The interpretation of the Royal Graves at Ur, Mesopotamia, by their excavator, Sir Leonard Woolley, has long been accepted. Woolley implies that the people sacrificed along with the dynasts went willingly to their deaths out of loyalty, devotion, and faith in the dead monarchs; but other interpretations are plausible. One is that these graves are the remains of dramas portraying a ‘public transcript’ played out in a public theatre of cruelty staged by rulers claiming divine status. State power united with supernatural authority can create extraordinarily powerful ‘sacred or divine kingdoms’; but ‘sacred’ or ‘divine’ kings need continuous contact with the supernatural and affirmation of their divinity. They are obliged to practise acts of public mystification, of which the Royal Graves appear to be examples. Ur's kings may indeed have been strong and their subjects loyal, but it is equally likely that they were weak and vulnerable and that they practised ritual sacrifice to terrorize a restive citizenry and convince themselves and others of their right to rule. Other examples of public transcripts made manifest in state-sponsored theatres of cruelty confirm that the Royal Graves at Ur are not unique but represent a phenomenon of wider historical generality.

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

While exceedingly rare on any given archaeological site, engraved stone artefacts have nonetheless been reported from sites covering a range of periods and regions across the world. Attempts to interpret such engravings have often focused on potential representational or communicative functions, including their role in notational systems, symbolic depiction, and the development of early forms of writing. Contextual and microscopic investigation of a number of engraved artefacts discovered in a large assemblage of dolerite artefacts excavated from a Neolithic hilltop habitation and stone-tool production site in south India suggests, however, that an alternative interpretation of engraved stone artefacts is possible. Drawing on ethnographic evidence concerning the perception of stone, and particularly natural markings on stone, this article argues that the stone pieces on which the marks were engraved were more than just passive surfaces for the creation of unrelated signs. Instead, engravings appear to draw on natural features within and upon the surface of the dolerite, and to suggest an appreciation for the patterns of nature, as well as a lack of distinction between anthropogenic and natural markings. It is argued that the engravings may have been a response to a perceived 'life-force' within the dolerite. The fact that they were produced and then broken apart by knapping suggests that they may have been made to accentuate or attenuate a power that was perceived as either somehow beneficial or in need of careful control.

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.

Shell mounds ceased to be built in many parts of coastal northern Australia about 800–600 years ago. They are the subject of stories told by Aboriginal people and some have been incorporated in ritual and political activities during the last 150 years. These understandings emerged only after termination of the economic and environmental system that created them, 800–600 years ago, in a number of widely separated coastal regions. Modern stories and treatments of these mounds by Aboriginal people concern modern or near-modern practices. Modern views of the mounds, their mythological and ritual associations, may be explained by reference to the socioeconomic transitions seen in the archaeological record; but the recent cultural, social and symbolic statements about these places cannot inform us of the process or ideology concerned with the formation of the mounds. Many Aboriginal communities over the last half a millennium actively formed understandings of new landscapes and systems of land use. Attempts to impose historic ideologies and cosmologies on earlier times fail to acknowledge the magnitude and rate of economic and ideological change on the tropical coastline of Australia.

Ethnography of the Tallensi shows how rights of access to shrines could be granted to people in other places and how beneficiaries may take with them samples of stone used at the mother shrine. Reasons for taking the samples are considered. It is suggested that Tallensi practice offers an analogy for selection and transfer of stone in the Neolithic of Britain and Ireland.

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