An original new study that attempts to take fragmentation studies further, integrating archaeology, social anthropology and material culture. Case studies are taken from the later prehistory of the Balkans and Greece. The authors construct a new 'fragmentation premise' and examine its implications for the Balkans in the Neolithic. Key issues covered include a 'biographical' method of considering objects and their relation to the creation of personhood, consideration of methodological issues of site formation, a questioning of the assumption that excavated data is a more or less accurate reflection of the operation of past social practices, and discussion of what happened to pieces that are missing from an assemblage. The authors conclude by seeking to put Balkan prehistory 'back together again' by looking at the variations in social practices and the construction of personhood at four different socio-spatial levels: the person, the household, the settlement-based corporate group and inter-settlement relations. They also set out a research agenda for future work linked to the fragmentation premise, both for Balkan later prehistory and, more generically, for archaeology as a whole. Contents include: Introduction to the life cycle of things: Categorisation, fragmentation and enchainment; What we can do with whole objects: The categorical analysis of pottery; Parts and wholes: Hamangia figurines; Schiffer visits the Balkans; Using objects after the break: Beyond re-fitting studies; The biographical approach: Fired clay figurines from the Late Eneolithic tell of Dolnoslav; Personhood and the life cycle of Spondylus rings; Re-fitting the narrative: Beyond fragments; Concluding pointers towards future research.