Bodies and behaviours: archaeological material culture and the interpretation of identity at the Neolithic transition

Abstract

The Neolithic transition changed lifestyle practices as well as fundamentally altering how human groups interacted with one another and the landscapes they inhabited. With this process came transformations in expressions of identity. While prehistory brings a set of challenges in the limited contexts and materials through which embodied identities can be observed, there are many surviving elements of material culture offering clues about identities during the Neolithic. This chapter uses a conspectus of research on Neolithic body-artefact relations to ask what theoretical and interpretive frameworks have been used to approach the question of identities as seen in the available archaeological record. A critical appraisal is made of these approaches to the construction of identities in archaeological interpretation, looking at the tension between aesthetic and practical considerations and the place of communication in perception of intra and inter community identities. Particular attention is paid to the proximity of artefacts to the human body and the portrayal of artefacts in proximity to the human body. This chapter asks how much we know about how the materiality and communication of identity evolved through time, which areas of evidence have not yet been explored to their full potential, and where the limits of interpretation should lie.