ABSTRACT
The tenth- or ninth-century BC hoard from Dowris, County Offaly, provides a case study for the book’s approach to social prehistory. I explain how the hoard can be interpreted as kinwork—the practices of creating kinship. I emphasise the relations that brought the hoard into being, including the persons who contributed tools and weapons, the animals present in horns and pendants, and the vessels that gathered and made kin during feasts. I argue for a relational theory of kinship. Kinship describes the close relations and practices of relating that constitute humans as persons and as groups. The chapter concludes with summaries of the book’s three parts: Gifts, Dwellings, Landmarks.
