Copyright © 2010 The Authors (www.sagepublications.com)
ISSN 1469-6053 Vol 10(2): 171–197 DOI: 10.1177/1469605310365039

Journal of Social Archaeology

A R T I C L E

171

From spectator to critic and participant

A new role for archaeology in ritual studies

ÅSA BERGGREN

Sydsvensk arkeologi, Sweden

LIV NILSSON STUTZ

Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University, Sweden

ABSTRACT
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 import-
ant dimensions to our interpretation of the archaeological record, they
have often proven difficult to successfully articulate with the archae-
ological 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 con-
nection not only leads us toward a synchronization of materials,
methods and theories, but it also allows us to engage in the broader

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interdisciplinary theoretical discussion about ritual. The specific chal-
lenges 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.

KEYWORDS
burials

●

practice theory

●

ritual studies

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wetland depositions

■

INTRODUCTION: AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

ON RITUAL

Archaeologists have long looked to studies in ritual and ritual theory for
inspiration when trying to make sense of material remains that appear diffi-
cult to interpret and understand. Ritual has often been used as a category
to label the unexplained. Even when archaeologists have more seriously
engaged with ritual theory, we tended to be spectators to the theoretical
developments in ritual studies, and simply borrowed and applied frame-
works as soon as they seemed to match our assumed categories. But
traditionally archaeology was never a perfect fit for these frameworks,
which often were developed through the study of contemporary or histori-
cal communities that relied heavily on oral and written information. In
comparison, the archaeological sources, consisting mainly of the material
culture and the material traces of past practices, often seemed poor and
insufficient for interpretation and conclusions concerning ritual practices.
In this article we argue that while the absence of written and oral sources
in archaeology is a challenge, it can also be a resource, since it leads us to
problematize theories previously formulated in other disciplines by
pointing to weaknesses in the frameworks and thus push the field of ritual
studies in new directions. Instead of being spectators to the debate, we
suggest that, through our unique perspective, archaeologists can take on the
role of critics and participants in ritual studies.

In order to clarify what we mean with an archaeological perspective we

have chosen to emphasize four characteristics of contemporary archae-
ology that we see as valuable to the ritual debate. First, archaeology has a
clear focus on practice and materiality. It may appear as presumptuous to
argue that the focus on practice and materiality sets archaeology apart from
other social sciences. To be fair, other disciplines have in recent years come
to emphasize material culture as an increasingly important phenomenon
for study (Buchli, 2004; Hoskins, 1998; Kuchler and Miller, 2005; Miller,
1995; Schlereth, 1982; Wajda and Sheumaker, 2007; Woodward, 2007).

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Moreover, the developments in other fields such as sociology (Bourdieu,
1977, 1980; Giddens, 1984) have in a fundamental way enriched the archae-
ological perspective on its sources by providing additional theoretical
underpinnings, building in particular on practice and agency theory (Dobres
and Robb, 2000; see also Kristiansen, 2004). While the established interest
in materiality and practice tends to be complementary in other fields, it
constitutes the very core of archaeological inquiry. In the absence of oral
and written sources we rely almost exclusively on material remains in our
quest for insight into the past. This connection has also made archae-
ologists exceptionally sensitive to the complexity of material culture
and material remains in questions ranging from representativity and
taphonomy to heteroglossia and contextuality. As other disciplines such as
cultural anthropology and sociology move into this field they have adjusted
some of their theoretical frameworks to better articulate with materiality.
With this change in the theoretical focus in other fields, archaeology is all
of a sudden on equal footing both in its ability to apply the concepts and
in its capacity to contribute to the theoretical debate.

This development can be seen in a range of archaeological subfields and

is, we believe, especially notable in the archaeology of ritual. From having
been doomed as eternally speculative (Hawkes, 1954), the archeology of
ritual is increasingly establishing itself as a dynamic test laboratory for
archaeological method and theory (e.g. Fogelin, 2007, and contributions in
Fogelin, 2008, and Kyriakidis, 2007). The increasingly explicit focus on
practice in ritual theory in religious studies (Bell, 1992) and cultural anthro-
pology (Keane, 2008) may be especially critical in archaeology where,
because of the nature of our sources, we need to start our analysis with the
traces of what people in the past were doing rather than with what those
actions ‘meant’, or signified. But the fact that the theoretical models are
better suited to understand the source material does not only mean that
archaeology now can apply them more successfully. Rather, it also means
that archaeology can question assumptions, and critique the frameworks
when they falter in the application. The focus on practice and materiality
thus allows archaeology to truly become articulated with other disciplines
that increasingly have integrated the same interests in practice and
materiality in their understanding of ritual.

Second, archaeology is a social science, and in archaeology ritual will

always be seen within the wider context of society. This is a position we
share with cultural anthropology (e.g. the classical works by Durkheim,
1998; Geertz, 1973; Rappaport, 1999). This does not imply that rituals are
passive expressions of a social order, as implied by archaeologists inspired
by systems theory (Binford, 1971; O’Shea, 1984; Tainter, 1975, 1978).
Instead, ritual – as action – is a part of the dialectical relationship with struc-
ture, which contributes to change and continuity within society (Bell, 1992,
1997; Ortner, 1989; for an archaeological example, see Nilsson Stutz, 2003).

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Third, contemporary archaeology emphasizes the subjectivity of the

process of interpretation. There is an explicit awareness of the numerous
choices made at every step of the research process (Berggren, 2009a, 2009b;
Berggren and Burström, 2002; Helwig, 2009; Hodder, 1999; McAnany and
Hodder, 2009; Maca, 2009; Mills, 2009). While this awareness is also present
within ritual studies, archaeology pushes the problems further, a process
which, yet again, appears to be the result of the nature of our sources.
While a cultural anthropologist can observe a ritual and then analyze and
interpret it, the archaeologist who excavates the traces from the past can
never assume that they are exclusively dealing with the remains of ritual
rather than some other category of practice. The categorization is an
intrinsic part of both the analysis and the interpretation. The conditions of
archaeology point to different problems in definitions within the concept
of ritual and thus challenge conclusions that are taken for granted in other
disciplines. This may in fact be an area where the problematization of the
interpretation process inherent in archaeology leads to questions that are
of general interest for ritual studies.

