This text presents an investigation of the period 4000 - 2200 BC. Whilst examining the archaeological data of this region, the book exposes the assumptions and prejudices which have shaped archaeologists' accounts of the distant past, and presents fresh interpretations informed by social theory, anthropology and critical hermeneutics. The book is a fully reworked and updated edition of the the book "Rethinking the Neolithic", which provoked much heated debate on publication, especially in providing alternative ways of interpreting archaeological evidence.