Time and space

Time is the big one for archaeologists. Or at least, you might think it should be. But, until recently, time as a concept, rather than a technique of dating, hasn’t been at the top of our list of things to sort out. Indeed, our other dimension, space, has received far more attention, both conceptually and as a framework for measuring and comparing archaeological data. In this chapter I will examine these two basic dimensions. We shall see how different concepts of time are every bit as important, if not more so, for understanding the past as getting the age of the Pyramids right (Dee et al. 2013) by statistically tweaking a science-based technique to measure more accurately how old things are. Time and space are in fact inseparable. To think of one is to suppose

the other. In line with earlier chapters, I present you with a basic choice. Time and space can be used as the struts in an external framework – something that people today, and in the past, rattle around in and bump up against like the wall of the set in The Truman Show. Alternatively, you can see them as created by human activity, where time and space contain the everyday rhythms of life (Leroi-Gourhan 1993). And that involvement is all about the body with its size, senses

and varied capacities for doing things. The body is the basis for our experience and appreciation of time and space. Humans and our ancestral hominins have always had bodies and, while they may have interpreted their experiences differently (Figure 5.1), we can

assume that they did undergo such experiences. In this chapter the concept of the body forms the pivot between time and space and acts as another way to explore an archaeology that sees things either rationally or relationally (Box 2.5).