Finally, archaeology relies on a fundamental assumption that there is a

certain amount of universality in human practice. The question of the
potential universality of ritual is important since it has consequences for
how different practices can be interpreted. We have already described the
challenges the archaeologist faces when defining something as the result of
ritual practice. The act of categorizing something as ‘ritual’ is an interpret-
ation. We cannot assume that the material culture of past societies always
contains the traces of ritual. But this position is not unproblematic. Any
attempt at generalizing in archaeology is often met with skepticism by
colleagues who favor a more particularistic approach. What we argue here
is that both perspectives are necessary. In the interpretation of the material
remains from the past, archaeologists use different kinds of analogies to
create context (Wylie, 1985, 2002). In order to understand the past we
assume there is something fundamentally human that we all share across
space and time. Simultaneously, we are acutely aware that people deal with
this fundamentally human reality in an infinite number of ways, and that
these strategies are social and cultural constructs that must be understood
within their specific context.

This tension between the contextual and the general can also be found

within ritual studies, which in the same way balance the need for general
theory with an understanding of the culturally specific. Webb Keane (2003)
has described how the anthropological discourse, of which we argue archae-
ology is or could be a part, relies on the maintenance of both the par-
ticular and the more general understanding of cultural phenomena. ‘If this
is a dialectic, it is recurrently threatened with collapse when either side of
what might be called the epistemologies of estrangement, and of intimacy
is favored at the expense of the other’ (Keane, 2003: 225; also Keane, 2008:

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113). We argue that the counterproductive tendency of the ‘fires of internal
critique’ that Keane describes for cultural anthropology, in the current
dominance of the particularist perspective, is also relevant for archaeology
today, which faces a similar debate between the particularistic and general
with regards to human experience in the past. Archaeology is particularly
susceptible to this dialectic, since, no matter our stand in this debate, we
always have to use analogies and general theory in order to understand
cultures and people in the past. The difference is that some of us do so
explicitly. The contribution to ritual theory as we see it is not a grand new
theory. It is a more subtle and discrete contribution that we are proposing,
a contribution that by asking new questions contributes to the current
conversation about ritual in general. By pointing to some key challenges
that manifest themselves early on in the archaeological analysis, such as for
example the challenge of establishing and determining the boundary
between the ritual and non-ritual, the archaeological experience could
illustrate problems that exist more generally within ritual studies. We can
also ask how relevant this boundary is, a question to which we return later.

■

FROM WORDS TO ACTION: BURYING THE DEAD

Recent studies in ritual theory have moved away from trying to understand
the underlying meaning of rituals, and instead focus on ritual practice. This
research has deep roots in the early sociology of ritual and religious
phenomena (Durkheim, 1998; Van Gennep, 1999), and its later develop-
ments (Rappaport, 1999; Turner, 1967, 1969), but has almost exploded since
the 1990s (Asad, 1993; Bell, 1992; De Boeck, 1995; Humphrey and Laidlaw,
1994; Keane, 2008; Parkin, 1992). The work of Catherine Bell has been
significant for the development of this perspective, and a number of archae-
ologists draw on her theories in their work (Boric, 2003; Fogelin, 2007;
Gansum, 2002, 2004; Hastorf, 2007; Howey, 2008; Howey and O’Shea, 2006;
Kyrikiadis, 2007; Moyes, 2008; Nikolaidou, 2007; Nilsson Stutz, 2003, 2004,
2007, 2008, 2009; Swenson, 2007, 2008). This body of work testifies to Bell’s
impact on archaeology, even if it appears that archaeologists interpret her
work in different ways. In her now almost classic book Ritual Theory, Ritual
Practice

(1992), Bell applies Bourdieu’s (1977, 1980) practice theory to the

concept of ritual. Ritual, she argues, is a way of acting. In order to separate
ritual from other actions she introduces the concept of ritualization, which
she defines as a strategic way to act (Bell, 1992: 7), which creates a distinc-
tion to other actions and through this distinction defines the specific
practice as ritual, and thus privileged, significant and powerful (1992: 90).
In this production of separation that takes place within the ritual practice,
a cosmology is created – a structured world of significance where each

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movement, sound and gesture becomes a part of the process of structur-
ation. This world tends to be organized according to a hierarchy of binary
oppositions linked by chains of associations where everything has a place
in what appears to be a logical system (Bell, 1992: 140–1; Bloch, 1986;
Kertzer, 1988; Turner, 1969). The active participant becomes included in this
hierarchy through the ritual practice.

For Bell the initial intentions of the individual actor, and the meanings

(s)he assigns to the actions, are of less importance. In this model, which
builds on Bourdieu’s (1977: 120) practice theory where rituals are seen as
the generation of relations, it becomes fundamental to view rituals not
as expressions of meaning, but as parts of a structuration process where
everything and everybody are tied together into a whole that is perceived
as objective and true. When asking informants about the significance or
meaning of a ritual, it is not uncommon that the responses vary within a
community (e.g. Keane, 2008: 111). This can be explained by the fact that
meaning does not precede action, but is created every time the ritual is prac-
ticed and experienced. It can therefore vary from one time to the next and
from one person to the other. The verbally expressed interpretation of the
meaning of a ritual is subordinate to the embodied knowledge of how to
carry it out correctly. It is important to underline that this does not mean
that rituals are meaningless. Quite to the contrary, this perspective views
the embodied knowledge and experience as highly structured and struc-
turing, and, through this process, meaningful dimensions of people’s lives
are created. Through the process of ritualization, the actor is drawn into the
ritual and becomes, with or against his or her own will, part of the structure
that is created through the practice. It is therefore uninteresting to speak
of intentions since the force of the ritual is so significant that, when the
actors carry it out, they are unable to liberate themselves from it, dis-
regarding what meaning they themselves assign to it (see also Asad, 1993;
De Boeck, 1995; Coakley, 1997).

