The excavation of any cemetery is normally the work of specialists from multiple disciplines, and these two case studies, at Agios Vasileios and Ayia Sotira, provide clear examples of the fruitfulness of collaboration in the final analyses. The report on Agios Vasileios has three authors but builds on the work of several earlier excavators and collaborators. The Ayia Sotira publication has five main authors and eight contributing specialists. Both works address the challenges archaeologists face when dealing with bodies of material that have been subject to plunder and illegal excavation. They also deal with rescue excavations, which at times provide their own challenges in terms of limited record keeping and incomplete information on deposition, excavation, and context.

It has now been 100 years since the first chamber tomb cemetery in Achaea was excavated by  Nikolaos Kyparissis. Achaea was once thought of as a kind of backwater where there was an absence of coherent evidence for Mycenaean polities, in contrast to other parts of Greece, such as the Argolid, Messenia, and Boeotia. In the past, the region was often overlooked, perhaps since no definitive evidence was found for a regional center or palace. The unique fortifications and settlement architecture at Teichos Dymaion, 40 km to the west, offer, for now, the closest possible evidence for something like a regional center. It is, however, not entirely clear from the fortified site what kind of settlement was here.

The excavations and publication by Aktypi et al. of the cemetery at Agios Vasileios in Chalandritsa in the northwest Peloponnese have much to contribute to our revised understanding of the Mycenaean age in Achaea. The Mycenaean chamber tomb cemetery is located a few kilometers west of the village of Chalandritsa near a small eponymous chapel. It is cut into limestone, covering an area of 1.3 ha. Locally, the site is called Alepotrypes after the many foxes found in the area. The first excavations at Agios Vasileios (1928–1930) were conducted by Kyparissis, who uncovered four chamber tombs. In 1961, Efthimios Mastrokostas excavated three tombs at Chalandritsa, and Aktypi does as much as possible to publish this work from the excavator’s notes. New excavations by Maria Stavropoulou-Gatsi and Michalis Petropoulos of the (then) sixth Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities resumed in 1989 and continued until 2001. This work revealed 29 additional chamber tombs and forms the main focus of the present publication. The full extent of the cemetery has not yet been revealed, and it is important to remember that additional tombs may be found in the future. The area has suffered from illegal digging and looting, and this makes the systematic excavation presented here that much more valuable. Lying approximately 15 minutes away by foot, the site of Stavros at Chalandritsa is identified as the settlement connected to the cemetery at Agios Vasileios. The material shows that the cemetery was in use from Late Helladic (LH) IIIA1 to the end of the LH IIIC period. The absence of evidence, however, for material dating to the LH IIIB period, the high point of Mycenaean palatial culture elsewhere, is notable. This poses interesting questions for shifting power dynamics in Mycenaean Achaea and the greater Peloponnese while other centers of Mycenaean culture were thriving and Achaea was not.

Aktypi, who edited the book and is the primary researcher for this cemetery and its finds, deserves much of the credit for the research and publication of the cemetery at Agios Vasileios. She is to be highly commended for her Herculean efforts to bring order to and make sense of records and inventories of excavations some of which were done in a hasty manner as rescue projects. She has done a very good job of explaining what is certain from the archaeological record and what is most likely, based on her best understanding of the spotty records. Archaeologists who examine this material will be extremely grateful for the detailed work and expert analysis she has put into this publication.

The Agios Vasileios book consists of a preface and 22 chapters, which are labeled in a somewhat peculiar way: some chapters contain subsections (chapter D, e.g., has five: D.1, D.2, D.3, D.4, D.5, covering the excavation seasons of 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1999–2000, respectively). The book concludes with a short epilogue (284–85) and has a rich bibliography. As in the Ayia Sotira volume, material related to each tomb is illustrated in the relevant chapters throughout the text. In this volume, the illustrations are in color and often are paired with their proper, scaled drawing. The finds are especially well illustrated. There are also volumetric tomb reconstructions that are helpful for visualizing the complete tombs and for understanding their varying scales. The color maps are very clear and legible. There is no index. 

The Ayia Sotira volume is a pioneering publication of six chamber tombs excavated in the region of ancient Nemea and dating to the 14th and 13th centuries B.C.E. The settlement with which these tombs are likely associated is Tsoungiza, which two of the authors (Wright and Dabney) have spent a great deal of their professional lives excavating, studying, and publishing. The book opens with a short introduction (ch. 1) that discusses the location of Mycenaean tombs in the Nemea Valley and the region’s problematic history of illegal excavation and looting. The methodological and interdisciplinary approach to the excavation and publication of the chamber tombs contributes to an understanding of the multiple phases and sequence of use for each tomb. The Ayia Sotira project builds on the surface survey of the Nemea Valley Archaeological Project and expands to a wide range of fields to provide a rich understanding of this important area of Greece.   

One noteworthy aspect of this volume is the identification of commingled remains, evidence indicating the postburial manipulation of human remains. It is noted that 24 of the 34 burials in the chamber tombs with skeletal remains showed evidence for secondary treatment, despite poor preservation. This evidence helps us consider the importance of bone “curation” in Mycenaean cemeteries. Clearly, bones had power and meaning, perhaps more so than complete “bodies” or “skeletons.” The great challenge is to understand this meaning. This publication provides a great deal of evidence for one site from which we can now look for similarities in the Corinthia, the Argolid, and beyond.

The largest part of the book (chs. 2 and 3, covering 111 pages) is dedicated to the six excavated chamber tombs. The results of the specialists’ studies, including geophysical survey, micromorphology, bioarchaeology, archeobotany, archeomalacology, lithics, phytoliths, and residue analysis, are presented in chapters 4 through 9. The implications of the micromorphological studies pioneered by Karkanis are well evidenced. Karkanis provides focus on the complicated stratigraphy in multiple-use tombs by isolating microlevels to provide detailed reconstructions of reuse independent of ceramic analysis. His methods have been employed successfully elsewhere in the Aegean (e.g., Mitrou), and his work provides a model for what is possible with micomorphology. Plant and other food remains have also revealed clear evidence for meals (for either the living or the dead) as part of the burial performance. Among the interesting analytical results are residues of fatty lipids and wood possibly used for torches, which suggest lit lamps during the burial process. In chapter 10, the main authors bring all of the diverse data sets together, with a small appendix on the medieval pottery and coins by MacKay and Stahl. A rich bibliography is followed by an adequate index, 62 tables, and 54 black-and-white plates. The authors and all specialists are to be highly commended for taking a truly multidisciplinary approach.

The Ayia Sotira volume is copiously illustrated, with ceramic drawings and architectural plans and sections included within the chapters. The ceramic illustrations, primarily of jugs and stirrup jars, seem somewhat uneven, and the attributions suggest several team members were involved in the drawings. The architectural and section drawings are more consistently and sharply presented. Unlike in the Agios Vasileios volume, the use of color in the illustrations is sparing. The volume’s authors have gone to great lengths to provide a comprehensive and coherent presentation of the evidence from their excavation. The work is truly very impressive.

