Neolithic Studies Group

Totemism and Food Taboos in the Early Neolithic: A Feast of Roe Deer at the Coneybury ‘Anomaly’, Wiltshire, Southern Britain Ffion Reynolds

Deer are like people Like men, like men

When they make a sound like a small child, it foretells evil for us The sound is: oeee-oeee-oeee

They [people] say: ‘An evil spirit is calling: it is a deer’ They say they are like people

People do talk about this – they do talk It is an omen

That is the way they are.

(from Reichel-Dolmatoff 1997, 172)

INTRODUCTION

The construction of worldviews and lifeways is ultimately tied up with the various

relationships which humans have with their environments. There are several ways of

thinking, seeing and doing things in the world. One way of approaching this

complexity is to look towards the kinds of relationships which humans have with

animals. The social and symbolic significance of food consumption or conspicuous

non-consumption is a topic which may afford us some insights into the idiosyncrasies

and multiplicities of worldview. This paper will focus more closely on the totemic

aspects of possible Early Neolithic worldviews, but I will also argue that we can

concurrently use combinations of other more animic, shamanic or perspectivist

ontologies as well (see Alberti and Bray 2009, for a current review of animism;

Vitebsky 1995, for a popular explanation of shamanism; and Viveiros de Castro 1998;

2004; 2006, for a detailed account of Amerindian perspectivism). This will allow me

to move between areas of interest or significance, whilst also demonstrating that a

close analysis of the evidence can be read from a variety of angles.

The argument for the existence of totemism in the Early Neolithic has remained

unfashionable. Although its presence has occasionally been alluded to (e.g. Tilley

1994; 2004; Pollard 2006; Sharples 2000; Whittle 2003, 78–9), no one, to my

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knowledge, has classified any Early Neolithic society in southern Britain as totemist.

The main reason for this is probably because totemism as a concept, has had a very

bad press within anthropology since Lévi-Strauss (1964) so convincingly

deconstructed it nearly forty years ago (Pedersen 2001). Unlike animism,

perspectivism and shamanism, which have remained acceptable, if not fashionable

within anthropology (Alberti and Bray 2009; Atkinson 1992; Bird-David 1999;

Dowson 2009; Harvey 2003; 2006; Latour 2009; Sillar 2004; 2009; Vitebsky 1995;

Viveiros de Castro 1998; 2004), totemism is widely taken to be illusory as a concept

of universal applicability and therefore one misleading to employ. I will argue in this

paper however, that totemism – once an outdated and ‘primitive’ theory – one which I

now perceive to be a powerful trend in both anthropological and archaeological

theory. This is partly due to the work of Tim Ingold (1994; 1998; 2000), who has

primarily focused on the differences between Australian ‘totemic’ and circumpolar

Northern ‘animic’ ontologies (Ingold 2000, 112; Fowler 2004). I will argue here

however, that Ingold’s geographical separations lack a dynamic, fluid sense of

worldview. An ongoing debate between Philippe Descola (1996; 2005a; 2009) and

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (1998; 2004), has also provided a base for further

discourse (Latour 2009). This will allow me to develop the notion of multiple

perspectives, in which animism, perspectivism and totemism for example, can exist

together in one context (Insoll 2004; Latour 2009).

Having brought this very brief discussion of totemism in theory to a close, I will then

move on to consider the archaeological implications of totemism as a useful

theoretical framework. I will be working through the detail of the Coneybury

‘Anomaly’ in Wiltshire, focusing specifically upon the character of the depositional

practice evident at this site within the Early Neolithic perhaps around 3850 cal. BC

(Maltby 1990, 58; Richards 1990, 42). Through this I will attempt to define how we

might comprehend the pit as a form of totemic practice. Christopher Tilley’s (1994;

2004) work on phenomenology and landscape studies will allow me to argue, as

Ingold has, that a totemic worldview provides ‘a set of linkages between people, land

and ancestral beings’ (Ingold 1998, 182; 2000, 113). More importantly for the subject

of this paper, totemism may be employed as a tool to describe inter-relationships

between social groups and specific animals (see Durkheim 1965 (1909), Elkin 1978;

