Several aspects have contributed to the current and standardized image of the Neolithic in Europe. Communities who were previously seen as passive receivers of great innovations coming from the Near East, are now considered active agents within highly connected worlds that were deeply rooted in the Upper Palaeolithic. The quality of craftsmanship, together with the demography of different European regions, cannot be understood nowadays without reference to pre-existing craft production (i.e. Palaeolithic ceramics, developed lithic technologies, symbolic language), or even economic practices (i.e. bread, alcohol, animal control). One of these activities is mining, which required not only skill and exhaustive geological knowledge of territories and their potential for exploitation, but also the movement of raw materials and exchange.

The green stones used as ornaments or as raw material for spectacular polished objects in Neolithic Europe not only inform us about complex mining activities but also about their roles in funerary exhibitions. Green stones reveal that the movement of raw materials for the management of death was the result of real political networks. Ostentation, provenance, the quantity of objects, their relationship with specific individuals or their inclusion in collective deposits, are presented in this volume as questions of greater relevance than what had been granted previously in discussions about the megalithic phenomenon in Europe. From choosing the raw materials of the orthostats and their artificial colouring, to the colour and appearance of the raw materials of the grave goods, nothing that occurs around the construction and use of megalithic monuments escapes formalized expression (Bueno Ramírez et al., Reference Bueno Ramírez, Balbín Behrmann, Barroso Bermejo, Laporte, Gouezin, Cousseau, Müller, Hinz and Wunderlich2019; Darvill, Reference Darvill, Meller, Wunderlich and Knolleds2013). In the case of variscite, even the vitreous appearance of its surface, is an added value, as with cinnabar, amber, and some other green stones, like muscovite or quartz (García Sanjuán et al., Ch. 9).

Comparisons of the use and significance of green stones with contexts other than late prehistoric Europe constitute one of the most successful lines of enquiry, as illustrated by the success of processual and post-processual approaches in using ethnographic parallels within the framework of social anthropology. This volume, which stems from a session organized at the Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting (Vancouver, Canada, 2017), focuses on two regions of the world to compare the methodologies of study, analysis, and interpretation of green stones: Central/North America, taking Mexico as an example and the exploitation of ‘turquoise’ mines in the pre-classical and classical periods, and Atlantic Europe, with contributions on Neolithic Iberia and Brittany. The latter highlights the evidence for a shared symbology between these two regions, in addition to the circulation of prestigious raw materials and connectivity. This hypothesis is reinforced by the similarities between Breton and Iberian menhirs and by the recent characterization of paintings in Breton and northern French megaliths (the latter dated from organic pigments), with comparable uses of pigments attested in Iberian megaliths.

Production systems, on the one hand, and social, ideological, and connectivity-related interpretations, on the other, cannot be understood separately. The editors openly discuss this issue, offering a comparative approach exploring what can be inferred about the social from the study of systems of exploitation. What is the actual value of the quantity and the quality of production, or the extension of the networks, to argue about social complexity (López Mestas et al., Ch.3)? What role can we attribute to ostentation in complex societies as driver behind the movement of people and objects (Cabrero, Ch. 2)? Does the thorough study of technology reveal standardized criteria that allow us to define areas with common elements (Melgar & Mathien, Ch.1)?

Inspired by the information on complex societies in the Americas, the following chapters dedicated to Europe tackle these questions in different ways. Sheridan et al. (Ch. 6) argue for the contrast of a ‘Western Europe of Jade’ with a ‘Central Europe and the Balkans of copper’ (p. 97). Objects manufactured in jade would be part of a long-distance trading system with elite-controlled exchanges of ostentatious items. Jade artefacts were deposited within some of the earliest megalithic monuments known in Western Europe, which are located in northwest France, being some of the decorations on the walls of these monuments another fact to add to this argument (Cassen et al., Ch.7). The chronologies of the movement of these products between Brittany and Iberia in the fifth millennium bc (Sheridan et al., Ch. 6, p. 106), are encouraging, despite the problems raised by the oldest dates of megaliths in both sectors (Marchand, Reference Marchand, Manolakakis, Schlanger and Coudart2017). Some of the models proposed for the pre-classical and classical exploitation of green stone in America serve to support the role of elites in the movement and consumption of prestige objects, as well as for the maritime expansion of the megalithic phenomenon in Atlantic Europe (Cassen et al., Ch.7). Chapter 8, by Bradley and Watson, adds further detail, in this case on the significance of local sources of stone for the manufacture of axes and ornaments. Ethnographic analogies indicate that the symbolic content of axes may go beyond their materiality as it is suggested through the relationship between axes, mountains, and the sky (p. 153). In Late Neolithic Britain, the topographies of quarries and their relative distance were meaningful dimensions of the selected raw materials, which were mostly of local origin or from locales within short to medium reach.

