The evolution of Western Pueblo ritual has long been a focus of ethnographic and archaeological research in the American Southwest. Most of these studies emphasize the continuities between the late prehistoric period and the early historic era and highlight the role of katsina ritual in promoting social harmony or controlling weather and fertility. We suggest that a more complete understanding of ritual change during this time span requires a closer examination of the highly dynamic social landscape of the the thirteenth through eighteenth centuries. In particular, we suggest that the increasing evidence for raiding, conflict, and social opposition must be incorporated into new models of social and ritual change.

This study takes as its point of departure recent discussions in sociology, anthropology, queer theory, and masculinist and feminist studies on the contextual constitution of sex and gender, with its surrounding debates. We explore the adoption and implications of the body as a phenomenon in archaeology and its connection to power-centred theories. As a case study, we use a body of data comprised of prehistoric Cypriot figurines (Chalcolithic and Bronze Age), and suggest that an archaeology of individuals may be possible in prehistoric contexts. In conclusion, we suggest that archaeologists move beyond rigid, binary categorizations and attempt to prioritize specific discourses of difference by implementing constructions of self or identity

In the search for cognition in the mute record of archaeology the record of ancient thought transmitted to us by early written texts is an obvious but underexploited resource. An examination of the classification of stones in Mesopotamia gives a rare opportunity to match textual information with the archaeological record, and offers some insights into the organization of thought and classification of knowledge by one of the first literate societies.A group of unshaped stones in the corner of a grave under the floor of a Sumerian dwelling attests to an awareness of natural properties as distinct from functions, whether or not these concepts were already formulated in words. The group of various stones also hints at the concept of a class, the first stirring of a mindset which percolates through Plato and Aristotle to Linnaeus. Already in c. 2000 BC the essential properties of some of these stones were conceptualized and described in a ‘literary’ composition, and the concept of a stable set of properties is linked to traditions relating to the proper source of a stone. Later still, maybe around 1000 BC, the Mesopotamian scribes created a lapidary or ‘Handbook of Stones’ which provides an ordered key to stones in respect of their appearance. Then, or later, the description of their appearance was supplemented by details in which their natural or physical properties were distinguished, along with magical properties some of which were probably transmitted to the Hellenistic world.

Although they are some of the most impressive archaeological monuments in North America, the geometric earthworks of Ohio Hopewell remain poorly understood. By incorporating multiple lines of ethnographic and archaeological evidence an interpretation of the meanings congealed in these ancient earthworks can be offered.

The recent discovery of open-air rock engravings in the Côa valley of northern Portugal has been followed by a vigorous debate over their true age. On grounds of style and of stylistic parallels, many rock art specialists attribute the Côa engravings (and similar carvings at a handful of other sites in Iberia and southern France) to the Upper Palaeolithic, contemporary with the more famous cave art ofLascaux and elsewhere. Attempts so far to date the Côa engravings by scientific techniques have produced relatively recent age estimates for this art. Robert Bednarik has been among the strongest proponents of such a recent date, and in this noe he seeks to explain how the Côa art could be Holocene, or even late Holocene, yet still bear striking stylistic resemblance to carvings or other representations of known Palaeolithic age. In the spirit of the debate, we have invited three rock art experts to comment on Bednarik's theory of artistic continuity, and have appended his own reply to these responses.

Last year saw the publication of two major studies on the evolution of the human mind, Human Evolution, Language and Mind by William Noble and Iain Davidson, and The Prehistory of the Mind by Steven Mithen. Both draw on a number of disciplines including archaeology, psychology, philosophy and animal ethology, but their resulting scenarios of human development differ in several important respects. The question of mind is central to our understanding of the origin of humanness. As Noble and Davidson put it, ‘the mark of modern human behaviour is its self-consciousness, its “mindedness”’. They trace the origin of this behaviour back no further than 100,000 years ago. In Noble and Davidson's view, the behaviours of the ancestors of humans were similar in crucial respects to those of modern non-human primates. Mithen, on the other hand, ‘cannot accept … that language did not appear in a gradual fashion’. Mithen proposes a series of distinct intelligences, and puts forward a modular theory of the evolution of the human mind. In the following pages we present the issues in the form of a debate, inviting each of the three authors to review each other's books and then offering them the opportunity to defend their alternative standpoints. We begin with Mithen's review of Noble and Davidson, then Noble and Davidson's review of Mithen, and finish with their respective replies to the comments and criticisms which have been raised.