Personifying Prehistory: Relational Ontologies in Bronze Age Britain and Ireland

The Bronze Age is frequently framed in social evolutionary terms. Viewed as the period which saw the emergence of social differentiation, the development of long-distance trade, and the intensification of agricultural production, it is seen as the precursor and origin-point for significant
aspects of the modern world. This book presents a very different image of Bronze Age Britain and Ireland.

Drawing on the wealth of material from recent excavations, as well as a long history of research, it explores the impact of the post-Enlightenment 'othering' of the non-human on our understanding of Bronze Age society. There is much to suggest that the conceptual boundary between the active human
subject and the passive world of objects, so familiar from our own cultural context, was not drawn in this categorical way in the Bronze Age; the self was constructed in relational rather than individualistic terms, and aspects of the non-human world such as pots, houses, and mountains were
considered animate entities with their own spirit or soul. In a series of thematic chapters on the human body, artefacts, settlements, and landscapes, this book considers the character of Bronze Age personhood, the relationship between individual and society, and ideas around agency and social
power. The treatment and deposition of things such as querns, axes, and human remains provides insights into the meanings and values ascribed to objects and places, and the ways in which such items acted as social agents in the Bronze Age world.


Author: Joanna Brück
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 12/30/2021
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.02lbs
Size: 8.74h x 5.58w x 0.47d
ISBN: 9780192858252

About the Author

Joanna Brück, Professor of Archaeology and Head of the School of Archaeology, University College Dublin

Joanna Brück is Professor of Archaeology and Head of the School of Archaeology at University College Dublin. Her primary area of research is the archaeology of Bronze Age Britain and Ireland. She is particularly interested in the treatment of the human body and concepts of the self; depositional
practices and what these reveal about the meanings and values ascribed to objects; and the relationship between space and society including domestic architecture and the changing organisation of landscape. She co-organises the Bronze Age Forum, is Vice President of the Prehistoric Society, and is an
editor of Archaeological Dialogues. She has also recently published an edited volume on the material and visual culture of the 1916 Rising in Ireland.