Review of A Geography of Offerings: Deposits of Valuables in the Landscapes of Ancient Europe

A Geography of Offerings: Deposits of Valuables in the Landscapes of Ancient Europe , by Richard Bradley, Oxbow Books, 160 pp., 2017, ISBN: 978-1-7857-0477-2 In this article I review Richard Bradley’s latest book introducing the geographies of hoards and votive offerings in Northern and Western Europe that range from the Mesolithic period to Mediaeval times. Beyond the descriptive account of the deposits in the area, the book comprises a well-founded critique on academic traditions in archaeology, and their tendency of creating regional and chronological faultlines. These faultlines, it is argued, severely limit our interpretations of deliberate deposition of objects which are, often subsumed under terms like ‘ritual’. In an attempt to overcome these faultlines, Bradley provides an alternative to typological studies of hoard deposits by focusing on object histories and their place within the landscape. Through this approach, original interpretations are presented from hoard deposits (mostly containing metalwork) that transcend pervasive ritual/non-ritual dichotomous interpretations.