Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-8mjnm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T16:42:57.270Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Archetypal Landscapes and the Interpretation of Meaning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

Ronald J. Nash
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and AnthropologySt Francis Xavier UniversityP.O. Box 5000Antigonish Nova ScotiaCanadaB2G 2W5

Extract

Carl Jung's analytic ideas on archetypes offer an approach to interpreting ancient meanings in the absence of historic records. The archetypes of the collective unconscious are said to maintain a uniformitarian consistency over time in form and meaning. Their recurrent expression in the vernacular arts, dreams, even film of recent times permits exploration of these same archetypes in ancient contexts. The theory is discussed and applied to three landscapes, archetypal landscapes of glacial wasteland, primordial sea and forest labyrinth.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aston, M., 1985.Interpreting the Landscape: Landscape, Archaeology and Local History. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd.Google Scholar
Barrett, J., R., Bradley & Green, M., 1991. Landscape, Monuments and Society: the Prehistory of Cranborne Chase. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bender, B. (ed.), 1993. Landscape: Politics and Perspectives. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Bock, P., 1978. Micmac, in Trigger (ed.), 109–22.Google Scholar
Bonnichsen, R., D., Keenlyside & Turnmire, K., 1991. Paleoindian patterns in Maine and the Maritimes, in Prehistoric Archaeology in Maritime Provinces: Past and Present Research, eds. Deal, M. & Blair, S.. (Reports in Archaeology 8.) Fredericton: The Council of Maritime Premiers, 136.Google Scholar
Collins, M.A., 1995. Waterworld. London: Amour Books.Google Scholar
Cooper, J.C., 1978. An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Cosgrove, D., 1993. Landscapes and myths, gods and humans, in Bender (ed.), 281305.Google Scholar
Crook, J., 1980. The Evolution of Human Consciousness. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Dundes, A. (ed.), 1988. The Flood Myth. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Echo-Hawk, R.C., 1993. Exploring ancient worlds. Society for American Archaeology Bulletin 11(4), 56.Google Scholar
Eliade, M., 1991. Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism. Princeton (NJ): Mythos, Princeton University PressGoogle Scholar
Fladmark, K., 1983. A comparison of sea-levels and prehistoric cultural developments on the east and west coasts of Canada, in The Evolution of Maritime Cultures on the Northeast and Northwest Coasts of America, ed. Ronald, J Nash. (Publications 11.) Burnaby, BC: Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, 6575.Google Scholar
Goddard, I., 1978. Eastern Algonquian languages, in Trigger (ed.), 70–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, C. & Lindzey, G., 1957. Theories of Personality. New York (NY): John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Henderson, J.L., 1964. Ancient myths and modern man, in Jung (ed.), 97156.Google Scholar
Hill, J.N., 1994. Prehistoric cognition and the science of archaeology, in Renfrew & Zubrow (eds.), 8392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodder, I.R., 1992. Theory and Practice in Archaeology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hodder, I.R., M., Shanks, A., Alexandri, V., Buchli, J., Carman, J., Last & Lucas, G., 1995. Interpreting Archaeology: Finding Meaning in the Past. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hoffman, B.G., 1955. Historical Ethnography of the Micmac of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation in Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Hyde, M. & McGuinness, M., 1992. Jung For Beginners. Cambridge: Icon Books.Google Scholar
Jaffé, A., 1964. Symbolism in the visual arts, in Jung (ed.), pp 255–322.Google Scholar
Jaffé, A., 1970. The Myth of Meaning in the Work of C.G Jung. London: Hodder & Stoughton.Google Scholar
Jaynes, J., 1976. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. New York (NY): Hough ton Miffin.Google Scholar
Jung, C.G. (ed.), 1964. Man and His Symbols. New York (NY): Dell.Google Scholar
Jung, C.G., 1968a. Symbols of transformation. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, vol. 5, pt 1. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jung, C.G. 1968b Psychological types. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, vol. 6. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jung, C.G., 1968c. The archetypes and the collective unconscious. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, vol. 9, pt 1. 2nd edition. London: RoutledgeGoogle Scholar
Jung, C.G., 1968d. Aion. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, vol. 9, pt 2. London: Routledge & Kegan PaulGoogle Scholar
Larsen, S. & Larsen, R., 1991. A Fire in the Mind: the Life of Joseph Campbell. New York (NY): Anchor Books, DoubledayGoogle Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C, 1978. The Origin of Table Manners. (Introduction to a Science of Mythology 3.) London: Jonathan CapeGoogle Scholar
