Brian Elliott
Biographic Data
| ID | 185163 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brian Elliott |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brian |
| FAMILY NAME | Elliott |
| SIGNATURE | ELLIOTT B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Edinburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2456-1983 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 62 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 171 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 59 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1963 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Art and Its Significance
Colonialism and the European Mesolithic
This paper heeds the broader societal calls for decolonisation in Britain and Ireland, and seeks to apply various strands of decolonial practice within the context of Mesolithic archaeology; a subfield which has seen little postcolonial reflection to date. We question the historic interactions between Mesolithic archaeology and colonial hegemony, and argue that Mesolithic research continues to reinforce these hegemonies today. This occurs simulta…
Unsettling Sin and Seeding Healing
Material and Sensory Experiences of Mesolithic Resinous Substances
Mesolithic resinous adhesives are well known for their role as hafting mastic within composite technologies, yet it is increasingly clear that their usage was more diverse than this. Birch-bark tar has been recovered from Mesolithic contexts as chewed lumps linked to medicinal treatment of toothache and oral diseases, and as a decorative element on ornaments and art objects; and an amorphous resinous substance possibly derived from pine or spruce…
PositiveLinks and the Covid-19 Response
PositiveLinks (PL) is an evidence-based mobile health intervention promoting engagement in care for people living with HIV. PL offers secure, in-app patient-provider messaging. We investigated messaging during the early COVID-19 pandemic, comparing messages exchanged between 01/13/2020 and 03/01/2020 ("Pre-COVID") to messages exchanged between 03/02/2020 and 04/19/2020 ("early COVID") using Poisson regression. We performed qualitative analysis on…
Understanding the bone and antler assemblages from Star Carr
I could not bear to look”
This article explores Herman Melville’s “The Piazza” through the lens of what social psychologists term the Just-World Hypothesis. Written last and serving as the opening story of The Piazza Tales, “The Piazza” presents readers with an imaginative narrator whose actions toward a young woman he meets in a lonely mountain cabin often seem puzzling; the present essay analyzes his behavior by examining the psychology of Belief in a Just World, a phen…
No pottery at the western periphery of Europe
The past decade has witnessed an intensification of research into the use of pottery by hunter-gatherers. Long viewed by Western scholars as a marginal practice among these groups, pottery production is now known to have been widespread among prehistoric hunter-gatherers, many of whom practised no other activities associated with agriculture. In emphasising the centrality of ceramics to these communities, however, we risk marginalising those who …
Masks in context
We are all now aware of masks and their affects. In the last 18 months, they have proliferated and in doing so replicated most of the major tropes of material culture studies. In Europe and the US
Clamber of the dead
The application of clay to the heads of deceased hunter-gatherers within the Middle Neolithic burials of Finland and Latvia was originally identified by researchers working in these regions during the 20th century. This practice stands apart from the deeper-seated traditions of grave adornment which characterise the hunter-gatherer archaeology of the Baltic region during the Middle Holocene. However, the variable extent to which these ‘death mask…
H.a.r.p
Craft Theory in Prehistory
This paper reflects critically on the use of the term ‘craft’ within prehistoric archaeology and its recent rise to prominence within a variety of analytical contexts. Having briefly evaluated the way in which prehistorians employ craft, it moves on to consider the potential value that Craft Theory, a growing interdisciplinary body of literature relating to practices of making, might hold for thinking about prehistoric material culture within an …
Work, culture, and play in the neoliberal condition
Foucault’s [2008. The birth of biopolitics: Lectures at the collège de France 1978–1979. New York, NY: Picador] lectures on neoliberalism present a powerful challenge to the Marxist critique of capitalist work as alienating and dehumanizing. Foucault suggests that neoliberalism allows work to be seen in terms of an individual’s pursuit of personal happiness. Seminal cultural theory in Hoggart [1957/2009. The uses of literary: Aspects of working-c…
Urban Agriculture, Uneven Development, and Gentrification in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon enjoys a growing reputation as a beacon of urban sustainability. Its modern planning history has seen effectve efforts to curb urban sprawl and introduce a comprehensive mass transit system. More recently, the city has also become a hub for a “makers” movement involving a plethora of local, small-scale craft production. Within this context, Portland is also home to a thriving urban agriculture scene, featuring community gardens, …
Introduction
A Social History of the Irish and British Mesolithic, brings together a generation of researchers working on the Mesolithic of Ireland and Britain in a series of collaborative papers.The impetus for this was the Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: 10 Years On session, held at the 2014 Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) conference in Manchester, UK, and chaired by Chantal Conneller and Graeme Warren.The aim of the session was to reflect on 10 years o…
Living Mesolithic Time
