This book presents the results of a six-year project by the University of Birmingham, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, on the items of bodily adornment and funeral equipment found in well-furnished graves of the so-called ‘Wessex culture’ of the Early Bronze Age in south-west England. Due to their conspicuously ‘rich’ content, these graves have been seen as an outstanding example of how the adoption of metallurgy led to the rise of elites in Early Bronze Age Europe. This volume is the first to analyse systematically a representative sample of these graves, providing the reader with an evidence-based account that unravels how many of these funerary items from Wessex-culture graves must have been part of elaborate ceremonial costumes. The material culture of a breath-taking 780 individual graves has been studied, involving 5666 items, of which 4778 are individual beads from 81 necklaces. These graves include not just those from the Early Bronze Age, but also those of the preceding Chalcolithic (2450–2200 BC). The impressive numbers notwithstanding, the Early Bronze Age graves described are still only a selection from those areas that have been the main focus of excavation campaigns (e.g. Wessex, the Peak District, the East Yorkshire Wolds). In order to manage the material, the authors have divided it into ‘items of equipment’ and those of ‘personal adornment’ (including almost 200 pages on necklaces alone). This material is followed by chapters presenting overviews on chronology, object function and life stories, and on regional variation between burial assemblages, which are supplemented by useful additional scientific data in the appendices on the CD. Although the volume comprises over 500 pages, the excellent organisation of the text, the highly consistent description of the data and the high-quality colour photographs mean that it remains easy to read and use.

There are two reasons why this book is important. Firstly, it constitutes the first empirical overview of Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age graves in England, a special group of graves that figures prominently in discussions on social change during the European Bronze Age. The authors show that adornment of the dead was highly varied and instead of primarily displaying rank, it seems to be more related to religious and ritual activities. It is in the detailed empirical analyses of the finds in particular that the significance of this observation comes to life. The authors, for example, argue that circular waisted studs were not toggles but rather were probably inserted into soft body tissues such as ear lobes or the lips, and that certain bone points were not implements but pendants of a bone-decorated costume. The authors also argue that copper awls in graves were probably used for tattooing, and, interestingly, they discuss how gold sheet metal must have been wrapped around large supporting cores, and attached to costumes, creating unexpectedly lavish and extravagant appearances. It is not just the heterogeneity of materials used that is striking, but also that so many of the objects must have been heirlooms—another important result of the authors’ systematic study of use wear. Artefacts with different visual and material qualities and social biographies seem to have been used to make the body of the deceased into a new, richly evocative artefact in its own right, referring to different worlds, both in time (heirlooms) and in space (exotic items).

The second reason why this is an important contribution concerns the research methodology. It is an excellent example of how empirical material culture studies can add to our understanding of burial data if conducted systematically and consistently. The exhaustive study of the necklaces with X-rays, use-wear studies and the systematic analysis of each constituent bead is particularly impressive and sets a new standard. Special mention should also be made of the ingenious methodology designed for the recognition of heirlooms. It is particularly important that the authors never lose sight of the less spectacular objects such as those of stone or bone. In a way, Chapter 4, dealing with some of these ‘Cinderellas’, is one of the most important in the book as it is precisely with these usually neglected objects that a systematic study of use-wear bears fruit and leads to unexpected results.

The book aims to overcome a priori categorisations of Wessex elite graves by including not just Early Bronze Age graves but also preceding Beaker graves, and by including materials considered as less conspicuous than gold or amber. Although this is certainly helpful, real progress will require the contextualisation of these ‘well-furnished’ burials alongside those graves—the majority—that contain only flint or pottery, by comparing the deposition of objects in graves to those in other contexts, and by paying attention to the way in which such graves were marked and organised in the landscape. The new insight into the varying ways in which the deceased were adorned, and the intricate biographies of the objects involved, leads to new questions: in what ways was one ‘rich’ grave (e.g. Upton Lovell G2e) different from, or similar to, another ‘rich’ grave (e.g. Bush Barrow)? And what does this all signify in terms of social roles? Another new challenge set by this book is to compare the Early Bronze Age graves of England with those of the near Continent. Dealing with such questions would obviously require another book, but the publication of this excellent empirical study for the first time now makes the production of such a ‘meta’ book possible.