As archaeologists continue to excavate and publish Mycenaean remains from Greece, the two works reviewed here should provide models for how the data can be successfully published and widely disseminated.

Brendan Burke
University of Victoria
bburke@uvic.ca

The post Mycenaean Cemeteries in the Peloponnese appeared first on American Journal of Archaeology.

These “Thin Partitions”: Bridging the Growing Divide Between Cultural Anthropology and Archaeology, edited by Joshua D. Englehardt and Ivy A. Rieger. Pp. 312, figs. 11, tables 1. University Press of Colorado, Boulder 2017. $75. ISBN 978-1-60732-541-3 (cloth).

Incomplete Archaeologies: Assembling Knowledge in the Past and Present, edited by Emily Miller Bonney, Kathryn J. Franklin, and James A. Johnson. Pp. xix + 148. Oxbow, Oxford and Philadelphia 2016. $49.99. ISBN 978-1-78570-115-3 (paper).

Rethinking Comparison in Archaeology, edited by Ana Vale, Joana Alves-Ferreira, and Irene Garcia Rovira. Pp. vii + 209. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne 2017. £61.99. ISBN 978-1-4438-7285-0 (cloth).

Archaeological Variability and Interpretation in Global Perspective, edited by Alan P. Sullivan III and Deborah I. Olszewski. Pp vii + 332. University Press of Colorado, Boulder 2016. $95. ISBN 978-1-60732-493-5 (cloth).

These four edited volumes comprise 48 individual contributions. It is impossible to do justice to all of the essays and stay within the word limit of this review, so each gets only brief mention here. They run the gamut from deeply insightful to somewhat less so. Some are highly theoretical, while others are abbreviated descriptive site reports; some involve analyses of features and artifacts, whereas others are more abstract and barely mention excavated data. Most are on the cutting edge of recent developments in archaeology, although a number hew to more traditional perspectives. Ultimately, all the essays address the question, How do we know what we think we know as it applies to “meaning” in archaeology? And what is clear in all the essays is that the discipline of archaeology is alive and well, and a myriad of new perspectives is being widely explored and promulgated.

As the subtitle of These “Thin Partitions” indicates, the contributors to this volume examine the relationships between archaeology and cultural anthropology. Philip Phillips’ dictum that “archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing,” an homage to A.L. Kroeber’s more famous pronouncement that “anthropology is history or it is nothing,” is quoted here, but there is no mention of James Deetz, whose guiding principle that archaeology is the cultural anthropology of extinct societies influenced a whole generation of scholars. A reversal of the drifting apart of archaeology and cultural anthropology is a welcome suggestion, and the authors of these essays do a good job of illustrating the benefits thereof. Their ideas for creating closer bonds between the two disciplines seem reasonable and doable.

As is typical in anthologies of the sort under review here, some of the authors stick more closely to the volume’s title than others. Nevertheless, all pay at least lip service to the often fraught relationship between these two disciplines. Although the editors recognize that there are a substantial number of scholars in both disciplines who deny any basic commonality between the two, they have not included any such sentiments in this collection. The broad conclusion that can be drawn from these pieces is that over the years, the seminal connection between archaeology and cultural anthropology has deteriorated and is badly in need of repair. Some of the contributors merely lament the situation, whereas others offer constructive suggestions for reestablishing and strengthening these fraying bonds.

The contributors to this volume are evenly divided between cultural anthropologists and archaeologists, and the two coauthored pieces include one of each. All the authors celebrate the mutual benefits of having the perspectives of both disciplines represented in the study of ancient societies. LaMotta and Monaghan review the history of collaboration in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest, applauding past collaborations and lamenting their scarcity today in both areas. Shankman’s piece, which is strictly theoretical without reference to any sites or artifacts, explores the history of cultural evolution in both anthropology and archaeology, with commentary on the controversy over the relevancy of the four-field approach in anthropology. He concludes that the idea of cultural evolution should still have a place in both disciplines. Fahlander is also exclusively theoretical, with a focus on the interpretation of material culture by  cultural anthropologists and archaeologists.

Rieger believes that the relationship between cultural anthropology and archaeology is more of a one-way street. Using data from Mesoamerica, he argues that archaeologists need to incorporate more anthropological theory into their analyses. Hellweg revisits the fraught concept of tribe from the perspectives of both disciplines, concluding that anthropologists can help archaeologists refine their understanding of ancient social organization. Yucatecan culinary practices, both modern and ancient, are the subject of Souza’s contribution. Despite significant differences between, for example, modern and ancient diets, cooking methods, and gender factors, she believes that contemporary data may be able to shed light on ancient culinary matters. Reviewing his ethnographic work at a Mayan site in Guatemala, Kistler illustrates the mutual benefits of this work for the archaeologists with whom he collaborates. Greece is an area with a mixed history of collaboration between archaeologists and anthropologists, but Small argues that classical archaeologists have benefited from theoretical perspectives of cultural anthropologists in areas such as systems theory and network analysis. Fowler and Johnson, another archaeologist-anthropologist team, examine choice and resources among Gujurat (India) fishermen and among Zulu potters, focusing on comparisons of production and “social wellbeing.” They find “different but compatible constructs” (247) for understanding both the past and the present.

In Incomplete Archaeologies, the editors call for a reconsideration of the concept of the assemblage, fundamental to virtually all archaeological work. They and the authors represented here advocate for no less than a reorientation of archaeological analysis away from an examination of assemblages, which they argue are static and incomplete, to a focus on “assemblings” that are dynamic and expansive, albeit still incomplete, and thus a superior analytic framework for archaeological data. Assemblings encompass the total picture, spatially and chronologically, taking into account all the players—humans, animals, landscapes, structures, and perhaps even the supernatural—and the complex relationships between them. The authors ably demonstrate the efficacy of the assembling approach utilizing data from specific archaeological sites. They make a convincing case for expanding our focus from assemblages to assemblings to generate new insights into and perspectives on archaeological data.

In the opening essay, Cobb argues that by treating the artifacts and sites of prehistoric hunters and gatherers as dynamic assemblings rather than static assemblages, we can gain a better understanding of these ancient nomads and deeper insights into their daily lives. Early and Middle Bronze Age tombs in Crete are the foci of Bonney’s contribution. She advocates a longitudinal perspective that takes into consideration the tombs and their functions, contents, and interactions with people over a period of about 4,000 years. Mortuary practices in the Early Iron Age of west central Europe is the subject of Johnson’s essay. In order to identify human agency (among other things), he asks us to reconsider and reassemble what we think we know about burials and their accoutrements at this time and place. Chazin wants to expand the scope of assemblages of Late Bronze Age pastoral societies from the southern Caucasus to be more comprehensive by including the essential interactions of humans, animals, and landscapes over time as revealed by archaeology. Frie also looks at human-animal relationships, proposing a reconceptualization of their interactions to take into account how prehistoric peoples in Iron Age Europe perceived them.

