Sensory Experiences

The past decade has witnessed the growth of an interdisciplinary body of research which
takes sensory experience as a primary focus in understanding the human past (Day 2013; Hamilakis 2013; Levent and Pascual-Leone 2014; Skeates and Day 2020). Relative to that of more recent periods of European (pre)history, the development of sensory approaches to the Mesolithic has been a somewhat slow and disjointed affair (Elliott 2020). The majority of this development can be seen to occur at the turn of the twenty-first century, as a raft of new theoretical and methodological approaches began to influence Mesolithic research, and herald a notable increase in the number of researchers placing an emphasis on human experience.
Within the context of this broadening of Mesolithic discourse, three themes emerged within which a consideration of sensory experience plays a role. These revolved around discussions of the haracter of Mesolithic spaces, writing emotion into Mesolithic narratives, and colourful visualization of esolithic life.
The influence of the phenomenological approach to archaeological landscapes has helped to foreground the role of sensory experience in the creation of space. In placing the locus of meaning construction within the body, phenomenological approaches centralize embodied experience in developing understandings of past worlds.