones as case studies but rather the insights they may provide into motivation behind the establishment, organization, meaning, use, and abandonment of sacred stones both large and small. Prospective authors are encouraged to be aspirational – to push boundaries, take risks and explore undeveloped areas that bring past and present people into the foreground. Papers may attempt to advance methodological or conceptual elements within this study or assess motivation behind these sites and associated rites and rituals. In keeping with the theme of this forum, non-traditional approaches and presentation formats are encouraged. This might involve assessment of multi-disciplinary and/or multi-vocal datasets, involving commentaries on a drawing or photo rather than Powerpoint. Papers should be short (not exceeding 10 minutes), potentially finishing on questions and/or discussion items which you would like raised during this roundtable. Should you be interested in presenting please contact Timothy Darvill tdarvill@bournemouth.ac.uk and Duncan Wright duncan.wright@anu.edu.au with title and <200 word abstract by 5 November. 

Reference list: Allen, G. 1890. Sacred Stones. Fortnightly Review, 47(277): 97-116; Bedford, S. 2019. The Complexity of Monumentality in Melanesia: Mixed messages from Vanuatu. In M. LeClerc & J. Flexner (Eds.), Archaeologies of Island Melanesia. Canberra: ANU Press, pp. 67-80; Becket, J. and J. Singer (Eds.). 1999. Pana O’ahu: Sacred Stones, Sacred Land. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press; Darvill, T. 2016. Roads to Stonehenge: A prehistoric healing centre and pilgrimage site in southern Britain. In Ranft, A. and Schenkluhn, W., (Eds.) Kulturstraßen als Konzept. 20 Jahre Straße der Romani. Regensburg, Germany: Schell & Steiner, pp. 155-166; Eliade, M. 1959. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Orlando, USA: Harcourt; Emerson, T., et al. 2021. Identifying animate stones and sacred landscapes: Twenty-five years of native pipestone-quarries research in the American midcontinent. North American Archaeologist 42(2): 177-204; Haddon, A. 1904. Reports of the Cambridge anthropological expedition to Torres Straits: Sociology, magic and religion of the Western Islanders, Vol. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Kovacheva, L. 2013. The Sacred Stones in Ancient Macedonian Folk Traditions. International Journal of Science and Research. ISSN (Online): 2319-7064; Pétrequin, P. et al. 2011. Eclogite or jadeitite: The two colours involved in the transfer of alpine axeheads in western Europe. In V. Davis and M. Edmonds (Eds.) Stone Axe Studies III, Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. 55-83.