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Space in cities is under severe pressure, especially now that many cities are putting much more emphasis on urban infill rather than expanding into the surrounding countryside. Preserving archaeological sites in cities is therefore complicated. So is excavating and researching sites. Many remains lie deep underground, and archaeology consists of an accumulation of traces and finds. Excavation is time-consuming and complex, but at the same time it yields information about hundreds of years of habitation and use. The focus of this conference was how archaeology can contribute to urban society, how archaeological heritage management works in cities, and how a rich archaeological heritage can contribute to the cities of the future.

It is my great honour and pleasure to introduce the proceedings of the European Archaeological Council's 25th Heritage Management Symposium. The symposium, centred around the theme of Urban Archaeology and the Cities of Tomorrow, has offered invaluable insights into the challenges and opportunities facing urban archaeology today, as our cities grow and evolve at an unprecedented pace.

This article provides some personal reflections on a range of issues around urban archaeology, focusing on the contribution that the discipline can make to placemaking for future generations. These reflections are grouped into three thematic areas: time, space and people. It is argued that public engagement is critical for ensuring that archaeology realises its potential to influence future development positively.

Prague, with its historical significance dating back over a millennium, has evolved into the focal point of the Czech state. The city's intricate development has not only resulted in the presence of distinctive archaeological remains, but has also secured its place on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List. The meticulous preservation of archaeological contexts, some of which are more than 10m deep, has been a sustained focus of various institutions since the establishment of Czechoslovakia in the early 20th century. Subsequently, the coordination of rescue and preventative archaeology has gained a pivotal role for the Prague Archaeological Commission, which was established in 1969 and has served as an advisory body to the Director of the National Heritage Institute in Prague since 1998. A key figure in the preservation effort was Ladislav Hrdlicka, based at the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. In the 1970s, he established the foundation for systematic documentation by creating the Map of Archaeological Documentation Points (MADB). The information systems derived from the MADB now form the foundation of Prague's archaeological monument conservation. From the 1990s onwards, the city of Prague introduced the Valuable Archaeological Areas (VAP) system, which identifies sites with exceptionally well-preserved archaeological terrain for enhanced protection within the Prague Heritage Reserve. Since 2017, data from MADB and VAP, in conjunction with other archaeological information, has been accessible through the Prague Archaeological portal. The portal was developed as a collaboration of the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences with the National Heritage Institute. It constitutes a component of the archaeological information system of the Czech Republic. The digital integration of previously disparate yet high-quality data sources signifies a transformative shift in the management of Prague's archaeological heritage. Collaborations of the Prague Municipality Council and the Prague Institute of Planning and Development (the latter responsible for the preparation of planning analytical materials) have resulted in a significant reshaping of information flows between stakeholders. This has significantly enhanced the efficacy of decision-making processes for planning and implementation of development projects, making archaeological data an indispensable component of public debate on the city's historic core. Currently, Prague serves as a model for the implementation of comprehensive regulations for the protection of archaeological heritage throughout the Czech Republic, exemplifying a systematic and efficacious approach that can be emulated elsewhere.

The origins of the city of Riga can be traced back to a small area on the right bank of the River Daugava in the 11th–12th centuries. Over the ensuing centuries the city developed, and suburbs began to form outside its fortifications. The oldest part of the city is protected as an archaeological monument, which is the core of Riga's historical centre. The Historic Centre of Riga is included in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Cultural Heritage List. The preservation and development of the Historic Centre of Riga, including the oldest part of the city, is regulated by a special law. The cultural and historical environment of the Historic Centre of Riga is particularly attractive to developers, so, because of economic pressure, questions are often raised about the importance and potential of preserving its archaeological heritage.

Digital twin technologies help to anticipate heritage loss and ensure that an accurate record exists for heritage assets at risk. In this paper we present our scalable approach, from individual buildings that have been assessed as heritage at risk, to streetscapes and broader cityscapes.

Since the late 19th century, practitioners of archaeology have uncovered a wealth of evidence from past centuries, significantly enhancing our knowledge and understanding of various cities and towns in Finland. While urban archaeology is often associated with excavations related to construction and development projects in urban settings, the field encompasses a much broader array of topics, methodologies and research practices related to urban life and environments, both past and present. Adopting this broader perspective, the aim of urban archaeology is to document and elucidate the multilayered history and multifaceted structure of cities, as well as elements of urbanism and urban life, in a comprehensive and holistic manner. This includes the historical development of towns and cities up to the present day, as well as analyses of urban features and fabrics from different periods. Consequently, urban archaeology is not confined to the study of material remains and evidence found underground, but also includes extant structures aboveground, such as standing buildings, visible constructions, spatial layouts and urban landscapes, as well as the functions and populations of cities. In this paper, I discuss the definitions and preconceptions of urban archaeology and its role, with a particular focus on Finland. In addition to presenting ideas for a more holistic approach to urban archaeology, I reflect on the limitations of prevailing definitions and the implications of restricting urban archaeological heritage to specific historical periods. When considering the role, importance and relevance of urban archaeology in the future, it is crucial to ask who determines the scope of urban archaeology, and on what basis and why. What actions can and should be taken to alter current perceptions and conditions, if change is deemed necessary and desirable, in order to affirm the role of urban archaeology in future society, including academic research and urban development?

