This article was presented as the third David Clarke Memorial Lecture at Peterhouse College, Cambridge University, 1997. It examines the role of religious ideology in the Aztec state. Ideology is often regarded as a means of easing tension between a dominant and a subordinate group. Ideology, however, might also serve as a mechanism for achieving unity within the dominant group so that it can control subordinates through direct coercion. State-sponsored religion occupied a prominent position in Aztec culture. But, did tribute-paying commoners accept the state's religious rationale for warfare, conquest, and sacrifice? Or was the message primarily directed to higher-status elites? Archaeological material from the Aztec Great Temple and from village sites in the Aztec hinterland are used to assess the role ofrelgion in Aztec political life.

This article discusses two major revolutions in the history of humankind, namely, the Neolithic and the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic revolutions. The course of the first one is used as a general analogy to study the second, and the older one. This approach puts aside the issue of biological differences among the human fossils, and concentrates solely on the cultural and technological innovations. It also demonstrates the issues that are common-place to the study of the transition from foraging to cultivation and animal husbandry can be employed as an overarching model for the study of the transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic. The advantage of this approach is that it focuses on the core areas where each of these revolutions began, the ensuing dispersals and their geographic contexts.

The emergence of cave art in Europe about 30,000 years ago is widely believed to be evidence that by this time human beings had developed sophisticated capacities for symbolization and communication. However, comparison of the cave art with the drawings made by a young autistic girl, Nadia, reveals surprising similarities in content and style. Nadia, despite her graphic skills, was mentally defective and had virtually no language. I argue in the light of this comparison that the existence of the cave art cannot be the proof which it is usually assumed to be that the humans of the Upper Palaeolithic had essentially ‘modern’ minds.

This article reviews the evidence for planning behaviour in Middle Pleistocene hominids. It documents the way in which raw material procurement and tool production were structured during the Middle Pleistocene occupations of the Spanish sites of Sierra de Atapuerca, Torralba, Ambrona and Aridos. Differences in the use of raw materials for different kinds of tool or end-product allow inferences to be drawn about pre-Neanderthal intentionality and cognitive ability. The overall pattern of technological behaviour demonstrated by this study is far removed from the purely ‘opportunistic’ and can reasonably be described as involving both forethought and planning. The work is presented from a techno-economic perspective based on the differential use of raw material types present in the lithic assemblages of these sites, and the proximity of sources of these raw materials in the surrounding landscape.

This article discusses the establishment of the Neolithic in western Europe, and presents two models which integrate aspects of the Neolithic funerary structures of western France. One model presents a cyclical evolution of tombs in France, in which there is a transformation of the funerary space around the corpse (the grave itself). This includes the modification of the anatomical order of the skeleton which becomes dependent on this transformation of the enclosing space, delimited by architectural forms such as allées couvertes.

The second model places emphasis on relationships which were observed in north-west Spain between the visual references inherent in any natural environment, and the location of the earliest monumental funerary structures. This model also emphasizes the location of these monuments in space, a location which seems to depend on human movement through the landscape.

When applied to such a region as the Morbihan débartement of Brittany (famous for sites such as Carnac and Locmariaquer), the two models converge. Together, they contribute to a better understanding of the succession of cultural complexes through time; but above all they suggest a radical process of transformation which is without doubt connected to the emergence of the Neolithic.

The key argument presented in this article is that a threefold temporal sequence can be recognized in the deployment of cup and ring marks and that these changes can throw new light on the nature of ideological evolution in northern Britain during the Neolithic. It is proposed that the initial phase relates to the symbolic portrayal of the ideological beliefs which constituted the ‘Neolithic’ (c. 4000–3200 BC) by mapping them on the landscape via outcropping bedrock. During the second phase (c. 3200–2000 BC) the significance of this symbolism is thought to be appropriated, as it is reworked into ‘man-made’ megalithic constructions which ‘monumentalize’ the landscape under the aegis of increasingly overt human control. By the third phase (c. 2000–1800 BC) a disjuncture is apparent in both the function and meaning of the cup and ring tradition culminating in its expropriation as human control of the natural world becomes more fixed.

Three sets of symbolic material from sites of the East Baltic Neolithic non-Corded Ware culture c. 6500–3500 bp are presented and compared in order to interpret certain aspects of the ideology of these prehistoric communities, specifically as it relates to their faunal environment and gender distinctions. Approaches taken consist of: 1) statistical analysis of a data base of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic symbols, and grave good inventories as they relate to gender; 2) comparison of frequencies of faunal types represented in the economy and in zoomorphic symbols; and 3) a cross-cultural comparison of contexts of the most frequently occurring Neolithic animal symbols in East Baltic historic mythology, folkore, and ethnography. It is hoped that the results of these multiple and varied approaches can serve as a middle ground between vague abstract theorizing about Neolithic ideology on the one hand, and a wealth of infrequently addressed symbolic material on the other.

Dancing is depicted in the earliest art of the ancient Near East. It appears in many variations from the ninth to the sixth millennium BP over a vast geographical range. This article discusses the dancing performance, the social context of the dance and cognitive aspects of the dancing scenes. Ethnographic observations are used in order to gain a wider view of dancing and dancing scenes in pre-state societies. A correlation can be observed between art, symbolism, religion and social organization.

