Relational Identities and Other-Than-Human Agency in Archaeology, edited by Eleanor Harrison-Buck and Julie Hendon, is a compilation of studies that examine how relationships—particularly those with other-than-human entities—constitute agency (the ability or capacity to act), personhood (the reciprocal qualities of relational beings), and animacy (entities that possess a life force). The volume consists of 11 chapters, including an introduction by Harrison-Buck and Hendon, nine case studies by scholars working in various time periods and places throughout the world, and a closing chapter by Harrison-Buck. The volume fits well with current anthropological and archaeological theories of nonhuman agency, relationality, and personhood (which are discussed in detail in Chapter 1). The case studies are thoughtfully written, interesting, and compelling, and each is worth a close read, particularly for those interested in the time periods and geographical areas represented. Overall, I have no specific concerns regarding the volume, so I will discuss several broader points that may be useful for those thinking about agency and personhood in the past and that are worthy of additional research.

Perhaps the most crucial point in the volume is that while all beings, human and otherwise, have the potential for agency, not all beings have personhood. Indeed, as is stressed by Harrison-Buck and Hendon in Chapter 1, personhood is a way of being in the world that is dependent on encounters, interactions, and relations of all kinds, and it involves an awareness of these relations and reciprocal responses to them. This point is made clearest in Chapter 2, where Erica Hill discusses social rules (e.g., reciprocity, respect, empathy, restraint) that were required for social persons (but not necessarily agentic beings) among the Yup'ik and Iñupiaq Eskimo of the North American Arctic. Despite the separation of agency, personhood, and animacy in the introduction, some contributors do not treat these concepts as distinct (e.g., Chapters 5 and 6). This is not problematic in and of itself; instead, it demonstrates how intertwined and slippery agency, personhood, and animacy often are in practice. Additionally, it shows that these constructs are ever-changing social realities that are realized in the moment (an idea discussed in Chapters 1 and 11). This means that even if one could nail down the components of personhood, agency, or animacy in a particular instance, these components would undoubtedly shift in the next. Regardless, viewing these concepts as fluid and ever-changing is a good thing because it requires archaeologists to find which relations made an entity a social person or animate in each historical moment, and which did not.

Another theme is that personhood and agency are typically generated through specific movements, rituals, and actions. For some North American Plains groups, for example, bird parts and objects containing bird parts gained more power and agency through being traded within complex exchange networks (Chapter 5). During the Classic Maya period, the acts of inscribing hieroglyphic texts on shells and uttering these texts were powerful and generative (Chapter 6). Wearing and displaying ornaments afforded protective powers for people in west-central Ghana, and this both contributed to a sense of well-being and was a major part of attaining personhood (Chapter 9). Several chapters specifically discuss crafting as a necessary activity in creating personhood for both the crafted objects and those who crafted them (e.g., tools in ancient Mesoamerica in Chapter 7; canoes in the Torres Strait Islands in Chapter 8; fossil ornaments and fossil skeuomorphs in Bronze Age Britain in Chapter 10). These chapters demonstrate that, in many instances, activities that create, manipulate, or sever relationships in particular ways are what dictates personhood and agency. Consequently, discovering the activities that brought entities together (and not simply determining which materials, substances, and entities were inherently animate or even how these things were embedded in relational networks) is of paramount importance in any archaeological analysis of personhood, agency, and animacy.

Several other concepts discussed in individual chapters are worth highlighting. Meghan Howey examines how European copper kettles were used by Mi'kmaq groups in the Maritimes to create an afterlife that was fully indigenous and yet prepared for colonial disruption (Chapter 3). This chapter demonstrates that conditions of alterity can generate alternative forms of personhood that would not exist otherwise—which has important ramifications for migration, culture contact scenarios, and other instances of interaction and ethnogenesis in the past. Timothy Pauketat and Susan Alt argue that combinations of shell, water, earth, maize, and fire to produce pots, hominy, and earthen pyramids—all of which are hallmarks of Mississippian culture—were necessary for Cahokia's formation (Chapter 4). I find their use of the term “territorialization” (coined by Gilles Delezue and Felix Guattari) helpful because it provides a way to demarcate the seemingly endless array of relations in which an entity (in this case, Cahokia and Mississippian culture) is entwined into a more reasonable assemblage. Finally, in Chapter 11, Harrison-Buck critiques the so-called new ontological realism and its emphasis on bodily experience determining human knowledge rather than human cognitive processes. This idea, she claims, has reinforced the mind-body divide, contrary to the aim of the new ontological realism. Harrison-Buck instead argues that studies of personhood and agency must incorporate the body, perception, movement, and performance as well as the mind, thoughts, rationality, and intentional actions. This is a convincing argument, and it provides a more comprehensive picture of a social person that aligns with recent work on human nature and the concept of being in the cognitive sciences (see Sheets-Johnstone, The Primacy of Movement, for a review).

Overall, this is an excellent book, especially for those concerned with relational theory, agency, personhood, animacy, and identity. Undoubtedly, interested readers will find their own reasons to like this volume beyond the themes discussed here. At the very least, this book is a reminder that humans are not the only entities in the world that matter, and more importantly, that identity and personhood depend on the array of activities, forces, and beings with which humans are associated.