This interesting volume has emerged from a project funded by the John Templeton Foundation in which archaeologists, anthropologists, philosophers of religion and theologians met to consider the role of spirituality and religion in the development of complex societies – specifically in Çatalhöyük, but also looking out to the rest of Anatolia and the Middle East. The anthropologists, philosophers of religion and theologians visited Çatalhöyük regularly over a three-year period during the project, so this was not just a one-off meeting, as such inter-disciplinary work tends to be. The project began from the position of rejecting the previous interpretations by James Mellaart of the figurines and wall paintings in terms of a mother goddess. Instead, Hodder's project team argue from further, and far more detailed, study of the figurines and their context that they were fairly ephemeral and mostly not gendered. Thus a new approach was needed.

The project considered four research questions relating to spirituality and religion in the Neolithic: (1) How can archaeologists recognize the spiritual, religious and transcendent in early time periods? (2) Are changes in spiritual life and religious ritual a necessary prelude to the social and economic changes that lead to ‘civilization’? (3) Do human forms take on a central role in the spirit world in the early Holocene and, if so, does this centrality lead to new conceptions of human agency that themselves provide the possibility for the domestication of plants and animals? (4) Do violence and death act as the foci of transcendent religious experience during the transitions of the early Holocene in the Middle East, and are such themes central to the creation of social life in the first large agglomerations of people?

The book is structured around these themes, although additional ideas emerge as well, such as the idea that Çatalhöyük was a ‘house society’. This approach may be strengthened by recent publication of an analysis which shows that burials in houses were not based on biological affinity. Another idea developed through the project is that of ‘history houses’ (structures that contain many burials undergo four or more rebuilds), which seems to be a fruitful way of approaching the archaeology of tell settlements with long-lived houses. There is also Carolyn Nakamura's interesting chapter on magical deposits, mostly at boundaries, such as closing deposits in houses, which makes the point that not all religious activity was necessarily official.

In terms of the questions set, how did the collaboration work? On the question of archaeological recognition of religious and related activities, the new approach argues for the significance of marking and absence. Marking involves setting some things as apart, special, difficult or dangerous, while the notion of absence relates to the effects of past practices (eg, burials under the floor, animal bones incorporated in the walls) on later social life. The second question, about the importance of religion in creating ‘civilization’, not surprisingly, given the previously expressed views of the excavation team, was answered in the positive. There was little said about the importance of human forms in the early Holocene, and indeed one may wonder if Çatalhöyük is really the site to answer this. Finally, the significance of violence and death was placed in a framework of heightened transcendent experience, with stress on the importance of rarely performed ceremonies. This provides an interesting contrast to the usual emphasis on fertility and nurturing in considerations of Neolithic religious belief.

Altogether, this is a stimulating volume, with only two areas that might have been further developed. There was a limited degree of co-authorship, with just two articles jointly written by Ian Hodder and an anthropologist – this might have produced a deeper engagement in some cases. Finally, although there was some discussion of contemporary sites, especially Göbekli Tepe, there was almost nothing on the physical and social landscape setting of Çatalhöyük itself, and the influence this may have had on the specific material forms taken by the spiritual, religious and transcendent at this special site.