会议时间：2017年3月22—24日
会议地点：美国·洛杉矶·长滩会议娱乐中心
演讲嘉宾：Brian Mac DOMHNAIL, Pallasboy Project

摘要：The Pallasboy Project investigates aspects of the creation and significance of prehistoric wooden artefacts. In Phase I (2015) the primary focus was the ‘Pallasboy Vessel’, an Iron Age wooden artefact discovered in 2000 in Toar Bog, Co. Westmeath, Ireland. In Phase II (2016) the team broadened the chronological focus to consider woodworking during the Bronze Age and the geographical focus to take in a particular form of prehistoric wooden artefact: the striking anthropomorphic wooden figurines recovered from wetland contexts across Europe. The similarity of form between Irish figurines and European examples suggests a shared culture of carving highly stylized anthropomorphic figures with distinct heads and notched torsos. Who or what the figures represent has been the cause of much debate with suggested functions as fertility gods, warriors and guardians. It has been suggested that the woodworking techniques used for these figurines would on the whole, seem to have been less ‘technical’ than those required for the Pallasboy Vessel. It is our hypothesis that the act of creation of these figurines was relatively rapid and perhaps more of a ‘personal’ act of crafting probably undertaken by a single individual using basic tools. If relatively ‘unskilled’ carvers can produce reasonable replicas, this has significance in terms of archaeological interpretations. To explore this idea two practical woodworking sessions were held in Cork (Meitheal Mara) and Dublin (UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology).