Being Mesolithic in life and death

Fifty years ago approaches to Mesolithic identity were limited to ideas of man the hunter, woman the gatherer, and evidence of non-normative practice was ascribed to "shamans" and to "ritual", and that was that. As post-processual critiques have touched Mesolithic studies, however, this has changed. In the first decade of the 21st century a strong body of work on Mesolithic identity in life, as well as death, has enabled us to think beyond modern western categories to interpret identity in the Mesolithic. Our paper reviews these changing approaches, offering a series of case studies of such approaches, before developing these case studies to advocate an assemblage approach to identity in the Mesolithic

Digital archaeology of death and burial. Using 3D reconstruction, visualization and simulation to frame past experience

In this chapter we demonstrate how 3D digital tools augment the archaeothanatological analysis, and by extension provide new ways of framing past experiences of death and burial. We illustrate our findings with a Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age (2500–1700 BC) archaeological case study from the site of Oostwoud-Tuithoorn, West-Frisia, the Netherlands, in which we integrate the outcomes of a traditional post-excavation archaeothanatological analysis with 3D digital reconstruction and simulation.European PrehistoryDigital Archaeolog

From spectator to critic and participant A new role for archaeology in ritual studies

In order to understand ritual in the past, archaeology has long relied on theories developed in other disciplines. While these theories, which often rely on written or oral information, have added many important dimensions to our interpretation of the archaeological record, they have often proven difficult to successfully articulate with the archaeological sources. Moreover, archaeology has tended to remain on the receiving end of the formulation of social theory, and has only rarely participated in the theoretical development and critique. In this article we argue that we see a central role for archaeology to contribute to the development of ritual theory. Through two case studies from Scandinavian prehistory we illustrate how the application of a practice-based ritual theory allows us to more firmly connect the theoretical framework to our archaeological sources. This connection not only leads us toward a synchronization of materials, methods and theories, but it also allows us to engage in the broader interdisciplinary theoretical discussion about ritual. The specific challenges posed by the archaeological sources and the archaeological process of interpretation point to new questions relating to the application of theoretical frameworks, and may even suggest some solutions