Bricolage : une perspective nouvelle sur les matérialités complexes

Abstract

The bricolage concept has been adapted to a wide range of practical, conceptual, methodological and critical applications across most fields of inquiry and artistic expression, but found little purchase in mainstream archaeology. Here, after presenting a heuristic bricolage-collage model based on Levi-Strauss’s original formulations, I will apply the model toward an unpacking of some complex materialities of late 3rd millennium BC Sardinia, specifically the Monte Claro tomb assemblages of Bau su Matutzu and Gannì. Contrasting traditional holistic-contextual approaches, the assemblages are here disassembled to their constituent materials and representations to expose evidence of a hypothetical intellectual bricoleur working from an eclectic inventory of acquired skills, customs and styles with diffuse references. Mapping comparanda for tomb design, burial treatment and material accompaniments suggests a catchment of local and exotic venues where skills, techniques, form- and style attributes were opportunistically gleaned for re-deployments in the creation of unique tombs that set their patrons and their families apart.