Frazer 1910; Fowler 2004; Ray and Thomas 2003). Acts of feasting, like the one

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evident at the Coneybury ‘Anomaly’, would have shaped the ways people

conceptualised certain animals, with the symbolic significance of particular species

changing through time. During the Early Neolithic especially, cattle bones saturate

faunal assemblages, with certain species such as deer being under-represented,

perhaps because they were not domesticated (Marciniak 2005; Ray and Thomas 2003;

Sharples 2000; Whittle 2003). Alternatively, wild species such as deer may have been

subject to formal taboo. To fully contextualise this line of argument, I will be using

several non-western analogies to illustrate that the business of taboo is a complex one.

Within many totemic, animic, shamanic or perspectivist ontologies, deer are

proscribed; sacrificed; considered sacred; treated as if they were persons; used in

shamanic performances; and appear in an anthropomorphised form. This paper will

consider the effects of possible ideological behaviour at the Coneybury ‘Anomaly’ –

especially in relation to the patterns of wild deer deposition. In this, I aim to identify

some of the potential archaeological correlates of Neolithic taboos and through this,

begin to offer possible ways of understanding the missing link: why were deer not

domesticated?

TOTEMIC WORLDS

Many authors begin by defining totemism in opposition to human relationships with

the world which are animistic (Mithen 1996; Ingold 2000; Tilley 2004; Fowler 2004;

Descola 2005a; Harvey 2006; Bird-David 2006; Cobb 2008). It is argued that totemic

classifications model social relationships, primarily in terms of discontinuities

between species – birds, animals, plants and things – while animism endows natural

species and things with a living essence (Tilley 2004, 20; Bird-David 2006, 34–5).

The basic difference therefore, is the way that human beings identify themselves in

comparison to animals and the other entities of the world (Fowler 2004, 122). At the

core of a totemic worldview, the ‘natural’ world is used to classify and to categorise

(Lévi-Strauss 1964). A totemic landscape is conceptualised as a ‘sign’ system or a

network of places with animals, places and things containing what may be called

‘ancestral energies’ (Ingold 2000, 113; Tilley 1994; Bird-David 2006, 35). In a

totemic worldview, non-humans are treated as ‘symbols’, ‘totems’ or ‘emblems’, with

everything belonging to the same ‘totem’ sharing the same attributes (Tilley 2004, 24;

Descola 1996, 88). As for the Algonquin people of Canada, ‘totem’ can be translated

into ‘he is a relative of mine’ (Bowie 2000, 138; Harvey 2006, 165; Lévi-Strauss

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1964, 18; B. Morris 1987, 270). Totemic systems therefore use natural emblems only

as symbols of a relationship, in order for example, to delineate one group as eagles in

relation to another group as crows (Descola 1996; 2005a; Viveiros de Castro 1992;

1998; 2004).

This short summary provides readers with a flavour of what it means to be totemic. It

will be impossible for me to give a comprehensive analysis of totemism in this paper

as I would like; there are several conflicting perspectives, with some authors having

more than one theory of totemism (Frazer 1910; Radcliffe-Brown 1952; see Barnard

1999, 51–2). It would require a book all to itself, to fully critique older ideas and to

set out detailed analyses of Frazer (1910), Durkheim (1909), Radcliffe-Brown (1952),

Freud (1913) and Lévi-Strauss (1964) and so readers are directed to the wider

literature for a fuller discussion of these concepts and their impact and use in

anthropology. Instead, this paper will pick out two authors who I believe to be at the

centre of the current totemic debate, and so the next sections will briefly turn to the

work of Philippe Descola and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (see also Latour 2009).

