This special issue focuses on the topical theme of sensory archaeology, exploring the ways in which senses impact our understanding of materiality and our interaction with past societies. Archaeology is essentially a visual discipline, but material culture was often created for a multiscalar sensory experience that included all the senses, rather than just visual stimulation.
We aim at expanding this understanding and exploring alternative ways to interpret past materiality that incorporate multiple senses to achieve a holistic analysis of past material culture.
Additionally, anthropological and archaeological studies have highlighted those multisensory experiences of both architecture and everyday objects acquire different meanings in diverse geographical and historical contexts, stressing that even sensory perception can be influenced by societal cultural paradigms.
To this special issue, we welcome articles presenting innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of artefacts and architecture through sensory archaeology, focusing on the aspects of connectivity and materiality that combine archaeological analysis with other fields deeply involved in sensory studies. We are also particularly keen on contributions that assess sensory archaeology from a quantitative perspective and explore how to verify these often rather subjective observations. In this sense, we welcome a broad range of papers from scientific archaeology to cultural approaches.
