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Materiality and memory: an archaeological perspective on the popular adoption of linear time in Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Harold Mytum
Harold Mytum*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, UK (Email: hcm1@york.ac.uk)
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Extract

Archaeologists increasingly realise that prehistoric peoples had their own ideas about time. The concept of linear, measurable time emerged in learned Europe largely in the first millennium. Here the author tracks how, with the broadening of literacy in sixteenth-century Britain, dates start appearing on numerous items of popular culture. The dated objects in turn feed back into the way that people of all social levels began to see themselves and their place in history.

Keywords

BritainReformationtimememorychurchbellsmemorials
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 312 , 1 June 2007 , pp. 381 - 396
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2007

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