Although paying little heed to the theme of this volume, Chang and Beardmore are able to demonstrate how a plethora of information is imbedded in mud bricks and the structures made from them, utilizing archaeological data from southeastern Kazakhstan. Combining ethnographic, historic, and archaeological data from Ireland, Garstki assembles the hypothetical identity of an ancient ironsmith; this is highly speculative, given the paucity of hard evidence, but convincing nonetheless. Gonzalez chronicles the various modifications and reimaginings of the tomb of the 16th-century Swedish king Gustav Wasa in a piece that is fascinating and erudite, but, like several other contributions, strays from the volume’s theme. In the final essay, Franklin presents a more abstract assembling, detached from both archaeology and assemblage. Using as examples a 16th-century cabinet of curiosities, the work of American collage artist Joseph Cornell, the Irish painter Francis Bacon, and a 13th-century Armenian merchant, she identifies assemblings that provide an entrée into the politics of assembling and its relation to power.

Rethinking Comparison in Archaeology is the most abstract of these four books. Some of the essays are very theoretical, and some are more philosophical than archaeological, employing citations of Hegel, Heidegger, Kant, Marx, and Wittgenstein, along with Appadurai, Binford, and Geertz. Ostensibly, the authors are examining the process of comparison and the comparative method, processes fundamental to the archaeological endeavor, but they are not ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater, and none are ready to abandon comparison as a crucial part of archaeological analyses. Rather, they want to expand and perhaps reconfigure the way comparison is used, advocating for an assessment of its limitations and potential. Ultimately, they are concerned with the production of meaning in archaeology and the role of comparison in that exercise, and most suggest creative ways of expanding the use of comparison at all levels, including within and between sites as well as chronologically.

Gomes is concerned with the production of knowledge in general and recognizes the role comparison can play in bridging the gap between past and present and thus furthering our understanding of the past. It is hard to know what to make of Alves-Ferreira’s contribution; nowhere does the word “archaeology” appear, and the focus is mostly on Alain Renais’ film Nuit et Brouillard. Likewise, Koerner’s piece is mostly about art and philosophy, with minimal reference to archaeology. Using data from Neolithic burials in Portugal, Achino et al. propose a new way of identifying ritual practices through quantitative comparison, but they fail to say what their new insights are. Comparisons reveal similarities in disparate entities but rarely do more than highlight a few of these similarities. Vale, using data from Chalcolithic walled enclosures on the Iberian peninsula, argues that comparisons should be multivalent and aimed at identifying all the communalities and differences among them.

In his essay on comparing habitation sites in Portugal dating to the third and the first half of the second millennium B.C.E., Cardoso calls for a more holistic and dynamic perspective that takes into account human agency and intention. May describes two sites in Portugal without comparanda but does not offer suggestions for further interpretation other than treating them as sui generis. Drawing on artifacts from fifth-century C.E. tombs in Portugal, Arezes highlights both the benefits and limitations of comparison for understanding artifacts. Walden takes on recent critiques of comparison by examining the collapse of the Classic Maya; he singles out risk management and emic preconceptions as factors that might be used to compare the Maya with other ancient (and modern?) societies. More philosophical considerations of comparison in archaeology can be found in Jorge’s essay, in which he calls for using comparison in its broadest context to maximize understanding. In the concluding piece, Thomas reviews the history of comparison in archaeology and provides brief commentary on most of the volume’s contributions.

Archaeological Variability and Interpretation in Global Perspective is the meatiest of these collections and is the most diverse in that the common theme of variability is more amorphous than the foci of the other volumes and is less evident in some of the contributions. Nonetheless, valid points are made throughout, many of which offer new perspectives on understanding variability in the archaeological record. Moreover, the tone of these essays is less revolutionary, as the authors are concerned more with presenting and reinterpreting data in a slightly new light than they are with reinventing archaeology. With new interpretative methodologies, new data perspectives, and new analytic strategies, these scholars offer challenges to some traditional practices as well as reinforcement of others. Cutting-edge theories are applied and critiqued in many of the essays.

Almost half the essays in this volume involve analyses of lithics. Barton and Riel-Salvatore demonstrate that variability in stone tool assemblages from the Upper Pleistocene reflects adaptation to climate change and other environmental factors, a perspective that casts some light on the extinction of Neanderthals and the ascendancy of anatomically modern humans. Several alternatives to traditional explanations of lithic variability in the Epipaleolithic are suggested by Olszewski, in particular the idea that variability in stone tools is not always an indication of manufacture by different cultural groups. Holdaway et al. continue this thread with new and novel explanations for “stone artifact assemblage variability” in New South Wales, Australia. Based on data from sites in northern Arizona and two competing hypotheses, Sullivan argues that archaeologists must give more attention to lithic artifact scatter assemblages if they are to understand variability within them. Mustering a great deal of comparative material and the results of experimentation, Rollefson argues for a reinterpretation of Acheulian bifaces and cleavers from Tabun Cave in Israel. He advocates for a perspective based on technology and use rather than morphology. Whitaker and Kamp review information on ancient stone tools from the American Southwest, comparing different interpretations and later reuse of the artifacts. Chase argues against using mental templates to understand the various processes involved in the manufacture of Paleolithic stone tools. Several experiments in stone knapping are reviewed by Rezek et al. to gain a better understanding of variations in flake production, and although they present the experiments as useful, the authors believe there is still much to be learned from additional similar endeavors.

According to Roth, continuity in the archaeological record reflects social continuity (“persistent places”) among former inhabitants of the Mimbres Mogollon region of southwestern New Mexico. Using a century’s worth of archaeological, historical, and cartographic evidence from the Late Woodland/Middle Mississippian site of Aztelan in southern Wisconsin, Schroeder and Goldstein argue for a reinterpretation of the site as a “blended” (164) or “coalescent community” (167) rather than a synchronous entity. Oddo and Cadogan reexamine potsherds from a large Bronze Age cistern at the Cretan site of Myrtos-Pyrgos, offering several hypotheses about the deposition without endorsing any. To generate an estimate for ancient populations, Wilcox reviews archaeological and historical evidence from two sites, Casas Grandes in northern Chihuahua, Mexico, and Casa Grande in southern Arizona, concluding that the actual figures probably fall somewhere in the middle of previous estimates. In a comparative study of mortuary practices among complex hunter and gatherer societies in the southern Levant over a period of 22,000 years and the San Francisco Bay area over 2,000 years, Byrd and Rosenthal chronicle the changes in the quantity and quality of grave goods. They conclude that funerary practices vary independently of political complexity and can be explained mainly with reference to aspects of social identity and social roles.

