Co-Geeking

One of the themes that guides a lot of what I post here is that thinking historically is good practice for thinking fictionally. As an example of what I mean by that, let me present the question of intentionality in archaeology.

Much of what we know about ancient cultures comes from archaeology. For all that we can learn from texts, there are many things, peoples, and experiences that were either never written about, or for which the texts have been lost. Individual artifacts can be interesting in their own right, but we often get the most valuable insights from studying objects found together as a group. When we examine groups of artifacts, though, it is essential to begin by asking questions about intentionality: were these objects intentionally grouped together by the people who used them, and was that group of objects intentionally placed where it was discovered? How we answer those initial questions determines a great deal about what further questions we can ask.

When thinking about groups of artifacts, there are two important terms to start with: assemblage and deposition. In archaeology an assemblage is a group of objects found together in the same place. Deposition is the process, whether through human or natural action, by which those objects came to rest in that place. Questions of intentionality are important for how we analyze both assemblages of artifacts and the processes of deposition that left them for us to find.

Assemblages can be either intentional or unintentional. Sometimes we find groups of objects that were purposefully grouped together by the people who used them. In other cases, the objects in an assemblage are not connected except by happenstance. Similarly, some acts of deposition were intentional, while others were not. Recognizing the differences between intentional and unintentional assemblages and depositions is crucial for asking the right questions about the things we find.

For example, the objects placed in a grave were purposefully chosen by the family and friends of the deceased and intentionally deposited. We can pose questions about why these objects were chosen for this person, what it meant for the people who gave them to see them buried, and what the whole assemblage conveys about the person they were deposited with.

The goods we find on a shipwreck, on the other hand, were deliberately chosen, and share an important facet of their history, but they were not intended to end up where we find them. We can pose useful questions about how and why the people who laded this ship choose this particular set of cargo and equipment for their voyage, much as we can ask questions about why mourners chose particular objects to go into a grave. On the other hand, we also have to keep in mind that the ship’s crew expected it to reach port safely, not go down and leave its cargo on the bottom of the sea. If we want to understand the objects found on the ship, we have to consider their intended destinations once they were offloaded from the ship, which were probably numerous and varied.

We also find assemblages of objects that were not intentionally put together by the people who lived with them, some deliberated deposited and some not. The objects we find in an ancient settlement’s rubbish heaps were deliberately disposed of, but not purposefully chosen to go together as a set. Such finds are useful for understanding how the people of that settlement used and disposed of their material goods, but we have to be careful not to assume that the things we find in such a deposit were used by the same people, in the same households, or even within the same timeframe. In fact, looking at what kinds of goods people discarded and how they changed over time can tell us a lot about the life of the place they were found in.

The debris we find in the silt of a disused drainage ditch, by contrast, was neither purposefully assembled nor deliberately deposited. Such finds are useful in examining what kinds of objects were casually lost in a particular place that were too insignificant to their owners to be worth the effort of searching for or retrieving, which in turn tells us about the economic life and material culture of the settlement.

The important thread that unites all of these possibilities is that they require us to think about the people of the past as people, individuals who made choices about what to do with the things around them, just as we do. The habits of thought we apply to archaeology and history are ones that also serve us well when writing fiction: just as we have to think about people in the past as people, we have to think about our characters as people with intentions and desires, too. In a work of fiction, everything is intentional from the author’s point of view, but not everything is intentional from the characters’ point of view. Thinking about what choices characters make, and when they are making a choice at all, is a helpful habit to have.

Image: Dishes from the Helmsdale Hoard, photograph by Erik Jensen (found Helmsdale, Scotland; currently National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; 200-400 CE; bronze)

History for Writers looks at how history can be a fiction writer’s most useful tool, from worldbuilding to dialogue.