Since the Second World War, archaeological remains in towns have come under increasing pressure: major construction works have led to considerable degradation of the archaeological record. From the 1970s onwards, there has been growing awareness of the vulnerability of archaeology in old towns, yet it was not until the introduction of the Malta legislation in 1992 that archaeological research in towns really took off. In the Netherlands, however, application of the legislation also has an obvious downside. With research being mainly documentary in character, synthesising research is lagging behind. In addition, it is not always clear where within the 19th- and 20th-century urban expansion archaeology can be expected, and what type of remains there will be. The effect of construction on the remains has also remained unclear for a long period of time. Research by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands has provided important insight into this. As a result, this article provides an agenda to address some of the key challenges faced by the field of urban archaeology.

The regional authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia supervise the legal application of monument law, with a hierarchical structure comprising supreme, higher and lower monument heritage authorities. The supreme monument heritage authorities form part of the Ministry for Regional Identity and are responsible for the implementation of the Monument Protection Act. Higher authorities supervise the lower monument heritage authorities at the municipal level, while urban archaeology units act as executive bodies for these lower authorities in historically significant cities. The current Monument Protection Act, enacted on 13 April 2022, outlines the responsibilities for preserving monuments in the region. As the example of the excavation at the St Stephanus church square in Beckum, Warendorf district (Germany) shows, the organisation of monument heritage management in North Rhine-Westphalia ensures effective oversight and implementation of the Monument Protection Act. Increased construction activities, particularly related to energy projects, pose challenges to heritage conservation, necessitating improved communication and collaboration between the various authorities and stakeholders. The experiences in Beckum emphasise the importance of balancing urban development with the preservation of cultural heritage by smart, communicative and persistent heritage management.

Whereas environmental studies are today an important part of urban archaeological research in many towns and cities in Europe, they often focus on individual sites and do not always result in larger syntheses. To exploit the full potential of urban environmental studies in Brussels, Belgium, a specific framework has been developed, explicitly aimed at coping with the inherent complexity of urban investigations, including the variety of research themes that need to be dealt with, the challenges of fast-evolving environmental research, and how to address the needs of different stakeholders. This article discusses how the framework was created, the challenges that have been dealt with over the past few decades, and how we can further improve the framework for the future.

Excavations in densely built city centres such as Vienna, Austria, clearly show the critical role of archaeological and historical research before digging starts. Geoinformation systems (GIS) can help process large and complex amounts of data and create accurate forecasts for construction projects. Vienna's urban archaeology has been using point-based GIS mapping of all known archaeological sites for a long time (Wien Kulturgut). However, to visualise the full extent of sites, extensive GIS mapping in the form of polygons is advantageous. The Vienna City Archaeology Department is currently collaborating with the Federal Monuments Office to implement this approach for Vienna. The impressive vector-based GIS mapping and historical landscape reconstructions compiled by Severin Hohensinner, based on several master theses at BOKU University Vienna, were used as the database for this. The city of Vienna plans to transfer the current online service Wien Kulturgut to Masterportal. In this new geoportal, point-based GIS mapping, combined with excavation results in the form of polylines and polygon-based GIS mapping, will serve as a key tool for archaeological research and precise archaeological forecasts for construction projects, heritage management and public access.

The assessment of significance lies at the heart of the definition and management of archaeological monuments, especially in built-up urban and suburban areas. The case study discussed in this paper, the mid-sized Roman town of Brigantium in modern Bregenz (Austria), occupies the area of a prominent suburb with relatively large green spaces between residential buildings. It therefore represents a rather rare category: it is neither a complete archaeological reserve nor a post-Roman town mostly built over by later construction. A digital 'city map' of all documented Roman-era structures has existed since 2016 and has become a valuable tool for heritage management as well as research. However, when addressing issues of significance (how important is a Roman town?), some differentiation is necessary. The Austrian Monuments Authority has, in recent years, reflected upon possible criteria for the assessment of 'high' significance. This paper, utilising a spatial approach towards quality and quantity, integrity and authenticity, presents an attempt to work out 'layers of meaning' in the syntax of the assemblage that constitutes the archaeological monument.

After a period of urban development in historic town centres between the 1970s and the 1980s, which resulted in the destruction of many archaeological sites, archaeology has gone from being perceived and experienced as a purely unwanted obligation, to being an integral part of town planning and development. A growing awareness of the environmental and social challenges posed by urban sprawl, vehicle traffic and climate change has started to modify our vision of the town and how it should be developed. One consequence has been a marked increase in the density of urban fabric and the renewal of old town centres, encouraged by government projects designed to improve their appeal. This paper aims to retrace this evolution through the example of the Centre region of France, paying particular attention to Chartres. Through the respective and complementary actions of the state authorities (Ministry of Culture) and the archaeology services belonging to local government authorities (departments and municipalities), this study illustrates the role of archaeology in the urban environment as a means of action for local decision makers, and as a factor that can add high cultural value to local areas through building and strengthening local identities and promoting a scientific and heritage culture.

Spain, like other southern European countries, is renowned for its rich and abundant archaeological heritage, much of which still remains hidden in the ground. The challenge of balancing the protection and enhancement of this heritage with the need to provide modern public services and infrastructure has, in recent years, led to the development of ingenious solutions. These solutions have enabled the coexistence of our material past with the cities of tomorrow in various innovative ways. This paper presents recent examples of urban archaeology in Spain, demonstrating that it is possible to achieve a balance between urban development and the preservation of archaeological heritage, with a particular focus on Ibiza International Airport.