Descola’s four modes of relation

For Philippe Descola (1996, 89; 2005a), totemism is only an abstract topological grid

for distributing specific relational identities within the collectivity of humans and non-

humans. It is only one mode of relation in a set of four, which he categorises as

animistic, naturalistic, totemistic and analogistic (Descola 1996; 2005a; Latour 2009;

Viveiros de Castro 1998; 2004). Naturalism, Descola argues, is our own mode of

relation and is the default Western position. In the naturalist’s ontology, humans

distinguish themselves from other entities in the world, because it is said that they are

the only ones who posses interiority, even though they are linked to non-humans by

their material characteristics (Descola 2005a; 2009; Latour 2009). Animism, on the

other hand takes the opposite position, holding that many animals, plants and objects

are considered to have interiority similar to that of humans, but they distinguish

themselves from one another by the sort of body they are given (Descola 2005a; 2009;

Latour 2009). The common sense and scientific aspects of naturalism have resulted in

it becoming our ‘natural’ presupposition structuring our epistemology and in

particular, our perception of other modes of relation. What is important however, is

that we should not privilege our own epistemological premise over all others.

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Figure 1: (Upper left) A naturalistic painting: ‘The great piece of turf’ (by Albrecht Dürer 1471–1528); (Upper right) An animate object: ‘Couronne Arawak’ (© Musée du quai Branly, Paris, 2010. Photo: Thierry Ollivier, Michael Urtado); (Bottom left) A totemic acrylic painting: ‘Dream of the flying ant’ (© Musée du quai Branly, Paris, 2010. Photo: Thierry Ollivier, Michael Urtado); (Bottom right) An analogist’s mask: ‘Big mask of diablada’ (Bolivia) (© Musée du quai Branly, Paris, 2010. Photo: Thierry Ollivier, Michael Urtado).

By arguing that the naturalist’s world was only one perspective, Descola was then

able to add another pair of contrasting relationships to his definition: totemism and

analogism. The first is totemism, in which the relations between humans and non-

humans are similar on both sides. In a totemic ontology, some humans and non-

humans share, within a named class, the same physical and moral qualities that the

totem is considered to incarnate (Descola 2005a; 2009). Totemism ignores the

difference between beings on the moral, as well as the physical plane in order to

favour sharing, within the same class, of qualities which apply as much to humans as

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they do to non-humans. This is in opposition to analogism, where they are different on

the two sides (Latour 2009). In analogist ontology, all those who occupy the world,

including their elementary components, are said to be different from one another,

which is the reason for which we strive to find relationships of correspondence

between them (Descola 2005a). Therefore, rather than merging entities sharing the

same substances within the same class, as with totemism, this system distinguishes all

the components of the world and differentiates them into single elements. The classic

figure of analogism is the chimera (see figure 1), a being made up of attributes

belonging to different species, but presenting a certain coherence on the anatomical

plane (Descola 2005a; 2009). The main point I wish to make in relation to Descola’s

work is that we can say that people vary not only in their culture but also in their

nature, or in other words, in the way they construct relations between humans and

non-humans (Descola 2005a; Latour 2009).

Perspectivism as a theoretical ‘bomb’?

Viveiros de Castro (1992; 1998; 2004; 2006) has challenged Descola’s four modes of

relation, by introducing an Amerindian perspectivist approach to the mix. For

Descola, Viveiros de Castro is more concerned with exploring just one of the local

contrasts that he had tried to construct (Descola 2005a; 2009; Viveiros de Castro

1998; 2004; 2006). However for Viveiros, perspectivism should not be thought of as a

category within Descola’s typology, but rather as a ‘bomb’, with the ability to

‘explode’ the whole notion of Kantian ideals, so implicit in most anthropologists’

reading of the material (after Latour 2009, 2; Viveiros der Castro 2006, 467).

