Part I. Introduction: 1. Another way of telling: Marxist perspectives in archaeology Matthew Spriggs; Part II. Situating the Economic: 2. The economy and kinship: a critical examination of some of the ideas of Marx and Levi-Strauss C. A. Gregory; 3. The motion of craft specialization and its presentation in the archaeological record of early states in the Turanian Basin Maurizio Tosi; 4. Towards the quantification of productive forces in archaeology Luis F. Bate; Part III. Representation and Ideology: 5. Social change, ideology and the archaeological record Michael Parker Pearson; 6. Ideology and material culture: an archaeological perspective Kristian Kristiansen; 7. The spirit and its burden: archaeology and symbolic activity Susan Kus; 8. Objectivity and subjectivity Mike Rowlands; Part IV. Social Transformations: 9. Explaining the Upper Palaeolithic Revolution Antonio Gilman; 10. Force, history and the evolutionist paradigm Phil Kohl; 11. The transformation of Asiatic formations: the case of late Prehispanic Mesoamerica John Gledhill; Part V. Epilogue; 12. A consideration of ideology Peter Gathercole; Index.

This book represents an attempt to gather together Marxist perspectives in archaeology and to examine whether indeed they represent advances in archaeological theory.