Things objects can do. Taking an itinerary approach to artefact biographies for utilizing the cognitive, social and emotional magic of historical objects for contemporary society

Abstract

Archaeological artefacts start their life when they are created by people living in the past. The search for their biography starts as soon as they are discovered by archaeologists. After having being studied, objects are most often disposed in a repository and many professionals and scholars in archaeology will probably

consider this the end of an object’s biography. We, the authors of this article, take this supposed ‘end of life’ of artefacts as our starting point. We have often experienced how simple stone artefacts – scientifically not worth a lot to archaeologists or other heritage professionals – can have a strong attraction to non-professionals. For members of the public it may be pure magic. Besides its capacity to reveal the past, to evoke the need to take care and safeguard, an object from the past may also evoke imagination and inspire (artistic) creativity. Moreover, it has the power to socially connect individuals and to trigger emotions and foster wellbeing. In this article, we will share some of our experiences with these cognitive, social and emotional meanings of objects when they are put in de hands of the general public. Based on these experiences, we argue to extend the ‘lifecycle’ of (pre)historic objects by taking an itinerary approach to object studies and artefact biographies.