With practice at the core of the approach, the body comes to occupy a

central role in this view of rituals, as both a tool to carry out the ritual and
a receptor for the ritual experience in the form of sensory impressions.
These impressions can be stored as embodied memories, knowledge and
competence, and become a part of the dialectical process as they are
connected to the experience of the structure (Asad, 1993; De Boeck, 1995;
Humphrey and Laidlaw, 1994). Not only the body, but also the physical
place where the ritual is carried out, and the artifacts handled during the
ritual, take on central roles in the process of structuration. The relationship
between all these entities is dialectical and they all come to embody the
structure of the world. The dialectic between objectification and embodi-
ment allows the structure to become objectified in the place and the things
themselves, and embodied in the actor. Sensual experiences are a central
part of what has been termed anthropology of the senses (Seremetakis,

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1994), which focuses on how memory and history are created in the inter-
play between human senses, emotion and things in the surrounding world.
A sensual memory can, for example, be triggered by the things handled
through practice, and an experience of the past is instantly created
(De Boeck, 1995; Nilsson Stutz, 2004; Seremetakis, 1994: 6ff). Filip de Boeck
(1995) has underlined the biographical dimension of this process, where
every participant at different points in their lives accumulates ritual experi-
ence and insights, and how memories of ritual experience can be triggered
under certain circumstances. This creates a continuum between the ritual
experience and the everyday life, in which sensory memories can be recalled
and along with them the feeling of the presence of structure. In this way,
the structure is continuously recreated. Following the practice theory of
Bourdieu, this model of ritual allows for continuity between the everyday,
repeated, reflex-like and mundane practices and the highly formalized and
ritual practices. The embodied actions and experiences of these practices
create opportunities for a flow between these categories. This continuity is
necessary for the practice theory model, but it creates problems for archae-
ologists when trying to separate ritual practices from other practices. We
return to this problem in more detail later.

While Bell’s model includes a power analysis which makes room for the

manipulation of the participants in the ritual, it also gives the individual
actor room to act and through these actions affect the structure. The dia-
lectical relationship between structure and practice always allows for
reinterpretation and change. Rituals and other actions can be important
instruments for the individual, not just to strengthen and reproduce the
dominating structure, but also, under specific circumstances, to change it.
The same flexibility between interpretation and incorporation of the ritual
practice can be found in the work of Rappaport (1999), Holland and
Skinner (1997), Kertzer (1988) and others. Rituals can thus be seen not as
passive expressions of the structure, but should be seen as a component
within the constant process of structuration.

A similar model which also emphasizes the ritual practices over ascribed

meaning has been presented by Caroline Humphrey and James Laidlaw in
their book The Archetypal Actions of Ritual: A Theory of Ritual Illustrated
by the Jain Rite of Worship

(1994). They also view ritualization as a funda-

mental concept for how ritual works. An action is ritualized, they argue,
through an active commitment on behalf of the participant that liberates it
from all other intentions and becomes a repetition of an archetypal or
elementary ritual action. What distinguishes this model from that of Bell is
the importance given to this ritual commitment, which can be seen as a
social contract that precedes the ritual and qualitatively redefines it as
‘ritual’. According to Humphrey and Laidlaw, this ‘qualitative leap’ or
distinction, which Bell sees as taking place within the ritual process
itself, has to occur before the ritual takes place, as a social contract that

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recognizes the ritual character of what is about to take place. This means
that only those who accept this social contract in the first place, and
acknowledge the ritual as legitimate, can be affected by it. Bell’s model is
somewhat looser and allows for more flexibility. According to her, those
who initially do not completely accept the ritual can become affected by it,
because her model ascribes more structuring power to the ritual than
Humphrey and Laidlaw. In their model there is no place for disengaged or
reluctant participants, since they argue that the actor, by engaging with the
ritual commitment, must ‘mean to mean’ (Humphrey and Laidlaw, 1994:
211). Another difference between the two models is their views of the
individual and collective. Bell sees rituals within a frame of social structure
while Humphrey and Laidlaw focus more on the individual actor. For them
ritual is a cognitive and psychological process within each individual actor
rather than a social practice. However, this remains somewhat unclear since
they still must admit that the act of ritual commitment must also be under-
stood in social terms.

For the archaeologist, Humphrey and Laidlaw’s model is more difficult

to use, since the key moment – the fundamental commitment – is almost
impossible to trace archaeologically, though it is reasonable to ask if this is
not also the case in other disciplines such as cultural anthropology. The
model also theoretically distinguishes what is a sincere ritual action and a
less serious copy, mimicking or even parody, a distinction which is also
impossible to see archaeologically. Another way would be to distinguish
between an individual and public commitment. Rappaport has argued that
ritual practice always constitutes a public commitment, disregarding the
individual conviction (1999: 117ff). This distinction can be combined with
that of Bell and fits the archaeological conditions better since we focus on
social relations and practices rather than psychological factors.

Another interesting model with a clear focus on practice has been

developed in the work of cultural anthropologist Webb Keane (2008). In
his studies of religious language as semiotic form and practice, Keane
argues that the semiotic practice of religious language as material entities
cannot be reduced to the status of evidence for beliefs. Instead, they are
enmeshed in a social field of structuration, and, just like other practices,
they may persist across contexts, intentions and projects, and in that process
may become altered. This approach shares several key understandings with
the model proposed by Bell, but also adds several linguistic concepts such
as markedness and indexicality, which are useful for archaeology since they
are applicable to both practice and material culture. The ritualization of
practices as proposed by Bell could in this framework be viewed as infer-
ring a markedness on to the practices themselves, indicating, through
indexicality, that they are ‘ritual’. Similarly, these concepts may be able to
extend further in an archaeological study of materiality; for example, to
include the marking of ritual space through action such as deposits, again
creating a material frame for ritual (see below).

