A social archaeology centered upon notions of ideology and corporeality in segmentary lineage society – human body and body politic. A multivariate statistical analysis of the human remains of all published neolithic monuments in Wessex, England illustrated the manipulation of bodies and body parts in chambered and earthen long barrows (selection according to body part, sex, age and left/right). This was related to the dynamics of competition in classless society. Theoretical background – Lukacs, Althusser, various sociologies of knowledge.

The study was first presented as an undergraduate dissertation, Cambridge 1980. It was extended in further work with Christopher Tilley on Swedish monuments.

publication

Ideology, symbolic power and ritual communication: a reinterpretation of Neolithic mortuary practices
with Christopher Tilley
in I.Hodder (ed), Symbolic and Structural Archaeology
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982

see also chapter on neolithic monuments in
Re-constructing Archaeology: Theory and Practice
with Christopher Tilley
Cambridge University Press, 1987, Second edition: Routledge, 1992

subject revisited in
Experiencing the Past: On the Character of Archaeology
Routledge, 1991

on prehistoric bodies see also
Theatre/Archaeology
with Mike Pearson
Routledge, 2001