The purpose of archaeology is to reconstruct and present the past as it was lived, warts and all. Too often that ideal has been restricted to the affairs and structures of the great and (often not so) good, ignoring what happened after the battles were won or lost. Everyday life carried on for the vast majority of people who cooked, built walls and fences, herded and tended animals, and made pottery, metal tools and foodstuffs. Each of these domestic tasks required tools and equipment, and each object tells a story of the user's identity, both regional and personal. This volume presents a selection of worldwide studies of domestic objects and lives, from Scottish ceramics to Mayan urban zones. Each of these chapters demonstrate the commonalities humans share when there is 'no place like home', enhancing archaeological knowledge of the realities of life in the past.



Rena Maguire is an IRC-Funded Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in University College Dublin, Ireland. She graduated from Queen's University Belfast, where she is a Visiting Fellow, and specialises in Iron Age material culture, particularly metalwork, but especially ancient equitation, lorinery and weaponry. She is active in EXARC as practitioner and editor of the journal.



Introducing Ideal Homes Rena Maguire CHAPTER 1. At Home in the Irish Bronze Age Charles Mount CHAPTER 2. Pottery, Status, Pollution and People: Some Thoughts on How Cultural Concepts and Processes May Have Resulted in the Decline and Disappearance of Domestic Potting in Late Prehistoric and Early Historic Ireland Cormac McSparron CHAPTER 3. 'There is no Doubt but Our Pots Might be Made as Good as the English, if More Encouragement Were Given Them': Exploring Ceramics as Indicators of Identity, Home Comforts and the Movement of Technology in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Ulster Naomi Carver CHAPTER 4. Burnt Mounds: An Archaeology of Everyday Life JJ O Neill CHAPTER 5. Building and Dwelling in the City Ireta Kieri of Tzintzuntzan Jose Luis Punzo CHAPTER 6. Forging Rural Heritage: Observations from Recent Archaeological Excavations at Clenor South and Annakisha South, County Cork, Ireland Rena Maguire, Kate Taylor, Jordana Maguire CHAPTER 7. Galion and Aparine: A Forgotten Vegetarian Cheese-Maker Lutz Zwiebel Notes on Contributors