Spoken language is one of the defining human characteristics — the crucial accomplishment which makes us human and separates us from other species. Naturally enough, the origins of this accomplishment — which must lie somewhere back in the Palaeolithic — have been the subject of lively and often heated debate, not least since speech leaves no direct material residues. Many people have sought to resolve the question by careful analysis of the material remains of early hominids. But do patterns of tool-making or evidence of sophisticated subsistence strategies really provide an adequate base from which to deduce the presence of linguistic ability? Furthermore, is language inextricably bound up with the ability to vocalize and to speak? Are studies of the vocal tract of Neanderthals or Homo erectus really relevant to the question of language origins?

The wide diversity of view on the antiquity of human spoken language is very clear from the brief contributions which make up this feature. On the one hand is the evidence for the presence of Broca's and Wernicke's areas in the brain of Homo habilis around 2 million years ago. Does this provide grounds for believing that Homo habilis could speak? Did the use of tools as icons by Homo erectus play a key role in the development of human spoken language? Or should we instead go along with the growing consensus — supported by many linguists —that spoken language is a late addition to the range of human abilities, originating along with fully modern humans only within the last 200,000 years? And dare we go even further, and nominate Africa as the locus of language origin?

The time may come when we are able to specify not only when human spoken language first developed, but also where. For the present, however, the debate shows no sign of imminent resolution. In the pages which follow, we bring together the views of archaeologists from a number of different backgrounds; but we begin with a linguist's perspective, and seven propositions to set the scene for the archaeological enquiry.

The question of the supposedly pre-Greek language or languages of the Aegean, in its wider historical and cultural context, has not been systematically addressed since the decipherment of the Linear B script, other than in the philological studies of DA. Hester. Here it is argued that the time is ripe for a new synthesis between the linguistic and the cultural evidence. The language of the Minoan Linear A script, that is (it is here assumed) the Minoan language of the palaces, is here identified as making the principal contribution to the so-called ‘pre-Greek’ vocabulary of the Greek language, thus constituting not a linguistic substratum of earlier date but an adstratum, which developed during their co-existence in the Aegean during the Bronze Age. This may be seen as the linguistic component in the ‘Versailles effect’ of Minoan palatial influence within the Aegean, which reached its apogee in the Late Bronze 1 period, a view anticipated in some respects in the work of some earlier writers notably G. Glotz.

Such an approach focuses attention more clearly on the intellectual and ideological contributions of Minoan culture to the emerging Mycenaean civilization, rather than on the piecemeal acquisition of material items, without however assigning a secondary or subordinate role to the mainland communities in their own transition towards state society. One important consequence of the argument is to diminish (or even eliminate) the case for a significant chronologically pre-Greek element in the Greek language. One principal argument against the very early, probably Neolithic arrival of proto-Greek (or proto-Indo-European) speakers into mainland Greece is thereby removed. The resulting simplification in the linguistic picture of the Bronze Age Aegean proposed here carries implications also for that of western Anatolia and for the great antiquity there of the Luwian language. It opens questions also about the affinities of the presumed Anatolianancestor of the Minoan (or proto-Minoan) language.

How should archaeologists approach ethnicity? This concept, which has such wide currency in social and anthropological studies, remains elusive when we seek to apply it to the archaeological past. The importance of ethnicity in our late twentieth-century world can easily lead us to believe that it must long have been a key element in human relations and awareness. The practice of defining oneself and one's group by contrast and opposition to other individuals and other groups, from the family level upwards, appears a basic feature of human behaviour. Ethnicity is a part of this social logic, though ethnic groups, and ethnicity itself, are notoriously difficult to define.

Can we identify and distinguish ethnic groupings in the archaeological record? Had one posed that question earlier this century the answer would have no doubt have made immediate reference to the ‘culture-people hypothesis’; the idea that archaeological assemblages may be combined into ‘cultures’ defined by recurring features, be they metalwork, ceramic forms and decoration, or lithic technology. Each culture so defined might be equated (hypothetically at least) with a former people. Ethnographic studies, however, have long shown that these equations are overly simplistic. Phenomena such as the ‘Beaker culture’ are no longer assumed to be the material expression of a single ethnic group.

Where historical evidence is available, it may be able to overcome some of the difficulties and examine just how a historical ethnic group — as perceived and defined by its own members — relates to a body of archaeological material. Jonathan Hall's study of ethnic identity in ancient Greece provides an excellent example of just such an approach. It also raises broader issues concerning the definition of ethnicity and its recognition in the archaeological record. Hall himself takes the view that ethnicity depends on what people say, not what they do; hence material culture alone, without supporting literary evidence, is an insufficient basis for the investigation of ethnic identity in past societies. To accept that view is to rule out the study of ethnicity for the greater part of the human past; we may suspect that ethnic groups played a part, but be unable to identify any surviving cultural parameters. Against such a pessimistic assessment, however, there is the contrary argument, that ethnicity may be expressed as well in material culture as in words. Should that be the case, archaeology may indeed be well equipped to open a window on past ethnicity, whether or not there are relevant contemporary texts.

We begin this review feature in our usual way, with a summary by Jonathan Hall of the arguments set out in his book. Five commentators then take up the theme, raising comments and criticisms to which Hall responds in a closing reply.