ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author presents the current state of research on the study of emotions in archaeology, and provides some new paths in the study of emotions and materiality, using examples from his research area: the medieval and early modern period in Scandinavia. The intersection of the material and the emotional is an emerging research field in archaeology, and as a large part of the research in the history of emotions is based on language and images, the specific nature of the archaeological sources poses challenges. One of the most well-known archaeological discoveries of emotions involves artefacts interpreted as traces of rituals surrounding the graves of Neanderthals, and thus as signs of feelings of grief and bereavement. Through the medieval and early modern periods, the modes of mediated materiality changed and this may well have given rise to the development and implementation of different emotional responses.
