Ritual and Rubbish in the Iron Age of Wessex: A Study on the formation of a specific archaeological record

Hill, J. D.

doi:10.30861/9780860547846

Cited by 107 publications

(121 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

114

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The famous Barbary Ape skull found at Navan (Napier & Jenkins 1997;Raftery 1997b), the complete La Tène sword from Knockaulin (Johnston & Wailes 2007), the presence of human remains there and at the Ráith na Ríg at Tara (Roche 2002), as well as of a human clavicle among the stones of the cairn at Navan (McCormick 1997, 120) are striking and 'special', as are the spear-butts from Tara and Navan, the decorated dress pins from Navan and Knockaulin, or indeed the other items of personal ornamentation such as glass beads, pins, and fibulaeall likely deliberate deposits. However, the presence of special deposits on settlement sites is a common occurrence in later prehistory, both in Bronze Age Ireland and Britain (eg, Hill 1995;Brück 1999a;Armit & Ginn 2007;Cleary 2018). Structured deposits of artefacts and human remains on hillforts and other settlement sites show how cosmologies and domestic or everyday practices are intertwined and defy categorisation or separation and do not render the Irish sites purely ritual temples or ceremonial centres.…”

Section: Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Irish Iron Age Settlement and Society: Reframing Royal Sites

Becker

2019

Proc. Prehist. Soc.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper attempts to resituate the Irish so-called ‘Royal’ sites within our vision of the Iron Age by challenging current understanding of their function as primarily situated in a ceremonial or ritual realm. While the evidence from these sites speaks to the complexity of their function, conceptualisation, and symbolic relevance, it is argued here that they are integral focal points of settled landscapes. Their architecture is suggested to address very specific concerns of the agrarian communities that built them and, in its very distinct change over the course of the Iron Age, to reflect broader societal developments, namely the emergence and decline of new society formations. Artefacts and ecofacts, architecture and landscape context of these sites contain a wealth of information on the activities that were taking place on and near them. It is argued that, freed from a binary ritual/profane interpretational framework, this evidence becomes readable as a record of Iron Age society and its dramatic changes over time.

show abstract

Section: Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Irish Iron Age Settlement and Society: Reframing Royal Sites

Becker

2019

Proc. Prehist. Soc.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…British prehistorians have been looking for ways to systematically separate everyday from exceptional ritual practices. Iron Age archaeologists use a theory of structured deposition (Hill ), which argues that extraordinary ritual practices can be distinguished from causal, everyday deposition of rubbish and discard by their higher degree of formal structure. Extraordinary or “special” deposits contain more intact items, placed or laid out in an ordered arrangement within well‐defined layers or pits.…”

Section: Comment By Yvonne Marshallmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ritually breakingLapita pots: or, can we get into the minds ofOceanic first settlers? A discussion

Sand¹,

Marshall

Sheppard

et al. 2013

Archaeology in Oceania

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the Mithraic religion animal sacrifices were important, too, with the meat eaten in communal feasts (Beck 2000;Lentacker et al 2004;Woodward 1992). The possible symbolic meanings of animals and their remains in Iron Age and Roman Britain have been explored elsewhere (Black 1983;Grant 1984;Green 1992;Hill 1995;Merrifield 1987;Serjeantson and Morris 2011;Smith 2005). For some rural communities, blood, milk, cheese and yoghurt might have been the important everyday foods derived from animals, with meat perhaps only consumed during feasts or following sacrifices.…”

Section: Roman Small-scale Routine Ritual Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Routine Magic, Mundane Ritual: Towards a Unified Notion of Depositional Practice

Chadwick¹

2012

Oxford J Archaeology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary This article seeks to advance ongoing discussions within archaeology concerning the relationship between ritual and depositional practices. Previous researchers have argued that ‘structured’ or ‘placed’ deposits are the result of ritual activities, but also that in many societies the disposal of refuse is governed by social ‘rules’. Distinguishing ‘technical’ actions such as rubbish disposal from deliberately ‘placed’ deposits is extremely difficult, however, and reinforces modern dualistic thought. Instead, this article argues that there was a continuum of practices from formal and ritualized events through to small‐scale, informal acts undertaken on a routine basis, including everyday refuse discard. It also questions purely utilitarian interpretations of storage structures. Drawing on ethnographic and ethnohistorical examples, it explores case studies from the later prehistoric and Romano‐British periods of north central England, and concludes by proposing methodologies through which these practices can be explored more fully in the future.

show abstract

Ritual and Rubbish in the Iron Age of Wessex: A Study on the formation of a specific archaeological record

Cited by 107 publications

References 0 publications

Irish Iron Age Settlement and Society: Reframing Royal Sites

Irish Iron Age Settlement and Society: Reframing Royal Sites

Ritually breakingLapita pots: or, can we get into the minds ofOceanic first settlers? A discussion

Routine Magic, Mundane Ritual: Towards a Unified Notion of Depositional Practice

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About