If there is a common theme in these collections, it is that we need to expand our focus. Most of the arguments set forth by the authors in these volumes are considered and persuasive. Archaeology is in need of new ideas, approaches, and perspectives, and these essays offer a plethora of them. There need not be a major overhaul of the discipline, but the suggestions for expanding and reorienting such practices as comparison and reconsiderations of variability in archaeology resonate and could easily be implemented.

Peter S. Allen
Rhode Island College
pallen@ric.edu

The post Creating Meaning in Archaeology appeared first on American Journal of Archaeology.

The Sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis: The Bronze Age. 2 vols., by Michael B. Cosmopoulos (Archaeological Society at Athens Library 295, 296). Pp. xix + 766, figs. 287, b&w pls. 82, tables 12. Archaeological Society at Athens, Athens 2014. €85. ISBN 978-618-5047-15-3 (paper).

Bronze Age Eleusis and the Origins of the Eleusinian Mysteries, by Michael B. Cosmopoulos. Pp. xvii + 227, figs. 80. Cambridge University Press, New York 2015. $99.99. ISBN 978-1-107-01099-4 (cloth).

The post New Insights into Bronze Age Eleusis and the Formative Stages of the Eleusinian Cults appeared first on American Journal of Archaeology.

The post Ontology, World Archaeology, and the Recent Past appeared first on American Journal of Archaeology.

The Idea of Order: The Circular Archetype in Prehistoric Europe, by Richard Bradley. Pp. xv + 242. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012. €67. ISBN 978-0-19-960809-6 (cloth).

How Ancient Europeans Saw the World: Vision, Patterns, and the Shaping of the Mind in Prehistoric Times, by Peter S. Wells. Pp. 304. Princeton University Press, Princeton 2012. $35. ISBN 978-0-691-14338-5 (cloth).

The Archaeology of Violence: Interdisciplinary Approaches, edited by Sarah Ralph. Pp. 306. State University of New York Press, Albany 2013. $95. ISBN 978-1-4384-4441-3 (cloth).

Local Societies in Bronze Age Northern Europe, edited by Nils Anfinset and Melanie Wrigglesworth. Pp. 260. Equinox, Sheffield, England 2012. $99.95. ISBN 978-1-84553-742-5 (cloth).

The Prehistory of Iberia: Debating Early Social Stratification and the State, edited by María Cruz Berrocal, Leonardo García Sanjuán, and Antonio Gilman. Pp. 424. Routledge, New York 2013. $140. ISBN 978-0-415-88592-8 (cloth).

Atlantic Europe in the First Millennium BC: Crossing the Divide, edited by Tom Moore and Xosê-Lois Armada. Pp. 720, b&w figs. 140. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011. €115. ISBN 978-0-19-956795-9 (cloth).

Over the past decade or so, there have been important advancements in the archaeology of prehistoric Europe. Many of these advancements are theoretical in nature, ranging from issues of the body and agency; to aesthetics, art, and memory; to community and temporality; as well as concerns regarding power and colonialism.¹ Other advancements contribute to our understanding of European prehistory through methodology focusing on the use of isotopic analyses, portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) technologies, and GIS.² However, for much of European archaeology (if there is such an entity), such approaches are the exception rather than the rule.

The volumes reviewed here are marked by sometimes bold and, for the most part, successful attempts to bridge the persistent chasm between method and theory but also between processual and postprocessual approaches to interpreting the past. I begin with the overtly theoretical volumes (Bradley, Wells, Ralph), which claim no predominant geographical focus but rather seek to contribute more broadly to our understanding of specific topics in European prehistory. The next section contains the reviews of region-centered edited volumes (Anfinset and Wrigglesworth on northern Europe; Berrocal et al. on Iberia; and Moore and Armada on Atlantic Europe). In the case of these region-focused edited volumes, which each contain multiple chapters, I highlight those chapters that I feel are most representative in both positive and problematic ways. All the volumes contribute substantially, and in some cases substantively, to our understanding of European prehistory while also reflexively assessing the current state of archaeology in their regions and Europe more broadly.

Bradley’s The Idea of Order: The Circular Archetype in Prehistoric Europe continues his long-running focus on monuments, imagery, and meaning-making in prehistoric Europe. He organizes the volume into four parts, each subdivided into chapters: “Times and Spaces” (pt. 1, three chapters); “Circular Structures in a Circular World” (pt. 2, three chapters); “Circular Structures in a Rectilinear World” (pt. 3, three chapters); and “Summing Up” (pt. 4, one chapter). Each chapter has the feel of a separate publication, including some chapters with their own introductions and/or summaries. Bradley’s organization of the volume lends a somewhat disjointed feel to the volume, something one might have expected either the author or the press to notice; likewise, this disconnect is heightened by a lack of accompanying explanations or introductions to the four separately titled parts. This is unfortunate, as Bradley sets out on an ambitious course, one that he has covered before more thoroughly in other publications.³ These parts would have been excellent opportunities to introduce the broader theoretical concerns of each section, and, perhaps even more so, they were a chance for Bradley to discuss changes in his thinking over the past four decades and his reasoning for his current approaches to these topics.

Bradley’s primary question in The Idea of Order is why one kind of monument (circular) appears widespread in some geographic areas. To a lesser extent, Bradley is also interested in the contrast between circular and rectilinear structures that appears in various places and at different times in European prehistory. Of course, this question is not a new one in European archaeology nor the anthropological archaeology of North America. As Bradley notes, Flannery and Kent both have engaged with this topic.⁴ Flannery and Kent were reliant on theoretical and methodological frameworks aimed at identifying and assigning complexity to different societies based on ethnographically derived distinctions between family size and type (nuclear and/or extended) and economic activity such as storage. Bradley seeks to move beyond the illusory binary of simple and complex to understand better the roles of cosmology in social organization from the Neolithic to the Iron Age of Europe. This admirable goal, however, is somewhat obscured by rather random uses of ethnoarchaeology and ethnography to flesh out his approaches to symbolic communication and art as critical elements in cosmological displays. This is not to say that ethnoarchaeology and ethnography are not useful sources of information, but rather, and in a similar vein to Flannery’s own admission, that such sources need to be approached critically, lest their use of information be seen as willy-nilly.

Nevertheless, Bradley’s volume is a solid investigation of the cosmologies of meaning that were pervasive in prehistoric Europe. In his inimitable way, Bradley interrogates how prehistoric people experienced the world around them and, as a result, modified that world and their more immediate, everyday lives. Bradley notes that such experiential projects were widespread in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe, consisting of the construction of monumental public architecture (e.g., Tara and Uisneach in Ireland and the various monumental tombs of the Orkneys, just to name a few of his abundant examples). On the quotidian level, such imagery can be seen in the deliberate reconstructions and replacements of, and/or extensions to, dwellings as noted at Ein el-Hariri in Israel, Weisweiler in Germany, and Elsloo in the Netherlands.

