{"title":"Gaining Ground","authors":"Jonathan Gardner","doi":"10.1558/jca.25782","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Vast quantities of waste rubble produced through demolition, natural disasters and conflict form part of the globe-spanning, anthropogenic deposit that has been called the “archaeosphere”. Whilst such material is often considered “waste” and of little value in the immediate aftermath of deconstruction or destruction, rubble rarely remains “wasted” for long and becomes reused in new cycles of construction. While architectural salvage and spolia are relatively well studied, the reuse of demolition rubble in the creation of new terrain (reclamation) is rarely discussed. Responding to this, I discuss how World War II bomb rubble was used to reclaim ground from Hackney Marsh and Leyton Marsh in East London. This waste material not only provided valuable new terrain for leisure facilities, but also led to a broad array of unexpected and emergent uses and valuations, including as site of footballing heritage and place of remembrance and contestation.","PeriodicalId":54020,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Archaeology","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Contemporary Archaeology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.25782","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ARCHAEOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Vast quantities of waste rubble produced through demolition, natural disasters and conflict form part of the globe-spanning, anthropogenic deposit that has been called the “archaeosphere”. Whilst such material is often considered “waste” and of little value in the immediate aftermath of deconstruction or destruction, rubble rarely remains “wasted” for long and becomes reused in new cycles of construction. While architectural salvage and spolia are relatively well studied, the reuse of demolition rubble in the creation of new terrain (reclamation) is rarely discussed. Responding to this, I discuss how World War II bomb rubble was used to reclaim ground from Hackney Marsh and Leyton Marsh in East London. This waste material not only provided valuable new terrain for leisure facilities, but also led to a broad array of unexpected and emergent uses and valuations, including as site of footballing heritage and place of remembrance and contestation.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Contemporary Archaeology is the first dedicated, international, peer-reviewed journal to explore archaeology’s specific contribution to understanding the present and recent past. It is concerned both with archaeologies of the contemporary world, defined temporally as belonging to the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, as well as with reflections on the socio-political implications of doing archaeology in the contemporary world. In addition to its focus on archaeology, JCA encourages articles from a range of adjacent disciplines which consider recent and contemporary material-cultural entanglements, including anthropology, art history, cultural studies, design studies, heritage studies, history, human geography, media studies, museum studies, psychology, science and technology studies and sociology. Acknowledging the key place which photography and digital media have come to occupy within this emerging subfield, JCA includes a regular photo essay feature and provides space for the publication of interactive, web-only content on its website.