Assemblage Biography and the Life Course: An Archaeologically Materialized Temporality of Richard and Sarah Hopkins

A substantial assemblage of material culture deposited ca. 1843–45 in Cambridge, England, is examined from a biographical perspective in terms of what it tells us of the preceding century or so—ca. 1730-1845—rather than the contemporary 1840s. It reveals a materialized temporality, bound up principally with the lives of the college cooks Richard and Sarah Hopkins but also numerous other individuals. The assemblage is also viewed from the perspective of the processes of discard and deposition, and the likely relationship of those involved in this to Richard and Sarah Hopkins.