Much research has been carried out on identifying gendered iconography on statue-menhirs. This paper seeks to develop this perspective by considering the broader body concepts. Body concepts are of interest to archaeologists because they are closely connected to issues of sex, gender, and age. By investigating stone sculptures, however, we are looking at an ideological view of the body that was produced by reducing the stone from its natural form into a statue-menhir. The presence of bodily features on the statue-menhirs suggests that it was important to construct a body, and that certain aspects of the body were chosen to be represented, either through the size and shape of the stone or iconography, while others were neglected. We propose this is a significant means by which stones were made into bodies and gendered beings. To investigate body concepts, we pose two questions: how was a statue-menhir body made, and how was it gendered? By following the reduction sequence of the stone as the technique of production, we investigate which bodily features were important in constructing a body and in gendering it. We do this through analysing and comparing three regional examples of anthropomorphic statue-menhirs: (1) The Lunigiana groups A and B in northwestern Tuscany and eastern-most Liguria, (2) the Atesino group in Trentino-Alto Adige, and (3) the Sion Type A in the Swiss Valais and the Aosta Style I in northern Italy. Although there is a shared statue-menhir tradition in the three regions and beyond, the observations in this paper suggest that the bodily gender categories were negotiated regionally.

Research on Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age society in southernmost Scandinavia has to a large extent focused on the creation of social hierarchy and on elite networks upheld by individuals. This has meant that the importance of collective strategies has been underplayed. In the south-west corner of Sweden, about eighty house remains from the Late Neolithic and the earliest Bronze Age have been excavated within a small area. It is the largest concentration of houses from the period so far excavated in southern Scandinavia. The settlement pattern reveals both single farms and one site, Almhov, with a concentration of several contemporary farms with large houses. The aim of this article is to highlight collective aspects, recognizing that both collective and individual strategies are important in the formation of hierarchical societies. House remains as well as graves and their placement in relation to each other within the local landscape are the archaeological material in focus, regarded as materializations of economic and social relations. It is argued that collective strategies were an important part of creating and maintaining economic and social position.

Burial is a highly symbolic activity through which concepts of the world are reflected in the representation and treatment of human remains. While mortuary studies in archaeology and anthropology have had a long history, our understanding of Neolithic societies through such analyses is lacking. This article has attempted to broaden our understandings of one such society, focusing upon the megalithic tomb tradition in Ireland, through an integrated study of the burial practices taking place at several sites located on the Burren, County Clare. The Parknabinnia chambered tomb, Poulnabrone portal tomb, and Poulawack Linkardstown-type cairn are located within three kilometres of each other and date to contemporary periods. Several questions are explored through the use of archaeological evidence, osteological analysis, and taphonomy to allow for a broader appreciation of social practices in the past – most notably burial practices. What types of burial practices were taking place; how do the sites compare to each other; and how do they fit within the overall scheme of Neolithic practices we have come to understand?

An extensive high-resolution geophysical survey covering 2 km2 was undertaken to the north of Stonehenge in June and October 2011. The survey is important in providing, for the first time, abundant detail on the form and structure of the Stonehenge Cursus, including the recognition of entrances in both of the long sides. Much additional information about the internal form of round barrows in the Cursus Round Barrow Cemetery, the course of the Avenue, the course of the so-called Gate Ditch, and numerous tracks and early roads crossing the landscape was recorded. A series of previously unrecognized features were identified: a pit-arc or cove below a barrow on the west side of King Barrow Ridge, a square-shaped feature surrounded by pits on the east side of Stonehenge Bottom, and a linear ditch on the same solstical axis, and parallel to, the southern section of the Stonehenge Avenue. An extensive scatter of small metallic anomalies marking the position of camping grounds associated with the Stonehenge Free Festival in the late 1970s and early 1980s raise interesting conservation and management issues.

Childbirth in prehistorical contexts is seldom considered since there seems to be an underlying assumption that this event lacks a surrounding and traceable material culture. The argument here is that this is a judgement based upon the refusal to acknowledge childbirth as an important social event. Therefore material remains have not been identified as related to childbirth in the archaeological record. The aim of this article is to show that childbirth as a concept has many important social implications and might in fact be traceable in a wide range of prehistoric material. To illustrate this, two examples of different remains are discussed. Firstly, a skeleton with indications of childbirth, as in the case of the mesolithic ‘Woman of Barum’ found in southern Sweden. In connection with this the social implications of mother, mothering will be discussed. Secondly, the Chalcolithic findings from Kissonerga-Mosphilia, Cyprus, are highlighted and suggested to be the remains of a functional set of birth-related equipment.

In this article, I attempt to show how the Germanic peoples of the Migration Period in Early Chiristian Europe (c. AD 400–500) created – or preserved – a pagan Scandinavian myth of their origin as a, significant part of their identity and perception. The function of the myths as political and ideological legitimations is related to the iconography of the material culture, notably the early animal ornamentation (Salins' Style I). Integration of the written evidence and the archaeological sources makes it possible to demonstrate how origins, myths and iconography together express a formative core of pagan identity in Early Christian Europe.

During the third millennium cal BC, there were major changes in many aspects of Cypriot material culture, technology and economy which characterize the division between the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age on the island. Many innovations can be traced to Anatolian antecedents. These include a very wide array of domestic as well as agricultural and industrial technologies. Their nature and range make it possible to argue strongly for the movement of people to the island, rather than for other mechanisms of technology transfer and culture change. This identification of an intrusive group, with distinctive patterns of behaviour (habitus), opens up questions of prehistoric ethnicity, and the processes by which the initial maintenance of different lifeways by indigenous and settler communities eventually gave way to a common cultural system.