Canton Basel-Stadt has a rich prehistoric and historic heritage. The former episcopal town is exceptionally well preserved, and is the largest historical city centre in Switzerland. The canton's Climate Protection Strategy includes a reduction in emissions by expanding the use of solar energy and a district-wide heating network. Over the next 10 years, the district's heating system will be expanded to form a network of 60 km, with a budget of 460 million Swiss francs. The new heating network and the upgrading of old pipes will provide the Archaeology Service with many opportunities to gain a deeper understanding of Basel's past. Against this background, we have carried out three simultaneous rescue excavations in the historical city centre during the last two years. As part of the Office of Culture, one of the high priority tasks for the Archaeology Service is to present the results of the excavations and research projects to the public. In order to make the public aware of the need for archaeological excavation, the Service puts a lot of energy into public relations work, using posters, press briefings, exhibitions and social media posts. Thanks to public participation, it has been possible to build a positive environment for our work.

Lübeck, one of the oldest Hanse cities in Germany, harbours a rich historical heritage that is particularly evident in the so-called Founding Quarter. In the years 2009–2016, archaeological investigations were carried out in an area of more than 10,000m² in the run-up to urban restructuring measures, which not only revealed the origins of the city, but also documented the unique development of the former merchants' quarter. Based on these findings, this paper examines the challenges and opportunities for contemporary urban development using the example of Lübeck's historic city centre. The former merchants' quarter can, and should in the future, be seen as a living example of the successful integration of historical heritage and modern urban planning in a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.

This data paper concerns a dataset of slope classification results for the entire country of Slovenia and data on extensive and intensive survey results at 24 case study sites along with excavated areas at the sites.

Erimi-Pitharka is a Late Bronze Age (Late Cypriot/LC IIC-IIIA) site in the Kouris Valley of south-central Cyprus. A regional centre in the Kouris Valley, Erimi-Pitharka specialised in production and storage of agricultural products such as grain, olive oil and wine, exemplified by workshops and installations throughout the site.

The developer-funded (or contracting) sector of the archaeological profession produces the vast majority of datasets from investigations across the UK, and the formally published outputs from these projects are acknowledged as being of an academic standard. In this paper I examine some examples from my own work and assess their recordable research impact. I also look at the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 submissions and note an almost total absence of datasets showing research collaborations with colleagues from within the contracting sector. This leads me to believe there are perhaps few opportunities for this type of collaborative project, and to think that REF submissions by higher education institutions (HEIs) tend to utilise datasets created by the developer-funded sector, rather than embarking on more meaningfully co-created models of research. I conclude therefore that the developer-funded sector should empower itself to lead the sector in designing a new research and impact landscape whereby new paradigms are established that respond to the environments within which our work materialises. (NB This paper is not about grey literature.)

This article provides an overview of the participation of the National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (NAIM-BAS) as a partner in both the ARIADNE and ARIADNEplus projects and the SEADDA COST Action. The article examines both the workflow and the results obtained when modifying and mapping part of the national site and monuments information system, also known as the 'Archaeological Map of Bulgaria' (AIS AKB). The article's focus is mainly on the technical preparation of data shared through the ARIADNE portal. The main workflow followed throughout the projects included mapping terms to the Getty AAT thesaurus, adding Bulgarian archaeological chronologies to PeriodO, and mapping metadata to the ARIADNE catalogue data model (ACDM) in ARIADNE and to the AO-cat ontology in ARIADNEplus. In 2016, a mapping of AIS AKB to the CIDOC CRM was also undertaken, and the first steps towards creating the geographic information system, 'Archaeological Map of Bulgaria' (GIS AKB), were taken. The experience gathered by the NAIM-BAS team members throughout the whole project was important for moving towards FAIR-ness in Bulgarian archaeology.

The rural site of Erimi-Pitharka is located in the archaeologically rich Kouris Valley of south-central Cyprus. Previous rescue excavations by the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, have revealed a subterranean complex, industrial areas, and a building complex at the highest topographical point of the site. New excavations by an international team began in 2022 and continued in 2023. We here report on the findings from these first two seasons, which have focused on the large building complex in Area I/1A. Dated to Late Cypriot (LC) IIC-IIIA (c. 1300-1150 BCE), this part of the site is characterised by an emphasis on agricultural production and storage. The inhabitants took advantage of the soft limestone-rich bedrock to create subterranean and semi-subterranean installations, rooms and storage spaces, and pithoi were similarly used for storage and industrial activities. Pitharka was peacefully abandoned, and much of the material culture was removed in the process.

