In 1987, Colin Renfrew's Archaeology and Language challenged many perceptions about how one language family spread across large parts of the world. In doing so he reinvigorated an important exchange between archaeologists and historical linguists. At precisely the same time, a quite separate field, human genetics, was making considerable steps forward in the elucidation of human ancestry. These three parallel lines of enquiry into genes, words, and things have, over the ensuing two decades, entirely transformed our perceptions of the human past. This volume brings together contributors to that transformation from around the world, to honour Colin Renfrew with a series of key papers. They include a number of impressive synthetic statements, as well as case studies at the frontiers of three different branches of research. They range from global accounts of human dispersal through to archaeological, genetic and linguistic studies, illustrating what has been achieved over the past two decades, and the most promising avenues of research for the future.

Part I Frameworks for Synthesizing Archaeology, Genetic Change and Language:Archaeology, Genes and Language: Reflecting on Five Decades of Human Genetics (L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza); Human Evolutionary Diversity: Implications for Historical Linguistics (Marta Mirazon Lahr); Colin Renfrew's Emerging Synthesis: Farming, Languages and Genes as Viewed from the Antipodes (Peter Bellwood); Who Were We 6000 Years Ago? In Search of Prehistoric Identities (Marek Zvelebil); The Evolutionary Ecology of Linguistic Diversity in Human Populations (Robert A. Foley); Part II Genetics: Case Studies: The Archaeogenetics of the Dispersals of the Bantu-speaking Peoples (Martin Richards, Vincent Macaulay, Catherine Hill, Angel Carracedo & Antonio Salas); Threads to Antiquity: a Genetic Record of Sex-specific Demographic Histories of Jewish Populations (Neil Bradman, Mark G. Thomas, Michael E. Weale & David B. Goldstein); MtDNA Markers for Celtic and Germanic Language Areas in the British Isles (Peter Forster, Valentino Romano, Francesco Cali, Arne Ruhl & Matthew Hurles); Part III Farming: Case Studies: Exploring the Criteria for Early Horse Domestication (Marsha Levine); Between Fertile Crescents: Minor Grain Crops and Agricultural Origins (Martin Jones); Part IV Linguistics: Case Studies: On the Amerind Origin of the Proto-Algonquian Numeral Suffix -a:syeka (Merritt Ruhlen) The Cornish Language, Archaeology, and the Origins of English Theatre(Matthew Spriggs).