Exceptions that prove the rule: unusual graves in the bronze age of south‐western Europe
Exceptions that prove the rule: unusual graves in the bronze age of south‐western Europe

Summary/Abstract: The study of funerary contexts can sometimes be flawed by a monotone and generalist approach. Especially the rituals, but also the customs related to death can sometimes appear as varied across the same region and along the same time, evidencing exceptions to "normality". This situation is stressing thus the need to employ a more opened and varied vision in the study of funerary and ritual contexts. In this paper we will present examples of “unusual” funerary rituals practiced during Bronze Age, for each region and each period, in which they occur, which can root complications if interpreted in an excessively processual approach. We will present cases related to France, Portugal, Spain and Italy, which are symptomatic for those funerary rituals that deviate from normality of the archaeological register typical for some human cultures of the Bronze Age; but fit perfectly in the normal variation of a cultural and semiotic manifestation, that sometimes is not uniform, as it is the case with the funerary ritual.

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