One of a series of books resulting from the 1986 World Archaeological Congress held in Southampton, England. The 25 articles by authors from around the world examine some of the following topics: objectivity in interpretation; the "meaning" of archaeological objects; symbolic expression; style; ritual and burial; spatial meanings. A number of the papers use the methods and concepts of semiotics. Hodder has presented the papers in a random order for post-structuralist reasons (ie to avoid imposing his own "meaning" on the diverse papers included in the volume and to encourage readers to construct their own interpretations).

Table of Contents:
The political use of Australian Aboriginal body painting and its archaeological implications, R.Layton; terracotta worship in fringe Bengal, D.K.Bhattacharya; iron and beads - male and female symbols of creation, a study of ornament among Booran Oromo, A.Kassam and G.Megersa; the messages of material behaviour - a preliminary discussion of non-verbal meaning, R.Fletcher; religious cults and ritual practice among the Mendi people of the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea, T.Mawe; sites as texts - an exploration of Mousterian traces, L.J.Botscharow; style and changing relations between the individual and society, P.Wiessner; post- modernism, post-structuralism and post-processual archaeology, I.Hodder; "we the post-megalithic people...", F.Criado; the diffusion of religious symbols within complex societies, L.Charles Hulin; social evidence from the interpretation of Middle Minoan figurines, A.Pilali-Papasteriou; the Priestess figure of Malta, C.Biaggi; ethno-archaeological cognition and cognitive ethno-archaeology, Z.Kobylinski; heresy and its traces - the material results of culture, K.Teague; etics, emics and empathy in archaeological theory, E.M.Melas; bark capes, arrowheads and Concorde - on social representations of technology, P.Lemonnier; the artifact as abbreviated act - a social interpretation of material culture, M.Richardson; the material symbols of the Winnebago sky and earth moieties, R.L.Hall; interpreting material culture, C.Tilley; divine kingdoms in northern Africa - material manifestations of social institutions, E.J.Kleppe; towards an archaeology of thought, W.Davis; Tusona ideographs - a lesson in interpretive objectivity, G.Kubik; organizational constraints on tattoo images - a sociological analysis of artistic style, C.R.Saunders; a semiotic approach in rock-art analysis, A.M.Llamazares; habitus and social space - some suggestions about meaning in the Saami (Lapp) tent circa 1700-1900, T.Yates.