A comprehensive overview, by period and region, of the archaeology of ritual and religion. The coverage is global, and extends from the earliest prehistory to modern times. Written by over sixty renowned specialists, the Handbook presents the very best in current scholarship, and will also stimulate further research.

Timothy Insoll: Introduction: Ritual and Religion in Archaeological Perspective; I. Elements and Expression; 1: Chris Scarre: Monumentality; 2: Randi Haaland & Gunnar Haaland: Landscape; 3: Terje Oestigard: Water; 4: Anders Kaliff: Fire; 5: Amy Gazin-Schwartz: Myth and Folklore; 6: Terje Oestigard: Cosmogony; 7: Tim Taylor: Death; 8: Nicky Milner: Taboo; 9: Marc Verhoeven: The Many Dimensions of Ritual; 10: Chris Fowler: Personhood and the Body; 11: Timothy Insoll: Sacrifice; 12: Randall McGuire & Reinhard Bernbeck: Ideology; 13: Michael Dietler: Feasting and Fasting; 14: Sarah Milledge Nelson: Gender and Religion in Archaeology; 15: Yannis Hamilakis: Archaeologies of the Senses; 16: Timothy Clack: Syncretism and Religious Fusion; 17: Olivier P. Gosselain: Technology; 18: Paul Garwood: Rites of Passage; 19: Zoe Crossland: The Archaeology of Contemporary Conflict; 20: David S. Whitley: Rock Art, Religion and Ritual; II. Prehistoric European Ritual and Religion; 21: Paul Pettitt: Religion and Ritual in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic; 22: Paul Bahn: Religion and Ritual in the Upper Palaeolithic; 23: Chantal Conneller: The Mesolithic; 24: Julian Thomas: Ritual and Religion in the Neolithic; 25: Joanna Bruck: Fire, Earth, Water: An Elemental Cosmography of the European Bronze Age; 26: Jody Joy: The Iron Age; III. Religion and Ritual in World Prehistory; 27: Timothy Insoll: Sub-Saharan Africa; 28: Lukas Nickel: The Prehistory of Religion in China; 29: Simon Kaner: The Archaeology of Religion and Ritual in the Prehistoric Japanese Archipelago; 30: Charles Higham: Ritual and Religion in Southeast Asia; 31: Bruno David: Historicising Cosmologies in Australia and Papua New Guinea (Historicising Cosmologies in Australia and Papua New Guinea; 32: Paul Rainbird: Pacific and New Zealand; 33: Peter Roe: Walking Upside-Down and Backwards: Art and Religion in the Ancient Caribbean; 34: Rosemary Joyce: Recognizing Religion in Mesoamerican Archaeology: Maya; 35: Michael E. Smith: Aztecs; 36: Kevin Lane: Inca; 37: Jeffrey Quilter: Moche Religion; 38: Kelley Hays-Gilpin: North America: Pueblos; 39: James Vernon Knight: North America: Eastern Woodlands; 40: Roy L. Carlson: The North American Northwest Coast Religious System: Coastal Northwest; 41: Brian Robinson: Ritual and Archaeological Visibility in the Far Northeast of North America; IV. Religion and Cult of the Old World; 42: Colin Renfrew: Prehistoric Religions in the Aegean; 43: Julia Kindt: Ancient Greece; 44: Tom Rasmussen: Etruscan Ritual and Religion; 45: Anna Stevens: Egypt; 46: Richard Hingley: Rome: Imperial and Local Religions; 47: Caroline Malone & Simon Stoddart: Maltese Prehistoric Religion; 48: Michael J. Seymour: Mesopotamia; 49: Marc Verhoeven: Retrieving the Supernatural: Ritual and Religion in the Prehistoric Levant; 50: Daniel Potts: Iran; 51: Karina Croucher: Anatolia; 52: Anders Andren: Old Norse and Germanic Religion; 53: Martin Welch: Pre-Christian Practices in the Anglo-Saxon World; 54: Tonno Jonuks: The Archaeology of Baltic Religions; V. Archaeology of World Religions; 55: Aaron A. Burke: The Archaeology of Ritual and Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant, and the Origins of Judaism; 56: James F. Strange: The Archaeology of Judaism from the Persian Period to the Sixth Century AD; 57: Namita Sugandhi & Kathleen Morrison: Archaeology of Hinduism; 58: Robin Coningham: Buddhism; 59: Sam Turner: Christianity; 60: Andrew Petersen: Islam; VI. Archaeology of Indigenous and New Religions; 61: Neil Price: Shamanism; 62: Timothy Insoll: Animism and Totemism; 63: Jenny Blain: Neo-Shamanism: Pagan and 'Neo-Shamanic' Interactions with Archaeology; 64: Aleks Pluskowski: Druidism and Neo-Paganism; 65: Timothy Insoll: Ancestor Cults; 66: Pierre de Maret: Divine Kings