This volume has been written in honour of Professor Annelou van Gijn in order to celebrate her distinguished career as an archaeologist and, above all, as an expert in the study of material culture. Annelou started her research with the use-wear analysis of prehistoric flint from the Netherlands, and she extended her interests in every possible direction: time, space, materials and technologies. This volume has been compiled to reflect the broad oeuvre of her work. It focuses on the biographies of a wide range of artefact types made from an equally wide range of materials from Mesolithic and Neolithic Europe, but also glimpses beyond into other periods and geographic regions. The papers focus on different aspects of artefact biographies including raw material acquisition, artefact production, use, and discard, and even the afterlife of objects in our modern society. The objects in question include quotidian tools such as querns and harvesting tools, adhesives that held objects together, and elaborate objects such as maceheads, jewellery, and flint superblades.

Whatever the subject of Annelou’s individual publications, at the heart of all of her work is the love of objects and the stories that they have to tell us. The stories in this bundle are a testament of her contagious enthusiasm.