Where does biology end and culture begin? While the human body is now widely accepted as being both biological and cultural, the brain is still considered by archaeologists as being a biological entity that provides the capacity for culture and is subject to no further change after the evolution of Homo sapiens. This article reviews recent research that suggests that the brain has continued to evolve at an increasing rate in recent times under the influence of culturally created environments and that both the anatomy and function of individual brains can be manipulated by cultural behaviour. It describes an experiment in which one of us successfully changed his own brain in response to his cultural activity.

This paper discusses the invention of gold metallurgy within the Southeast European Chalcolithic on the basis of newly investigated gold objects from the Varna I cemetery (4550–4450 cal. bc). Comprehensive analyses, including preceding gold finds, shed new light not only on the technical expertise of the so far earliest known fine metalworkers, but also on the general context and potential prerequisites in which the invention of gold metallurgy may be embedded. Here, these structural trajectories as well as the unprecedented inventions connected to this early gold working will be highlighted in order to contextualize the apparently sudden appearance and rapid development of this new craft.

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.

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.

The Minoan mountain peak sanctuary of Atsipadhes Korakias (Rethymnon, Crete) was excavated by the author in 1989. This article presents the first published account of that excavation and addresses its contribution to broader issues, methodological and interpretative, of Cretan Bronze Age religion. The spatial distribution of over 7500 finds was recorded, enabling the detailed reconstruction of the use and function of the sanctuary. This reconstruction is compared with other approaches to the identification of prehistoric cult places in Greece. Of the other excavated peak sanctuaries, the best known are élite sanctuaries associated with palatial centres; Atsipadhes Korakias is a poor, rural sanctuary, and offers a counterbalanced perspective on Minoan peak sanctuaries.

Building on recent criticisms of Romanization, this contribution formulates a systematic critique of the concept of Egyptianization and suggests a different theoretical approach to cultural process in New Kingdom Nubia that benefits from the insights of ‘cultural entanglement’. This approach emphasizes multidirectional and interactive perspectives that allow for a variety of acculturative outcomes rather than one-sided assimilation. A useful epistemological framework for its application in archaeology is illustrated through two case studies, focusing respectively on representations of Egyptianized Nubians in Egyptian art and Lower Nubian burial customs. The outcomes of the case studies argue for a provocative re-reading of cultural process in New Kingdom Lower Nubia, and may help to clarify the general picture of Nubian history by explaining why and how Nubian traits re-appeared in the Napatan-Meroitic Kingdom of Kush. Finally, the article considers some broader methodological and theoretical issues relating to cultural mixture in the archaeological record.

Excavations at the Early Dynastic site of Abu Salabikh in southern Iraq have aimed at recovering a rounded view of early urban life. One of the questions regularly and rightly asked about our results is ‘how large was the population?’, but we are still far from being able to provide an answer. This article is intended as a report from the field on where we stand at this one site, rather than a general exploration of the issues. Geomorphological and taphonomic issues relating to site size and use of space are exemplified from our own data. Progress beyond a blanket guess (based on comparative ethnography) for population density requires us to break the urban area down into individual houses and the houses into individual rooms. In this context the need for, and possible methods of, more accurate characterization of space use are described. Calculations based on high and low assumptions illustrate the wide range of estimates we still have to work with, but help to crystallize those areas where progress might be made.

The ashmounds of the central Deccan Plateau remain one of the most enigmatic features of the South Indian Neolithic. While Allchin proposed a primarily ritualistic interpretation for the large mounds of burnt cattle dung, more recent discussion has often stressed more prosaic understandings, underlining the adaptive or economic significance of the ashmounds as indicators of pastoralism or stressing the possibility that they represent accidental or sanitation-related fires. This article argues for a return to more symbolic perspectives on the ashmounds, and offers further support for a ritualistic reading based on evidence relating to the landscape context of ashmounds and other Neolithic remains in the central Deccan region. The article explores the landscape associations of ashmounds in the Bellary District of Karnataka, and in particular draws on new discoveries at the sites of Kudatini and Toranagallu in order to reconstruct aspects of a Southern Neolithic ‘world view’ or cosmology. The article also explores the implications of the ashmounds to subsequent developments in the Indian subcontinent, particularly those relating to the symbolic importance of cattle, dung and ash in Hindu practices, and argues for long-term continuities in certain prehistoric material symbols (though not their associated meanings). In addition, the article takes a wider comparative approach, and explores the implications of South Indian Neolithic practices for our understanding of the Neolithic ‘process’ in general, and in particular the emphasis on transformative processes that appears to distinguish Neolithic approaches to the material world from those that preceded them.