British and Irish Mesolithic studies have long been characterized by a reliance on broad-scale lithic typologies, both to provide chronologies, and in discussion of ‘cultural’ groups. More recently, traditional narrative structures—period definitions of ‘Early’ and ‘Late’, or culture typologies—have been complemented by a host of other evidence. This has included new studies of site stratigraphy, evidence for seasonality, and material culture cha…
Beyond Critique
Research Article| May 01 2018 Beyond Critique:Walter Benjamin on the Politics of Production Brian Elliott Brian Elliott Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google boundary 2 (2018) 45 (2): 187–202. https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-4381100 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter Email Permissions Search Site Citation Brian Elliott; Beyond Critique:Walter Benjamin on the Politics of Production. boundary 2 1 May 2018; 45 (2)…
Resolving the Issue of Artefact Deposition at Star Carr
Since its publication in 1954 Star Carr has held an iconic status in British Mesolithic archaeology. The original excavations at the site recorded a large assemblage of bone and antler tools from a sequence of peat deposits at the edge of the Lake Flixton. Over 60 years later this remains the largest assemblage of bone and antler artefacts of its date in Britain and has been an invaluable source of information for life in the early Mesolithic. Ho…
Stone Dead
In Europe, cremation as a burial practice is often associated with the Bronze Age, but examples of cremated human remains are in fact known from the Palaeolithic onwards. Unlike conventional inhumation, cremation destroys most of the evidence we can use to reconstruct the biography of the buried individual. Remarkably, in Ireland, cremation is used for the earliest recorded human burial and grave assemblage (7530–7320 bc ) located on the banks of…
Natural Catastrophe
Radically revises our conception of climate change as a political problem, not a natural phenomenon Brian Elliott persuasively argues that climate change is, in fact, a symptom of neoliberal governance. This helps us to understand how, across wealthy liberal democracies, environmental concern has increasingly been framed as a consumer responsibility issue rather than as a matter of structural social-political transformation. Thinking of a world t…
A Unique Engraved Shale Pendant from the Site of Star Carr
In 2015 an engraved shale pendant was found during excavations at the Early Mesolithic site of Star Carr, UK. Engraved motifs on Mesolithic pendants are extremely rare, with the exception of amber pendants from southern Scandinavia. The artwork on the pendant is the earliest known Mesolithic art in Britain; the 'barbed line' motif is comparable to styles on the Continent, particularly in Denmark. When it was first uncovered the lines were barely …
Facing the Chop
This paper provides a critical review of Smith's (1989) typological discussion of the antler ‘mattocks’ of the British Mesolithic. The evidence for use of the term ‘mattock’ is assessed in relation to a new technological analysis of antler tools from Britain. In the light of the data presented here and developments in the study of Mesolithic osseous technologies from elsewhere in northwest Europe, a redefinition of the terminology and typology us…
Sonic Horizons of the Mesolithic
This article examines the work of the Sonic Horizons of the Mesolithic project in using sound to address the pressing issue of engaging wider audiences with the British Mesolithic. It describes the process of collaboration between archaeologists and musicians to create a continuous thirty-four-minute sound fabric which draws directly on research into the Early Mesolithic archaeology of the Vale of Pickering, Yorkshire (England). By considering th…
Community and resistance in Heidegger, Nancy and Agamben
Over the last two decades the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and Giorgio Agamben has attracted widespread attention both within philosophy and more broadly across the human sciences. Central to the thinking of Nancy and Agamben is a shared theory of community that offers a model of resistance to oppressive power through radical passivity. This article argues that this model inherits the inadequacies of Martin Heidegger’s attempts to conceptualize society…
From riches to rags
From riches to rags
Persistence and Change
The Petite Bourgeoisie is a stratum that has attrated little academic study. Historians have given it short shrift, the radical scholars dismissing it as the petty bourgeoisie and the aristocratic historians discounting its members as small fry of no significance! And historians are not alone in their neglect, for in economics, political science and sociology there is a similar disdain for those who cannot be cast in the hero's role in any of the…
A Unique Engraved Shale Pendant from the Site of Star Carr
In 2015 an engraved shale pendant was found during excavations at the Early Mesolithic site of Star Carr, UK. Engraved motifs on Mesolithic pendants are extremely rare, with the exception of amber pendants from southern Scandinavia. The artwork on the pendant is the earliest known Mesolithic art in Britain; the 'barbed line' motif is comparable to styles on the Continent, particularly in Denmark. When it was first uncovered the lines were barely …
Education, Modernity and Neo-consewative School Reform in Canada, Britain and the US
Conservative critiques of education and proposals for reform show striking similarities in Canada, Britain and the US. All seem to reflect what Habermas referred to as "the affirmative stance towards social modernity and the denigration of cultural modernity". The paper uses this distinction to describe and analyse New Right criticisms of educational progressivism and conservative efforts to promote a new sympathy for business values, market disc…
The Voice of Small Business and the Politics of Survival
Landlords in Edinburgh
Small Shopkeepers
