The culture we acquire from our families, schools, and communities is something that we often take for granted. It can, however, greatly affect many of our attitudes and everyday actions, for example what, where and when we eat. Do you have two meals a day or three? Is breakfast coffee in a café, sugared cereals at home, or bread from a communal dish? There is very often a historical reason underlying how we sleep, what we eat and how we wash ourselves, to name just a few. Such customs tell anthropologists a great deal about us and our societies—about how we organise ourselves, exhibit ourselves, and interact with others. Our clothes reflect what parts of the body are acceptable to show in public; our furniture, and plates and cutlery speak volumes about our eating and social habits. Even our mobile phones and apps reveal what we find important. Our sense of self and our understanding of our own bodies and minds are intrinsically connected to our cultural backgrounds and the societies in which we live.

While anthropologists study contemporary cultures and can observe how everyday objects are used, archaeologists excavating similar objects from earlier societies often find it difficult to make sense of them. How can they reconstruct what the objects meant to the people who used them? Even fragments of pottery or metal must be understood as part of the network of cultural practises and beliefs that our ancestors held and engaged with on a daily basis. Examining the objects carefully can tell us a lot about how they were used; the challenge to archaeologists is to try to build up a picture of what such activities tell us about the motivations, values and beliefs of the people who made and used them.