Questions the value of the concept of 'agency', a term used in sociological and philosophical literature to refer to individual free will in archaeology. This book discusses the balance between the two opposites, using a range of archaeological and historical case studies.

This book questions the value of the concept of 'agency', a term used in sociological and philosophical literature to refer to individual free will in archeology. On the one hand it has been argued that previous generations of archaeologists, in explaining social change in terms of structural or environmental conditions, have lost sight of the 'real people' and reduced them to passive cultural pawns, on the other, introducing the concept of agency to counteract this can be said to perpetuate a modern, Western view of the autonomous individual who is free from social constraints. This book discusses the balance between these two opposites, using a range of archaeological and historical case studies, including European and Asian prehistory, classical Greece and Rome, the Inka and other Andean cultures. While focusing on the relevance of 'agency' theory to archaeological interpretation and using it to create more diverse and open-ended accounts of ancient cultures, the authors also address the contemporary political and ethical implications of what is essentially a debate about the definition of human nature.

Social Agency, Power and Being Human
An Evolutionary Perspective on Agency in Archaeology
Agency and Community in 4th Century Britain
'Agency' Theory Applied: A Study of Later Prehistoric Lithic Assemblages from Northwest Pakistan
Agency, Technology and the 'Muddle in the Middle': The Case of the Middle Palaeolithic
Dirt, Cleanliness and Social Structure in Ancient Greece
Examining the Role of Agency in Hunter-Gatherer Cultural Transmission
Identifying and Defining Agency in a Political Context
Acts of God and Active Material Culture: Agency and Commitment in the Andes
Being-in-a-Simulacrum: Electronic Agency
Agency and Views Beyond Meta-Narratives that Privatise Ethics and Globalise Indifference
Agency, Structure and Archaeological Practice.