Review article Death, burial and ritual in Iron Age Britain and the Netherlands Melanie Giles ∗ DENNIS HARDING. Death and burial in Iron Age Britain. 2016. xv+328 pages, 65 b&w illustrations. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 978-0-19-968756- 5 hardback £70. ANNET NIEUWHOF. Eight human skulls in a dung heap and more: ritual practice in the terp region of the northern Netherlands 600 BC–AD 300 (Groningen Archaeological Studies 29). 2015. 447 pages, numerous b&w illustrations, and tables. Groningen: Barkhuis Publishing and University of Groningen Library; 978-9-49-143184-5 hardback €63.60. “Whereof one can- not speak, thereof one must be silent.” With this quotation from Ludwig Witt- genstein, the author of Eight human skulls in a dung heap, Annet Nieuwhof, asks how far we can take our interpretations of prehistoric mortuary evidence. This review article compares Nieuwhof’s volume with Den- nis Harding’s comprehensive new study of Death and burial in Iron Age Britain. The two monographs rep- resent admirable, but very different, exemplars of in- depth scholarship, putting me in mind of Dan Hicks’s (2004) Antiquity review, ‘From ‘questions that count’ to stories that ‘matter’’. Harding addresses the great re- search questions on status, burial and identity, accom- plishing a synthesis of regional mortuary variation of impressive scope; Nieuwhof’s landscape is much more intimate, opening with a single, overlooked deposit of skulls within a midden, building into a richly contextualised evocation of the world of the terp (an artificially built-up settlement on lake-shores and bogs in the northern Netherlands) and a thoughtful exposition on Iron Age ontology and ritual. Harding’s volume spans the length and breadth of the British Isles, incorporating the legacy of ∗ Mansfield Cooper Building, School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK (Email: melanie.giles@manchester.ac.uk) Whimster’s (1981) seminal study of regional variation in Iron Age funerary practice, alongside the recent investigations of archaeologists such as Armit, Crummy, Cunliffe, Stead and Sharples, in addition to tracking down some of the latest grey literature from developer-funded work. One of Harding’s great skills is his ability to contextualise the British evidence with that from the near Continent, alongside some Irish material. Both dryland and wetland contexts are considered, including small settlements, agrarian features, hillforts and formal cemeteries, as well as caves and river systems. The volume embraces the immense diversity of mortuary practice across Britain during the last millennium BC, encompassing inhumation (including selective removal of body parts or secondary processing before final deposition), cremation, excarnation (both open and, possibly, more protected), dismemberment and display, modification and curation of ‘relics’, and even rare examples of mummification. As such, this book should prove fundamental for any student of funerary practice in archaeology and anthropology. The book is structured into ten chapters. Harding starts with a discussion of key themes and issues, including problems with data visibility (Chapters 1 & 2), moving on to contrast formal burial with decay and selective retention or deposition (Chapters 3 & 4). A key hypothesis, presented in Chapter 5, concerns what might once have been deemed ‘high- status’ burials, but which Harding recasts as either ‘signal’ or ‘focal’ burials. The former are denoted by their atypical, spectacular nature; the latter by their use as a foundation or reference point for later burials and ritual activity. These are useful new concepts that will hopefully enter the archaeological literature. Graves and grave-goods receive attention in Chapter 6, highlighting their general rarity here— indeed, paucity—compared with the Continent, before further thematic chapters on social and ritual C  Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016 ANTIQUITY 90 352 (2016): 1108–1110 doi:10.15184/aqy.2016.113 1108 https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2016.113 Published online by Cambridge University Press