Why did People Bury Things? Depositional Practices from the Late Neolithic through the Bronze Age in Britain.

The topic of prehistoric depositional practices has been shaped by an adherence to a post enlightenment and capitalist world view that casts them as either the result of economic or domestic practice verses meaningful and symbolically laden ritual. Furthermore, change in these practices have often been considered under the lens of chronological evolutionary models that treats the Neolithic and the Bronze Age as distinct periods of time. This, I argue has led to a demarcation in our understanding of past depositional practices.

In this thesis I consider the study of a range of depositional practices from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in Britain. I present a critique of existing approaches to depositional practice and offer New Materialism as an alternative route to understanding these past practices. In doing so I will provide critical overview of approaches such as ‘structured deposition’ as well as categories such as hoard and rubbish pit. In doing so I argue that we need to begin our analysis of depositional practices with a flat ontology. As a result, I offer interpretations of depositional practices that are not anthropocentric, do not rely on binaries, and reject material hierarchies. I also consider how these practices change and will offer a critique of the prevailing linear chronological models of technological and social evolution and instead utilise concepts such as emergent causation and duration inspired by Deleuze’s engagement with Henri Bergson.

To conclude, I argue that deposition was part of a continuum of iterative processes that are continually being renegotiated over the course of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages.