In this text, 19 internationally renowned scholars discuss nine theoretically based case studies ranging in subject from the late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers to the restructuring of gender relations in the US.

The volume is composed of five theoretically-based discussions and nine case studies, drawing on regions from North America and Mesoamerica to Western and central Europe, and ranging in subject from the late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers to the restructuring of gender relations in the north-eastern US. Elizabeth Brumfiel, John Barrett, John Chapman, John E. Clark, George L. Cowgill, Joan M. Gero, Ian Hodder, Matthew Johnson, Arthur Joyce, Lisa J. Lucero, Henrietta Moore, Tim R. Pauketat, Kenneth E.