ABSTRACT
In recent years there has been increasing interest in ritual practice in the past as archaeologists have sought to move away from narrowly functionalist interpretive frameworks. However, this has been accompanied by growing disquiet over archaeologists’ ability to identify ritual in the archaeological record. Instinctively most archaeologists feel they know what ritual is but, on closer inspection, the picture becomes rather less clear. Not only has it been impossible to devise a satisfactory definition of ritual action in general terms but unambiguous archaeological correlates have also not been forthcoming. These problems are widely appreciated and have been debated in some detail in the archaeological literature (e.g. Levy 1982; Richards and Thomas 1984; Renfrew 1985; Hill 1995). Yet we have still failed to address some of the most fundamental problems raised by the application of the concept ‘ritual’. The way in which ritual has been employed within archaeological discourse exemplifies the difficulties surrounding extreme positivist and idealist positions; as such, discussion of ritual continues to raise issues that must be resolved if a more subtle understanding of the past is to be reached.
