Acheulean bifaces dominate the archaeological record for 1.5 million years. The meaning behind the often symmetrical forms of these tools is the topic of considerable debate, with explanations ranging from effectiveness as a cutting tool to sexual display. Some, however, question whether the symmetry seen in many Acheulean bifaces is intentional at all, with suggestions that it is merely the result of a bias in hominin perception or an inevitable consequence of bifacial flaking. In this paper we address the issue of intention in biface symmetry. First, we use transmission chain experiments designed to track symmetry trends in the replication of biface outlines. Secondly, we use archaeological data to assess the symmetry of Acheulean bifaces from British, East African and Indian assemblages in relation to reduction intensity; the degree of bifaciality; and the symmetry of four Middle Palaeolithic bifacial core assemblages. Thirdly, we look at specific examples of the reduction sequences that produced symmetrical Acheulean cleavers at the sites of Olorgesailie CL1-1, Isinya, Chirki, Morgaon and Bhimbetka. All three lines of evidence support the notion that symmetry was a deliberately imposed property of Acheulean bifaces and not an epiphenomenon of hominin visual perception or bifacial technology.

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.

Human hunting represents one of the most difficult foraging activities. It is a skill-intensive pursuit with an extended learning process. Different from other animals, Stone Age hunter-gatherers used complex strategies and technologies to outsmart and pursue their prey. Such strategies and technologies were grounded in extensive knowledge that facilitated context-specific solutions during different phases of weapon production and hunting. Apart from subsistence behaviour, Stone Age hunting technologies also inform on a suite of associated skills, behaviours and levels of cognition. At least since the start of the Holocene in southern Africa, and probably much earlier, behaviours associated with hunting permeated almost every sphere of hunter-gatherer life, and I argue that the theme is a suitable angle from which to explore broader aspects of the evolution of teaching and learning. I provide a brief overview and broad timeline of the ‘evolution’ of hunting technologies associated with the southern African Stone Age record and present some ethnographic hunter-gatherer examples of teaching and learning associated with hunting. The aim is to start situating the archaeological and ethnographic data within a theoretical framework of teaching and learning evolution.

The invention and spread of lost-wax casting in South America is not amenable to explanations based on the concepts of practical or prestige technologies. Here we propose an alternative model to explain this phenomenon, based on a combination of technical analyses of Colombian metalwork and ethnographic information. A crucial element of our argument is that we should not focus on the cast objects or the casting process only, but rather we should consider the role of wax in this innovation. We develop the claim that the use of wax may have been culturally just as important as the metals, and that perhaps metals were used in a process of transformation that required the use of wax, as opposed to wax being simply the medium to make gold objects more beautiful. The focus on wax and its symbolic role may help explain both the invention and the adoption of the new technology, thus subsuming these two categories that those studying innovations tend to separate heuristically.

The construction of archaeological arguments is a continuing source of concern. In comparatively recent years archaeological data have come to be seen as a text that can in some sense be ‘read’. Rejecting this approach in favour of arguments constructed by the intertwining of disparate strands of evidence, this article explores the possible meanings of a southern African rock art motif. Variations in the art itself, nineteenth- and twentieth-century San ethnography and studies of altered states of consciousness combine to suggest that this motif, though idiosyncratically depicted by different artists, was associated with the ways in which San shamans broke through into the spiritual realm.

This article discusses the relation between knowing, learning and teaching in relation to early Palaeolithic technologies. We begin by distinguishing between three kinds of knowledge: knowing how, knowing what and knowing that. We discuss the relation between these types of knowledge and different forms of learning and long-term memory systems. On the basis of this analysis, we present three types of teaching: (1) helping and correcting; (2) showing; and (3) explaining. We then use this theoretical framework to suggest what kinds of teaching are required for the pre-Oldowan, the Oldowan, the early Acheulean and the late Acheulean stone-knapping technologies. As a general introductory overview to this special section, the text concludes with a brief presentation of the papers included.

Forty-four radiocarbon results are now available from the Hazleton North long cairn, and are presented within an interpretive Bayesian statistical framework. Three alternative archaeological interpretations of the sequence are given, each with a separate Bayesian model. In our preferred model the cairn is considered to be a unitary construction, following on from the pre-cairn midden and other activity after a short interval during which the site was cultivated; bodies of the recently dead were subsequently interred in the chambered areas. Further human remains were deposited in the entrances to the chambers slightly later in the Neolithic, after the primary phase of use of the cairn for burials. This model suggests that the cairn was constructed in the first half of the thirty-seventh century cal. bc, and that its primary use for burial lasted for only two or three generations, ending probably in the 3620s cal. bc. A second model which varies only in postulating continuity between the pre-cairn activity and the cairn itself has poor overall agreement, suggesting that this interpretation is improbable. The third model explores the possibility that some of the human remains (those where the deposition of intact corpses cannot be strongly inferred from the archaeological record) may have been curated for a considerable time since death when deposited in the tomb. This interpretation suggests a slightly later date for the construction of the cairn, in the middle decades of the thirty-seventh century cal. bc, and suggests that any human remains which were not interred as corpses were less than a century old when deposited. The correspondence between the bones most likely, on chronological grounds, to be ‘ancestral’ and those most likely, on archaeological grounds, not to have been deposited as intact corpses is, however, poor. For this reason we feel there is no clear evidence that the human remains at Hazleton were not deposited shortly after the deaths of the individuals concerned, and we prefer model 1.