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The current trend in ritual studies, which moves the attention away from

meaning and emphasizes the ritual practice and social processes, has
opened a door for archaeological research and theorizing about rituals in
the past. Since archaeology studies the material remains of what people in
the past did, it has not previously had a relevant way in which to connect
with theories that are based on meaning and significance. Lacking inform-
ants and often also written sources that could explain the meaning of ritual
practice, archaeology has had problems elaborating beyond very general
and vague conclusions. A theory based on practice gives archaeology a new
way to connect its sources with the theories. But in this encounter, new
questions emerge. To emphasize practice has consequences: instead of
focusing on the unusual and spectacular, we need to highlight the repeated
and almost unreflected. Our first case study tackles this challenge and
invites us to reflect over whether we are ready to accept the consequences
of a practice approach to mortuary rituals. By avoiding the assignment of
meaning or symbolic content to the practices, this study also challenges a
tradition of archaeological narratives that favors a speculative reading of
the past, often informed by ethnographic analogies, over a methodological
exploration of theoretical concepts in our quest to understand human
experience in the past.

Case study 1: The burials in Skateholm

A perspective focused on ritual practice has been carried out on the late
Mesolithic cemetery complex (7000–5400 BP) in Skateholm in southern
Sweden. The two cemeteries along with extensive occupation areas were
located on two small islands in a lagoon. The 86 burials excavated here show
interesting variability in the grave goods and the treatment of the body, and
their potential to provide insight into Mesolithic mortuary rituals is obvious.
The approach adopted in this study was to use Bell’s model of ritual practice
to establish how the people in the Mesolithic buried their dead. Instead of
focusing on the assumed symbolic content of the graves and the meanings
of the rituals, which has been done by others (see Fowler, 2004, and Strass-
burg, 2000, for two recent examples), this study aims to establish a series of
almost instinctive and partially unreflected practices carried out during the
mortuary ritual, practices that could potentially reproduce the structure, in
all its dimensions, or potentially change it at every ritual event. If we can
establish a core of practices for the burial of the dead, a norm, we could
assume that this norm, through the structure of significance, would be related
to other norms in society, such as the attitude to life and death, attitudes to
the dead and living body. Every time the ritual practice was repeated these
attitudes, as part of the structure, were reinforced and reproduced.

In order to apply this approach to the burials in Skateholm, two funda-

mental premises must be fulfilled. First we must establish that we are really
studying the remains of ritual practice. While the second case study will take

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this question further, we have assumed here that, given that most human
societies handle their dead through ritual practices (Grimes, 2000: 218;
Mandelbaum, 1965: 338), the remains of the 86 burials in Skateholm can be
seen as ritual in character. The second premise is that in order to success-
fully apply a practice theory perspective on ritual to burials, we must
approach the study of them not as static artifacts but as the result of a series
of practices (Gansum, 2002, 2004; Nilsson Stutz, 2003, 2008). In order to
visualize the dynamic processes that resulted in the burials, we have used
the French approach anthropologie de terrain (Duday et al., 1990; Nilsson
Stutz, 2003). This trans-disciplinary approach combines a careful obser-
vation of the spatial distribution of the human remains in the field with
knowledge in biology of how the human body decomposes after death. It
allows us to reconstruct the mortuary practices in more detail, and in
particular the handling of the body during the mortuary practices (includ-
ing, for example, the state of the body at burial, manipulation during or after
decomposition, initial position in the grave, if the body decomposed in a
coffin, in a wrapping). This focus on the handling of the body allows us to
see the burial ritual as a series of practices in the past.

It is impossible here to account for all of the results in the study (for a

more complete presentation, see Nilsson Stutz, 2003), and we have decided
to highlight some aspects relating to the focus on visualizing, reconstruct-
ing and understanding ritual practice. Underneath the striking diversity in
the position of the body in the grave and the items placed with the
dead, the analysis revealed a rather formalized mortuary program in
relation to the treatment of the dead body. Beyond the variability there is
a core of practices in the handling of the dead that is repeated over and
over and that appears to be almost non-negotiable. Most burials contained
a single body, but some double and triple graves also occurred. In the over-
whelming majority of the cases, the body was buried intact, shortly after
death. The body, as it was deposited in the burial, looked similar to the living
individual since the processes of decay had not yet dramatically influenced
the appearance. It is possible to assume that the body retained a certain
amount of subjectivity also after death. This impression is reinforced by
burials where individuals are buried in life-like positions – for example
when two bodies are arranged to hold and face each other. The analysis has
also shown that the burial feature was immediately filled in with sediment
after the deposition of the body. In some instances the analysis revealed
that the body was wrapped, possibly in bark, or placed on some kind of
platform in the pit. These practices which protect the body from immedi-
ate contact with the surrounding sediment could also be viewed as a
strategy of protecting the integrity of the body and the subjectivity of the
individual at the time of burial. This impression is further emphasized by
the fact that so few burials have been disturbed. It appears as if the location
of the burials was known and respected, and only occasionally has a

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younger burial cut across an older one. It is interesting to note that in the
cases where burials have been damaged, they have not been repaired or
rearranged. Maybe the bodies lost a part of their subjectivity, to become
anonymous or even objectified after some time in the ground, or after
decomposition. Perhaps at this point the dead had taken on a new identity,
no longer representing the individual, and maybe then it was no longer
important to preserve the integrity of the body.

While the dominating practices appear to deny or hide the natural

processes of decomposition, the understanding of these processes is
implicitly present and actively hidden in the practices. In one case
(Figure 1) it is obvious that the processes were not only known but that this
knowledge was exploited. The analysis has shown that several bones were
removed from this burial at a late stage of the process of decomposition.
The burial had to be intentionally prepared to allow this extraction with a
minimum of disturbance. This raises several interesting interrelated ques-
tions regarding both the living individual and the bones. Was the person
buried here special in any way? Did the bones, once removed and re-
introduced in the world of the living, represent the individual? Death?
The ancestors? Or, maybe all of these simultaneously? In another case
(Figure 2) a partially disarticulated and incomplete body was buried,
probably in some kind of container. The contrast to the dominating practice
at the site is striking. Maybe this burial represents an anomaly that in death
defined this individual as radically different, or maybe the treatment at

Figure 1 Grave 28, Skateholm I. This primary burial was opened at an
advanced stage of the process of decomposition, and with minimal
disturbance the left radius, the left ulna, the left os coxae and the left femur
were removed. Note the perfect articulation of the left hand and the presence
of the left patella. The intervention was probably planned in advance and
prepared at the time of deposition. Photo: Lars Larsson

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death was a strategy to deny this individual a normative burial, perhaps as
a sanction for some transgression in life (a scapegoat). From a practice
theory perspective this would have a structuring impact on the other partici-
pants. Another possible interpretation is that the individual was already in
this state and the concealment inside the container at burial was a strategy
to ‘spare’ the onlookers the sight of an incomplete and mutilated body. Both
interpretations would fit an understanding where the production of a
proper death is fundamental at the moment of the ritual deposition of
the body.

