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Department of Archaeology |
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The archaeology of ritual transmission
Camilla Briault
The aim of this project over the last year has been to develop a model for
understanding long-term continuity and variation in prehistoric ritual
practices. Although ritual transmission is currently a major focus of
research in social anthropology, the insights gained have not previously
been applied to archaeological datasets. This project uses data from the
Bronze and Early Iron Ages of the southern Aegean to track diachronic
change in ritual practices over a period of two millennia. Through
investigating patterning in the use and configuration of ritual spaces and
in 'kits' of ritual objects, it is possible to identify the mechanisms
through which ritual practice was transmitted. By mapping the patterns of
ritual change onto known episodes of social and political upheaval in the
Aegean, this research has highlighted that periods of political
instability, such as state formation and collapse, can have a profound
impact on ritual practices and their transmission. The next stage of the
project is therefore to investigate the role of ritual practices in the
emergence and decline of early complex polities throughout the eastern
Mediterranean.
Publications
| [1] |
Briault C. (2007a).
Making mountains out of molehills in the Bronze Age Aegean: Visibility, ritual kits, and the idea of a peak sanctuary.
World Archaeology, 39 (1):pp. 122–41 |
| [2] |
Briault C. (2007b).
High fidelity or Chinese whispers? cult symbols and ritual transmission in the Bronze Age Aegean.
Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 20 (2):pp. 239–265 |
| [3] |
Briault C. (2007c).
The ultimate redundancy package: Routine, structure, and the archaeology of ritual transmission.
In: C.A.T. Malone and D.A. Barrowclough (eds.), Cult in context: Reconsidering ritual in archaeology, pp. 291–294. Oxford: Oxbow |