The present article develops a framework for interpreting Upper Palaeolithic artefacts from an analysis of material complexity, numeration systems and timekeeping using cultural categorizations, insights on the emergence of number terms in language, and the astronomy practices of 33 contemporary hunter-gatherer societies. Our key findings suggest that astronomy originates in the ability to estimate and infer contextual relations among natural phenomena and transitions from these natural associations to material representations and cognitive technologies that mediate conceptual apprehensions of time as a substance that can be quantified. Given that artefacts may act as scaffolds for explicit concepts of numbers, and numbers scaffold explicit concepts of time, prehistoric artefacts such as the Blombos Cave beads (c. 75,000 bp), Abri Blanchard and Cellier artefacts (c. 28,000 bp), and plaque from Grotte du Taï (c. 14,000 bp) may represent similar scaffolding and conceptual development in numbers and time. It is proposed that the prehistoric societies making these artefacts possessed, in addition to material complexity, the abilities to express quantities in language and to use material externalization and cognitive technologies. Furthermore, the Abri Blanchard artefact is proposed to represent externalized working memory, a very modern interaction between mind and material culture.

To build a theoretical and empirical foundation for interpretation of the absence, segregation or simplicity of infant burials in archaeological contexts, we review social theories of emotion, inter-disciplinary views on the relationship between mortality rates and emotional investment, and archaeological interpretations of infant burial patterns. The results indicate a lack of explicit theory in most archaeological accounts and a general lack of consideration for individual variation and the process of change in mortuary practice. We outline the tenets of Bowlby's attachment theory and Stroebe and Schut's dual process model of bereavement to account theoretically for pattern, variation and change in modes of infant burial. We illustrate the value of this psychology-based perspective in an analysis of Victorian gravestone commemorations of infant burials in 35 villages in rural south Cambridgeshire, England, where individual and class-based variation, relative to falling mortality rates, is best explained as a function of coping strategies and contextually based social constraint on the overt representation of grief and loss.

In this paper, we review the current Philippine archaeological record between c. 14,000 and 4000 cal. bp in the context of our developing understanding of human adaptation to post-glacial environments at the end of the Pleistocene, and the cultural and technological changes that were occurring across Southeast Asia during this period. Due to their location at the northwestern fringes of Wallacea, close proximity to Borneo and Taiwan, and the long Palawan coastline bordering the southern margins of the South China Sea, the Philippines have likely acted as a conduit for the movements of people, material culture and ideas between the islands of Southeast Asia throughout prehistory. Current research suggests that the Philippines were possibly embedded in larger maritime networks from the Late Pleistocene onwards. This appears to have been a period of significant social change and technological innovation, as illustrated by the appearance of new organic and inorganic technologies and the emergence of diverse burial traditions across Southeast Asia. These included sophisticated fishing strategies, techniques of hafting and composite tool production, and long-distance interaction across the Philippine archipelago and Island Southeast Asia perhaps as far as Near Oceania.

Beginning with Alexander Marshack's interpretation of engraved lines as lunar calendrical notations, a number of highly controversial claims have been made concerning the possible astronomical significance of Upper Palaeolithic images. These claims range from lunar notations, to solstice observances in caves, to constellation representations. Given the rare nature of artefacts and images that lend themselves to such interpretations, these claims are generally difficult to evaluate on the basis of archaeological data alone. However, comparative ethnology can provide at least a way of assessing the plausibility of such astronomical claims. If the premise is accepted that at least some of the Upper Palaeolithic groups were complex hunter-gatherers, then astronomical observances, or the lack of them, among ethnographic complex hunter-gatherers can help indicate whether astronomical observations were likely to have taken place among Upper Palaeolithic complex hunter-gatherers. A survey of the literature shows that detailed solstice observances were common among complex hunter-gatherers, often associated with the keeping of calendars and the scheduling of major ceremonies. Moreover, aggrandizers in complex hunter-gatherer societies often form ‘secret societies’ in which esoteric astronomical knowledge is developed. The existence of calendrical notations and secluded meeting places for secret-society members are suggested to be at least plausible interpretations for a number of Upper Palaeolithic caves and images.

The aim of this article is to situate archaeological approaches to modern conflicts within a framework of conflict memory and commemoration. A critical appreciation of historical archaeology as a commemorative practice requires a firm grounding in memory theory, specifically the formation and contestation of memory narratives. This article offers a detailed analysis of the relevant theories and demonstrates their applicability in the contested archaeology of the Nazi era in Berlin. On the basis of this critique I argue that archaeological work on contested sites offers a unique and powerful forum for socially engaged interdisciplinary research.

Studying the emergence of teaching in our lineage entails identifying learning strategies among human and non-human groups, understanding the situations in which they occur, evaluating their performance, recognizing their expression in the archaeological record, identifying trends in the way knowledge transmission changed through time, and detecting the key moments in which members of our lineage complemented pre-existing transmission strategies with those that led our species to develop cumulative culture and eventually ‘teaching’ as we know it. Here we explore how learning processes function in spatial, temporal, and social dimensions and use the resulting situations to build a tentative framework, which may guide our interpretation of the archaeological record and ultimately aid our identification of the learning processes at work in animal and past hominin societies. We test the pertinence of this heuristic approach by applying it to a handful of archaeological case studies.

