ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to present the current state of research on the study of emotions in archaeology, and then set out some new paths in the study of emotions and materiality, using examples from my research area: the medieval and early modern period in Scandinavia. The intersection of the material and the emotional is an emerging research field in archaeology, and as a large part of the research in the history of emotions is based on language and images, the specific nature of the archaeological sources poses challenges. Our most important topics lie within the study of periods or groups for which no written sources are available, and thus the linguistic and behavioural articulation of emotions has been lost. This situation poses particular problems for the study of emotions in this field. Another difference is that while a history of emotions can be constructed from sources that deal with known individuals, like letters and diaries, we as archaeologists are usually dealing with unknown people. Furthermore, our material can only rarely be associated with an individual, but represents a collective, often a household, making the investigation of the emotions of individuals close to impossible.
