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

Abstract

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.

Unique Objects, Special Deposits and Elite Networks in Bronze Age Europe

“…This practice is particularly well documented during the Bronze Age (Winghart ; Krenn‐Leeb ). On analogy with practices in the Greek and Roman worlds at the time that textual sources were available (Osborne , 6), many Bronze Age deposits have been interpreted as votive – objects offered to supernatural powers (gods, natural spirits, ancestral spirits) as part of people's efforts to maintain good relations with the spiritual forces, to perform the ceremonial actions that would keep relations with supernatural forces in equilibrium (Chadwick ; Helms ).…”

Working with broken agents: Exploring computational 2D morphometrics for studying the (post)depositional history of potsherds

“…The study of depositional and postdepositional processes has become a long-standing concern in archaeological research. Interests in these processes have been varied, and have inspired numerous research agendas (Binford, 1981;Chadwick, 2012;Chapman, 2000aChapman, , 2000bGarrow, 2012;Hill, 1995;Richards and Thomas, 1984;Schiffer, 1987Schiffer, , 1983. Recent attention has been placed on understanding how deposited materials can actively shape human practices, e.g.…”

Identifying Ritual Deposition of Plant Remains: A Case Study of Stone Pine Cones in Roman Britain

“…The separation of 'ritual' from 'mundane' deposits has been thoroughly critiqued (Brück 1999;Bradley 2005), and the concept of ritual as social practice (Bell 1992) is now commonly used to explore ritualised activities (Chadwick 2012). This necessitates that artefacts, stratigraphy and ecofacts must all be considered in order to understand instances of deposition which may have derived from ritualised activities (Garrow 2012).…”