In this extraordinary book Tim Ingold imagines a world in which everyone and everything consists of interwoven or interconnected lines and lays the foundations for a completely new discipline: the anthropological archaeology of the line.

Drawing on a multitude of disciplines including archaeology, classical studies, art history, linguistics, psychology, musicology, philosophy and many others, and including more than seventy illustrations, this book takes us on an exhilarating intellectual journey that will change the way we look at the world and how we go about in it.

This Routledge Classics edition includes a new preface by the author.

Tim Ingold is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen, UK.

List of Figures, Acknowledgements, Preface to the Routledge Classics Edition, Introduction, 1. Language, Music and Notation 2. Traces, Threads and Surfaces 3. Up, Across and Along 4. Drawing, Writing and Calligraphy 5. How the Line Became Straight Epilogue, Notes, References, Index