Bradley makes a compelling case for the use of circular imagery in prehistoric Europe, often moving between monuments, dwellings, and material culture. His sometimes dizzying array of cases strongly supports his idea that the constructions of and connections between circular structures were important components in cosmologies of meaning in the past. Less convincing is that by picking certain examples and comparing them, such as the Late Bronze Age Navan Fort with Mucking and Thwing in England, a similarity of purpose for these structures can be determined. Overall, the volume presents a somewhat jumbled collection of studies on the use of circular structures across Europe, and while the importance of such structures is highlighted, I am not sure that anyone ever thought otherwise. This volume lacks the cohesion of Bradley’s compelling and authoritative study of monuments in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe, yet it offers some intriguing insights into issues such as movement and visibility and their importance to communities in prehistoric Europe.

While Bradley discusses sensual engagements, such as visibility, with circular monumental and material culture archetypes in prehistoric Europe, Wells offers a focused, well-organized exploration of visuality in prehistoric Europe in How Ancient Europeans Saw the World: Vision, Patterns, and the Shaping of the Mind in Prehistoric Times. Wells sets out on a structured path that bears some similarities to Bradley’s encompassing study of the circular form. These similarities include the breakdown of the book into four major parts, each with accompanying chapters: “Theory and Method” (pt. 1, four chapters); “Material: Objects and Arrangements” (pt. 2, six chapters); “Interpreting the Patterns” (pt. 3, two chapters); and “Conclusion” (pt. 4, one chapter). The unequal distribution of the chapters by section demonstrates Wells’ preoccupation with constructing more theoretically robust engagements with material culture. This is clear in the first sentence of his preface: “Why does an Early Bronze Age cup look different from one made in the Late Bronze Age?” (xi). This type of question should stir the interest of the reader as it introduces broader issues of ontology, materiality, and temporality.

Wells begins the volume with a brief exploration of ideas on art, style, and visuality. He admits adopting more of a snapshot approach to the Bronze and Iron Age societies in Europe and, more specifically, how they arranged sociopolitical media, such as graves and pottery, in intentional ways. While this is an interesting and powerful approach to studying materiality—through visuality and how sensual engagements begin with eyeing up objects, practices, and events—some aspects of the author’s approach may receive a more lukewarm reception. For example, Wells suggests that “each product of a society—religious rituals, kinship systems, marriage practices, myths, burial customs, decorative patterns applied to pottery—encapsulates the whole of society” (14). If this is the case, there could be no accounting for change over time or differences in the same time with regard to the play between intentionality and unintentionality; nor are we allowed the wiggle room of contingency. Many archaeologists would agree that better understandings of the past can rarely be captured in the engagements between a solitary or individual social actor and a single artifact, practice, or custom. This is, of course, just one example from a fairly lengthy text, but nevertheless such statements will be off-putting for some readers.

Despite these caveats, Wells is especially successful in his development of visual engagements with objects and practices, particularly those in Bronze and Iron Age Europe, and how such engagements shaped prehistoric people’s worlds. Part 1 sets out to explain how the sociocultural and political relationships between visuality and objects shaped the social worlds in which people lived and how they might be identified in numerous ritual-based and everyday patterns. Perhaps one of Wells’ most effective chapters is “The Visual Worlds of Early Europe,” in which he details the different scales and times of visual encounters, moving from landscape to the house, and how different seasons brought about changes in lighting and texturing in these encounters. Wells seeks to illuminate the visual ecology of late prehistoric Europe by discussing the context of visuality, including the framing of sight.

Framing, an important component in studies of performance in Bateson and Goffman, plays a compelling role in Wells’ study.⁵ Pottery and graves both frame an onlooker’s vision and shape the onlooker’s bodily and mental engagements with the object. It is no surprise when Wells folds into his study ideas of performance that offer some of the social and political dynamics embedded in the interactions between object and onlooker. In chapters 5–8, Wells explores visual engagements with pottery, fibulas, and swords and scabbards, culminating in a discussion of their arrangement in graves. Wells states that the “character and arrangement of grave goods was of direct meaning and importance to the community and had less significance as regards the individual” (135). This concept, graves and their contents being the results of community action, is nothing new—that is, the dead do not bury themselves. However, Wells takes this a step further and suggests that graves and the arrangement of the body and objects around it were intentional diagrams, or templates for the social world, expressing “how things work” (134–35). Unfortunately, this suggestion is not explored fully, as it appears first in chapter 8 rather than in chapters 1–3, where such a statement would have added potency to Wells’ discussion of visuality and shaping. Chapter 9 deals with performance, yet there is no robust treatment of performance as one of the primary components in shaping visual practices, such as aesthetics and display. The volume concludes with a brief chapter on coins and texts (ch. 10), which is followed by a short discussion chapter and then the conclusion. In general, Wells’ volume is a thoughtful and thought-provoking study into the visual engagements with objects in the quotidian and funerary contexts of Bronze and Iron Age Europe. While the volume is sometimes marred by underdeveloped discussions of theory, as there are no substantive discussions of performance, aesthetics, materiality, or memory, these discrepancies do not detract too much from the overall quality of the book.

Whereas Bradley focuses on cosmology and order and Wells on shaping/structure and visuality, Ralph’s edited volume, The Archaeology of Violence: Interdisciplinary Approaches, offers an intriguing collection of essays on the potentially disruptive sociopolitical forces expressed in moments and/or acts of violence as well as the capacity for violence to shape the social worlds in which past people lived. This collection is the result of a conference on violence organized by Ralph and hosted by the Institute of European and Mediterranean Archaeology (IEMA) at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, in 2008. The volume begins with Ralph’s introductory chapter and subsequently is split up into four main sections: “The Contexts of Violence” (sec. 1, four chapters); “The Politics and Identities of Violence” (sec. 2, four chapters); “Sanctified Violence” (sec. 3, four chapters); and “Epilogue” (sec. 4, one chapter). Unlike the previous volumes, each section’s theme is introduced by a very brief essay, authored by IEMA faculty members. In essence, these introductions offer brief reviews of the section’s chapters, but unfortunately with little corresponding discussion of the section theme itself.

