The conference explored how the royal courts of Mesoamerica represented their kingdoms in architectural, iconographic & cosmological terms. Themes in this volume include the ways in which public monuments were fashioned to reflect geographic space, patron gods & mythology.

The present volume is mainly the result of two symposia held at the European Archaeological Association meetings in Krakow (2006) and Zadar (2007), respectively, which gathered studies on the function, morphology, materiality, technology, ritual, function and context of figurines, whether made of clay, wood, metal, stone, bone or shell. Contents: Introduction: Small Worlds (Dragos Gheorghiu and Ann Cyphers); 1) Beyond Venus figurines: technical production and social practice in Pavlovian portable art (Rebecca A. Farbstein); 2) Dissentions: magnitude, usability and the oddness of Neolithic figures (Christina Marangou); 3) Neolithic ceramic figurines in the shape of a womanhouse from the Republic of Macedonia (Nikos Chausidis); 4) Cult artifacts from the Neolithic and chalcolithic settlement of Leceia, Oeiras, Portugal (Joao Luis Cardoso); 5) The god-dolly wooden figurine from the Somerset levels, Britain: the context, the place and its meaning (Clive Jonathon Bond); 6) Anthropomorphic antler sculptures in Abora Neolithic settlement (lake Lubans wetland, Latvia) (Ilze Biruta Loze); 7) Ritual technology: an experimental approach to Cucuteni-Tripolye chalcolithic figurines (Dragos Gheorghiu); 8) Problems of identity for Mycenaean figurines (Andrea Vianello); 9) Go figure Creating intertwined worlds in the Scandinavian late Iron Age (AD 5501050) (Ing-Marie Back Danielsson); 10) A cognitive approach to variety in the facial and bodily features of prehistoric Japanese figurines (Naoko Matsumoto and Hideaki Kawabata); 11) Fragmentation practices in central Japan: middle Jomon clay figurines at Shakado (Ilona Bausch); 12) Awaking the symbolic calendar: animal figurines and the conceptualisation of the natural world in the Jomon of northern Japan (Liliana Janik); 13) Can clues from Egypts dynastic period shed light on its predynastic figurines? (Aloisia de Trafford); 14) Artificial cranial vault modification in Olmec figurines: identity, ancestry and politics in early Mesoamerica (Ann Cyphers); 15) The solid terracotta and stone figurines from central region of the Bolanos Canyon in the state of Jalisco, Mexico (Ma. Teresa Cabrero); 16) Figurines in the heart of the Aztec Empire (Cynthia L. Otis Charlton and Thomas H. Charlton).