Amerindian perspectisvism for Viveiros de Castro (1998; 2004; 2006) is a world full

of inhabitants with the same culture but many different natures. This conception,

common to many indigenous Amazonian cultures and neighbouring regions of South

America, is a way of looking at the world ‘in which the world is inhabited by different

sorts of persons, human and non-human, which apprehend reality from distinct points

of view’ (Viveiros de Castro 1998, 469; 2006, 466). This differs from Descola’s

arguments, in which he argues that people are different not only in their culture but

also in their natures. For Viveiros de Castro, there is a need to go beyond these

categories, in an attempt to get rid of the ‘nature versus culture’ divide, so dominant

in social science. Vitally, Descola (1996, 88) does point out that no community need

be only animistic, totemic or analogistic and these ways of relating are not mutually

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exclusive. Some societies therefore may combine degrees of all four of his analytical

constructs.

EARLY NEOLITHIC WORLDS

The challenge now is to put some of these strands together. The implications of these

arguments may hold great potential, especially as we weave the concepts through the

Early Neolithic material. For example, were human-animal relationships during the

Early Neolithic more complicated than we have previously perceived, with some

prehistoric people including animals within their communities, and even within their

descent groups (see Jones and Richards 2003; Ray and Thomas 2003)? Like human

people, animals might have been dividual persons, shaped through contextually

specific trends in partibility or permeability, rather than indivisible entities isolated

from the community at large, or thought of as resources. Thinking about animals in

these ways provides a useful perspective on prehistoric butchery, consumption

preferences, daily routines with livestock or prey, and depositional practice. Contact

with the bone of dead animals alongside dead humans was clearly an important

feature of the Early Neolithic in southern Britain, which may even suggest an

equivalence of one kind or another (e.g. Jones 1998; Whittle et al. 1999; Whittle

2003). I would also argue that above all, communal food eating and feasting played a

crucial role in the introduction of the Early Neolithic mode of life, combining special

food and special locales (see Herne 1989). Events would be recalled as much in terms

of where they took place as of when they happened (cf. Lefebvre 1991, 98; Ingold

2000). Certain places may have therefore come to act as locales, where

understandings of the world and where the setting against which the world was

realised, were renewed, (re)negotiated and emphasised. These feasts, along with other

ritual and ritualised activities, could have provided a ‘set’ or a special arena for

conceptualising, performing, renewing and (re)negotiating human-animal

relationships and totemic concepts and categories (cf. Marciniak 2005).

A feast of roe deer at the Coneybury ‘Anomaly’, Wiltshire

At one site in particular, there is clear evidence for feasting. The Coneybury

‘Anomaly’, an Early Neolithic pit on Salisbury Plain from southern Wessex (Richards

1990), is contemporaneous with a similar sized pit at Rowden, Dorset (perhaps c.

3850 cal. BC) (Cleal 2004, 187; Harris 2009; Thomas 1999, 70). Both pits would

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have been situated within a mobile landscape of human movement (Whittle 1997),

where large-scale farming was non-existent, (though there is evidence to suggest

some cereal crops were being grown) and living in permanent houses was extremely

rare (cf. Bogaard and Jones 2007; Whittle 2007, 389–90). It is also reasonable to

suggest that monuments were particularly infrequent in Wiltshire during this period,

with Whittle (2007) arguing that they were not commonplace before 3650 cal. BC.

Other than flint scatters, the only evidence for occupation we have comes from pit

sites such as the Coneybury ‘Anomaly’.

The fill of the ‘Anomaly’ contained major assemblages of pottery, animal bone and

worked flint. The amount of animal bone from the primary deposit was substantial

and produced a single radiocarbon date of 3980–3708 BC (Maltby 1990, 58; Richards

1990, 42). This inadequacy is currently being readdressed in a dating programme by

Alistair Barclay, which aims to provide at least ten new radiocarbon dates for the site

(pers. comm. Barclay). The original fill of the pit contained large quantities of lithic

material, 1744 sherds of Neolithic pottery and 2110 animal bone fragments, some of

which had been burnt (Maltby 1990, 57). Along with this, the pit contained large

amounts of charcoal, both in small lumps and more finely divided, including bits of

oak, hazel, blackthorn and hawthorn and both wheat and emmer in small quantities

(although the original organic content would have been much larger) (Richards 1990,

40–3; Carruthers 1990, 250). The frequency of cattle and roe deer out-numbered other

species. Smaller numbers of pig, red deer and beaver, together with one fish were also

represented (Maltby 1990, 57). This contrasts with most Early Neolithic assemblages

in which deer bones of any kind are only present in small quantities.