The volume is well organized and has a cohesive feel to it. Ralph’s introduction is short and focuses more on the reasoning behind each section’s theme, while also providing a straightforward discussion of the volume’s purpose. It is unusual that Ralph’s introduction lacks a substantial treatment of the theoretical foundation for the conference, similar to the approach in IEMA’s first conference volume.⁶ However, the volume’s chapters provide a thought-provoking array of case studies, primarily from prehistoric European and classical Mediterranean societies. One chapter stands out as somewhat of an anomaly, given its heavy use of data gleaned from human skeletal remains. Redfern’s chapter, “Violence as an Aspect of the Durotriges Female Life Course” is a good blend of method and theory focusing on the differential appearance of violence in the lives of females (and, by extension, males) in Iron Age Dorset (United Kingdom). Building on the work of Hamlin⁷ on gender, age, and status of Late Iron Age and Roman-period Dorset populations, Redfern offers a refreshing discussion of violence and women starting with the idea that scholars often assume a passive role for women in contexts of violence—violence is something that happens to women. One of Redfern’s goals for her chapter is to explore possibilities for more active roles of women in these contexts. Redfern finds that while there is an overall low occurrence of violence in Durotriges communities, lives were punctuated by episodes of violence in which younger females (up to age 35) were active participants, identified through healed wounds from projectile points and blunt-force cranial injuries.

Other more notable chapters, among a host of informative and well-written contributions, include Galaty’s “An Offense to Honor is Never Forgiven” and Porter’s “The State of Sacrifice.” Galaty’s contribution presents the results from the Shala Valley Project in northern Albania. Galaty embraces the difficulty of working in Albania with equanimity and presents an image of a region rich in archaeological, ethnographic, and historical detail. His focus—honor or affronts to honor—is the basis for all forms of codified violence in northern Albania. He astutely points out that in such a harsh physical environment where resources are fairly scarce, conflict and violence may be more of a release valve for the communities inhabiting the region. Perhaps the only stumbling block is his use of world-systems theory. Certainly, world-systems theory helps explain the regional context for conflict and tension, but it does little to help flesh out the everyday aspects of conflict and violence. Here, Galaty may have been served better by drawing on Herzfeld’s rich ethnography, The Poetics of Manhood, which highlights the roles of masculinity and deception in contests of stealing and bravado.⁸ This, however, is a minor quibble.

Porter provides a well-reasoned and well-researched chapter on state-sanctioned violence in the form of sacrifice in the Near East. She weaves together a compelling study that is data driven and yet robustly theoretical as she covers both human and animal sacrifice and their functions for blessing buildings or as accompaniments for elites into the next world/afterlife. She argues convincingly that these practices were meant to create ancestors, those who could mediate between the lived and divine worlds. As a result of papers such as those by Redfern, Galaty, and Porter, Ralph’s volume takes on the rich and multidimensional issue of violence head-on, providing a thoughtful collection of essays full of insight and useful case studies for those particularly interested in the topic.

I have to admit to some trepidation when I sat down with Anfinset and Wrigglesworth’s Local Societies in Bronze Age Northern Europe. The Bronze Age of Europe is a conglomeration of fascinating time periods, events, and major social upheavals, which have been extensively published on already by Harding as well as Kristiansen and Larsson.⁹ That none of these authors shows up in Local Societies was initially a cause for concern, given their knowledge of the subject matter. A glance at the table of contents assuages those fears, as the aim of the volume is to move beyond the region-based approaches adopted by previous authors. Instead, the editors have amassed a plethora of case studies drawn from northern Europe and rich in local detail that seek to push theoretical boundaries.

Local Societies is divided into two parts: “Identity, Grand Narratives and Networks” (pt. 1, six chapters); and “Regions, Globalization and Resistance” (pt. 2, seven chapters). It is clear from the onset that Anfinset and Wrigglesworth seek to challenge and move beyond conventional approaches to sociocultural complexity that have been focused on the region and culture history. The volume contains a total of 13 chapters, including Damm’s absorbing and well-argued take on collective identities; Oma’s intriguing study of human-animal interactions and the importance of animals in the cosmologies of Bronze Age northern Europe; Skoglund’s intriguing focus on power and individuality and their roles in the social landscapes and rock art of Scandinavia; and Anfinset’s brief but engaging essay on social responses to the introduction of metal in Bronze Age Norway. I found this volume to be a set of encouraging and absorbing studies with the idea of local history situated firmly center stage. Anfinset and Wrigglesworth’s introduction relies heavily on the work of Castells, in particular his ideas on the emergence of network societies.¹⁰ Innovatively, they combine Castells’ work with Kristensen’s long-running work on Bronze Age social organization in northern Europe to produce what I think is an original and refreshing volume that sets up a new and productive approach to understanding the European Bronze Age and stands as an important counterpoint to previous studies that have relied on the more broadly cited Bronze Age of central Europe. Overall, the editors and contributors weave together a volume that is a rich mosaic of archaeology and local (pre)history that will contribute much to nonregional, as well as regional, archaeological investigations of the European Bronze Age.

Similarly, Berrocal, Sanjuán, and Gilman have produced in The Prehistory of Iberia: Debating Early Social Stratification and the State a rich collection of essays that explores conventional and new approaches to social organization—approaches that I think will have a broad appeal to European archaeologists. The volume is split into three parts: “Introducing Social Stratification and the State in Iberian Prehistory” (pt. 1, three chapters); “Case Studies” (pt. 2, 15 chapters); and “Conclusion” (pt. 3, one chapter). Part 1, written by the editors, sets the tone for the volume as it reviews the theoretical frameworks and models in which the editors are the most interested and contributes to the volume’s overall cohesion. The theoretical backbone of the volume is steeped in what we call the processual archaeology of the late 20th century, and it would thus be easy to dismiss their efforts as out-of-date. But it would be a mistake to do so. The editors have introduced some significant twists and turns, including historical approaches to power, drawing on Clastres’ and Scott’s influential works.¹¹ The first chapter is a brief but tantalizing exploration of the aim and structure of the volume, while chapter 2 is a more conventional approach to identifying state-level societies in southern Iberia. Chapter 3 stands out as a particularly strong contribution through a discussion of the complicated and often problematic relationship between archaeology and history.

Part 2 is an impressive collection of studies that range in date from the Neolithic to the eighth century B.C.E. The theoretical range is diverse but also has common threads running throughout, as authors move from complexity and hierarchy to nonhierarchical approaches to complexity, identity, and networks. Despite this array of time periods and topics, part 2 provides both the newcomer to and specialist of Iberian prehistory with interesting approaches to archaeology more generally, as well as more specifically to the goings-on of the various regions of the Iberian peninsula. Two chapters that I found especially intriguing for different reasons include “Bronze Age Political Landscape of La Mancha” (Brodsky et al.) and “Rethinking Social Hierarchization” (Trías et al.). The former chapter, on archaeological survey derived primarily from aerial photography, known site locations, and limited surface collection, interested me greatly. However, I found the presentation (and more importantly, the methodology) of their survey and subsequent GIS perplexing. The black-and-white images are of poor quality and are fuzzy, apparently the result of low resolution. Since their use of GIS aims to differentiate settlement sizes and patterns, different symbols for different size settlements or different types of “site” would have been very useful. The authors’ use of nearest-neighbor analysis was also baffling, as a more informative approach would have been rank size based on distances between settlements. Overall, the chapter is a solid contribution to the volume, as it grounds the somewhat conventional theoretical approach to social organization in different methods of data collection and analysis.

