It is proposed that our understanding of medieval town foundation is limited by a failure to appreciate that ‘town’ is a relational category. It is argued that urban character emerges from social relations, with some sets of social relationship revealing urbanity and others not, as places develop along distinctive, but related, trajectories. This argument is developed through the application of assemblage theory to the development of towns in thirteenth-century southern England. The outcome is a proposal that, by focusing on the social relations through which towns are revealed as a distinctive category of place, we can better comprehend why and how towns mattered in medieval society and develop a greater understanding of the relationship of urbanization to other social processes such as commercialization and associated changes in the countryside.

This article revisits one of the key heuristic devices archaeologists have used to appreciate personhood over the last 15 years—the idea that there is a tension between individual and dividual aspects of personhood. I argue that personhood is always relational, but in varied ways, and propose a revised heuristic approach to assist with appreciating diversity in the multi-dimensional and multi-modal character of personhood.

This paper focuses on ideas of body construction in the Phoenician-Punic western Mediterranean. I concentrate on the study of ‘bottle-shaped’ terracottas and examine their connections with anthropomorphized and zoomorphic jugs and the bottle-shaped idol, a symbol engraved on the stelae of tophets. Exploring the Phoenician-Punic isomorphism between jugs, figurines and bodies introduces us to the study of the creation of a specific body world in terms of fluids: a world in which bodies were perceived as containers of liquids. I argue that this way of defining bodies is materialized in the figurines in two ways: first, via the transformation of the body into a bottle-shaped form, and second, via the emphasis on representing mouths, noses, breasts or genitalia, all parts of the body through which fluids circulate. I also examine the social and ritual contexts of the figurines and discuss issues of personhood and relational identities.

Sardinian Neolithic rock-cut tombs are not merely underground repositories, but complex and dynamic ritual architectures whose sequence of chambers was designed to host elaborate programmes of death ritual. The internal walls of about 250 of these tombs are decorated with carvings and paintings depicting architectural structures, cattle-head motifs and geometric designs. Research has often focused on classifying the motifs into typo-chronological categories, and little attention has been paid to their architectural setting and how art actually interacts with the spaces and structures of the tombs. How were art and architecture combined to create a setting appropriate for deathways? The present article results from a systematic review of this art and discusses patterns in the distribution and position of the motifs inside the tombs. Motifs were repeatedly placed at a few specific locations, suggesting that they played an active role in standardized ritual uses of the tombs. It is argued that art significantly contributed to structure spaces, sequence rituals, shape the ceremonial experience of the tombs, and was therefore a key agent in Late Neolithic deathways.

The multiscalar analysis of pottery traditions in south central Africa opens a new perspective on the study of ancient polities. Focusing on an area of central Africa known for the existence of great kingdoms, I show how past political entities have left lingering traces in the cultural landscape and, more specifically, in the pottery traditions. As ceramics are one of the major tools in the archaeological arsenal, the way they can be related to political structures is of interest to archaeologists around the world. Analysing the chaîne opératoire of living pottery traditions, at an individual and regional level, I characterize the geographic extent of a series of technical behaviours. These technical domains fit with other aspects of society such as languages or matrimonial strategies, but also with economic and political aspects such as salt making and distribution networks and past political entities. They are the materialization of resilient social spaces created by ancient political entities.

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.

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.

In the above book review (Iacono 2016) published in 26.2 (pp. 372–4), several author's corrections were missed throughout. The press apologises for any confusion caused by this error.

The correct version of the book review follows this notice.