The study of butterfly beads, which first appeared during the tenth millennium cal. bc, covers an important span of the Neolithization process and gives new insights on the symbolic and socio-economic systems of the first farming communities in the Near East. By the end of the Pre-pottery Neolithic, butterfly beads acquired sophisticated shapes and became appreciably larger. Simultaneously, the choice of raw materials changed towards brighter and more colourful allochthonous rocks. These changes reflect a desire to make the butterfly beads more conspicuous as well as an increased demand for ‘prestige’ materials. The technological mastery required to shape and perforate these beads suggests craft specialization and changes in social organization. The morphological and technological complexity of these items, the aesthetic quality of their raw materials, the variability in the degrees of use-wear, along with the particularity of the archaeological contexts, imply a polysemantic reading of their symbolic functions. Butterfly beads were likely related to motherhood and fecundity. Objects of memory and valuable items of ‘prestige’, they comprised part of family or group heirlooms and were worn for special ceremonies. They undoubtedly represented the cultural identity of the first farming societies in upper Mesopotamia and the Levant.

During the last two decades, the use of network methodologies in archaeological studies of interaction has gradually emerged. In this paper I will explore the social significance of networks, advocating the explicit use of Marxist-inspired social theory to increase our understanding of the patterns recognized through graph-theory. Crucial in this will be the new concepts of Means, Relations and Modes of Interaction and the Gramscian notion of hegemony. I will illustrate the potential of this approach, through a case study based in MBA and LBA southern Italy, focused on the sharing of stylistic features in pottery from Apulia in a period when the region was one of the loci of interaction with Minoan/Mycenaean Greece. Local pottery networks show the existence of intense interaction since the early phases of the MBA, before the main period of contact with the Aegean world. It is argued that such networks were influenced by the growing Aegean presence in the region and the overall hegemony of this wide cultural component. Through the later phases of the Late Bronze Age the level of local interaction further increases, while at the same time Aegean-type pottery almost disappears, suggesting a less hegemonic role for Aegean groups involved and a re-balancing of interaction.

A community is an active assemblage of human and non-human elements bound together by interactions. Archaeologies of communities shed light on sets of overlapping and geographically emplaced assemblages of individuals, practices, spaces, buildings, objects, animals and landscapes. This article presents an archaeology of communities based a remarkably well preserved Late Formative (ad 1–500) patio group at Khonkho Wankane, Bolivia. Excavation data provide a high-resolution chronology and document two varieties of assemblages: (1) those that played a greater role in biologically and socially reproducing the community, such as daily food and tool production; and (2) those that played a greater role in its transformation, such as gatherings, work parties and construction projects. In the patio group, intimate meetings took place in small, private spaces where incense was burned. Larger gatherings took place in an outdoor space where painted Kalasasaya small jars and bowls were active elements in interactions between residents and visitors. These events most likely involved work parties that contributed to the physical and social construction of the community. Assemblages at multiple scales built a diverse Late Formative community, which played a principal role in regional interaction networks. Within a few generations of residents leaving their homes in Khonkho, local and regional interactions generated the emergence of a state at Tiwanaku.

The chaîne opératoire (CO) approach is a well-established method for the analysis of tool creation, use and discard, and associated cognitive processes. Its effectiveness in respect of cognition, however, is occasionally challenged. We briefly review key critiques of its epistemological and methodological limitations and consider alternative options. We suggest a new epistemological position and methodology which can link CO with alternative cognitive models and with the true complexity inherent in the stone tool archaeological record. Perception-action and embodied cognition theory are the proposed foundations of a new epistemology that allows us to reject the concept of thought processes underlying tool-making sequences as static entities selected from memory. Instead, they are described as arising, changing and flowing with and through bodily activity, or as the products of constant interaction between body, mind and environment. They are better understood as ongoing processes of situated task-structuring rather than as objectified concepts or symbols. The new methodology is designed to analyse individual tool-making processes rather than their products. We use a pilot study to explore how it can highlight variations in the gestural processes that structure different technologies and thus indicate potential differences in the associated cognitive strategies of the various tool-makers concerned.

The use of apotropaic practices, that is, of magic to protect against evil, is sometimes included in archaeological interpretations on the basis of similarities between archaeological objects and objects used in historically documented or present-day apotropaic practices. The present article attempts to develop the archaeological study of apotropaism by focussing on apotropaic ritual, in addition to apotropaic devices. The case study is a burial in ad 834 of a high-ranking Viking Age woman in the Norwegian Oseberg ship grave. Drawing on cognitive magic ritual theory, the study focuses on identifying both a repeated ritual core and a counter-intuitive, magic element in the series of actions that led to the deposition of five elaborately carved wooden animal heads in the burial, each combined with a rattling device probably related to horse driving. The study demonstrates that apotropaism provides a viable explanation for this rather puzzling aspect of the burial. In a wider perspective it emphasizes the importance of the contextual, in addition to the functional, interpretation of objects in graves. It also suggests that the use of animal figures and animal style in Viking Age artwork may have been more intimately connected with apotropaic beliefs than previously suggested.

Post-mortem manipulations of the body were common at Mesolithic–Neolithic sites along the Danube River. During assessment of disarticulated human remains from Lepenski Vir, an unusual set of incisions (notches) were observed on the diaphysis of a human left radius along with a few cut-marks. Very few studies have attempted to distinguish clearly the characteristics of these modifications. All incisions were examined using a Scanning Electron Microscope and a Focus Variation Microscope that generated measurable three-dimensional digital models. Our results indicate that, on the basis of their micro-morphometric features, qualitative and quantitative distinctions can be made between cut-marks and notches, a methodology which can be applied to other engraved bones. Cut-marks, accidentally produced during flesh removal, were more irregular, longer, narrower and shallower than the notches. The notches, produced by a ‘nick and slice’ motion (pressure was applied to the bone, then the tool was pulled in one direction), were deliberately engraved. This engraved human bone is a rare example within a Prehistoric European context, possibly a form of notation, marking or counting a series of (important) events.

