Fourteen contributors examine an array of media - from ceramics and personal ornaments to architecture and site structure - in small-scale societies and apply methods from both sides of the Atlantic to explore how technical choices made in the creation of everyday objects can both reflect and define social boundaries. In chapters on prehistoric and historic societies that range from North America to Africa to Oceania, the authors suggest that variation in technical systems corresponds more closely than stylistic variation does to the boundaries between groups. They also address the question of whether modern concepts of ethnicity can be translated into archaeological terms.