Refunctioning: An Archaeological Debut

Christian Fernandez

School of Archaeology, University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines; cgfernandez1@up.edu.ph

Refunctioning is a German theatre concept that, when taken in a general context, could mean the process of giving new purpose to an object, reinventing it, which changes its original intent. This paper attempts to adopt the concept of refunctioning to archaeology, which explores the practices of past societies of breathing new life into objects that have already served their original purposes but can further be utilised when ingenuity is applied. The setting of the study focuses on Manila, which has a well-represented archaeology. Specifically, this paper looks into terracotta masonry materials and ceramics that are transformed into another product upon exhaustion of their primary function. The concept basically explains how past cultures recycle broken or damaged household or functional items and investigates what led to repurposing them. Furthermore, the concept challenges how archaeologists today interpret artifacts that underwent refunctioning by identifying the primary purpose of an artefact and helping in reconstructing past culture’s social behaviour that led to adapting an object to a new function that alters its purposed utility.