In this paper we argue that to understand the difference Posthumanism makes to the relationship between archaeology, agency and ontology, several misconceptions need to be corrected. First, we emphasize that Posthumanism is multiple, with different elements, meaning any critique needs to be carefully targeted. The approach we advocate is a specifically Deleuzian and explicitly feminist approach to Posthumanism. Second, we examine the status of agency within Posthumanism and suggest that we may be better off thinking about affect. Third, we explore how the approach we advocate treats difference in new ways, not as a question of lack, or as difference ‘from’, but rather as a productive force in the world. Finally, we explore how Posthumanism allows us to re-position the role of the human in archaeology,

At issue in this article is the soundness of archaeological inferences which proceed stepwise from data about the material culture of Middle Stone Age humans, via assumptions about their symbolic behaviour, to the conclusion that they had modern language. Taking as paradigmatic the inference that the humans who inhabited Blombos Cave in South Africa some 75,000 years ago had fully syntactical language, the article argues that the inferential step from symbolic behaviour to modern language lacks the required warrant. This step, it is shown, is not underpinned by an adequate bridge theory of the putative links between symbolic behaviour and modern language. The bridge theories invoked to date to shore up the Blombos inference are flawed, for instance, in that they incorporate untenable assumptions about language, including an incorrect view of the expressive power of relatively simple linguistic means.

Taking the social agency of dead bodies as its main theme, this introduction discusses the articles in this special section on the bioarchaeology of post-mortem agency and discusses theoretical concerns relevant to the (bio)archaeological analysis of agency. In particular, the argument that only biological living persons have social agency or impact the direction of social processes, or the decisions of others is challenged. The challenges of defining and archaeologically detecting such agency of past humans as well as socially alive entities such as ghosts, corpses, relics and totem heads are discussed. A review of the ways investigations of the agency of the dead might unify bioarchaeologists and further integrate social archaeology into future research is also presented. It is argued that a holistic anthropological approach to humans and their ability to impact their surroundings is not complete if the symbolic and material effects of the dead are not considered.

Recent archaeological research now views the northwest European Neolithic and Early Bronze Age as a period of separation from a resilient complex of traditions of Mesolithic and even Palaeolithic origin. Extending this insight to recent findings in archaeoastronomy, this article treats the sarsen monument at Stonehenge as one among a number of monuments with lunar–solar alignments which privileged night over day, winter over summer, dark moon over full. The aim of the monument builders was to juxtapose, replicate and reverse certain key horizon properties of the sun and the moon, apparently with the intention of investing the sun with the moon's former religious significance. This model is consistent with both current archaeological interpretations of burial practices associated with the monument, and with recent anthropological modelling of hunter-gatherer cultural origins.

Why are humans musical? Why do people in all cultures sing or play instruments? Why do we appear to have specialized neurological apparatus for hearing and interpreting music as distinct from other sounds? And how does our musicality relate to language and to our evolutionary history?

Anthropologists and archaeologists have paid little attention to the origin of music and musicality — far less than for either language or ‘art’. While art has been seen as an index of cognitive complexity and language as an essential tool of communication, music has suffered from our perception that it is an epiphenomenal ‘leisure activity’, and archaeologically inaccessible to boot. Nothing could be further from the truth, according to Steven Mithen; music is integral to human social life, he argues, and we can investigate its ancestry with the same rich range of analyses — neurological, physiological, ethnographic, linguistic, ethological and even archaeological — which have been deployed to study language.

In The Singing Neanderthals Steven Mithen poses these questions and proposes a bold hypothesis to answer them. Mithen argues that musicality is a fundamental part of being human, that this capacity is of great antiquity, and that a holistic protolanguage of musical emotive expression predates language and was an essential precursor to it.

This is an argument with implications which extend far beyond the mere origins of music itself into the very motives of human origins. Any argument of such range is bound to attract discussion and critique; we here present commentaries by archaeologists Clive Gamble and Iain Morley and linguists Alison Wray and Maggie Tallerman, along with Mithen's response to them. Whether right or wrong, Mithen has raised fascinating and important issues. And it adds a great deal of charm to the time-honoured, perhaps shopworn image of the Neanderthals shambling ineffectively through the pages of Pleistocene prehistory to imagine them humming, crooning or belting out a cappella harmonies as they went.

In preparing for the publication of the seven papers in the special supplement of Cambridge Archaeological Journal, we were concerned to find an outlet that could find a worldwide audience, as we believe that these papers have more than regional or period significance. That is a big claim. The case studies presented in the supplement are all of early Neolithic long barrows and long cairns of the fourth millennium cal. bc in southern England. Why should a study of the dating of constructions that held the remains of selected human dead, from a particular region of northwest Europe, at a particular point in the regional Neolithic sequence, have any wider importance? We offer two reasons. First, we are applying, perhaps for the first time to a group of monuments rather than to individual sites, a method for the interpretation of radiocarbon dates which enables much more precise estimates of chronology. Secondly, from this promise of far more robust and precise dating come many implications for the kinds of agents that we may wish to people our pasts, for the kinds of lives they lived, and for the histories that we can try to write about them. These are two developments, we suggest, which any archaeology needs to embrace.