Research on the emergence of institutionalized inequality has traditionally maintained an analytical divide between lived institutions that affect daily life and performed institutions materialized in mortuary contexts. Here, we argue that convergence or divergence between lived and performed contexts reveals key aspects of past social organization. When combined, mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology provide a methodological framework well suited to evaluate the coherence or dissonance of such institutions. Three case studies from prehistoric Europe highlight how new insights gained by studying tension between institutions, identities and experiences across social dimensions can transform our understanding of the development of institutionalized inequality. "These squat buildings, constructed with huge boulders, are in fact very durable. This is obvious in the many abandoned villages where the houses have disappeared but the tombs are still standing. They are the symbols of the association of their builders with the village where they are situated, an unchanging association with an unchanging order. They are in this way the denial of the fluidity of Merina society and indeed of all the societies of the living. They are an assertion of an order where men are organized along clear-cut lines. In other words, they are the demonstration of what the Merina feels his society was and ought to be"(Bloch 1968:101, emphasis ours).
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