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The archaeology of religion and ritual is a growing field of study within archaeology that applies ideas from religious studies, theory and methods, anthropological theory, and archaeological and historical methods and theories to the study of religion and ritual in past human societies from a material perspective. ==Definitions== Religion may be defined as “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs,” 〔Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Religion) Based on the Random House Dictionary, Random House, Inc. 2010〕 whereas ritual is “an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite.” 〔Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ritual) Based on the Random House Dictionary, Random House, Inc. 2010〕 Archaeologists may study the material traces of religious ritual (for example, the ritual destruction of ceramic vessels during the Aztec New Fire ceremony 〔Elson, Christina and Michael E. Smith (2001) Archaeological Deposits from the Aztec New Fire Ceremony. ‘’Ancient Mesoamerica, ‘’ Vol. 12, Issue 2, pp. 157–174〕) or the material correlates of religion as a totalized worldview (for example, Elizabeth Kyder-Reid’s study of the Southern Redemptorists’ reconfiguration of landscape and artifacts to reflect their ideals of community and poverty in material form 〔Kyder-Reid, Elizabeth (1996) The Construction of Sanctity: Landscape and Ritual in a Religious Community. In ‘’Landscape Archaeology: Reading and Interpreting the American Historical Landscape.’’ Rebecca Yamin and Karen Bescherer Metheny, eds. University of Tennessee Press.〕). As in religious studies and the Anthropology of religion, many archaeologists differentiate between “world religions,” and “traditional” or “indigenous religions.” “World religions” are defined by Bowie (2000: 26) 〔Bowie, F. (2000) The Anthropology of religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Quoted in Insoll, Timothy (2004) ‘’Archaeology, Religion, Ritual.’’ New York: Routeledge, page 8〕 as: # Based on written scriptures. # Has a notion of salvation, often from outside. # Universal, or potentially universal. # Can subsume or supplant primal religions. # Often forms a separate sphere of activity. while indigenous religions are defined as: # Oral, or if literate, lacks written/formal scriptures and creeds. # ‘This worldly’. # Confined to a single language or ethnic group. # Form basis from which world religions have developed. # Religious and social life are inseparable.〔 However, Timothy Insoll (2004: 9) 〔Insoll, Timothy (2004) ‘’Archaeology, Religion, Ritual.’’ New York: Routeledge〕 has argued that these categorizations arise from a much-critiqued neo-evolutionary perspective. Strict dichotomies of religious forms may also contribute to skewing research toward state religions, leaving household religious practice, and the relationships between these, under-investigated (a trend noted by Elson and Smith, 2001 〔Elson, Christina and Michael E. Smith (2001:157) Archaeological Deposits from the Aztec New Fire Ceremony. Ancient Mesoamerica, Vol. 12, Issue 2, pp. 157–174〕). Insoll (2004:9) argues that archaeologists may contribute to blurring the boundaries of world and indigenous religions. The archaeology of religion also incorporates related anthropological or religious concepts and terms such as magic, tradition, symbolism, and the sacred. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Archaeology of religion and ritual」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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