MacDonald, G.F., 1968. Debert: a Paleo-Indian site in Central Nova Scotia. (Anthropology Paper 16.) Ottawa: National Museum of CanadaGoogle Scholar
McGhee, R., 1977. Ivory for the sea woman: the symbolic attributes of a prehistoric technology. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 1, 141–9.Google Scholar
Maritime Resource Management Service Inc. & Griffiths-Muecke Associates, 1984. Natural History of Nova Scotia, vols. 1 & 2. Halifax: Department of Lands and Forests and the Nova Scotia MuseumGoogle Scholar
Moore, R. & Gillette, D., 1992. The Warrior Within: Accessing the Knight in the Male Psyche. New York (NY): William Morrow & Co. Inc.Google Scholar
Nash, J.M., A., Park & Willwerth, J., 1995. Glimpses of the mind. Time 146(5), 3644.Google Scholar
Nash, R.J., 1975. Archaeological Investigations in the Transitional Forest Zone: Northern Manitoba, Southern Keewatin, N.W.T.. Winnipeg: Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature.Google Scholar
Nash, R.J., 1980. Research strategies, economic patterns and eastern Nova Scotia prehistory, in Proceedings of the 1980 Conference on the Future of Archaeology in the Maritimes, vol. 8, ed. Shimabuku, D.. (Occasional Papers in Anthropology.) Halifax: Saint Mary's University, 2341.Google Scholar
Nash, R.J., 1983. The progress and process of theory building: the northeast and northwest coasts, in The Evolution of Maritime Cultures on the Northeast and the Northwest Coasts of America, ed. Nash, R.J.. (Publication 11.) Burnaby, BC: Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, 125.Google Scholar
Nash, R.J., 1996. Forest Clearance and the Evolution of Consciousness. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Newmann, E., 1954. The Origins and History of Consciousness. London: Maresfield Library, Karmac.Google Scholar
Olwig, K., 1993. Sexual cosmology: nation and landscape at the conceptual Interstices of nature and culture; or What does landscape really mean?, in Bender (ed.), 307–43.Google Scholar
Osborne, R., 1993. Freud For Beginners. London: Writers and Readers Publishing Inc.Google Scholar
Pacifique, Le Père R.P., 1933. Le pays des Micmacs. Bulletin de la Sociète de Géographie de Québec 27, 5164.Google Scholar
Progoff, I., 1985. Jung's Psychology and its Social Meaning. New York (NY): Dialogue House Library.Google Scholar
Radin, P., 1948. Hero Cycles of the Winnebago. Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Publications.Google Scholar
Railton, J.B., 1975. Post-glacial history of Nova Scotia. Proceedings of the Nova Scotia Institute of Science 27, supplement 3, 3742.Google Scholar
Rand, S.T., 1894. Legends of the Micmacs. New York (NY): Longmans, Green & Co.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. & Zubrow, E.B.W. (eds.), 1994. The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology. (New Directions in Archaeology.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scarre, C, 1994. The meaning of death: funerary beliefs and the prehistorian, in Renfrew & Zubrow (eds.), 7582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schama, S., 1995. Landscape and Memory. London: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Schiffer, M.B., 1976. Behavioral Archaeology. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Shanks, M., 1992. Experiencing the Past: on the Character of Archaeology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, H.I. & Wintemberg, W.J., 1929. Some Shell-Heaps in Nova Scotia. (Anthropological Series 9, Bulletin 47.) Ottawa: National Museum of Canada.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spence, L., 1994. North American Indians: Myths and Legends. London: Senate. (Original publication 1914.)Google Scholar
Stewart, F.L., 1989. Faunal Remains from the Delorey Island Site (BjCj-9) of Nova Scotia. (Curatorial Report No. 57.) Halifax: Nova Scotia Museum.Google Scholar
Tilley, C, 1994. A Phenomenology of Landscape Places, Paths and Monuments. (Explorations in Anthropology.) Oxford & Providence (RI): Berg.Google Scholar
Trigger, B. (ed.), 1978. Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 15: Northeast. Washington (DC):Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
van der Leeuw, S.E., 1995. A historical perspective on ‘cultural’ and ‘natural’, in Environmental Perception and Policy Making. First Report. Unpublished manuscript, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Wainwright, G. & Longworth, I., 1971. Durrington Walls: Excavations 1966–1968. London: Society of Antiquaries.Google Scholar
Whitehead, R.H., 1988. Stories from the Six Worlds: Micmac Legends. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing Ltd.Google Scholar
Whitehead, R.H., 1991. The Old Man Told Us: Excerpts from Micmac History, 1500–1950. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing Ltd.Google Scholar
Whitehead, R.H., 1992. ‘Going Down Into the Water Where There are no Stars’: Mi‘kmaq Cosmology Research notes. Unpublished manuscript, Halifax, Nova Scotia.Google Scholar
Whitmont, E., 1982. Return of the Goddess. New York (NY): Crossroad.Google Scholar