This text proposes to provoke an interdisciplinary reflection on alterity as challenged through investigations in archaeology. It intends to analyse the process of archaeological practice in a contemporary Latin American context. Archaeological practice configures criteria for selecting a specific cultural heritage collection, and in turn, this reflects what should be forgotten or what has the right to be remembered by the society. It also aims to contribute to the speech practice and audience of the subjects, in order to problematize the experience of research and the researcher through ethnography and discussions in the postcolonial archaeology; these could promote a point of schism where paradigms for archaeological studies may reach a breaking point.

The pitfalls of studying material outcomes of cultural contact as ‘hybrids’ have been well mapped, from essentialism to the echoes of eugenics. In archaeological research, attention to ‘hybrid’ products of cultural contact through assiduous tracing of ‘foreign’ elements to their points of origin has often yielded dubious claims regarding the nature of the interaction. For objects excavated in the Period IVb (1050–800 bc) level at Hasanlu, this approach has led to assertions of ‘Assyrianization’, proclaiming the site the example par excellence of the response to Assyrian cultural hegemony in the periphery. Through exploration of armoured sheet-metal belts found at Hasanlu, an artefact type introduced from the South Caucasus region and then produced locally, this paper considers the interpretive utility of the concept of ‘hybridization’—the transformative processes by which disparate visual elements, materials and ideas about the world react to and perturb each in a particular environment. We argue that through these processes, relocated exogenous objects and their endogenous counterparts communicate using multiple, even divergent, voices. This very multivocality, or heteroglossia, is instrumental in forging new social relationships and meanings.

Direct or indirect evidence of ropemaking are scarce in European prehistory. Only a few references to Middle or Upper Palaeolithic remains are known to us, with more examples towards the Holocene. The archaeological contexts of ropes offer little information about possible uses, as the activities they are used for are often archaeologically invisible. However, some rock-art traditions shed some light on potential uses, worth exploring. In Spain, Levantine rock art offers the best graphic examples across Europe showing various uses of ropes, including climbing. Starting from the recently discovered climbing scene of Barranco Gómez site (Teruel, Spain), including the best preserved and more complex use of ropes seen so far in Levantine art, this paper analyses representations of ropes in this art, as well as their varieties and diverse uses. Our study suggests that different rope-making techniques were used by Levantine societies, which we believe are indicative of a complex rope-making technology, requiring a considerable investment of time and efforts. It also shows a certain variety of rope climbing techniques and rope climbing gear, illustrating that both were mastered by Levantine societies. Moreover, a preferential use of ropes in honey-hunting scenes is observed.

As the earliest image of a human being and the oldest piece of figurative art, the female figurine of Hohle Fels remains a significant discovery for understanding the development of symbolic behaviour in Homo sapiens. Discovered in southwestern Germany in 2008, this mammoth-ivory sculpture was found in several fragments and has always been assumed to be complete, never owning a head. In place of a head, there is instead a small loop that would allow her to be threaded, possibly to be worn as a pendant. Several hypotheses have been put forward as to her original use context, ranging from representing a fertility goddess to a pornographic figure. Yet none of these theses have ever suggested that she once had a head. Here we explore whether the female figurine of Hohle Fels was designed as a two-part piece, with the head made of perishable material culture, possibly woven plant or animal fibres; or that the artefact is a broken and reworked figurine with the head simply never found. By exploring the possibility that this figurine did originally have a second part—a head—we investigate issues surrounding the role of women and children in the Swabian Aurignacian.

During the Early-Middle Bronze Age, a new package of technological knowledge, including high-fired ‘proto-porcelain’ products and specialized ‘dragon’ kilns, entered Lingnan in South China from neighbouring cultures. This enabled the first local production of proto-porcelain in Bronze Age communities of Guangdong province that later became concentrated in ceramic workshops in the Dongjiang valley. Through a holistic approach towards ceramic production and consumption that integrates elements of functionalist and social perspectives, this study will explore the technological and socio-political conditions underlying the value creation and consequent social usage of proto-porcelain. It will be argued that proto-porcelain was a suitable medium for the simultaneous expression of different social roles that might have included its use as serving ware in community rituals as well as its involvement in politico-economic strategies of elite groups.

