House-burning as a form of prehistoric potlatching

The potlatching practices of the First Nations of the Northwest Pacific Coast have been used as ethnographic analogies for Neolithic, Bronze Age and historic ceremonies. Its relevance in prehistory was aided by the often dramatic materialization of the potlatch’s accompanying ceremonies. What does potlatching have to do with house-burning in the European Neolithic? The experimental house-building and -burning programme in the Nebelivka Project, Kirovograd Oblast, Ukraine (2009–2017) confirmed earlier suggestions that much additional fuel over and above that contained in the original structure was required to achieve successful conflagration, supporting the explanation of deliberate burning. But this left a second problem – why should communities sacrifice such apparently solid, well-built and recently constructed structures? Here, the analogy with potlatching becomes more apparent, not only with the destruction of valuable objects but also the linkage of potlatches to the building or repair of a house in some Northwest Coast societies. We propose to use an informal Venn diagram approach to study these potential linkages. The results suggest that there is sufficient convergence between deliberate house-burning and potlatching to further our understanding of the former through insights from the latter.