Trías et al. find steady theoretical ground as they move from Renfrew and Cherry’s peer polity to a discussion of aesthetics, personhood, and hybridity. The authors provide a necessarily brief overview of the material categories in which they have the most interest, including swords, daggers, machetes, pectorals, diadems, needles/pins, axes, chisels, arrowheads, spearheads, torques, bracelets, bridles, and mirrors. The authors suggest (perhaps channeling Durkheim) that through the use of these objects, individuals came to shape the self in terms of broader relationships and interactions between individual and society. Yet given the initial emphasis on aesthetics, I felt a little misled (and disappointed) that very few images of the objects themselves or the contexts in which they were found were provided.

Overall, The Prehistory of Iberia is a fine study of contrasts that can be found in the different approaches to Iberian prehistory. Despite the contrasts, there is still a feeling of cohesion about the volume that is often lacking in edited volumes. This may be because of a central thread of 1970s processual archaeology with bold attempts to push beyond that paradigm. It is encouraging to see this kind of hybrid approach to a joint publication and that this work, for the most part, does not shy away from data-oriented chapters that are also theoretically robust.

The final volume under review is Moore and Armada’s ambitious, and subsequently massive, Atlantic Europe in the First Millennium BC: Crossing the Divide. The book is split into six parts: “Crossing the Divide” (pt. 1, one chapter); “Landscape Studies” (pt. 2, seven chapters); “The Social Modeling of Late Bronze Age and Iron Age Societies” (pt. 3, nine chapters); “Continuity and Change” (pt. 4, six chapters); “Rhythms of Life and Death” (pt. 5, six chapters); and “Exploring European Research Traditions” (pt. 6, four chapters). As has been noted for many of the volumes reviewed here, the themes of the various parts would have benefited from further treatment at the beginning of each part rather than just in the introduction at the beginning of the volume. This would spare readers having to go back to the introduction every time they start a new part.

No chapter is more notable than the introduction, “Crossing the Divide: Opening a Dialogue on Approaches to Western European First Millennium BC Studies,” for its theoretical breadth and length (78 pages). This chapter immediately establishes that there can be no cohesive approach to the first millennium B.C.E. in Europe, as there are too many societal developments to reconcile for such an approach to be useful. Rather than attempt to synthesize Europe’s prehistory through a single theoretical framework, the editors adopt a multidimensional review of current theoretical approaches, including a review and challenge to the three-age system based on our ever-expanding chronologies based on “absolute” dating; a somewhat superfluous review of the term “Celtic Europe”; review of processualist and postprocessual approaches; review of Europe as an amalgamation of regions; and the current studies of European prehistory, including landscape, hierarchy/heterarchy, continuity/change, material culture, life and death, warfare, and identity.

Part 2 is dedicated to landscape studies of Iron Age Europe. Unfortunately, this section provides a somewhat confusing array of studies from across Europe, rather than a cohesive set of landscape studies. This is offset by the use of GIS in the regional studies presented by archaeologists working in the Iberian peninsula and Burgundy. I was consistently impressed with the combination of processual and postprocessual approaches to theory with solid, if not innovative, uses of GIS and other analytical tools to explore settlement and environmental data. This, I think, is an encouraging development in the archaeologies presented in the volume as well as European prehistory more broadly.

Part 3 consists of scholars presenting thoughts on the modeling of Late Bronze Age and Iron Age societies. One might question the relevancy of modeling such broad societal dynamics. If we accept that Europe is an amalgamation of regions, then should we not reconsider our usage of broad temporal categories as well? If we look at shorter periods in time as well as more local processes, to what extent do these panregional and broader temporal models hold up? This is addressed by Collis and Hill in the first two essays in this part. They both contemplate new directions for interrogating the different periods of the Iron Age, or in some cases later (Medieval) periods. I was intrigued with Hill’s proposal that Iron Age societies be considered as nontriangular. Heuristically, this makes a great deal of sense and should contribute to efforts to move us away from region-centered top-down approaches to Iron Age social life and toward a better understanding of how local societies organized themselves and interacted with their own histories.

Part 4 is a collection of essays on the dynamics between continuity and change. Interestingly, the first chapter (ch. 18), a brief exploration of the methodologies and analytical techniques incorporated in studies of prehistoric Iberian metalwork, does not offer a theoretical foundation with which the rest of the section’s chapters engage. Rather, it is in chapters 19–21 that one finds more robust theoretical treatments of continuity and change, nestled in among more standard fare dealing with metalwork and settlement patterns. This section makes the reader work at combining the disparate points rather than offering a clear flow of theory, data, and discussion. Disappointingly, there is little to no discussion of the broader implications of temporality and tradition in the socioeconomic and political life of populations living during the Iron Age.

This critique carries through to part 5, “Rhythms of Life and Death,” which provides a discordant mixture of studies of boats and a cluster of mortuary studies from Iron Age Iberia, as well as a few from other regions. More baffling for the reader is part 6 and its somewhat disparate approaches to European research traditions. While Hingley and Sharples provide clear and concise summaries, I found an engagement with Edward Gibbon somewhat confusing (at least in this part), and Del Riaz’s contribution to ethnicity seems equally out of place.

Such critiques aside, Moore and Armada have produced a fine addition to the corpus on Iron Age Europe. Although I think the volume would have benefited from a clearer sense of organization (perhaps along the lines of regional contributions) and from a more specific theoretical focus, I find enormous value in its ambitiously broad scope. Few other volumes exist for Iron Age Europe, and students and experts alike will find much to peruse between the covers.

Overall, the numerous volumes reviewed here offer glimpses into the exciting future of the archaeologies of Europe, as well as a look at the changes over just the past few years. It is encouraging that theoretical approaches focusing on visuality and considerations of aesthetics are helping us rethink our engagements with material culture. The spread of more theoretically robust approaches incorporating landscape, identity, personhood, and ethnicity is equally encouraging, especially when paired with more data-oriented approaches. I hope that such approaches offer an important starting point for pondering the nature of our own theoretical engagements, analytical techniques, and how our work fits into both local and broader narratives.

James A. Johnson
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh
johnsja@uwosh.edu

Works Cited

Bateson, G. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology,  Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. New York: Ballantine Books.

Bolender, D.J. 2010. Eventful Archaeologies: New Approaches to Social Transformation in the Archaeological Record (The Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology Distinguished Monograph Series). Albany: State University of New York Press.

Borić, D., ed. 2010. Archaeology and Memory. Oxford: Oxbow.

Borić, D., and T.D. Price. 2013. “Strontium Isotopes Document Greater Human Mobility at the Start of the Balkan Neolithic.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110(9):3298–303.