The focus of this article is the pyramid belonging to king Unis, last king of the 5th Dynasty. The striking feature of this pyramid is its ornate internal decoration with spells/utterances from the Pyramid Texts, and with the palace façade motif around the king's sarcophagus. The Pyramid Texts, one of the oldest examples of religious literature in the world, appear here for the first time. To date, research has generally focused on the language and content of the Pyramid Texts. This article looks beyond the subject matter of the Pyramid Texts to explore how these early hieroglyphic writings had additional integral symbolism embedded in their parietal format. Using a novel perspective that seeks symbolic connections across textual and non-textual elements, I argue that the Pyramid Texts and the palace façade motif, through their architectural format, represent the boundaries of the cosmos, which is itself the main theme in the Pyramid Texts.

The fact that 10 notable scholars have taken the time to examine my book Against the Grain and provide thoughtful commentary is a form of flattery of which I am acutely conscious and very grateful. This would be the case even if their comments had ben totally damning! I braced myself for the onslaught of a phalanx of archaeologists justifiably indignant that a rank amateur should even dare trespass on their turf. When invited to reply to such a symposium convened by the CAJ, the thought crossed my mind that I was being brought to the symposium in the same spirit as the Romans ‘invited’ the Christians to the Coliseum. Happily, while there are gashes, bruises and perhaps a life-threatening wound or two, much of my argument seems to have come through the encounter. One or two of the commentators, I understand, believe they left me for dead!

The likelihood that Palaeolithic artisans sometimes used natural objects as models for their image-making has long been suggested, yet well-contextualized and stratified examples have remained rare. This study examines a series of natural and fabricated items from the Natufian settlement of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan (12,000–12,500 cal. bc) to propose that the site occupants collected a variety of found objects such as fossils, unusually shaped stones and animal bones, which they utilized as templates in the production of geometric art pieces. Natural and fabricated objects were woven into complex schemes of relation by Natufian artisans. Existing patterns were copied and applied to a variety of representational images. Found objects were sometimes subtly modified, whereas at other times they were transformed into finished artefacts. The scute pattern on the tortoise carapace, in particular, appears to have formed the basis of important ritual beliefs across the Natufian culture area. At Wadi Hammeh 27, it was evoked in various media and at various scales to form interrelating tableaux of representation.

Early representational art seems to tell a story all of its own, but in reality, it depended on the oral stories that accompanied its production. The art system has four parts: the producer, the subject of the story, the images of that subject, and the seer. Through the stories of the producer and the seers, this system implicated members of society in ways that were not limited to the images produced. By tying those stories to particular places, rock art influenced society more broadly through foraging choices and ritual. Because the persisting marks of rock art necessarily required storytelling, the stories penetrated the mental lives of people in the society. Interwoven with these considerations is the observation that for archaeologists, the producer, the stories and the original seers are gone and all that is left is the material of the rock art and the archaeologist. Writing archaeohistory from these materials requires interpretation in light of the archaeological evidence distributed across both space and time. One way of interpreting archaeohistory suggests that rock art played a significant role in cognitive evolution through its engagement in ritual.

The McDonald Institute and this journal have adopted as their logo a three-legged symbol, with wings on each heel, known in Graeco-Roman antiquity as the triskeles. The purpose of this article is to explore the meaning of the iconography of this emblem, and to investigate how and why it came to symbolize the islands of both Man and Sicily. It is suggested that the Isle of Man adopted the triskeles in 1266 when the control of the island passed from the Norse kings to Alexander III of Scotland; a possible connection with Sicily is tentatively explored. The Man triskeles is clothed in leg armour, however, and has spurs, not wings, on the ankles. In Sicily the triskeles is first attested in the seventh century BC and was gradually elaborated from the later fourth century BC onwards, first with the addition of wings to the feet, then with the use of a Medusa head at the centre, and finally with the adjunct of three barley ears to symbolize the agricultural fertility of the island. Widely adopted also on coinage in Athens and Asia Minor from the sixth century BC, the triskeles was probably in origin a sun symbol like the swastika.