Many years ago, I taught a course at the University of Aberdeen on the ‘4As’ of anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture (Ingold 2013). As we had been discussing flint-knapping, I invited the master-knapper, John Lord, to give a demonstration. We watched in awe as he skilfully detached flakes from a flint nodule of irregular shape to reveal the classical, bifacial form of an Acheulean handaxe

I want to preface this response by noting that, while I think Bentley, O'Brien and I fundamentally differ in how we approach the archaeological record (2024), I am also convinced that the more perspectives on the past we can cultivate, the richer our interpretative garden will be. Moreover, the more narratives of past worlds we develop, the more nuanced and complex our image of the past will become

I thank Bentley and O'Brien (2024) for their cogent review of issues associated with inheritance and intention in cultural evolution. Intent is, of course, present in cultural process and that begs the question as to when and how we concern ourselves with it as a factor in cultural evolution (Rosenberg 2022). Intent underlies our understanding of both micro- and macro-scale processes of cultural evolution

We appreciate the respondents’ comments on our debate article ‘Cultural evolution as inheritance, not intentions’ (Bentley & O'Brien 2024). We all agree that traditional cultural practices—such as manufacturing Acheulean handaxes—often take considerable amounts of time to learn; as Gladwell (2008) popularly proposed, it takes 10 000 hours of practice to make an expert. We also appear to agree that

The authors of this book are archaeologists who want to create a field they describe as ‘critical paleoeconomics’. Their quest is promising in several ways. For example, they are not averse to grand narratives and believe modern economic theory can offer insights into various features of ancient economies, including markets, trade, money and debt.

Throughout the twentieth century, considerable research has been dedicated to understanding the rise, development and end of ancient cities. In recent years, there has been a remarkable upsurge of new methodological and theoretical approaches applied in urbanism studies, which enables us to improve, validate or question our knowledge about ancient urban life. The three books reviewed here concern the

This edited volume by Mark Hauser and Julia Jong Haines aims to bring together local narratives within the context of the Indian Ocean in modern times, from c. AD 1500, and establish how these narratives can inform historical archaeology. As the editors highlight in the introductory chapter, historical archaeology has been greatly informed and inspired by the Atlantic world and its colonial histories

Today, Neolithic circular enclosures are generally regarded as evidence of the first monumental architecture in Europe. They are undoubtedly a topical subject in Neolithic research and also attract great interest from a broader audience. This has not always been the case. Just over 40 years ago, the few examples known then, mainly from Bavaria and Bohemia, were regarded as exotic and of no particular

Egyptology has been changing. At least in the way its practitioners present their findings to a broad public audience. A selection of recent publications for general-interest readership represents something of a reorientation of perspectives on the (Western-led) archaeological ‘discovery’ of Pharaonic Egyptian remains, and the opening up of a subtle counter-narrative, which is something of an anti-archaeology

At a time when the Parthenon Sculptures refuse to go away (in every sense of the phrase) and uncatalogued items were allegedly found to have been sold off by a member of staff, The British Museum needs some good news. There must have been sighs of relief all round when their new exhibition in the (itself often controversial: Puffett 2023) BP Gallery, Legion: life in the Roman Army, opened to almost

The reviewed volumes represent the past and future of triangulating human prehistory. Both works address the integration of the knowledge embedded in the Indo-European group of languages into the interpretation of archaeological and genetic data, but approach this very differently. By enlisting the expertise of scholars from the three different fields, with 22 contributions from more than 40 scholars

The peoples who inhabited the worlds discussed in these two books, either in reality or within our imaginations, are at once slippery and certain. We may believe we have a grip on what the Norse/Viking worlds were about, only to have new evidence or a new approach to existing data challenge our views. These two books, The Norse myths that shape the way we think and The Norse sorceress: mind and materiality