Unique objects are often poorly integrated into discussions about the social organization of production or technological processes. Often they are frustratingly interpreted as ritual or prestige objects, or they are simply consigned to footnotes in archaeological reports. This does not do them justice and their contextualization may provide greater insight into the social factors involved in production activities. This paper attempts to demonstrate what unique, or one-off, objects can tell us about technological systems and how improvisational technical choices can lead to innovation within society. It focuses on a particular example of pottery production and usage at the Copper Age site of San Blas (Spain) and how two particular vessels on the surface appear to be unique one-off products. This paper shows that one-off objects may in fact be opening the door to innovation through acts of improvisation within existing socially sanctioned production aesthetics and object ideals.

This paper is about Bronze Age round barrows and the ways in which they became caught up in human practices over an extended time period. At one level it belongs to a flourishing body of work that examines the ‘re-use’ or ‘biography’ of prehistoric monuments. Rather than treating the latter as a generic group, however, this study focuses on chronologies of one specific monument type—round barrows—over a 2600-year period from 1500 bc–ac 1086. By bringing together evidence and interpretations generated mainly within period specialisms, significant homogeneities are revealed in terms of how activities at prehistoric monuments have previously been understood. The possibilities for seeking out different interpretative ground are duly explored. Using a case study from the east of England and drawing on evidence and ideas from much more broadly, the approach taken places particular emphasis on examining relationships between round barrows and other aspects of landscape. The findings offer fresh insight into the temporality of activities undertaken at round barrows, question existing characterizations of past people's historical understandings, and explore the long-term coherence of ‘round barrows’ as a category.

The ethnographic data of the Bleek-Lloyd archive pertaining to the ǀXam Bushmen (San) of the Karoo have been marshalled to great effect in developing understandings of Bushman rock art throughout southern Africa, with implications for archaeological interpretations of hunter-gatherer rock arts worldwide. Rock art from their homelands, however, has received comparatively little attention, and obvious historical content—which would tie the art to the socio-cultural milieu of the Bleek-Lloyd informants—has occasioned relatively little comment. This paper returns to one site (the Strandberg) known to have been a prominent feature in the cultural landscape of the ǀXam to explore the historical imagery present there, examining the ways in which this art demonstrates the ongoing vitality of certain aspects of ǀXam life in the face of the dramatic socio-cultural changes experienced by these groups from the nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. The paper investigates the range of potential authors for the art, and looks at the context of its production within the expansion of global markets, violent interactions and shifting subsistence options that characterized the late nineteenth-century Northern Cape.

The formation of a state on Crete at the beginning of the second millennium bc has usually been considered under the secondary state paradigm. Most explanations rely on the role of conspicuous consumption and emulation mechanisms at a time when Cretan elites were exposed to the developed stratified systems of the east Mediterranean. A careful review of the data, especially those derived from funerary contexts, struggles to identify such dynamics but reveals a varied range of identities being negotiated and redefined simultaneously at the local and regional level. Informed by ethnographic parallels, an alternative model for Crete is proposed in which change is understood as a social phenomenon that involved a wide proportion of the population and brought broad benefits that sustained the adoption and development of the transformed systems. Crete is presented as a rich archaeological example that may also help in rethinking similar processes in other parts of the Mediterranean and further afield.

The Achaemenids conquered Anatolia in the sixth century bce. However, in contrast to the historical descriptions of political response to Achaemenid control, e.g. the so-called ‘Ionian revolt’ of east Greek territories in Western Anatolia, the operation of Achaemenid-period economies in this region remains obscure. Only a handful of occupation sites in western Turkey provide archaeological data contemporary with Achaemenid rule. In this paper, we compare the results of compositional analysis on Achaemenid-period ceramics from a provincial centre, Seyitömer, with comparable analyses from similar periods at Sardis and Gordion. During the period of Achaemenid control a comparatively high level of compositional and typological diversity at this provincial centre suggests a surprising increase in regional connectivity, both locally and with East Greek and Greek centres.

The materiality of ritual performance is a growing focus for archaeologists. In Europe, collective ritual performance is expected to be highly structured and to leave behind a loud archaeological signature. In Australia and Papua New Guinea, ritual is highly structured; however, material signatures for performance are not always apparent, with ritual frequently bound up in the surrounding natural and cultural landscape. One way of assessing long-term ritual in this context is by using archaeology to historicize ethno-historical and ethnographic accounts. Examples of this in the Torres Strait region, islands between Papua New Guinea and mainland Australia, suggest that ritual activities were materially inscribed at kod sites (ceremonial men's meeting places) through distribution of clan fireplaces, mounds of stone/bone and shell. This paper examines the structure of Torres Strait ritual for a site ethnographically reputed to be the ancestral kod of the Mabuyag Islanders. Intra-site partitioning of ritual performance is interpreted using ethnography, rock art and the divergent distribution of surface and sub-surface materials (including microscopic analysis of dugong bone and lithic material) across the site. Finally, it discusses the materiality of ritual at a boundary zone between mainland Australia and Papua New Guinea and the extent to which archaeology provides evidence for Islander negotiation through ceremony of external incursions.