Any Roman archaeologist who has worked on millstones, particularly the so-called Pompeian-style hourglass millstones typically found on Roman sites within the central Mediterranean, is familiar with the work of David Peacock. Since the early 1980s, he has written extensively on not only the hourglass millstones, but also the Santa Trinità quarries near Orvieto (the source of the leucitic lava used in their manufacture) and, more recently, Roman millstone production in Britain.

Thus, the book under review here represents a lifetime of experience and insight into the archaeological study of what Peacock rightly refers to as the ‘stone of life’. As such, the book covers a lot of ground, from the history of querns in Europe and the Mediterranean to the potential for powerful technologies and specialised scientific analyses such as mass spectrometry, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and phytolith analysis to shed new light on the use and meaning of these important artefacts among ancient societies within Europe. Throughout, Peacock presents ethnographic data intended to aid in understanding the extraction, manufacture, distribution and function of different types of querns and mills, as well as their potential significance with respect to social organisation and belief systems. This inclusion represents a commendable effort on the author's part to put the use of these artefacts—which have frequently, in the hands of archaeologists, been reduced to indicators for trade and exchange networks—within their cultural and social contexts.

Conceptually, the book can be broken down into two parts. Chapters 1–6 present the development of quern and millstone technology, from the saddle querns and rock mortars of the late Palaeolithic, through Iron Age rotary querns, and Olynthus- and Pompeian-style mills of the Greek and Roman periods, to the water mills of the Roman and Late Antique periods. Chapters 7–10 are devoted to how archaeologists might understand the significance of these stones for the technological development, social organisation and belief systems of those who used them, as well as suggestions for how archaeologists in future might expand and improve our understanding of these essential artefacts as part of living cultures and communities. The book is illustrated throughout and the figures are abundant, clear and useful.

The preface reveals that the book itself was originally intended to deal exclusively with the Iron Age and Roman periods of Britain. Peacock, however, indicates that such a work was not possible without considering earlier periods, in particular the Bronze Age, and other parts of Europe and the Mediterranean. The result is, for the most part, a solid and very useful handbook for the archaeological study of millstones in ancient Europe, with a great deal of detailed British data supplemented by a less systematic presentation of evidence from archaeological sites throughout Europe and the Mediterranean. From the perspective of Classical archaeology, the expansion of this study to the longue durée and the inclusion of ethnographic evidence from around the world, as well as data from researchers working on the milling of maize in Mesoamerica, are highly commendable. Too often, archaeologists of the Classical period restrict themselves to discussions of strictly Classical materials, occasionally noting that Iron Age antecedents or subsequent Late Antique material culture is of potential interest, but engaging with it less frequently than they might. As a consequence, Peacock's study demonstrates that important and relevant information for the study of these artefacts, their use and their cultural significance during antiquity in Europe can be found in a variety of other places and periods.

As a handbook, Peacock's work does not get bogged down in technical discussions of petrology, morphology, design or provenance, among other subjects. Rather, he has chosen to present what may be termed essential considerations on the part of archaeologists with respect to the study of querns, millstones and milling. For example, his discussion of rotary quern morphology and typology notes that there are key elements archaeologists should consider when creating typologies of these artefacts, and that the study of morphology must be married to consideration of lithology. At the same time, he eschews presenting a fully developed typology of his own, noting that before this is possible, standardised recording and analytical methods must be developed by specialists.

It is evident throughout that this book represents a serious meditation on a lifetime of engagement with the study of querns and millstones, and on the cultural and environmental contexts in which they were used. In this sense, it transcends the handbook genre. When reading about rotary querns, for example, we learn that, contrary to the tradition of scholarship, such querns originated much earlier than previously suspected. Peacock also indicates that diffusionist models so often cited in the development of milling technology are generally overstated and that, more specifically, it is likely that rotary querns have multiple points of origin among different cultural groups.

Some might criticise Peacock for not including more—and more detailed—information in this book. While it is not necessary to produce something as comprehensive as Longepierre's (Reference Longepierre2012) volume on milling in southern Gaul, specialists might have welcomed a more detailed presentation of typology, lithology and milling techniques, and an examination of disciplinary standards with regard to publication—all aspects on which Peacock has written extensively in the past. Instead, however, he has chosen to write a well-rounded, ethnographically and scientifically grounded examination of the topic that is easily accessible to archaeologists who are not specialists in the study of millstones and milling. In the end, I find this to be the work's greatest strength: its coherent and concise presentation of what can be a complicated and technical field to the uninitiated while, at the same time, presenting enough detail to keep the attention of the specialist. In doing so, the book encourages archaeologists to cast their net widely and to use quern, millstone and milling data as proxies to examine, where possible, issues as complex as the organisation of production and culturally determined tastes.