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The inverted dead of Britain's Bronze Age barrows: a perspective from Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2021

Rob Wiseman Open the ORCID record for Rob Wiseman [Opens in a new window] ,
Michael J. Allen  and
Catriona Gibson
Rob Wiseman*
Affiliation:
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, UK
Michael J. Allen
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Anthropology & Forensic Science, Bournemouth University, UK
Catriona Gibson
Affiliation:
Independent Researcher
*
*Author for correspondence: ✉ rdw42@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

Barrows are a prominent feature of Britain's Bronze Age landscape. While they originated as burial monuments, they also appear to have acquired other roles in prehistory. British prehistorians, however, have been hampered in their interpretations of these monuments, as they are wary of speculating about how Bronze Age people might have conceptualised their dead. Here, the authors suggest that a recurring pattern of inversion is significant. They use Conceptual Metaphor Theory to argue that Bronze Age people in Britain saw their dead inhabiting an inverted underworld directly beneath the surface of the earth. This interpretation would explain not only burial practices, but also some of the barrows’ other apparent functions, such as guarding boundaries and controlling routeways.

Keywords

Bronze Agebarrowsarchaeology of deathConceptual Metaphor Theory
Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 95 , Issue 381 , June 2021 , pp. 720 - 734
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - SA
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the same Creative Commons licence is included and the original work is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Antiquity Publications Ltd.

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