Becoming people : early iron age courtyard sites in Norway as arenas for rites de passage
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Date
2010Metadata
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- AmS-Skrifter [10]
Original version
Armstrong, N.J.O (2010) Becoming people : early iron age courtyard sites in Norway as arenas for rites de passage. In G. Lillehammer (ed.) Socialisation : recent research on childhood and children in the past : proceedings from the 2nd International Conference of the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past in Stavanger, Norway, 28-30th September 2008, s. 115-124. Stavanger : Arkeologisk museumAbstract
This paper suggests that the courtyard sites of western Scandinavia were primarily arenas for transformation rituals from childhood
to manhood. These were central, defining practices for both individuals and society as a whole. Due to their liminality, these
processes can be difficult to engage with archaeologically. Also our cultural situatedness often leaves marginality out of interpretations.
This paper wishes to show how youths and age-set institutions could be the producers of monumental material culture,
otherwise conceived of as the prerogative of adults.