Some of the contributors to this book have been part of a research project that links the diffusion of the megalithic phenomenon in Europe to the provenance of prestige objects (i.e. Alpine jadeite axeheads). Like with many other hypotheses situating the origin of varied cultural responses in one element, many aspects have triggered debate. Prominent among these are the possibility of determining the provenance of these objects with the same scientific criteria, as well as of providing robust radiocarbon dates for the oldest megalithic monuments in Western Europe.

The first debate, related to the development of scientific data for securely establishing provenance, is evident in the research into Mexican mines. Trying to nuance the impact of long-distance, large-scale trading systems for green stones in classical Mexico, some authors have recently exposed the problems of determining isotopic traces for establishing the provenance of turquoise (Thibodeau et al., Reference Thibodeau, López Luján, Killic, Berdan and Ruiz2018: 6). Such critical enquiry is beginning to develop on Iberian variscites through analyses that question the actual relevance of large-scale exchanges in Neolithic societies, also based on the distribution of these products. It is noteworthy that one of the oldest areas of extraction, Gavá in northeast Iberia, has such a limited role in the distribution of variscite across the rest of Europe (Bosch et al., Ch.4). Equally, there is a need to explain the presence of southern Iberian variscite in French megaliths during periods when variscite is absent (as far as we currently know) from the megalithic deposits of its areas of origin (Odriozola et al., Reference Odriozola, Villalobos, Burbidge, Boaventura, Sousa and Rodríguez-Ariza2016). We agree with Rodriguez-Rellán et al. (Ch. 5) that more ancient dates are plausible for the distribution of green beads and ornaments. However, the best documented phase of variscite use in Iberia is dated to the end of the fourth millennium and the third millennium bc, largely in parallel with the notable increase in metallic artefacts and materials of foreign provenance within the framework of Bell Beaker cultures. Curiously enough, this chronological range is the least known for the Breton megaliths, although other neighbouring areas with very similar symbologies have yielded radiocarbon dates on human bones which can be compared with dates from samples of pigments of organic matter from the Marne hypogea. Importantly, the second half of the fourth millennium and the third millennium bc is one of the most active periods for the appearance of ‘luxury' raw materials in the Alpine area. This is visible in the ornaments depicted on the spectacular stelae associated with its megaliths, and it is part of a broader pan-European phenomenon with comparable chronologies (Robb, Reference Robb2009).

To the accepted idea of a standardized Bell-Beaker funerary ‘package’, we can add as precedent the ornaments and objects of ostentation found in some megaliths, whether these were foreign objects or imitations. Variscite, amber, gold, or cinnabar, sometimes associated with copper objects and stones of great visual value and vitreous aspect, characterize the best dated ‘sets’, that concentrate around the fourth millennium bc. These relationships were deeply rooted in the oldest forms of megalithism. Furthermore, ornamental sets (foreign or imitations) related to Early Neolithic burials (i.e. axes, bracelets, and shell beads) are an undeniable reference too. Nevertheless, establishing a precise chronological framework for the oldest forms of megalithic monumentality is a challenge, given the extended evidence for processes of construction, refurbishment, and destruction of monuments, which make it very difficult to pinpoint the association between the initial construction of these monuments and the deposits.

The use of red pigments is an element that could have linked subsequent ‘sets’. Analytical developments are allowing the detection of ochre and cinnabar pigments, both on adornments and other artefacts in Iberian megaliths. This suggests that the exogenous provenance of raw materials (e.g. cinnabar) would be an added value, making some artefacts even more appealing (Bradley & Watson, Ch. 8). If this is confirmed further, red pigments associated with grave goods could be added to the red dye visible on the corpses and the predominant red decoration found on megalithic labs, generating a striking visual effect

Gathering such evidence in support of new vibrant hypotheses and interpretations about symbols and cosmological beliefs in Neolithic Europe is tremendously time consuming. Books like this one are a must read, as it discusses cases from two distinct cultural backgrounds that are aimed at evaluating the role of prestige objects in the dissemination of complex social forms. The data and perspectives offered by the different authors and their discussion contribute to set the agenda for research. The increasingly precise characterization of raw materials will be fundamental to defining the level and widespread of connectivity of social and symbolic elements in the world of death between the fifth and third millennia bc. Archaeometry, contextual data, and good quality chronologies are basic tools to add to ancient DNA studies. This allows us to establish interdisciplinary knowledge about the real relevance of the movements of prestige goods and people in the origin of megalithic dynamics during the Neolithic and the Metal Ages in Europe.