ABSTRACT

Sentient Conceptualisations is about how scientists studying the past understand time in relation to space. Simonetti argues that the feelings for depths and surfaces, arising from the bodily movements and gestures of scientific practice, strongly influence conceptualisations of space and time. With an anthropological eye, Simonetti explores the ways archaeologists and those from related disciplines develop expert knowledge in varied environments. The book draws on ethnographic work carried out with Chilean and Scottish archaeologists, working both on land and underwater, to analyse in depth the visual language of science and what it reveals about the relation between thinking and feeling.

chapter |161 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|145 pages

Gesturing a past underground

chapter 2|126 pages

Forward into the absent past

chapter 5|65 pages

Time at the trowel’s edge

chapter 6|16 pages

Bodies of knowledge

Anthropology, archaeology and history

chapter 7|27 pages

Time play

From ontology to rheology