The second edition of this popular texbook introduces archaeology students to the use of statistics in their subject.

Human social life is constrained and defined by our cognitive and emotional dispositions, which are the legacy of our foraging ancestors. But how difficult is it to reconstruct the social systems and cultural traditions of those ancestors?
The Archaeology of Human Ancestry provides a stimulating and provocative answer, in which archaeologists and biological anthropologists set out and demonstrate their reconstructive methods. Contributors use observations of primates and modern hunter-gatherers to illuminate the fossil and artefactual records. Thematic treatment covers the...

This volume brings together a group of peer reviewed papers, most of them presented at a workshop held at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. The event took place on 15-17 October 2011 and was part of the European Research Council (ERC) funded project Cultural Evolution of Neolithic Europe (EUROEVOL 2010-2015). The aim of the EUROEVOL project is to contribute to the new interdisciplinary field of cultural evolution that has developed over the last 30 years, and at the same time use these ideas and methods to address specific questions concerning the links between...

The study of European prehistory has been revolutionized in recent years by the rapid growth rate of archeological discovery, advances in dating methods and the application of scientific techniques to archaeological material and new archaeological aims and frameworks of interpretation. Whereas previous work concentrated on the recovery and description of material remains, the main focus is now on the reconstruction of prehistoric societies and the explanation of their development. This volume provides that elementary and comprehensive synthesis of the new discoveries and the new...