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Household archaeology is a methodological and theoretical approach to domestic sites that can address essential social issues in the past. Beyond the Walls brings together contributions from today’s leading archaeologists and scholars who study the archaeology of households. This volume represents the breadth of perspectives on, and approaches to, the archaeology of households in North America. While previous volumes tackling this subject tend to be limited in scope, the research presented here is not restricted to a single historic time period, region, or culture. Instead, readers are exposed to the diversity of ways in which the people of the past navigated, negotiated, and contested the circumstances of their lives, as reflected in the archaeological remains of their dwellings. Beyond the Walls serves to inspire students and professional archaeologists alike to think differently about the archaeology of households within the historical sphere. It highlights current innovative ideas and methods in the field of household archaeology and provides an important contribution to the study of both the archaeology of households and the cultural landscapes they inhabit.

Taking the European Neolithic as its focal point, this wide-ranging set of chapters illustrates how the different disciplinary paths within scientific and interpretative archaeology can be woven together to forward our understanding of early farmers, including their origins, varied subsistence practices and social networks. Contributions to the volume present a broad range of innovative approaches, including isotopic studies of mobility and diet, lipid analysis of pottery, recent advances in osteological studies and ancient DNA analysis. These are combined with chapters considering the wider theoretical implications of these analytical advances and new directions of research. The case studies discussed range across the European continent, covering from the Near East to the UK. Together this research has forced the reconsideration of long-held assumptions about the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition, the social organisation of the earliest farmers and individual biographies of past persons. In surveying the impact of recent developments in scientific archaeology on the research questions being asked of the Neolithic, an agenda is set for future collaborative research.