This paper argues that the conception of ritual employed in both archaeology and anthropology is a product of post-Enlightenment rationalism. Because it does not meet modern western criteria for practical action, ritual is frequently described as non-functional and irrational; furthermore, this designation is employed as the primary way of identifying ritual archaeologically. However, this evaluation of ritual action must be questioned. Contemporary modes of categorizing human practice are not untainted by socio-political interest but enable the reproduction of certain forms of power. It is argued that many other societies do not distinguish ritual from secular action. In fact, what anthropologists identify as ritual is generally considered practical and effective action by its practitioners. This is because different conceptions of instrumentality and causation inform such activities. For archaeologists, use of the concept of ritual has resulted in a serious misapprehension of prehistoric rationality such that ‘secular’ activities (for example subsistence practices) are assumed to be governed by a universally-applicable functionalist logic. In order to address this problem, what is required is an approach that explores the essential difference between prehistoric rationality and our own notions of what is effective action. A discussion of some finds from middle Bronze Age settlements in southern England will provide a working example of how one might begin to move towards this goal.

This paper explores how the lifecycles of Middle Bronze Age settlements were intimately related at both a practical and metaphorical level to the lifecycles of their inhabitants. Many settlements of this date appear to have been single-generational sites. Building sequences and other changes in the use of settlement space can be understood within a framework that explores how the demographic, social, and economic circumstances of a site's occupants changed over time. However, the lifecycle of the settlement was not only related to that of its occupants in practical terms; each was also a symbolic representation of the other. For example, such acts as the deposition of whole quernstones or animal burials in pits and ditches may have been carried out at critical points in the lifecycle of a settlement, its structures, and its inhabitants. The notion that settlements had lifecycles introduces the possibility of anthropomorphic symbolism in house architecture, a suggestion that may help to explain the presence of a standardised house form during the Middle Bronze Age. Yet, despite the formality of the architecture, there was considerable diversity in how space was actually used within the roundhouse. Likewise, variability in other aspects of these settlement sites suggests that, although cultural ideals may have existed, in practice the developmental cycle of each household group depended on a particular set of social and material circumstances as well as on household members' commitment to communal tradition.

In recent years the development of a phenomenological archaeology has provoked considerable discussion within the discipline, particularly within British prehistory. This paper provides a review of this challenging body of research, outlining its problems and potentials and setting it within its broader disciplinary context. Phenomenology has been used to great effect to critique the Cartesian rationalism inherent in traditional archaeological approaches, encouraging imaginative and valuable reinterpretations of the architecture and landscape settings of different monuments. Nonetheless, there are a number of significant problems raised by this work. The suggestion that the archaeologist's embodied engagement with an ancient monument or landscape can provide an insight into past experiences and interpretations is critically considered. The epistemological status of the knowledge-claims made, including how and whether the patterns identified should be verified, is discussed. The contribution of phenomenology to postprocessual debates surrounding concepts of the self, the individual, embodiment and emotion are also explored. The work of key proponents of phenomenology such as Tilley and Thomas provides a particular focus, although a range of other authors are also considered. KeywordsPhenomenology; experience; embodiment; self; landscape; epistemology IntroductionThe use of phenomenology in archaeology has been one of the most provocative theoretical developments in the discipline in recent years. Insights drawn from this branch of philosophy have been employed in two ways: first as a source of critical reflection on Cartesian positivism, and second as hermeneutic tools to aid the interpretation of the material remains of the past. The work of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Husserl and others has been discussed in some detail in this growing body of literature, although critics have questioned the extent to which descriptions of the character of human experience specific to the modern Western world can illuminate the difference of past societies (Gosden 1996;Weiner 1996). Phenomenological archaeology has made its most significant impact in British prehistory, particularly the Neolithic, and this paper will therefore focus on British literature, although https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203805001583 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 52.183.12.225, on 11 Apr 2019 at 11:52:09, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at 46 review essay scholars in other traditions have also written on the subject (e.g. Karlsson 2000).The following discussion will consider the problems and potential of a phenomenological archaeology. It will not provide a detailed overview of the diverse philosophical field of phenomenology (for this, readers may refer to texts such as Embree (1997), Moran (2000) and Sokolowski (2000); for a useful shorter summary, see Casey (1996)) but will focus exclusively on archaeological applications of phenomenological thought. No attem...

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0079497X00003091How to cite this article : Joanna Brück (1995). A place for the dead: the role of human remains in Late Bronze Age Britain. .The disappearance of an archaeologically visible burial rite at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age has puzzled archaeologists for some years yet has never formed a specific focus of research. This paper aims to look at the problem in detail for the first time. A corpus has been compiled listing sites from which human remains dating to this period have been recovered. The contexts in which these remains are found are documented and discussed; these include, for example, finds from settlements, hoards, and wet places. It is argued that many of the sites do not represent the residues of 'normal' mortuary rituals but may instead result from other ritual practices or from refuse disposal activities. It is concluded from contextual patterning in the data that human remains were used in situations where concepts of liminality, identity, continuity, and renewal needed to be highlighted. The potential of human remains for symbolising these themes was drawn upon in activities during which concerns central to Late Bronze Age communities were confronted. The nature of these concerns is discussed in relation to wider developments that occur over the Late Bronze Age. It is argued that the ways in which human remains were deposited were intimately related to the development of new discourses within society as the basis of socio-political power changed from practices surrounding the consumption and exchange of bronze to the control of agricultural production and human and agricultural fertility. The symbolic themes dealt with during the deposition of human remains in specific locations relate to these changing concerns and allowed individuals to situate themselves within a changing society and to negotiate their relationships with others. THE PROBLEM DEFINEDAt the beginning of the British Late Bronze Age the tradition of cremation burial in flat cemeteries and under barrows came to an end. Archaeologists have been unable to identify the mortuary rite that replaced the burial practices of the Middle Bronze Age and from this point until well into the Iron Age the dead seem to disappear from the archaeological record (Atkinson 1972, 115; Burgess 1980, 158-9). This problem has been explored in relation to the Iron Age (Wait 1985;Whimster 1981;Wilson 1981) but the evidence for Late Bronze Age practices involving human remains has not yet been reviewed. Several researchers have, however, pointed out that the discovery of fragmentary human remains on certain classes of site is a feature of this period (Needham 1992); nonetheless, the significance of such finds has not been discussed in detail nor has a comprehensive corpus been compiled.The disappearance of an archaeologically visible mortuary rite is also an important part of the apparent de-ritualisation of the archaeological record that occurs over the Bronze Age. A landscape str...

This article examines a range of practices involving the deliberate fragmentation of human bodies and objects in Middle and Late Bronze Age Britain. Focusing on evidence from settlements and mortuary sites, it is suggested that metaphorical links were drawn between people and things, and that productive processes such as potting and metallurgy provided potent metaphors for the construction of the human self. Building on these points, it is argued that current models which posit the rise of an ideology of the ‘individual’ during the Bronze Age may be inappropriate in this cultural context.