Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Part one Theoretical perspectives
- Part two Ideology and Power in the Present and Historical Past
- Part three Ideology and Power in Prehistory
- 5 Burials, houses, women and men in the European Neolithic
- 6 Economic and ideological change: Cyclical growth in the pre-state societies of Jutland
- 7 Ritual and prestige in the prehistory of Wessex c. 2,200–1,400 BC: A new dimension to the archaeological evidence
- 8 Ideology and the legitimation of power in the Middle Neolithic of Southern Sweden
- Part four Conclusions
- Index
7 - Ritual and prestige in the prehistory of Wessex c. 2,200–1,400 BC: A new dimension to the archaeological evidence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Part one Theoretical perspectives
- Part two Ideology and Power in the Present and Historical Past
- Part three Ideology and Power in Prehistory
- 5 Burials, houses, women and men in the European Neolithic
- 6 Economic and ideological change: Cyclical growth in the pre-state societies of Jutland
- 7 Ritual and prestige in the prehistory of Wessex c. 2,200–1,400 BC: A new dimension to the archaeological evidence
- 8 Ideology and the legitimation of power in the Middle Neolithic of Southern Sweden
- Part four Conclusions
- Index
Summary
Certain problematic aspects of the notion of ideology as commonly constructed, and as applied to material culture and historical processes are discussed. The notions of discourse and prestige are introduced as means towards the resolution of these problems. It is argued that certain aspects of the archaeology of Wessex c. 2200–1400 be are best interpreted by means of a notion of competing and dynamic prestige systems. Many aspects of the radical alterations in the content and patterning of the archaeological record noted by prehistorians may be understood by positing a decisive and radical alteration in the systems of prestige and ritual practiced in Wessex. Although some criticisms are made of other interpretations of the Wessex material, the intention of this chapter is rather to supplement these by highlighting aspects of the record neglected in other accounts but of crucial importance in understanding much of the archaeological record.
Theoretical introduction
As archaeologists we are necessarily concerned with the symbolic dimension of social practices. The significance of ceramic design, burial practices, or refuse deposition, for example, lies in their symbolic and semantic character within a particular social and historical formation. Symbols and systems of symbols, as major elements in social action, may be seen as functioning in various ways. Bourdieu (1979), for instance, argues that a symbolic system can be seen as having three functions: as a means of communication, as an instrument for the knowledge and construction of the objective world, and as instrument of domination by establishing and legitimating, through its ideological effect, the dominant culture and concealing that culture's methods of division.
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- Information
- Ideology, Power and Prehistory , pp. 93 - 110Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1984
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