ABSTRACT
Most of us wonder from time to time what people were like in the past. For example, Figure 0.1 shows the grave of three people buried together around 7,000 years ago in Denmark. How should we interpret this deposit, the bodies, objects and animal remains that it includes? What should we make of the people who were buried here, those who buried them, and the act of burial itself? How should we attempt to trace the relationships that featured in their lives, the routines of activity that shaped their experiences and bodies, the way they related to animals, places, things, and the dead? How can we tell what other people in their community were like? What strategies did they pursue in their interactions with others? In answering these questions I will argue that it is necessary to first interrogate some of our common-sense understandings of what it means to be a person, loosen their grip on our imaginations, and then illuminate some other conceptions of personhood. The reward of this approach is a far richer picture of what past people were like. While I will use only examples drawn from current research on European prehistory, both the topic of personhood and the approach presented here have a wider relevance for archaeology as a whole.