While certain components of the ritual are fundamental and only appear

to change in exceptional cases, more inconspicuous variation is still present.
This is particularly the case concerning the composition of the grave goods
and the position of the body. Changes in the burial ritual have also been

Figure 2 Grave 13, Skateholm I. The remains placed in this constricted burial
pit (measuring 1.1 ⫻ 0.5 m) consisted of an incomplete and partially
disarticulated human body. Several of the persistent articulations, such as
those engaging the limbs, were disarticulated, while others, more labile ones,
such as those of the fingers and toes, were maintained. Some body parts were
completely missing, such as the right hand and left foot. The pattern does not
correspond to the result of a natural process of decomposition, but must be
explained as the result of partitioning the body in parts before disposal. The
position of the bones suggests that the deposited body parts might have
been contained in some kind of sack. For more information, see Nilsson Stutz,
2003. Photo: Lars Larsson

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identified over time, where the older graves at Skateholm show greater vari-
ation in grave goods, while the younger ones tend to show more variation
in the position of the body (Larsson, 1984, 1988: 70). This variation and its
change over time appears to be expressed within an accepted norm which
appears to continuously stress the importance of the intact body, thus yet
again confirming the importance placed on this non-negotiable principle.

When viewing the mortuary rituals at Skateholm from a practice theory

perspective we have a theory that can be articulated with the nature of our
sources and that can provide insights into what was taking place at this site
in the past. Through the focus on the treatment of the body we can start to
explore the relations that were created in the ritual, for example that
between the living and the dead. Every burial consists of a series of prac-
tices where the dead body is handled according to norms, some of which
are negotiable and some which are not. These practices were tools for
simultaneously expressing and recreating the structure. The ritual treatment
of the dead did not only constitute embodied actions, with some almost
reflex-like and others more formalized, but it was also tied in with sensory
impressions: scents, sound, and so on could live on as embodied memories
that could be triggered at different points in time and in different contexts.
The vicinity of the burials to the occupation sites in Skateholm allows us to
speculate on how memories of mortuary ritual participation could also be
triggered in everyday life. This model allows us to reflect over how the
mortuary practices constituted structuring events and how they became an
arena for the reproduction of social structure. The spatial vicinity between
the world of the living and that of the dead could have functioned to
reinforce this chain of associations in everyday life. This approach allows
us to discuss the role of ritual as reproducing social structure in prehistoric
societies. Some may view the results as banal or even dull. We argue that
they are fundamental for our understanding of both the rituals themselves
and the society in which they took place. It allows us to discuss how
ritual functioned in the past and explore ways to connect it to a role in
people’s lives.

■

THE CONCEPT OF RITUAL IS CHALLENGED – RITUAL

DEPOSITIONS

In Skateholm we could rely on the assumption that the burials are the
remains of ritual practices, but this may be less apparent in other archae-
ological situations. In our second case study we problematize the identifi-
cation of the remains of ritualized actions in archaeological contexts. Before
we turn to the actual case study we would like to discuss some of the defi-
nitions used in ritual theory that may be regarded as problematic. Earlier

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definitions and uses of the ritual concept which treat ritual as a separate
and universal category of action have been criticized by Bell and others.
We mentioned above that a practice theory perspective solves this problem
since it provides a view in which all actions are considered possible to
ritualize, which means that rituals are no longer regarded as a separate
category of actions. Instead of being regarded as a universal category of
actions, they are viewed as a universal strategy of action. This may seem a
very slight change of perspective, but it has real implications, for example
for the process of archaeological interpretation. Ritualization, as a universal
strategy of action that is always possible (Humphrey and Laidlaw, 1994:
268), has been used in societies when and where this has been useful or
meaningful. However, this does not mean that this alternative has always
been chosen. Rituals, it seems, may not be taken for granted. As archae-
ologists we often face situations that are very different from those facing
others studying ritual. We do not a priori know that we are dealing with
rituals. Our starting point is the material remains of various actions and one
of our aims is to categorize these actions. As all actions may be ritualized,
we cannot assume that rituals leave physical remains that are essentially
different from other actions. However, it is possible to assume that the
strategies of ritualization might be visible in the material. These strategies
are contextually determined, and thus differ from culture to culture.
What have previously been regarded as universal traits of ritual, such as
formalism, repetition and durability, are not inherent qualities of ritual, but
frequent strategies of ritualization. They are used to differentiate between
the ritualized actions and other actions. Bell (1992: 92f) states that ritual-
ization might only be generalized to a certain degree, as these strategies of
differentiation are culture specific. That is why every archaeological
material has to be studied according to its own cultural context, not accord-
ing to a supposed universal idea of what a ritual is. According to practice
theory there is a continuum of actions of different degrees of formalism,
from religious acts to secular, from public to private, from routine to
improvization, from formal to casual and from periodic to irregular (Bell,
1992: 138). Thus, formalism cannot be a criterion of ritual, as acts other than
rituals are also formalized. Rappaport (1999) has pointed out that religious
rituals tend to be found on the more formalized end of the continuum, but
that rituals may also be less formalized and be intertwined with everyday
routines. He clearly states that rituals, religious or not, may not be
separated from other formalized acts as this would mean a break in the
continuum (Rappaport, 1999: 34f). Similarly, Bell points out that ritual-
ization is a flexible strategy and may be used to various degrees. She claims
that there are ritual-like acts in addition to ritualized acts, which to some
extent share attributes with rituals (Bell, 1997: 138f). We conclude that
rituals cannot be distinguished from other acts by the degree of formal-
ization. Rituals may be formalized to different degrees and other acts may

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be just as formalized. But is this view of acts in a continuum compatible
with the idea of ritualization as a strategy of differentiation? As we
understand it there is no opposition between these ideas, as differentiation
as a strategy does not depend on a degree of formalism. Yet, it may be
problematic to distinguish between differentiation strategies that are only
social and those that also ritualize the acts. These problems, which concern
the core of these theories, become especially clear when the theories are
implemented in archaeology, as we cannot take rituals for granted.

