Witchcraft and Deep Time – a debate at Harvard Stephen Mitchell 1 , Neil Price 2 , Ronald Hutton 3 , Diane Purkiss 4 , Kimberley Patton 5 , Catharina Raudvere 6 , Carlo Severi 7 , Miranda Aldhouse-Green 8 , Sarah Semple 9 , Aleks Pluskowski 10 , Martin Carver 11 & Carlo Ginzburg 12 Archaeology, consistently warned off religion by wise old heads, here rushes deeper into the thicket to tackle the thorny topic of ancient witchcraft. The occasion was a seminar at Harvard organised by Stephen Mitchell and Neil Price to mark the twentieth anniversary of Carlo Ginzburg’s influential book on the connections between witches and shamanism – and by implication the possible connections with prehistoric ritual and belief. Archaeology was by no means the only voice at the meeting, which was attended by scholars active in history, literature, divinity and anthropology. The discussions revealed much that was entangled in the modern psyche: ‘don’t let’s tame strangeness’ was one leitmotiv of this stimulating colloquium. A romantic attachment to the irrational is a feature of our time, especially among academics. But maybe taming strangeness is an archaeologist’s real job. . . Introduction Stephen Mitchell Nocturnal histories: witchcraft and the shamanic legacy of pre-Christian Europe took the form of a series of brief introductory presentations followed by lengthy open discussions at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, over four days in August 2009. The academic fields represented were intentionally diverse, and included archaeology, religion, anthropology, literature, history and folklore. Our discussions of witchcraft and 1 Folklore & Mythology, Warren House, Harvard University, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA 2 Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen, School of Geosciences, St Mary’s, Elphinstone Road, Aberdeen AB24 3UF, UK 3 University of Bristol, School of Humanities, 11 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TB, UK 4 Keble College, Oxford OX1 3PG, UK 5 Harvard Divinity School, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA 6 Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Snorresgade 17-19, DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark 7 Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale, 52, Rue du Cardinal Lemoine, 75005 Paris, France 8 Cardiff School of History and Archaeology, Humanities Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK 9 Durham University, Department of Archaeology, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK 10 Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Box 226, Reading RG6 6AB, UK 11 Department of Archaeology, University of York, King’s Manor, York YO1 7EP, UK 12 Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7, 56126 Pisa, Italy ANTIQUITY 84 (2010): 864–879 http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/084/ant0840864.htm 864