The assemblage at the Coneybury ‘Anomaly’ arguably represents a major episode of

butchery, in which at least ten cattle, several roe deer of varying ages, one pig and two

red deer were killed and processed. In relation to the roe deer bones, it appears that at

least seven animals were represented, with most of the other bones belonging to at

least two or three animals. Rather than groups exploiting the same animals for

seemingly similar purposes, here we have quite unusual evidence for the butchering

of several roe deer. Mark Maltby (1990, 60) suggests that the roe deer bones represent

the remains of meat consumed immediately after butchery.

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Figure 2: The Coneybury ‘Anomaly’: plan, section and distributions of finds in primary deposit (from Richards 1990, 41).

The evidence from the pit would clearly suggest some sort of communal activity took

place there. It is difficult to suggest the number of people involved in such a

gathering; but the ‘Anomaly’ does present us with a gathering larger in scale than that

experienced every day (Maltby 1990, 247). It may have been a gathering large enough

to accommodate several families, where people would have the opportunity to come

together to eat a feast of roe deer. But why did the groups at the ‘Anomaly’ choose to

deposit whole carcasses of roe deer, but only leave the head and feet bones of the

cattle and red deer? (Maltby 1990, 58).

One suggestion is that those of cattle and red deer were removed either for

consumption elsewhere, or for preservation for later consumption. The deer appear to

have been butchered at the same time as the cattle. Unless the animals were killed

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nearby, people must have been prepared to carry their carcasses to this site for

processing. An alternative suggestion for the inclusion of heads and hooves is that it

represents the enactment of a performative mortuary ritual, involving the clothing of

the deceased, in the skin of another animal, here with red deer and cattle (Ray and

Thomas 2005, 41; Politis and Saunders 2002; Vitebsky 1995, 136). This might or

might not have been the case, but could suggest at least a metaphoric ‘cloaking’ of

bones associated with the movements of animal members of the community – with

the roe deer being treated as persons in themselves. This is reflected in the practice of

‘cloaking’ human bones with ox hides. For example, at Fussell’s Lodge there is

evidence for what looks very much like a single animal’s hide, with head and feet

intact, draped over the timber chamber before the final construction of the long

mound (Ashbee 1966; Ray and Thomas 2003, 40).

Figure 3: A Siberian grave with shamanic devices, such as the skins of sacrificed deer (from Vitebsky 1995, 136).

At the ‘Anomaly’, these practices could have emphasised the symbolic attributes of

deer as a totemic animal. Deer appear to be ambiguous animals placed between the

wild and domestic spheres and through this may have held important positions within

the community and been consumed as a ‘special’ food (Sharples 2000, 114). This may

well have been the case, especially since deer bones are extremely rare in other

contexts of the period. This implies that the practices associated with the butchery of

the roe deer at the ‘Anomaly’ were out of the ordinary, perhaps even a dangerous

undertaking, especially if we are to take worldview approaches seriously. Could it

also point towards the idea that deer were a taboo animal, only eaten on special

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occasions or for special reasons? In several other cultures, like the Nukak of the

northwestern Amazonian forest of Colombia, the consumption of deer is forbidden as

they are considered sacred and appear in an anthropomorphised form in the mythical

framework which supports Nukak spiritual life. Among the Siona and Secoya of

northeastern Ecuador, deer are rarely hunted because they are considered as evil

spirits or ‘devils’ (Vockers cited in Politis and Saunders 2002, 118). For the Achuar,

on the borders between Ecuador and Peru, the brocket deer is the transformed shadow

of a deceased person and is subject to formal taboo (Descola 1994, 92). In other cases,

when deer is eaten, though it is regarded as possessing a soul, its meat is potentially

dangerous and has to be purified by the blowing of shamanic spells (Århem 1996;

Politis and Saunders 2002; Viveiros de Castro 2006, 471 and 476).