The fact that rituals are not essentially different from other acts may

cause some problems and this represents a challenge for the archaeological
process of interpretation. The consequence is that we may look for the
remains of ritualization strategies instead of rituals in our material. But the
notion of acts in a continuum also represents a possibility. First, sacred and
profane phenomena no longer have to be regarded as essentially different
and separated. Ritualization may be viewed as a part of daily life, and traces
of rituals may be a part of the daily material culture, e.g. on settlements
(Bradley, 2003, 2005), which is important from an archaeological point of
view. Second, it is possible to study the significance of rituals from a societal
point of view by investigating the structures that are (re)produced in the
ritual (e.g. the Skateholm case study above).

To illustrate the problems as well as the possibilities posed when ritual

theory becomes engaged with the archaeological situation, we turn to the
example of wetland depositions. Artefacts deposited in water or wetlands
are known from most periods and regions. They are interpreted in various
ways according to different traditions of archaeology, following various
theoretical trends within the discipline. They may be regarded as ritual and
interpreted as offerings, or as mundane and interpreted as caches, stock, or
simply as ‘lost things’. Today there seems to be a consensus to view these
phenomena as ritual. There is also a tendency to use the category of offering
as a covering concept, in which various types of ritual or other formal
actions are routinely placed (Berggren, 2006). However, this concept gives
us the illusion of a homogeneous phenomenon, and if we use it uncritically
we may restrict our possibilities of a more nuanced interpretation. It has
turned into what Christopher Tilley has called a ‘frozen metaphor’, i.e. a
concept that homogenizes varying phenomena by disregarding and ignoring
differences. In the end, this may lead to circular reasoning and a restriction
of thought (Tilley, 1999: 82ff).

We prefer to use the term structured depositions (Richards and Thomas,

1984) as a starting point. This term indicates that the archaeological
situation is formed according to certain patterns. The repetitive pattern
indicates that the actions that created the material followed a certain form.
We may say that the actions were formalized. But how do we interpret this
formalism? We cannot assume they were rituals. To proceed with our
interpretation, we believe that we have to shift our focus from the concept

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of ritual to the more flexible concept of ritualization, and to the role of
practice as generating relations.

The generation of relations, and thus structures, takes place in the human

body with its senses as well as in material things and places, in a dialectic
between embodiment and objectification. These two concepts are the tools
provided by practice theory that may be applied to the archaeological
material. Bodily and sensual experiences are explored within archaeological
studies informed by phenomenological theory, e.g. in the influential works
by Christopher Tilley (Tilley, 1994, 1999, 2004; Bender et al., 2007). This
approach may be criticized for a universal view of human experience (e.g.
Brück, 2005), and it may be problematic if the subjective experience is used
as a tool or a method to understand prehistoric situations. But there is a
certain degree of universality, as pointed out by Sarah Tarlow with regards
to human emotion, in the human bodily capacity for emotion rather than
the experience of certain feelings. It is important to separate the study of
past emotions from the use of emotion as a method. It is the social emotional
values that may be studied archaeologically, rather than individual
emotional experiences (Tarlow, 2000: 725, 728). This may be said for bodily
sensual experiences as well.

Connected to the issue of universality is the deep time perspective that

is possible in an archaeological study. The ritual theories mentioned above
do not explicitly address how rituals are created and changed over time,
especially over a longer period of time. Archaeology may contribute with
studies of the continuity and change of practices over time. Some practices,
especially ritual practices, may be unchanged for a long time, which is not
studied in the anthropologically informed ritual studies. Practice theory was
formulated to explain change, and this may be the reason why phenomena
that have stayed unchanged over long periods of time have not been studied
as much. But in the practice theory complex and especially in theories of
materiality there are explanations of how references to the past and to
memories are created as actions are carried out with bodies, things and
places (De Boeck, 1995; Seremetakis, 1994; Van Dyke and Alcock, 2003).

Case study 2: The Hindbygården fen

The second case study is based on material from a fen at Hindbygården in
Malmö in southern Sweden. The limited scope of this article does not allow
a lengthy presentation, but details of the material are published elsewhere
(Berggren, 2007, forthcoming). In the peat layers artefacts dating from the
Late Mesolithic to the Early Medieval period (4500 BC–1000 AD) were
found, most of them from the Early Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age
(4000 BC–1100 BC). The finds consist of artefacts of flint, e.g. axes, sickles
and daggers; sherds of pottery; stones with various traces of use; a large
amount of unworked stones; a small amount of human bones and a large

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amount of animal bones. In and around the fen, pits had been dug and some
were filled with stones and other artefacts. Other activities that took place
around the fen include lighting fires and perhaps preparing and eating
meals. No remains of settlements were found directly near the fen, which
may have functioned as a place for small or large gatherings. What makes
the wetland deposits at Hindbygården unusual are the large amounts of
artefact types deposited there and the unusually long period of use.
Together this contributes to making this material more complex than many
other wetland deposited materials (Svensson, 1991, 1993).

