Christopher Knüsel is Associate Professor in Bioarchaeology in the Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter. Works include Blood Red Roses: The Archaeology of a Mass Grave from Towton, A.D 1461 (co-ed., 2000, 2007); Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains (co-ed., 2006), Velim: Violence and Death in Bronze Age Bohemia (2007), co-authored with Anthony Harding, Radka Šumberová, and Alan Outram. He is currently working on Funerary Archaeology: A Bioarchaeological Synthesis and serves as Co-Head of the Human Remains Team at Neolithic Çatalhöyük (Turkey).

Martin J. Smith is Senior Lecturer in Forensic and Biological Anthropology in the School of Applied Sciences, Bournemouth University. He recently published the first book to deal specifically with human remains from Neolithic Britain: People of the Long Barrows: Life, Death and Burial in the Earlier Neolithic, co-authored with Megan Brickley (2009), he has also authored a range of papers dealing with aspects of burial practice, post mortem damage to the skeleton and the recognition of violent injuries to human bone.

Part One: Context is Everything Part Two: Since Time Immemorial? Conflict in Prehistory Part Three: Hierarchies and Violence Part Four: New World Orders: Conflict in the Americas Part Five: Plus ça Change? Modern World Emergence