In a 2019 Internet Archaeology article, Elizabeth Pearson posed the question 'are we back in the Dark Ages?'. This question was made in reference to a developer-funded archaeology sector that was generating vast quantities of evidence and, particularly, in recent years, specialist environmental data, but was failing to mobilise this in a theoretical framework that generated meaningful advancement in terms of research. The introduction to the 2021 Internet Archaeology special issue on Digital Archiving in Archaeology (Richards et al. 2021) went on to address 'a digital resource that is now in jeopardy' – not only because of the risk of technical obsolescence, but also because of crucial limitations to its interoperability and discoverability. This article builds on these arguments and complements vital work underway on high-level, internationally focused data infrastructure initiatives (e.g. Wright and Richards 2018). We emphasise here the importance of parallel discussions at a community level, particularly with the people who routinely produce archaeological data, as key to enhancing data synthesis and research potential. Specifically, we report on two surveys conducted by the 'Rewilding' Later Prehistory project at Oxford Archaeology, in collaboration with Historic England and Bournemouth University, which originated in the 'Rewilding' project's concern with improving access to palaeoenvironmental data produced within Britain. Substantial amounts of zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical data remain buried in grey literature, limited-access publications and archive reports (not to mention floppy disks, CDs and microfiche), with no integrative means of searching for particular periods or categories of evidence. This lack of accessibility inhibits specialists from contextualising their findings, and was exemplified recently by the Archaeology on Furlough project tripling the known number of aurochs finds in Britain by trawling online records, journals and museum records (Wiseman 2020). The results of the surveys presented here, which targeted both environmental archaeologists specifically and the wider sector, demonstrate a significant appetite amongst archaeologists to improve data networks and for their work to contribute meaningfully to research agendas. Contextualised within a disciplinary landscape that is increasingly dynamic in its approach to tackling the openness and connectivity of 'big data', we argue that better data synthesis in environmental archaeology, and the developer-funded sector more broadly, can be more than just a mirage on the horizon, particularly once the people who produce the data are given an active voice in the matter.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not a recent development. However, with increasing computational capabilities, AI has developed into Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning, technologies particularly good at detecting correlations and patterns, and categorising, predicting, or extracting information. Within archaeology, AI can process big data accumulated over decades of research and deposited in archives. By combining these capabilities, AI offers new insights and exciting opportunities to create knowledge from archaeological archives for contemporary and future research. However, the ethical implications and human costs are not yet fully understood. Therefore, we question whether AI in archaeology is a blessing or a curse.

This article evaluates how nationalist narratives affect the display of Roman artefacts in national museums. The unique nature of national museums as 'cultural constitutions' and arbiters of the 'Authorised Heritage Discourse' is discussed. This article builds upon previous work by demonstrating how nationalist influence affects the display of Roman artefacts, specifically through the use of two case studies: the British Museum in London and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Museum displays are assessed for indications of nationalist influence through consideration of the use of space and collection composition as well as textual analysis of gallery signage and artefact descriptions. The two museums' divergent approaches to national narrative are then compared.

Archaeological mitigation undertaken by Headland Archaeology (UK) Ltd at Bicker Fen, Lincolnshire, uncovered the remains of two distinctly different enclosure systems situated on a raised roddon (the dried raised bed of a watercourse). The earliest of these systems was characterised by a series of inter-linked enclosures that formed part of a larger complex farmstead developing around the mid-2nd century AD. The enclosure system subsequently evolved through phases of maintenance and expansion, potentially following changes in agricultural practice or as a result of environmental influences. Features in the northern part of the excavation provide some evidence for industrial activity, including iron smithing and bone working, within the settlement. Zooarchaeological evidence, however, suggests that the main economic focus of this rural community was beef production. It seems that the farmstead remained occupied until at least the 4th century AD, with radiocarbon dates suggesting continued activity of some kind into the 5th century. The Saxon field system was situated to the east of the Roman settlement and is geographically independent. The system is less substantial in nature than the Roman enclosures, characterised by curvilinear boundaries and irregular enclosure sizes. Radiocarbon dating suggests that activity took place between the 6th and 10th centuries AD. During this phase, the focus appears to have been pastoralism. This, together with the transient nature of the system and many maintenance phases, suggests seasonal or otherwise ad hoc land use away from the core of any settlement.

Our major project explores the discourses that surround the buying and selling of human remains over social media. We discuss the research ethics framework established in Canada by the 'Tri-Council' research agencies as it pertains to studying social media in general. Issues of privacy and consent are paramount. Human remains trading happens in both public and private social media. We detail the process we went through, and the protocol that we evolved as a result, for studying private social media posts in closed Facebook groups. This process, protocol, and rationale may be useful for other researchers studying how archaeology and cultural heritage are framed or discussed in these venues. What people say in public is not what might be said in private, and researchers need ethical approaches to study such discourses.

This paper highlights the opportunities and valuable lessons learned regarding digital engagement in communities arising from the Ashwell project. It considers strategies to promote the adoption of participatory GIS and crowdsourcing datasets, as well as how users' own devices can be utilised to increase engagement with tangible and intangible heritage.

We investigate modes of collaboration in this emerging community of practice using 'open-archaeo ', a curated list of archaeological software, and data on the activity of associated GitHub repositories and users. We conduct an exploratory quantitative analysis to characterise the nature and intensity of these collaborations and map the collaborative networks that emerge from them. We document uneven adoption of open source collaborative practices beyond the basic use of git as a version control system and GitHub to host source code.

This article describes a case study of four private Facebook groups featuring people who buy and sell human remains, to explore how the discourses of the trade may be different when not made in public. Using a close-reading approach on the text of posts and threaded conversations, and associated visual similarity analysis of the accompanying photographs, we observe, among other things, a strikingly 'more professional' approach, shibboleths and patterns of behaviour that serve to create group identities.

