Ritual as performance in small-scale societies

Although archaeological study of ritual as performance has garnered increasing attention in recent years, such research has primarily focused on large-scale, complex societies and, therefore, on the relation of performance to politics and power. In contrast, this paper explores archaeological assessment of public performance within small-scale societies, considering especially the significance of specific practices to social integration, identity, and historicity. This analysis is informed by emerging interdisciplinary theory on ritual, dramatization, and performance, and draws on archaeological evidence of cyclic communal mourning rites in coastal southern California that reveal aspects of performance including item manufacture, burning, pigmentation, sequential fragmentation, and structured deposition in 'persistent places'.