This book provides an innovative contribution to debates about the use of metaphor in the social sciences written by one of today's foremost archaeological theorists.
Central to any understanding of the significance of material objects, whether contemporary or prehistoric, is a discussion of the very nature of interpretation itself: how we 'read' artefacts and inscribe them into the present. This book examines the complex relations between material culture, social structures and social practices from structuralist, hermeneutical and post-structuralist viewpoints.