Bradley, R. 1998. The Significance of Monuments: On the Shaping of Human Experience in Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe. London: Routledge.

Castells, M. 1996. The Rise of Network Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers.

Clastres, P. 1989. Society Against the State: Essays in Political Anthropology. Translated by R. Hurley and A. Stein. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.

Dietler, M. 2010. Archaeologies of Colonialism: Consumption, Entanglement, and Violence in Ancient Mediterranean France. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Doonan, R., B. Hanks, D. Zdanovich, E. Kupriyanova, D. Pitman, N. Batanina, and J. Johnson. 2014. “Metals, Society, and Economy in the Late Prehistoric Eurasian Steppe.” In Archaeometallurgy in Global Perspective: Methods and Syntheses, edited by B. Roberts and C. Thornton, 755–84. New York: Springer.

Fernández-Götz, M. 2014. Identity and Power: The Transformation of Iron Age Societies in Northeast Gaul (Amsterdam Archaeological Studies). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Flannery, K. 1972. “The Origins of the Village as a Settlement Type in Mesoamerica and the Near East: A Comparative Study.” In Man, Settlement and Urbanism, edited by P.J. Ucko, R. Tringham, and G.W. Dimbleby, 23–53. London: Duckworth.

Flannery, K. 2002. “The Origins of the Village Revisited: From Nuclear to Extended Households.” AmerAnt 67(3):417–33.

Fowler, C. 2004. The Archaeology of Personhood: An Anthropological Approach. London: Routledge.

Fowler, C. 2013. The Emergent Past: A Relational Realist Archaeology of Early Bronze Age Mortuary Practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Garstki, K., B. Arnold, and M.L. Murray. 2015. “Reconstituting Community: 3D Visualization and Early Iron Age Social Organization in the Heuneburg Mortuary Landscape.” JAS 54:23–30.

Giles, M. 2012. A Forged Glamour: Landscape, Identity, and Material Culture in the Iron Age. Oxford: Oxbow.

Goffman, E. 1986. Reprint. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Original edition, New York: Harper & Row, 1974.

Hamlin, C. 2007. “The Material Expression of Social Change: The Mortuary Correlates of Gender and Age in Late Pre-Roman Iron Age and Roman Dorset.” Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

Harding, A.F. 2000. European Societies in the Bronze Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harris, O.J.T. 2012. “(Re)assembling Communities.” Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 21:76–97.

Herzfeld, M. 1985. The Poetics of Manhood: Contest and Identity in a Cretan Mountain Village. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Jones, A., ed. 2008. Prehistoric Europe: Theory and Practice (Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology 12). Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.

Kent, S. 1990. Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space: An Interdisciplinary Cross-Cultural Study. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kristiansen, K., and T.B. Larsson. 2006. The Rise of Bronze Age Society: Travels, Transmissions and Transformations. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lillios, K.T., and V. Tsamis, eds. 2010. Material Mnemonics: Everyday Memory in Prehistoric Europe. Oxford: Oxbow.

Lucas, G. 2005. The Archaeology of Time. London and New York: Routledge.

Scott, J.C. 1998. Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Sofaer, J.R. 2006. The Body as Material Culture: A Theoretical Osteoarchaeology. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

1. E.g., Fowler 2004, 2013; Lucas 2005; Sofaer 2006; Jones 2008; Borić 2010; Dietler 2010; Lillios and Tsamis 2010; Giles 2012; Harris 2012; Fernández-Götz 2014.
2. E.g., Borić and Price 2013; Doonan et al. 2014; Garstki et al. 2015.
3. Bradley 1998.
4. Flannery 1972, 2002; Kent 1990.
5. Bateson 1972; Goffman 1986.
6. Bolender 2010.
7. Hamlin 2007.
8. Herzfeld 1985.
9. Harding 2000; Kristiansen and Larsson 2006.
10. Castells 1996.
11. Clastres 1989; Scott 1998.

The post Out of Order, Out of Time: Interrogating Current Approaches to European Prehistory appeared first on American Journal of Archaeology.

Ελληνιστικά γλυπτά της pόδου: Κατάλογος. Vol. 1, by Vasiliki Machaira (Monograph 7). Pp. iii + 146, figs. 127, drawings 4. Center for Archaeological Research, Academy of Athens, Athens 2011. €80. ISBN 9789-6040-41961 (paper).

The Roman Marble Sculptures from the Sanctuary of Pan at Caesarea Philippi/Panias (Israel), by Elise A. Friedland (American Schools of Oriental Research Archaeological Reports 17). Pp. xiii + 186, figs. 95, tables 8. American Schools of Oriental Research, Boston 2012. $89.95. ISBN 978-0-8975708-7-9 (cloth).

La scultura ideale romana nella Regio Secunda (Apulia et Calabria), by Vita M. Soleti (Archaeologica 161). Pp. xv + 195, figs. 6, b&w pls. 93, table 1. Giorgio Bretschneider, Rome 2010. €120. ISBN 978-88-7689-248-6 (paper).

Sculpteurs et commanditaires au IIe siècle après J.-C.: Rome et Tivoli, by Françoise Duthoy (CÉFR 465). Pp. 198, b&w pls. 82. École Française de Rome, Rome 2012. €68. ISBN 978-2-7283-0928-3 (paper).

Die Laokoon-Gruppe: Archäologische Rekonstruktionen und künstlerische Ergänzung, by Maria Wiggen (Stendaler Winckelmann-Forschungen 9). Pp. 322, b&w pls. 154, Beilagen 3. Franz Philipp Rutzen, Ruhpolding, Germany 2011. €58. ISBN 978-3-447-06463-7 (cloth).

The post Five Recent Books on Hellenistic and Roman Sculptures from the Greek East and Italy appeared first on American Journal of Archaeology.

Göttliche Kinder: Ikonographische Unter-suchung zu den Darstellungskonzeptionen von Gott und Kind bzw. Gott und Mensch in der griechischen Kunst, by Michaela Stark (Potsdammer altertumswissenschaftliche Beiträge 39). Pp. 358, b&w pls. 32. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2012. €64. ISBN 978-3-515-10139-4 (paper).

Dazugehören: Kinder in Kulten und Festen von Oikos und Phratrie. Bildanalysen zu attischen Sozialisationsstufen des 6. bis 4. Jahrunderts v. Chr., by Martina Seifert. Pp. 398, b&w pls. 42. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2011. €64. ISBN 978-3-515-09642-3 (paper).

Childhood in Ancient Athens: Iconography and Social History, by Lesley A. Beaumont (Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies). Pp. xvi + 303, figs. 111. Routledge, New York 2012. $130. ISBN 978-0-415-24874-7 (cloth).

The post Greek Children: Three New Iconographic Studies appeared first on American Journal of Archaeology.