ABSTRACT
Freedom is bound by rules. What this means is that one is only truly free when assuming social responsibilities. How is it then possible to be free and bound to society at the same time? According to Ludwig Wittgenstein, a man who has lived alone on an island his entire life cannot understand what it means to be free because a man who has never lived in a society does not need an ethical framework that dictates how he should behave. This chapter elucidates a concept that has had little purchase in archaeology, “freedom”, and how freedom manifests yet is meaningless when outside of social contexts.
In order to understand what freedom means requires understanding and knowing the rules by which a society operates: one can only steal an object by knowing that the object is owned by someone else; one can only lie when one knows the truth; and one can only act intentionally in an irrational manner when one recognizes what is rational. This idea can be illustrated with two case-studies, one concerning the notion of “relational person” in the hierarchical Indian caste system and the other concerning the use of magical curse tablets in Roman Hispania. Despite completely different social contexts, both case-studies demonstrate how the freedom to act intentionally or lack thereof, is always dependent on the ethical norms a society follows.