Deer for many indigenous Amazonian groups are variously regarded as spirit-animals,

ancestors, or as being ‘like people’ (Politis and Saunders 2002, 116). Viveiros de

Castro’s analysis of ‘Amerindian perspectivism’ is certainly one alternative

worldview which considers animals as people, who in turn view themselves as

persons, each with their own distinct perspectives on the world around them (Viveiros

de Castro 1998, 470; 2006, 476; Conneller 2004, 43; Ingold 2000, 94). In such

animistic or perspectivist ontologies, the natural world is not regarded as a discrete

domain separated from the social or supernatural realms. Here it is common for

certain animals to possess a range of human-like attributes, motives and behaviours,

for a variety of mythological and cosmological reasons (Politis and Saunders 2002,

115; Vitebsky 1995, 106). These instances are also reflected in totemic worldviews, in

which some people consider animals (along with other plants and inanimate objects),

within several hierarchical levels of symbols and signs; their use mediated by a

system in which some animals play a significant role as ‘owners’ of places, and

‘managers’ of situations (Lévi-Strauss 1964; Reichel-Dolmatoff 1971; Reichel–

Dussan 1995). This seems noteworthy when we consider the studies of red and roe

deer which indicate that separate groups often keep to the same range, which could

mean that people may have associated particular places with red or roe deer (Sharples

2000; Morris 2005).

It may be suggested that something analogous was being stressed at gatherings like

those that took place at the ‘Anomaly’. There is a strong case for a possible form of

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totemic practice associated with the pit. The lack of wild deer bone in other contexts

could point to the conspicuous non-consumption of the meat, making deer a taboo

animal relating to older hunting practices. Julian Thomas has suggested elsewhere that

Early Neolithic pit deposits are performative acts which fix particular worldviews at

specific events, whether feasts, gatherings or periods of occupation (Thomas 2000,

80). By placing important substances from these events into a pit, people emphasise

not only what is included within the pit itself, but also the place in which it is

positioned within the landscape. Even though these acts would not have been as

visible as other stone, wooden or earthen monuments, they would still have performed

a similar purpose in transforming the significance of a place, associating it with

particular practice and social grouping. Taking place at the transition between

hunting/gathering and primarily relying on domesticated stock, the deposits at the

‘Anomaly’ may have resulted from events which both dramatised and materialised the

social and cultural changes which were taking place. This pit therefore may have been

used as a prompt, filled with a higher than normal assemblage of roe deer bones,

giving the place itself explicit meaning, especially as groups revisited the location.

This is emphasised by the fact that such locations were later chosen as the sites for

tombs and henges (Thomas 2000, 80; Richards 1990). The construction of these

monuments drew upon and transformed the existing meanings of these places in a

totemic sense, whilst also emphasising an animistic understanding through

(re)visiting, renewing or (re)negotiating particular locations (Reynolds 2009).

CONCLUSIONS

At the beginning of this paper, I introduced the concept of totemism as only one mode

of relation in a series of worldviews and ontologies. Philippe Descola’s (1996; 2005a,

2009) work expressly demonstrates that to understand one worldview, we need to

situate it within a broader framework. In this sense, it is actually quite difficult to talk

about totemism without considering other animistic or perspectivist approaches.