Our goal here is not to understand the meaning that these depositions

were expressing or symbolizing, but to discuss what actions were physically
performed at the fen, what people actually did, and to understand the place
of these actions in society. We discuss a few examples of the processes of
embodiment and objectification here. As mentioned above, the significance
of actions is generated through performance and bodily experience. In the
process of seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling and tasting, the participants also
experience a structure that provides a coherent view of the world and
everyone’s place in it. As argued above, not only the acting body and senses,
but also the place and the things used all contribute to an experience of
meaning in this process. In Hindbygården we can assume that the fen itself,
with its at times dense vegetation of tall alder trees and lower plants, and
the open water, was part of the structuring process along with the artefacts
used. The fen changed over time. During the early phases the vegetation
was sparse and it was probably experienced as an open space, a glade, with
light coming down through the branches of the trees during daytime. It must
have constituted a stark contrast to the dense, dark forest around it. The
people that moved around in the area would have had the impression of a
well-defined and distinct place. The fen was surrounded by a tall edge of
vegetation which would have created the experience of a border or a
threshold when passed, and this would have added to the impression of a
delimited place, separate from other places. During the early phases the
depositions were made at this edge, perhaps as a reinforcement of the
border or threshold. In addition we must add the contrast between wet and
dry, underlined by a trunk of an oak tree placed across the wettest part of
the fen as a footbridge or platform (Figure 3), where people could enter
the fen and still be dry. We can easily imagine other experiences that would
have set this place apart from the surroundings: the water, the presence of
insects, or birds and frogs that could be heard and seen. During these
periods with open water in the fen, the splashing effect of stones or other
artefacts as they were thrown into the water would also constitute an
auditory and visual experience for those present. Through these sensory
experiences, the practices carried out at the fen established a relationship
between the fen itself, its surroundings and the participants as these prac-
tices and impressions were embodied in the participants themselves. The

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Figure 3 The trunk of an oak as a platform or a footbridge over the deepest
part of the fen at Hindbygården, Malmö, Sweden, during excavation.
Photo: Hans Ekerow

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A new role for archaeology in ritual studies

actions may also have created relationships between people; for example,
between those who shared access to the fen, those who could be seen from
the outside, and those who participated in the meals. To eat is a bodily
practice and the sensual experiences of taste and smell of the food may be
interpreted as incorporating something or someone. That which is
consumed is made a part of oneself. The person that eats is in this way
creating him- or herself (Hamilakis, 2002: 126; see also Boyd, 2002).

The processes of embodiment and objectification seem to have set the

fen apart from the surroundings on a general level. It was differentiated
and framed through markedness, which might have been a strategy of
ritualization. Other more detailed strategies of differentiation may be
inferred, e.g. from the distribution of finds in the fen. Several of the relations
created by actions carried out in and around the fen seem to show spatial
differentiation. This may be the result of a bias of the analysis where the
environment in the fen is the focus, but it also concurs with Bell’s idea that
it is the physical movements acted out in the environment that create
schemes of contrasts in which one side is privileged and thus ritualized. The
fen has been experienced as differentiated from the surroundings for most
of the period of activities, with the exception of a phase of more dense
vegetation during the Middle Neolithic B, when the fen was an integrated
part of a closed landscape rather than the open glade or dense grove it
might have been experienced as during other periods. The less clear differ-
ence during this phase might have resulted in ritual-like acts rather than
wholly ritualized actions. The decrease in activities also suggests that the
fen lost some of its importance during this time. The experience of the edge
vegetation as a threshold might also have been a part of the differentiation
strategy to set the fen apart. This threshold might have been experienced
as less pronounced during the Late Neolithic as the vegetation in the fen
grew more homogeneous during this time. This coincides with the majority
of depositions in the fen. Perhaps it was experienced as a more accessible
place without a boundary. Thus, spatial relationships might have been
important for ritualization in this case. This conclusion differs from defi-
nitions of ritual which include spatial criteria. Spatial relations may be
common strategies of ritualization, but the specific spatial circumstances
may not be taken for essential qualities of rituals.

The cultural context is of crucial importance to the strategies of

ritualization. Both the environmental and the cultural context of the fen in
Hindbygården have gone through several changes during the time of
depositional activities. How can the ritualization strategies seem largely
unchanged during the same time? This does not mean that the cultural
context was unimportant. Rather it shows us how the participants in a
culture, through the interaction with the environment, may create and
recreate a context, an environment, to make it their own, a part of
their culture. This happened again and again at the fen. The physical

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environment constituted the inert level of cultural change, in contrast to the
cultural and explicit explanations connected to the activities. But as the
physical environment also became a part of the cultural context through
the actions of people, the ritualization strategies of spatial differentiation
could stay unchanged.

However, the differentiation strategies used at the fen were varied, and

if acts were ritualized by taking place within the fen rather than outside it,
other strategies of differentiation might have functioned on a social level,
without ritualizing the acts. They still created relationships between people
and were also a part of the social organization. Several processes of
objectification both in the environment and the deposited objects might
have been present. Many types of object (stones, tools, etc.) are deposited
in the same fashion, indicating that the act of throwing something and the
effects it caused was probably as important, if not more, than the artefact
itself. But patterns in the material show that what was deposited was not
unimportant. The deposited material consisted of much the same types that
might have been found on contemporary settlements and were a part of
daily life. A few artefacts might have been deposited as a part of a social
competition for prestige among an elite, e.g. some flint daggers deposited
during the Late Neolithic. But the majority of the material consists of
well-used, everyday artefacts and seem to be connected to a local population
that were not a part of a competitive elite. The material also indicates that
among this more anonymous group, there were several detailed social differ-
entiations that are difficult to associate with the general social structures that
are usually discussed, especially concerning stratified societies where much
attention is directed towards the high end of the hierarchy.

For thousands of years, people created both themselves and their struc-

tures by depositing artefacts and preparing and eating meals at this fen. The
explicit reasons for these practices probably varied over time and from one
individual to another, and acts might have been performed with great
seriousness or without any engagement. But no matter the explicit engage-
ment, the act of throwing stones, bones or other things was a long-lasting
practice. The archaeological record speaks of practices reproduced over
many generations that perhaps can best be understood as an axiomatic,
implicit part of life. To gather at the fen was a natural and necessary part
of life.

