In this article, we look at two very different contexts of monument use – Bronze Age Inner Asia and the Classic period Maya lowlands – in order to explore the function and meanings of monuments and the variety of ways in which they worked to mark and differentiate ancient landscapes. Our goal in uniting such disparate contexts is to examine how power and social organization in these settings were translated into monumental material forms, and how such materializations were experienced by those who viewed and re-interpreted the monuments. In particular, we explore how monuments acted as orientational markers within specific cultural contexts. Our discussion finds common ground between the disparate settings through several common interpretive frameworks focused on spatial, temporal and social orientational work accomplished by active, agentive monuments through their relationships with humans, which we frame as a ‘technology of the monument’. Monuments are instrumental in situating groups within these different layers, or landscapes, of lived experience, yet even while physically fixed, allow for movement through changing meanings and ideas.

After the collapse of most early states in the East around 1200 BC, parts of the western Mediterranean experienced technological progress and demographic rise, apparently without adapting forms of hierarchic political organization. A very good example is Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age nuragic Sardinia, which had been connected to eastern trade networks since Mycenaean times, and developed into one of the most important venues for culture contact and exchange in the West after 1200 BC. However, its rich archaeological record, including figurines, architecture, sanctuaries, villages and tombs, does neither indicate the existence of ‘elite’ groups, nor does it show any traces of a hierarchic society. This article examines the possibility that a non-hierarchical form of socio-political organization devoid of elites developed to a high level of cultural complexity and progress on the island. Other important aspects are the role of immigration as an integrant in nuragic society, considering comparable situations of non-hierarchic politics in ethnography and history, as well as theoretical approaches to forms of social organization. It is concluded that socio-economic development does not necessarily require a centralized political authority.

Mortuary treatments are ways in which archaeologists can learn about the culture and lifestyle of past societies, in terms of how they view the dead. The dead, however, can continue to play a role in the lives of the living, which may also be reflected in funerary rites and burial treatments. This article explores the social agency of the dead, focusing on the ‘vampire burials’ of the post-medieval Polish site of Drawsko 1. These burials, identified through their grave goods, provide a unique opportunity to learn how vampire folklore and the deceased ‘vampires’ influenced the living, most notably as ways to encourage social order, as an explanation for the unknown, and as an economic commitment.

Drawing on recent theories of materiality and non-human agency, this article examines the aftermath of a compelling episode in American history, the Mountain Meadows massacre of 1857. In particular, I focus on certain ‘extensions’ of the massacre victims, as they encounter and become entangled with other material traces and embodied remembrances over the course of the twentieth century. An initial illustration of this process is drawn from the life history of an Arkansas native whose movements to and from his homeland have entangled him in the vast assemblage brought together by the events at Mountain Meadows. I then turn to the rupture in this assemblage that was triggered in 1999 by the exposure of human bones at the massacre site. Materiality theory highlights the ways in which some objects (or their parts) persist and remain inalienable, while others circulate with varying degrees of freedom. Patterns of persistence and circulation are analysed here by focusing on two kinds of objects with intimate ties to the massacre victims: the bodies of the 17 surviving children, and six buttons made of glass and metal.

The biographical approach has been applied to many studies of European prehistoric metalworking which frequently discuss the potential for recycling metalwork through melting to create new objects, drawing influence from the many ‘founders hoards’ known from across Europe. An agglomerate of half-molten bronze objects from Switzerland suggests that such recycling practices occurred there, although previous archaeometallurgical analysis has indicated that such practices were temporally limited. This article focuses on an alternative form of recycling — the direct conversion of one object into another through cutting and reshaping — observed on several razors from Late Bronze Age (LBA) lake-dwelling contexts in Switzerland. Atypical decorative motifs on these razors identify them as having been cut from arm- or leg-ring jewellery pieces. It is suggested that these ‘ring-razors’ were valued as individualized objects and created as personal mnemonic devices.

In October 1900, Edwin and William Kiel were killed outside of Nevada's oldest standing structure in North Las Vegas. Since their death, the Kiel brothers have been analysed by bioarchaeologists and forensic experts. Their ranch, now a historic site, remains the property of the city of North Las Vegas and is a contested space which has seen little development. In this article, we discuss the post-mortem social lives of the brothers within the context of debates about the ranch and the brother's bones which remain separated. How the brothers have taken on various symbolic forms after death and how their bones have not yet been returned to the site are examined. We document the ways the brothers have been used rhetorically as tools by the living as they have debated the future of the ranch. We argue that the brother's bones, even in their absence, are effective tools in ongoing political debates. This article provides an example of how absent bodies, or bodies out of place, can serve as secondary agents. Additionally, the study provides bioarchaeologists with a narrative of how the dead are more than tools but may unexpectedly alter human behaviour.

The temporality of bodies has featured prominently in bioarchaeologists’ studies of embodiment, lifecycle, plasticity and ancestor veneration, amongst other topics. We focus here on the temporality of violence, as evidenced by peri-mortem marks on and post-mortem treatments of bodies. Such evidence can signal violence that is either interpersonal or symbolic, though we realize the distinction may be a materially subtle one. To this end, we look to archaeologists’ recent theoretical forays into temporality. More specifically, we deliberate about relationality, which invites reflective comparison between past and present bodies. Relationality allows bioarchaeologists to examine bodies qua bodies, as well as demands that they contextualize their ancient (or historic) case studies and present-day research in time and place. To explore these ideas, we draw upon a variety of sources, not all of which are traditional (i.e. impersonal) academic discussions. The latter can obfuscate or overlook the more emotional or politicized dimensions of violated bodies.

Bioarchaeology is fraught with profound ethical quandaries, yet it has lagged behind the larger discipline of anthropology in the development of ethical principles and a professional code of ethics. Here, we propose an additional ethical justification for bioarchaeology based on relational ethics, theoretical work on embodiment, and the produced and constituted nature of human bodies, and on deriving meaning from skeletal remains: highly contextualized skeletal data analyzed in a relational, contingent interpretive space can generate otherwise inaccessible, direct information about the constitutive, productive effects of processes like power and oppression on human bodies. This enables recovery and recognition of the agency, singularity, and meaning of past peoples through giving voice to their narratives. This justification is not universally applicable; it is best suited to skeletal remains from marginalized, disenfranchised, and impoverished individuals and communities. We conclude with a case study applying the approach to a skeletal sample from the 18th-19th century Mississippi State Asylum to demonstrate that the approach complements more traditional bioarchaeological research while providing an additional foundation for ethical discourses and debates in the field.

In the alternative fairy tale The Princess Bride, as William Goldman's character Miracle Max reanimates the apparent corpse of the hero Westley, he tells the anxious group observing the procedure: ‘There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive’ (Goldman 2007, 313). Only a select group of the dead can be characterized as being ‘slightly alive’, in the post-mortem agency sense, however, and the case studies presented here explore the many ways in which this subcategory of mostly dead individuals have engaged with and continue to impact the living in the past as well as today. Several themes emerge as especially salient: the iteration in the death-scape of the dynamic tension between the individual and the social group, which can result in transgression as well as conformity in the disposition of the body and its effects on the living; the symbolic capital represented by some dead bodies and the ways in which their potency may be affected by various forms of contextual association; and the ways in which the manipulation of the dead for political purposes is subject to constraints specific to the cultural contexts in which these interactions take place.