Viveiros de Castro (1998; 2004; 2006) on the other hand, considers Descola’s project

to be one which prioritises typologies, and if there is one approach that is totally anti-

perspectivist, it is the very notion of a type within a category. Viveiros de Castro’s

contribution may very well provide us with a completely new way of approaching

human nature, but it seems unreasonable to suggest that his term be privileged in

some way over all others. In my view, each worldview approach offers us a resource

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to explore the gaps in our own dualistic structures of thought, opening the doors to

more pluralistic understanding of and approaches to the world, celebrating, rather than

problematising multiplicity. It is however, impossible to describe what it truly meant

to think Neolithic. We can be sure that whichever term is used, it is essentially an

academic creation. As both labels and notions, totemism, animism and perspectivism

are entirely a matter of consensus, discussion and continuing redefinition. Yet by

utilising these labels as potential avenues of discussion they become useful tools for

reconstructing possible worldviews for the Early Neolithic. Animism, for example, is

not exclusive to hunter-gatherers as Kirk (2006, 337) has demonstrated; and animism,

shamanism or perspectivism do not precede totemism in an evolutionary way,

functioning simultaneously among the North American Anishinaabeg, for instance

(Harvey 2006; Wallis 2009, 53). This is also the case for North Asian societies as

Pedersen has discussed (2001, 419). Here animism and totemism can mix together

and rather than societies being purely animistic, totemic or perspectivist, they can

form various combinations. Therefore, a fresh reading of the evidence would reveal

split ontologies – half-animist, half-totemist or even quarter-animist, quarter-totemist

and half-perspectivist – the combinations are endless. I believe that these varying

positions were vital to the processes and activities that took place at the Coneybury

‘Anomaly’, for example. The site on the one hand, exhibits animistic or perspectivist

attitudes through the special treatment of the roe deer bones and the head and hooves

of the red deer and cattle, but also in the more totemic vein, its location and products

are inextricably visual nodal points in the landscape (contra Ingold 2000, 112–6 ).

What I have argued here then, represents an essentially different interpretation of the

Early Neolithic period in southern Britain. Here I have suggested that the lifeways of

Early Neolithic inhabitants seem concerned with a need to cite place through

recursive transformations – whether by digging pits, exchanging substances or

feasting – all of which are activities and practices which wove into increasingly

complicated worldviews. By using an animistic or perspectivist approach we can

argue that human and non-human entities played equivalent roles, with certain

animals like deer, being treated as persons in themselves. The possibility that the roe

deer carcasses were covered by red deer and cattle skin may point to a special practice

associated with the handling of symbolically important species. The placing of these

materials within a pit represents a unique assemblage, where the citing of place was

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equally significant. During the early fourth millennium BC, people’s relationships

with their worlds became more fixed and rooted and so did their notion of place in a

totemic sense, highlighted as people revisited the pit location. I would argue therefore,

that it was specific locales that began to act increasingly as the nexus for the

construction of worldviews. As with the Coneybury ‘Anomaly’, the mixing of

substance at certain positions in the landscape in the form of a feast would act as a

‘prompt’ to points of importance within the landscape. The ways in which deer bone

were deposited at the ‘Anomaly’ demonstrate that animals were used in specific ways

and placed in distinctive arrangements. This may be understood by seeing an

animistic relational epistemology working alongside a more totemic mnemonic

understanding of landscape and geography. Here both totemic and animistic

governing principles can operate alongside each other, rather than forming distinct

ontologies (contra Ingold 2000; Cobb 2008). Through this, it may be argued that we

need to consider acts of deposition as relational but contextually specific

understandings of the world, in which varying degrees of the factors above could take

shape, fluctuating significantly, depending on context at any one time (Pollard 2001;

Thomas 2000). So, as a concluding remark, I propose that as archaeological theorists,

we need to be bolder and confront the subject matter of our discipline: that of human-

ness. The ways in which we as humans engage with our worlds, represent our worlds

and contribute to modifying those worlds are remarkably diverse. Rather than

labelling an Early Neolithic society as exclusively totemic therefore, this paper has

argued that by weaving these links into wider expressions of human and non-human

multiplicity, we could develop new insights that are both more accurate and locally

relevant.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Alasdair Whittle for his continued encouragement and support,

and Jacqui Mulville for stimulating conversations about deer in prehistory. The Arts

and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) made this research possible, and to them I

am greatly indebted. Thanks also go to Sara Huws, Liz Reynolds and Seren Griffiths

for reading draft copies of this paper. All remaining mistakes are of course, my own.

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