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Fragmentation, Personhood and the Social Construction of Technology in Middle and Late Bronze Age Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 September 2006

Joanna Brück
Affiliation:
UCD School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland; Joanna.bruck@ucd.ie.

Abstract

This article examines a range of practices involving the deliberate fragmentation of human bodies and objects in Middle and Late Bronze Age Britain. Focusing on evidence from settlements and mortuary sites, it is suggested that metaphorical links were drawn between people and things, and that productive processes such as potting and metallurgy provided potent metaphors for the construction of the human self. Building on these points, it is argued that current models which posit the rise of an ideology of the ‘individual’ during the Bronze Age may be inappropriate in this cultural context.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
2006 The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

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