An approach to a study of small shopkeepers and the class structure
For a good many years now the distribution of effort in the field of social stratification has been noticeably biased in the direction of analysis and description of the position of the working class. Much theoretical discussion has revolved around the possible changes that may have taken place in advanced industrial societies as a result of the relative prosperity of the post-war years. Investigators have examined political sympathies and ideolo…
Facing the Chop
This paper provides a critical review of Smith's (1989) typological discussion of the antler ‘mattocks’ of the British Mesolithic. The evidence for use of the term ‘mattock’ is assessed in relation to a new technological analysis of antler tools from Britain. In the light of the data presented here and developments in the study of Mesolithic osseous technologies from elsewhere in northwest Europe, a redefinition of the terminology and typology us…
Living Mesolithic Time
British and Irish Mesolithic studies have long been characterized by a reliance on broad-scale lithic typologies, both to provide chronologies, and in discussion of ‘cultural’ groups. More recently, traditional narrative structures—period definitions of ‘Early’ and ‘Late’, or culture typologies—have been complemented by a host of other evidence. This has included new studies of site stratigraphy, evidence for seasonality, and material culture cha…
Stone Dead
In Europe, cremation as a burial practice is often associated with the Bronze Age, but examples of cremated human remains are in fact known from the Palaeolithic onwards. Unlike conventional inhumation, cremation destroys most of the evidence we can use to reconstruct the biography of the buried individual. Remarkably, in Ireland, cremation is used for the earliest recorded human burial and grave assemblage (7530–7320 bc ) located on the banks of…
Community and resistance in Heidegger, Nancy and Agamben
Over the last two decades the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and Giorgio Agamben has attracted widespread attention both within philosophy and more broadly across the human sciences. Central to the thinking of Nancy and Agamben is a shared theory of community that offers a model of resistance to oppressive power through radical passivity. This article argues that this model inherits the inadequacies of Martin Heidegger’s attempts to conceptualize society…
Safety in Numbers
Colonialism and the European Mesolithic
This paper heeds the broader societal calls for decolonisation in Britain and Ireland, and seeks to apply various strands of decolonial practice within the context of Mesolithic archaeology; a subfield which has seen little postcolonial reflection to date. We question the historic interactions between Mesolithic archaeology and colonial hegemony, and argue that Mesolithic research continues to reinforce these hegemonies today. This occurs simulta…
Material and Sensory Experiences of Mesolithic Resinous Substances
Mesolithic resinous adhesives are well known for their role as hafting mastic within composite technologies, yet it is increasingly clear that their usage was more diverse than this. Birch-bark tar has been recovered from Mesolithic contexts as chewed lumps linked to medicinal treatment of toothache and oral diseases, and as a decorative element on ornaments and art objects; and an amorphous resinous substance possibly derived from pine or spruce…
No pottery at the western periphery of Europe
The past decade has witnessed an intensification of research into the use of pottery by hunter-gatherers. Long viewed by Western scholars as a marginal practice among these groups, pottery production is now known to have been widespread among prehistoric hunter-gatherers, many of whom practised no other activities associated with agriculture. In emphasising the centrality of ceramics to these communities, however, we risk marginalising those who …
Resolving the Issue of Artefact Deposition at Star Carr
Since its publication in 1954 Star Carr has held an iconic status in British Mesolithic archaeology. The original excavations at the site recorded a large assemblage of bone and antler tools from a sequence of peat deposits at the edge of the Lake Flixton. Over 60 years later this remains the largest assemblage of bone and antler artefacts of its date in Britain and has been an invaluable source of information for life in the early Mesolithic. Ho…
Manuel Castells and the New Urban Sociology
Structure, Consciousness and Action
Discussion of class, of 'class interests' and 'class conflict' is currently a major preoccupation not only of academic writers in sociology and politics but also of many journalists and politicians. Reading the articles in llewspapers and weekly journals it is hard to recall how only a few years ago the use of class analysis was derided, the concept dismissed by many as archaic and inappropriate in any consideration of Britain in the sixtics. The…
Social Mobility in the Petite Bourgeoisie
Social mobility In the petite bourgeoisie After many years of neglect the middle strata of advanced industrial societies are now the subject of a good deal of academic interest. Much of the new work is still concerned with the role of the small businessmen, self-employed artisans and white collar workers in Germany - either in the late nineteenth century Mittelstand associations or in the ranks of the national socialists in the nineteen thirties …
Introduction
A Social History of the Irish and British Mesolithic, brings together a generation of researchers working on the Mesolithic of Ireland and Britain in a series of collaborative papers.The impetus for this was the Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: 10 Years On session, held at the 2014 Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) conference in Manchester, UK, and chaired by Chantal Conneller and Graeme Warren.The aim of the session was to reflect on 10 years o…