The Grooved Ware complex in Later Neolithic Britain has proved a perplexing phenomenon for prehistorians. While originally identified by Stuart Piggott as one of a series of ‘Secondary Neolithic Cultures’, it was later recognized as a special-purpose assemblage, connected with inter-regional contacts between socially pre-eminent groups. Yet Grooved Ware appears to have been at once special and mundane, ceremonial and domestic. In this contribution I suggest that Grooved Ware and its associated domestic architecture, originating in the north of Scotland, provided a medium for the elaboration of the notion of the domestic community in southern Britain, creating a new conception of the social at a time of profound change. Communal feasting, monumental structures and pit deposition all drew upon the imagery of the house and the household to provide a new means of social integration.

Weighing devices are the earliest material correlates of the rational quantification of economic value, and they yield great potential in the study of trade in pre-literate societies. However, the knowledge of European Bronze Age metrology is still underdeveloped in comparison to Eastern Mediterranean regions, mostly due to the lack of a proper scientific debate. This paper introduces a theoretical and methodological framework for the study of standard weight-systems in pre-literate societies, and tests it on a large sample of potential balance weights distributed between Southern Italy and Central Europe during the Bronze Age (second–early first millennium bc). A set of experimental expectations is defined on the basis of comparisons with ancient texts, archaeological cases and modern behaviour. Concurrent typological, use-wear, statistical and contextual analyses allow to cross-check the evidence against the expectations, and to validate the balance-weight hypothesis for the sample under analysis. The paper urges a reappraisal of an independent weight metrology for Bronze Age Europe, based on adequate methodologies and a critical perspective.

This article puts forward two modes through which cognition and agency exist beyond skin: ‘layering’ and ‘networking’. These bodily and artefactual processes are broadly equivalent to two fundamental social practices defined by Chapman (2000) — accumulation and enchainment, respectively. While the aim of the article is to develop theoretical frameworks for application in archaeological settings, the themes encountered have wider relevance to material culture as a whole. Examples are taken from modern and contemporary art, notably the work of Marcel Duchamp and Antony Gormley.

Soils provide a striking demonstration of conviviality, thanks to the intensity and abundance of lively interaction seething within them. Soils constitute and generate life precisely through the symbiotic interaction, collaboration and competition of an enormous range of partners. Engaging with some specific soils in central Cyprus demonstrates how this conviviality works. Soil-places are created by very precise combinations of soil players, both non-human and human. Humans can join these partners in helping the soil to grow, through constructions of check dams to catch sediments and moisture. They can use soil to construct houses, demonstrating deep local knowledge and close partnership with the soils, and often recognizing the conviviality that provides a foundation for their lives in the landscape. As our soils today are catastrophically degraded and lost, the need to engage with the conviviality of soil is all the more urgent.

Twenty-three radiocarbon results are now available from the Wayland's Smithy long barrow, and are presented within an interpretive Bayesian statistical framework. Four alternative archaeological interpretations of the sequence are considered, each with a separate Bayesian model, though only two are presented in detail. The differences are based on different readings of the sequence of Wayland's Smithy II. In our preferred interpretation of the sequence, the primary mortuary structure was some kind of lidded wooden box, accessible for deposition over a period of time, and then closed by the mound of Wayland's Smithy I; Wayland's Smithy II was a unitary construction, with transepted chambers, secondary kerb and secondary ditches all constructed together. In the Bayesian model for this interpretation, deposition began in the earlier thirty-sixth century cal. bc, and probably lasted for a generation. A gap of probably 40–100 years ensued, before the first small mound was constructed in 3520–3470 cal. bc. After another gap, probably of only 1–35 years, the second phase of the monument was probably constructed in the middle to later part of the thirty-fifth century cal. bc (3460–3400 cal. bc), and its use probably extended to the middle decades of the thirty-fourth century cal. bc. Results are discussed in relation to the local setting, the nature of mortuary rites and the creation of tradition.

This paper examines the relationship between the presence of symmetry and the Acheulean biface within a predominantly British Lower Palaeolithic context. There has been a long-standing notion within Palaeolithic studies that Acheulean handaxes are symmetrical and become increasingly so as time progress as a reflection of increasing hominin cognitive and behavioural complexity. Specifically, the presence of symmetry within Acheulean handaxes is often seen as one of the first examples of material culture being used to mediate social relationships. However, this notion has never been satisfactorily tested against a large data set. This paper seeks to address the issue by conducting an analysis of some 2680 bifaces across a chronological and geographical span. The results from the sample presented here are that symmetrical bifaces do not appear to have a particularly strong presence in any assemblage and do not appear to increase as time progress. These results have significant implications for modern researchers assessing the cognitive and behavioural complexities of Acheulean hominins.