This article presents some preliminary findings on the transformation and abandonment of domestic sites in and around Rome from the 1st to 7th centuries Common Era (CE). I utilize an innovative interactive map developed in Unity to showcase 46 sites in the study area, devising a methodology that draws upon the stratigraphic record of human activities in charting the trajectory of ancient houses over time.

Two fragments of a decorated buffer terminal torc were found in 2019 near Pulborough, West Sussex. The simplicity of the design belies the complexity of the construction of this hollow, gold alloy neck-ring. The overall shape is that of 4th to 3rd century BCE buffer terminal torcs found in western Europe, particularly France, Germany and Belgium. The terminal and neck-ring are decorated with filigree made from block-twisted wire soldered to the surface of the sheet metal parts. Filigree ornament is unusual in this shape of torc but is known from other varieties of torc and contemporary gold objects found in Continental Europe. The location of this find, towards the south coast of England along ancient routes of Atlantic and cross-channel contact and trade, is intriguing given the disparate influences seen in the design. This is not the first buffer terminal torc discovered in England; its discovery is preceded by both gold and copper-alloy versions, but it stands out for its individual style and decorative effect. After its discovery and reporting to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, the torc was subject to analysis and examination, confirming it qualified as Treasure under the stipulations of the Treasure Act 1996. The Sussex Archaeological Society acquired the torc in 2023 for the Barbican House Museum, Lewes, Sussex. Further detailed technical examination of the torc was carried out on their behalf at the British Museum and is described here.

The Roman army has long been understood to have been centrally responsible for the spread of Roman religious material culture and practices in Britain, especially in public epigraphic contexts. The epigraphic corpus, especially Roman Inscriptions of Britain (RIB) (Vanderbilt 2022), provides some of the best evidence for understanding what role individual agency played in religious practice, because many of the inscriptions record the occupation, gender, or origins of the dedicator. Despite the fact that public religious epigraphy in Roman Britain is overwhelmingly militarised and masculine, as well as an imported technology of conquest, it still offers a unique opportunity to investigate alternative perspectives. We examine how the worship of native deities survived in public Latin epigraphy, either on their own or in a syncretic context, and how civilians, women, and local Britons participated in this new technology of worship, especially relating to newly imported deities. We track three large categories: inscriptions to deities imported from the Mediterranean with the Roman conquest of Britain; inscriptions to deities whose origin or cult centre likely lies in Britain or the north-west provinces (e.g. Germania, Gallia and Hispania); and inscriptions that invoke deities from both cultural categories, especially through processes of syncretism and cross-cultural exchange. We catalogued, restructured, and interrogated the data from the RIB Online database, examining the geographical context and textual contents of the public religious inscriptions from Volumes I and III. In agreement with previous studies of military religion, we find that civilians and local Britons were not prolific contributors to the public Latin epigraphic tradition and imperial soldiers held primary agency in inscriptions to local deities on the island. This influence is particularly visible in the militarised area around Hadrian's Wall, where Roman soldiers created more religious inscriptions than dedicators from any other occupation - a pattern found throughout the province. The agency of civilians, women, and people from Britain, however, changed according to the cultural affiliation of the deities to whom they dedicated, as well as the location of the inscriptions. People dedicating to deities whose worship was focused in Britain or north-western Europe were less likely to include information about their occupations (especially military connections) than were people dedicating to deities imported from the Roman Mediterranean (including Eastern mystery cults). On inscriptions that involved religious syncretism, civilians (and especially men, who were overwhelmingly responsible for this category) were particular about how this syncretism was executed in the text, always incorporating interpretatio and making no inscriptions that keep the deities' identities separate. Significantly, while Hadrian's Wall seems to have acted as the cradle of religious epigraphy in Roman Britain, civilians (and therefore, women) did not create syncretic epigraphy in this area.

The interpretation of our investigations into the past, which can explore the chronological development of a site, the activities of its inhabitants or the environment in which they lived, culminate in the formation of archaeological narratives. These may take the form of a discussion in an archaeological report, a conference presentation or a story in the media. The narratives we develop as a result of archaeological fieldwork are directly influenced by the methodologies we employ. On a large-scale project such as HS2 Phase One, those methodologies can include a variety of survey and sampling strategies, culminating in the selection of specific locations for further investigation. The methodology and decision-making process has been influenced by the Specific Objectives as set out in the Historic Environment Research and Delivery Strategy (HERDS). The narratives produced will be generated for both academic historic environment audiences and the wider public, including local communities and school children. This paper will examine the types of narratives and stories that are produced for different audiences and consider which themes are chosen and the extent to which those are influenced by the research questions we have set out.

Sparta stands out as a prominent city-state of ancient Greece, renowned for its significant historical impact. Its legacy is marked not only by its involvement in major historical events but also by the 'peculiarities' attributed to the constitution and societal life of the Classical city. Ancient written sources often portrayed Sparta as a militaristic and patriotic model of severity, discipline and austerity, crafting narratives that emphasised these traits. Over time, these narratives have fascinated various audiences and frequently been used for ideological and political purposes. Locally, these historical narratives have affected aspects of the contemporary Spartan society and the expectations of visitors and scholars. Projects for the enhancement of Spartan archaeological sites were systematically implemented rather late, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This article discusses this development and explores the ways in which organised and accessible archaeological sites and their narratives can engage diverse audiences. It also considers how such efforts can challenge and revise established narratives, impacting local identity and regional development.

