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Journal of Social Archaeology
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Growing Metaphors

The Agricultural Cycle as Metaphor in the Later Prehistoric Period of Britain and North-Western Europe

Mike Williams

Buckinghamshire, UK

By reviewing the theory of metaphor, it can be shown how metaphors need not solely be linguistic but can include actions and objects. This allows for metaphors to be found and recognized in the archaeological record. Furthermore, some metaphors can be so pervasive and all-encompassing that they can determine the way people think and understand their world. During the later prehistoric period in Britain and north-western Europe, this article suggests that the agricultural cycle formed such a metaphor. Elements of agricultural production can be found in many diverse contexts and an examination of these indicates the way in which people understood and conceptualized their lives. Their aim was to situate social reproduction in the timeless and unchanging cycle of agricultural production. If people could show that they were as permanent as the land upon which they lived then possibly they could claim that land with equal permanence and, there-after, keep it as their own.

Key Words: agricultural production • cognition • Iron Age • land claims • later Bronze Age • metaphor

Journal of Social Archaeology, Vol. 3, No. 2, 223-255 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/1469605303003002005
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[Abstract] [PDF]