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.

In this study, we outline a maritime perspective on interaction in the Late Bronze/early Iron Age Mediterranean. In response to what has elsewhere been termed the ‘maximalist’ approach, which foregrounds direct, long-distance trading connections between distant Mediterranean regions as a key feature of Late Bronze Age exchange systems, we propose a more nuanced, ‘minimalist’ and argue that notions of contact, connectivity and mobility need to be carefully distinguished if we wish to discuss both the material and social dimensions of maritime mobility. In particular, we critique the prominently proposed, allegedly direct trade route between Sardinia and Cyprus. The network we suggest hinges on multiply connected nodes, where a variety of social actors take part in the creation and maintenance of maritime connections. By unpacking several such nodes between Sardinia and Cyprus, we demonstrate that simply asserting the dominance of Sardinian, Cypriot or Aegean mariners falls short of the complex archaeological evidence and eschews possible social interpretations. In conclusion, we submit that maritime connectivity is an inherently social activity, and that a culturally diverse prehistoric Mediterranean was connected by multiple interlocking and overlapping networks.

The Neanderthals have long fascinated archaeologists and anthropologists alike. Similarity to us coupled with clear differences has produced endless theorizing. This article reviews the background to such ideas. It examines the current lines of thought about Neanderthals and explores the validity of the conclusions. The ultimate aim is the construction of a social synthesis, a solid foundation upon which the validity of inferences regarding Neanderthal cognitive ability and behavioural complexity may be examined.

Indigenous hunter-gatherers view the world differently than do WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) societies. They depend—as in prehistoric times—on intimate relationships with elements such as animals, plants and stones for their successful adaptation and prosperity. The desire to maintain the perceived world-order and ensure the continued availability of whatever is necessary for human existence and well-being thus compelled equal efforts to please these other-than-human counterparts. Relationships of consumption and appreciation characterized human nature as early as the Lower Palaeolithic; the archaeological record reflects such ontological and cosmological conceptions to some extent. Central to my argument are elephants and handaxes, the two pre-eminent Lower Palaeolithic hallmarks of the Old World. I argue that proboscideans had a dual dietary and cosmological significance for early humans during Lower Paleolithic times. The persistent production and use of the ultimate megaherbivore processing tool, the handaxe, coupled with the conspicuous presence of handaxes made of elephant bones, serve as silent testimony for the elephant–handaxe ontological nexus. I will suggest that material culture is a product of people's relationships with the world. Early humans thus tailored their tool kits to the consumption and appreciation of specific animal taxa: in our case, the elephant in the handaxe.

In the previous issue of CAJ, Heggarty (2007) set out how certain key principles and methods of historical linguistics can be exploited to open up another window on the past, from a perspective quite different and complementary to that offered by the archaeological record. Following this up, we turn here to an ideal case-study for exploring how the various patterns in linguistic (pre-)histories can be matched with their most plausible correlates in the archaeological data. Beyond our initial illustration of the Incas we now look further afield, to set the sequence of major civilizations of the Andes into its linguistic context, tracing the expansion trajectories of the main Andean language families further back in time, stage by stage, ultimately to their most plausible original homelands. The linguistic story emerges starkly at odds with assumptions widely held among archaeologists of the region. Indeed we encounter a paradigm case of how only a radical rethinking can reconcile our two disciplines' findings into a single, coherent, holistic prehistory for a human population — in the Andes, a prize now tantalizingly within our reach.

Ethnographic and ethnohistoric accounts of the Andes are rich with descriptions of animated landscapes, substances and objects. It is widely held that these beliefs have deep roots in the pre-Columbian past, and archaeological literature on the Andes routinely draws upon these sources describing the religious importance of mountains, water, plants and animals. While this generalized sense of animism in prehistory is accepted, locating animism archaeologically presents more of a challenge, and like investigations into religion and ritual more broadly, often focuses on special object categories. Spectacular items of fine-quality, exotic materials, or restricted circulation are singled out as ‘special’ by archaeologists, while objects such as plain pots or tools are interpreted as mundanely functional. Further, animistic interpretations that lean heavily on ethnographic analogy run the risk of simply identifying traits in the past which match up with accounts from more recent times. Using materials from the Wari site of Conchopata in the central Andes of Peru, I take up the idea of animism as a ‘relational epistemology’ (Bird-David 1999). This view repositions animism as something that arises out of an ongoing engagement between humans and the world they inhabit rather than as a set of beliefs. This move begins to dissolve the categories of sacred and profane that are embedded in historical studies of religion. Recent shifts in archaeological approaches to ritual provide methodological frameworks for exploring how mundane objects may be transformed into sacred and further allow us to interrogate changes in practice and highlight variation in how animism was deployed in specific locales concurrent with larger social changes.