This article discusses some of the principles of audience and narrative development that can be transferred to other archaeological projects from the discoveries in the Midlands (HS2 Area North).

This short paper draws together and evaluates some of the main methodologies utilized within the different stages of the A14 project and provides some 'lessons learned' that may be useful for future archaeological projects, particularly those associated with large infrastructure. To deliver a more balanced methodological evaluation, perspectives from different project stakeholders are captured here: those of the client (National Highways and A14 IDT), principal archaeological contractor (MHI) and curator (Cambridgeshire Historic Environment Team; CHET).

The National Highways A14 Road Improvement Scheme between Cambridge and Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire gave rise to one of the largest commercial archaeological projects ever undertaken in the UK. Excavations over 232ha took place between 2016 and 2022 from the Great Ouse Valley near Huntingdon in the west to the higher clay lands towards Cambridge in the east. They involved a huge collaborative team led by MOLA-Headland Infrastructure and revealed groundbreaking archaeology of all periods, from mammoths to medieval villages. This monograph is intended to act as gateway to the project's findings, synthesizing the results in a series of period-based chapters and linking back to the detailed site and specialist reports and the entire digital archive of the project hosted by the Archaeology Data Service.

This report provides a synthesis of the results for a Palaeolithic watching brief carried out at Borrow Pit TEA28 BP3 (NGR TL 3020 6779) as part of the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon road improvement scheme. A number of Late Pleistocene deposits was identified, recorded and sampled for environmental remains. Samples were also taken for optically stimulated luminescence dating (OSL) and accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating (AMS). Vertebrate remains and a very small assemblage of seven lithic artefacts were also collected from some of them.

The WallGIS archive primarily consists of a geodatabase which holds descriptive information, spatial data, and many attribute options capturing the characteristics of Hadrian's Wall and its features. Each individual feature (turret, milecastle, fort, and linear mile of curtain, ditch, and Vallum) that makes up the monumental complex has a record in the WallGIS.

In many places across Europe, it has long been common practice to protect, preserve and research monuments of the recent past. The many ways to approach archaeologies of the near present and recent past creates both a challenge and an opportunity for archaeological heritage management, and were considered in a number of papers from the 2023 EAC symposium and are now published here.

The era in which the distinction between natural processes and human activity was clear has passed. Since at least the 'Great Acceleration' of the mid-20th century, we have entered a new phase where environmental changes, unprecedented in scale, are no longer purely natural. Instead, they stem from the growth of a hybrid aggregate, both natural and artificial. Consequently, things and places can no longer remain unchanged; they do not adhere to our previous conceptions. 'Non-human' entities now respond to our actions, rendering them inherently cultural and anthropogenic. Operating within the present, these entities not only act but also accumulate a form of material memory over time. Even seemingly inert matter is alive, facing the challenges of the Anthropocene: an era characterized by devastation and the destruction of material memory. Thus, the concept of heritage takes on new significance: what does it mean now, and what purpose does it serve? How do we define saving, protecting, or even acknowledging what we continue to call archaeological heritage? The most profound transformations of the Anthropocene are yet to unfold, underscoring the limitations of archaeological practice, which primarily focuses on human creations at a human scale.

Contemporary archaeology was one of the topics addressed within a large study to improve understanding of archaeological heritage management in the Mediterranean basin by the pubarchMED project. While 19th and early 20th century contexts are often studied, contemporary archaeology in the Mediterranean (especially post World War II period) still represents a challenge both for practitioners and heritage managers. This article delves into some structural issues of archaeological heritage management and archaeological practice of the contemporary world, disentangling the main challenges they reveal and the interesting questions they raise for archaeological practice.

The immediate past has been of interest within Polish archaeology only very recently. Research was first undertaken in 1967 and was incidental, tending not to change the general view of archaeologists focused on periods spanning prehistory to the Middle Ages, and then gradually adding the 17th and 18th centuries. A permanent change came in the 1990s with the emergence of development-led archaeology in Poland. Excavations preceding construction of motorways and other infrastructure projects revealed relics dating back to 1800-1945 on an unprecedented scale. Initially, insufficient historical knowledge made archaeological research particularly difficult. Now, after a few decades, this pioneer era is coming to an end, and there are archaeologists focusing mainly on the contemporary period e.g. archaeology of armed conflicts in the broadest sense of the term or narrowly specialised forensic archaeology.

When the Swedish Historic Environment Act was amended in 2014, it became possible to safeguard specific sites of archaeological interest from the 19th and 20th centuries. However, since 2014, few younger sites have received protection. The most likely reason for this is related to a scarcity of resources at the county administrative boards.

Recent advances in machine learning and computer vision techniques have brought (semi-)automatic feature detection within reach of an increasing number of archaeologists and archaeological institutions, including those in Finland. These techniques improve our ability to detect and gather information on archaeological cultural heritage over vast areas in a highly efficient manner. However, the widespread adoption of such methods can also pose significant challenges for archaeological cultural heritage management, especially in relation to certain types of near-ubiquitous archaeological remains from the 17th-20th centuries.