The long period of use sets the fen apart from other similar places. The

slow changes of the environment might have been one reason for this long-
lasting practice. Several factors point to the significance of the past to the
activities at the fen, the place itself being one. The experience of acting at
this place was influenced by its history. Through acting, past acts were re-
experienced. The material suggests that the fen might have been regarded
as a historic site by some parts of society.

We have argued that the actions that took place at the fen were mean-

ingful and had a structuring impact on the participants. But were they

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rituals

? If we are to look for remains of rituals in the archaeological material

we have to study the strategies used to differentiate rituals from other acts
in the particular society we study, i.e. we have to understand how rituals
were contrasted against other acts. At the fen, a possible strategy used to
ritualize acts might have been connected to the place itself, but other acts
than rituals might be performed according to the same level of formalism,
and might act as structuring and be structured in the same way as rituals.
The blurred boundary between rituals and other formalized acts becomes
evident when materials like the wetland deposited artefacts at the Hind-
bygården fen are to be interpreted. The presence of rituals cannot be taken
for granted, and perhaps it is not as important to categorize the actions as
it is to understand how people have acted and how these acts structured
their world. The problems raised by the archaeological interpretation of the
Hindbygården fen point to a more general question within ritual studies.
Maybe it is more important to emphasize the structuring role of the acts
than to assign them to a specific category. The use of practice theory has
resulted in a rather complex image of relations and structures created by
the depositions and other activities at the fen. The focus has been on how
they were created rather than what meaning was assigned to them.

■

CONCLUSIONS

In this article we have shown that a practice theory perspective is helpful
when approaching ritual in archaeological contexts. We have chosen the
ritual theory of Bell as our starting point for several reasons. The focus on
practice is important for its application in an archaeological interpretation
process. The wider definition of ritual function underlines its collective and
social dimension, in contrast to the narrower use of the concept by
Humphrey and Laidlaw that is based on individual commitment. Finally,
the emphasis on action as preceding meaning and creating coherence is
extremely useful since we study the material remains of acts rather than
cognitive processes. This theoretical perspective gives us the opportunity to
synchronize theory, method and material in a way that makes a theoriz-
ation possible without being speculative, and it also allows us to ask new
questions and complement our interpretations. Both case studies illustrate
that with a changed focus – from meaning to action – we can interpret the
past in new ways and add to our understanding of how actions, ritualized
or not, had a role in the lives of people and contributed to structuring their
reality.

However, as theory and material were connected in our two case studies,

we could also see how new challenges emerged, both for archaeology and
for ritual theory. The first case study showed that the practice theory frame-
work for understanding ritual has great potential for archaeological

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Journal of Social Archaeology 10(2)

research by allowing us to view burials as the remains of ritualized acts that
generated relations between various phenomena, i.e. a structure that people
both created and experienced. However, it also invites archaeologists to
abandon the search for meaning in these rituals, something many may view
as provocative and even reactionary. Moreover, this case study also leads
to the conclusion that in order to explore ritual practice, we need to
abandon the focus on the exceptional and extraordinary, so common in
archaeology, in favour of a focus on the repetitive. On a fundamental level
this challenges our expectations of what we consider to be an ‘interesting
result’ in archaeology. While the first case study tested the potential of the
archaeological material to be articulated with the theory, the second case
study invites us to test the theories against the archaeological material. The
most fundamental challenge when applying ritual theory in archaeology is
to delimit and categorize remains of ritual acts of the past. In the second
case study we could see how formalized practices were repeated over
thousands of years. However, we still need to question whether they can be
defined as ritual.

Several differentiation strategies may be inferred from the material, but

whether they should be interpreted as ritualization strategies or not is not
always clear. None of the ritual theories formulated in other disciplines can
answer this question in a satisfactory manner. Following practice theory, all
actions can be ritualized, and at the same time, no action can be taken for
granted as being ritual. This means that there is no particular type of
practice that can be identified as ritual. The starting point for understand-
ing ritual, even in archaeology, must therefore be the actions themselves
and how they were experienced by people. In archaeology we can trace the
repetition of practices and reconstruct a context for them, but can we be
sure that they were experienced as rituals? The concept of ritualization, as
used by Bell, can function as a flexible concept on the sliding scale of actions
of different degrees of formalism, and opens up for a term such as ritual-
like actions. The emphasis on strategies of ritualization, rather than rituals,
creates an opportunity to study rituals archaeologically, as these differen-
tiation strategies often leave material remains. The procedure presupposes
a very detailed knowledge of the society in question but nevertheless
constitutes an exciting possibility.

We are aware of the fact that it may be viewed as pessimistic and even

reactionary to argue that we might not be able to distinguish ritual in all
archaeological materials. However, we argue that this is the logical
conclusion if we agree that all actions are located within a continuum of
different degrees of formalism. Instead of viewing this as a weakness for
archaeology, we argue here that this observation in fact may be generalized
to other fields as well, and that archaeology, with the specificity of its
sources, is able to reveal this consequence particularly clearly. Indeed, the
problems illuminated by the archaeological application may serve as a

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starting point for a development of these theories. Here archaeology can
take on a new role, not just to question and apply, but actually to contribute
to the development of social theory. Our contribution to the discussion of
ritual and ritual practice and action is based on the materiality of the
archaeological material and the direct connection this gives us to the actions
of people. The meeting of the ritual theories and the archaeological material
may help us formulate a more nuanced and flexible view on rituals, where
focus is shifted from the concept of ritual to the more flexible concept of
ritualization, and where the delimitation between what is a ritual, and what
is not, may not be as important.

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ÅSA BERGGREN is a PhD student at the Department of Archaeology
and Ancient History at Lund University, Sweden, and has been employed
in contract archaeology in the Malmö area since 1995. Her research
interests include ritual theory, wetland archaeology, and how theory may
be applied to archaeological fieldwork.
[email: [e-mail]]

LIV NILSSON STUTZ is a researcher at the Department of Archae-
ology and Ancient History at Lund University, Sweden, and at the Depart-
ment of Anthropology at Emory University. She is trained in both
archaeology and biological anthropology, and in her research she
focuses on combining anthropological theory on ritual with archae-
ological methodology and materials.
[email: [e-mail]]