<P> It is because of a sometimes too contracted conception of memory as just a temporal phenomenon, that the concept of cultural memory has often been exposed to misunderstanding . Nora pioneered connecting memory to physical, tangible locations, nowadays globally known and incorporated as lieux de mémoire . He certifies these in his work as mises en abîme; entities that symbolize a more complex piece of our history . Although he concentrates on a spatial approach to remembrance, Nora already points out in his early historiographical theories that memory goes beyond just tangible and visual aspects, thereby making it flexible and in flux . This rather problematic notion, also characterized by Terdiman as the' omnipresence' of memory, implies that for instance on a sensory level, a smell or a sound can become of cultural value, due to its commemorative effect . </P> <P> Either in visualized or abstracted form, one of the largest complications of memorializing our past is the inevitable fact that it is absent . Every memory we try to reproduce becomes--as Terdiman states--a' present past' . It is this impractical desire for recalling what is gone forever that brings to surface a feeling of nostalgia, noticeable in many aspects of daily life but most specifically in cultural products . </P> <P> Recently, interest has developed in the area of' embodied memory' . According to Paul Connerton the body can also be seen as a container, or carrier of memory, of two different types of social practice; inscribing and incorporating . The former includes all activities which are helpful for storing and retrieving information: photographing, writing, taping, etc . The latter implies skilled performances which are sent by means of physical activity, like a spoken word or a handshake . These performances are accomplished by the individual in an unconscious manner, and one might suggest that this memory carried in gestures and habits, is more authentic than' indirect' memory via inscribing . </P> <P> The first conceptions of embodied memory, in which the past is' situated' in the body of the individual, derive from late nineteenth century thoughts of evolutionists like Jean Baptiste Lamarck and Ernst Haeckel . Lamarck's law of inheritance of acquired characteristics and Haeckel's theory of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny, suggested that the individual is a summation of the whole history that had preceded him or her . (However, neither of these concepts are accepted by current science .) </P>

Cultural memory is stored in what part of the brain