Archaeologies of Attachment

This edited volume offers a new approach to the study of emotion in the past, focusing on the experience of emotional attachment. Psychological research has demonstrated that all humans are capable of forming a variety of close social and emotional attachments from cradle to grave, yet archaeology has not, to date, considered the significance of these attachments in any detail. Inspired by Bowlby’s theory of attachment, one of the key theories in developmental psychology over the last 60 years, this volume sheds light on what attachment is, how it functions, and how it has influenced human life and material culture from the Palaeolithic to the present. This volume brings together contributions from authors focusing on a variety of subjects related to attachment, from social relationships with people and animals, to places, to material culture, from the deepest reaches of prehistory to the contemporary era. It aims to improve our understanding of where and how archaeologists can look for evidence of these attachments, and in doing so, it helps us to consider how these shape our understanding of human behaviour, cognition and life more broadly. This volume is of interest to archaeologists and scholars of social attachment theory.