Austria's archaeologists have been dealing with the remains from two World Wars as part of excavations for years. Over the last 20 years, three topics have become very important in Austrian Heritage Management and the following contribution attempts to give an overview.

The process of industrialisation and its effects on traditional crafts can be studied archaeologically particularly well in the area of pottery production, as extensive production remains in the form of misfired pottery can be excavated in addition to workshops and kilns, and provide a good insight into the range of forms and decorations produced at the location. Archaeological research thus provides an insight that archival documents and museum collections can only offer in exceptional cases, as company archives are seldom preserved and everyday tablewares rarely become part of museum collections.

This essay proposes that a pragmatic approach be taken towards Holocaust heritage in the 21st century and beyond. Its point of departure is the recognition that it is now nearly 80 years since the end of the war and we are not making heritage decisions today about such sites based on inheriting them 'untouched' in 1945 and dictating their future role as sites of education, remembrance and pilgrimage. Rather, in acknowledgement that many decades have passed and that buildings from many sites of Holocaust heritage have been put to other uses, I argue that a pragmatic solution is required rather than an insistence that Holocaust heritage must have no function today other than one based solely on remembrance and memorialisation. This essay discusses whether we should be prepared to accept compromises and give up idealistic perceptions of a single 'right' solution that dictates the heritage futures of such sites. The research for this discussion is based upon the 2019-24 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) project Safeguarding Sites, chaired by the author. This essay thus prizes an approach that safeguards Holocaust sites, but questions what we mean by 'safeguarding', arguing that Holocaust heritage is not like the archaeological site of Pompeii; we have not inherited it untouched and preserved in volcanic ash, nor have we had ownership of it continuously since the end of the war.

The archaeology of the Second World War has existed since the 1980s in English-language research. However, the vestiges of this conflict were only officially included in French national heritage at the end of 2013. Only since 2014, the year of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, do preventive archaeology operations prescribe for World War II (WWII) sites.

Since the 1980s, there have been increasing efforts by heritage offices in Germany and Austria, and many of the countries that were occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, to locate places of former Nazi terror and, where possible, to protect them from further destruction in order to preserve them as places of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism. However, methodological considerations and approaches for locating, recording, and eventually assessing the 'heritage value' of former Nazi terror sites remain rather obscure, since little has been published on the methodological approaches taken by different institutions. This article presents a systematic workflow for recording former sites of Nazi terror, which was developed in the framework of the Natzweiler-Concentration-Camp-System-Project based at the Heritage Office of the State of Baden-Württemberg (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege im Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart). It aims to provide a methodological 'How-To' for creating archaeological inventories of former Nazi camps, associated sites and whole 'landscapes of destruction', hints at where to locate useful primary sources, but also to critically reflect on challenges encountered during the project and how they could be approached in the future.

World War II archaeology is a very young discipline in Flanders, although the enormous expertise in conflict archaeology of World War I caused a turnaround in recent years. Putting all the archaeological information together, it turned out that traces of WWII were already being investigated at 172 sites, far more than expected. Some are targeted excavations on large sites, but mostly they are small traces that came to light by chance. This picture is contrasted with knowledge gained in recent years from historical research and from remote sensing sources.

This article focuses on 20th-century conflict sites in Lithuania, examining issues of their protection, heritage conservation and archaeology, as well as current trends in archaeological research methodology.

The Brandenburg State Archaeology Museum has been conserving and analysing relics of war and terror for 25 years, and as a result of this work archaeology is now an integral part of Nazi camp research (Kersting et al. 2016a; Theune 2018). Many camp sites have been investigated, including concentration camps and their subcamps, forced labour camps, and prisoner-of-war camps (Kersting 2020; 2022). While most objects of an industrial culture of the 20th century can be quickly assigned a function, functions do change. Such a shift is a characteristic of Nazi camp finds and reflects their context of bondage and deprivation. The identification of the functions of material remains enables their association with different spheres of life in the camp, so that both perpetrator and victim groups are documented archaeologically. Moreover, these finds serve as tangible evidence to refute any relativisation of the crimes.

In the Arnsberg Forest near Warstein and Meschede (southern Westphalia, western Germany), 208 forced labourers were massacred by the 'Division for Vengeance' (Division zur Vergeltung) of SS General Hans Kammler in March 1945. In the course of this joint project, archaeological research conducted by the Olpe Department of the LWL-Archäologie für Westfalen (Westphalian Archaeological Heritage Service) has pinpointed the exact location of the crime scenes and provided clues for the reconstruction of the course of events in the field (Warstein Langenbachtal, Suttrop, Meschede-Eversberg). It has also enabled the recovery of finds belonging to both the victims and perpetrators.

Archaeological research in the former Warsaw Ghetto conducted in 2021-2022 was the first scientific investigation undertaken in the area in a systematic and planned way. Non-invasive research took place in four locations, followed by excavation campaigns in two selected sites and revealed the cellars of the pre-war buildings and lots of artefacts. Especially interesting was the immediate vicinity of the so-called Anielewicz bunker, where the commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, Mordechai Anielewicz, fought his last battle. Very little is known about the bunker itself and the excavations have shed new light on the issue, possibly unearthing part of the bunker's extended structure. We have to be aware that in comparison to the typical problems of urban archaeology, the archaeology of the Warsaw Ghetto faces some specific issues. The post-war buildings in the area were constructed on the rubble of the ancient city, almost completely destroyed by the Nazis during World War II. Moreover, the former residential quarter of the murdered Jews carries a huge emotional load, and any archaeological find made here acquires symbolic significance. Thus the social reception of the research is extremely important.