Sonic Horizons of the Mesolithic
This article examines the work of the Sonic Horizons of the Mesolithic project in using sound to address the pressing issue of engaging wider audiences with the British Mesolithic. It describes the process of collaboration between archaeologists and musicians to create a continuous thirty-four-minute sound fabric which draws directly on research into the Early Mesolithic archaeology of the Vale of Pickering, Yorkshire (England). By considering th…
Bourgeois Social Movements in Britain
The Market Situation of Small Shopkeepers
Craft Theory in Prehistory
This paper reflects critically on the use of the term ‘craft’ within prehistoric archaeology and its recent rise to prominence within a variety of analytical contexts. Having briefly evaluated the way in which prehistorians employ craft, it moves on to consider the potential value that Craft Theory, a growing interdisciplinary body of literature relating to practices of making, might hold for thinking about prehistoric material culture within an …
An R.H. Horne Poem on Burke and Wills
The centenary of the funeral of Burke and Wills affords an occasion to look back upon a poem Home wrote to celebrate their story. It was printed in the Sydney Morning Herald on 19 February, 1863. This was the first poem he had written and published in Australia, about something Australian, after eleven years of residence in the country. It was not republished or even noticed, and possibly it was merely tossed off as a bit of topical verse journal…
The Composition of *Geoffry Hamlyn
INFORMATION about early colonial literary personalities is almost always hard to get, and in the case of Henry Kingsley, who was nearly five years in the country but visited Melbourne only five times and rather avoided than sought literary contacts, it is harder than ever. There are even suggestions that he could have been intentionally lying low. Legend has it that he left England precipitately after what one writer has called 'a proper scandal'…
An approach to a study of small shopkeepers and the class structure
For a good many years now the distribution of effort in the field of social stratification has been noticeably biased in the direction of analysis and description of the position of the working class. Much theoretical discussion has revolved around the possible changes that may have taken place in advanced industrial societies as a result of the relative prosperity of the post-war years. Investigators have examined political sympathies and ideolo…
Art in a City
The Market Situation of Small Shopkeepers
Adam Lindsay Gordon
Small Shopkeepers
Landlords in Edinburgh
Persistence and Change
The Petite Bourgeoisie is a stratum that has attrated little academic study. Historians have given it short shrift, the radical scholars dismissing it as the petty bourgeoisie and the aristocratic historians discounting its members as small fry of no significance! And historians are not alone in their neglect, for in economics, political science and sociology there is a similar disdain for those who cannot be cast in the hero's role in any of the…
Jindyworobaks and Aborigines
Elliott examines the Jidyworobaks' appropriation of Aboriginal culture, particularly a 'religious', or 'metaphysical' connection to the land. He argues that 'spiritual bondage to the land was teh core of Jindyworobak motivation. But ... it was a spontaneous bondage in the first place, self-induced, and never dependent on the aboriginal precedent
Structure, Consciousness and Action
Discussion of class, of 'class interests' and 'class conflict' is currently a major preoccupation not only of academic writers in sociology and politics but also of many journalists and politicians. Reading the articles in llewspapers and weekly journals it is hard to recall how only a few years ago the use of class analysis was derided, the concept dismissed by many as archaic and inappropriate in any consideration of Britain in the sixtics. The…
The Voice of Small Business and the Politics of Survival
Social Mobility in the Petite Bourgeoisie
Social mobility In the petite bourgeoisie After many years of neglect the middle strata of advanced industrial societies are now the subject of a good deal of academic interest. Much of the new work is still concerned with the role of the small businessmen, self-employed artisans and white collar workers in Germany - either in the late nineteenth century Mittelstand associations or in the ranks of the national socialists in the nineteen thirties …
Manuel Castells and the New Urban Sociology
Petty Property
As sociologists it would be easy to find points of disagreement with the notion of class expressed in the preface of E. P. Thompson's celebrated study of the making of the English working class, but whatever its shortcomings, his approach has the considerable merit of forcing us to think seriously and precisely about actual social relationships. In this chapter we want to look at the character of those social relations in which men and women of t…
The Petite Bourgeoisie
The Petite Bourgeoisie
Cities of Peasants
The Real World of the Small Business Owner
Bourgeois Social Movements in Britain
Petite Bourgeoisie
The Petite Bourgeoisie
Safety in Numbers
The Empire Strikes Back
Class, Culture and Morality
In Britain, as in many other western countries, there emerged in the mid-1970s a variety of business associations, policy and research institutes and political leagues, committed not only to the restoration of a Conservative government, but also to a much broader refurbishing of conservatism. A network of organizations, individuals and ideas grew up that became identified as the New Right. The New Right, which clearly has an international charact…
Sociology (34 works) · Political science (25 works) · Politics (21 works) · History (20 works) · Law (20 works) · Archaeology (18 works) · Geography (18 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (16 works) · Mesolithic (16 works) · Philosophy (14 works)