The limits of agency in the analysis of elite Iron Age Celtic burials

Abstract

Burial ritual is an area of human behavior that at first seems particularly resistant to the identification of purposeful and intentional action in the archaeological past, at least when viewed from the perspective of the deceased individual. In the context of the European Iron Age this is partly because burial ritual falls so clearly into an area of group expression that is explicitly public and apparently conservative, but also because the actual focus of the activity generally is not in a position to influence the form of their own disposal. In fact, of course, it is possible to speak of agency in burial ritual from the perspective of both the deceased and the survivors involved in the mortuary performance itself. The question is to what extent and under what conditions individual action will be expressed in an archaeologically recognizable way.