This article presents research on the material remains of Nazi and post-war communist prison and forced labour camps in West Bohemia (1939-1945 and 1949-1961). The location of a sample of 35 camps was carried out using historical evidence and aerial images from the 1940s and 1950s. Non-invasive surveys and small-scale excavations of selected camps revealed the preservation of the archaeological record and its attributes, which are closely linked to the subsequent use of the sites. The spatial context showed an interconnection of the camp system with WWII as well as Cold War armament production. The heritage protection of these sites, the current state of memorials and the contemporary utilisation of the camp areas has also been examined. Research has shown the potential of neglected archaeological evidence of places of mass repressions, where crimes against humanity were committed by totalitarian regimes in the former Czechoslovakia. It has also revealed the disturbing fact that these sites have been disappearing at an alarming rate without any documentation, as a result of development and construction activities.

Between July 2021 and November 2022, the federal archaeological office of Bremen (Landesarchäologie) excavated the site of a former cemetery for Soviet Prisoners of War (POW) and forced labourers. The remains had officially been reinterred at an honorary cemetery in Bremen in 1948. Only a small part of this article is about what the excavation revealed and rather its purpose is to reflect on the situation that has arisen between Landesarchäologie and two citizen's initiatives at the time of the official closure of the excavation. We set out how local conflicts can emerge when an archaeological excavation is associated with a highly pollitical topic. We also explore how to manage the public interest while, at the same time, attempting to protect the personal dignity of the buried individuals. We engaged with the historical responsibility the city takes for its industrial sites and its past profit from forced labour and discuss the (often unfamiliar) societal function of the work of archaeologists. The research project aims to identify the people buried and to investigate the status of health provision, food supply and overall daily living in the Soviet POW camps in Bremen by linking the results of archaeology, bioanthropology and historical sources in a database.

This short note argues that relevance and acceptance of archaeological heritage, particularly that from the 18th to the 20th centuries, hinge on effective public mediation. To achieve this, it is crucial to focus on the value and legitimisation of monuments from an impartial perspective. Employing an interdisciplinary and open-minded approach is essential in providing pertinent responses to enquiries that resonate with contemporary society. Therefore an approach to archaeological heritage by drawing on extended themes or categories is suitable to make archaeological heritage 'present' and generate public acceptance for heritage work.

TII managed the various cultural heritage requirements of works contracts associated with the construction of Luas Cross City (LCC) transport scheme in Dublin, Ireland. This scheme provides an ideal case study to consider how archaeological projects can help us understand the development and eastward expansion of the city's public realm from the late 17th to the 20th century. It also demonstrates how we can apply lessons learned from cultural heritage works to engineering contracts.

This article systematises the architectural and archaeological remains of the Ottoman presence in Sofia and describes the modus operandi reagrding their restoration and reconsideration within the context of the constant urban development of the Bulgarian capital. It shows the main approaches and methods applied by one of the leading national museum institutions in the preservation, presentation, and socialisation of the remains from the Ottoman period (15th-19th centuries).

At the beginning of the 19th century, nobody in the landscape of the heaths and ponds of Lusatia, a small region in the German-Polish border area, would have suspected the lasting effects of the lignite mining boom on the economy, landscape, and the local communities there. The initially small underground mines soon developed into large open-pit mines. 'Industrial cathedrals' were established, new cities were raised out of the heathland, long-distance transport networks were expanded, and industrial centres emerged that gained importance throughout Europe. The local population and culture changed through migration, adaptation and assimilation, the landscape through the huge earth movements caused by lignite mining. This enormous transformation of an entire region has an impact on identity even today, and still influences political processes. It is now the task of archaeology and heritage management organisations to document this recent past as well and to preserve its cultural value.

This article gives a concise introduction to some of the potential benefits of studying the archaeology of the 18th to 20th centuries. Using a selection of examples, it aims to provide guides to multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches to the material culture from this period. It reflects on some of the archaeological remains, the theoretical frameworks and the practices that originated in the 18th to 20th centuries and remain pertinent to those who focus on this period today. By outlining some of the general theoretical underpinnings, and the range of established and emerging practices within what we know as the Anthropocene, it will enable researchers to recognise that they are not alone in their endeavours to explore, interpret, manage and learn from the complex recent pasts.

Large-scale projects, such as infrastructure or long-term research, generate some of the largest data sets which form the core of their legacy for research and future projects. Due to the scale of the data being generated and managed, projects have developed innovative approaches to transform data into meaningful information and ensure integration of data into the project lifecycle. This paper serves to present the background and context for the session presented at EAA 2022, Budapest, organised by HS2 Ltd and Jacobs Suedlink and summarises some of the papers presented within the session and which are now published in this issue.

Zoot is a database interface for entering and retrieving data such as lists, photos, 3D site models, small find details. It can process data, perform calculations, and prepare exports intended for further processing with more specialised programs. It provides a framework for keeping track of and linking all graphical documentation (photos, drawings, models), small finds, and samples with the primary excavation documentation.

'Big Data' is a misunderstood but technically definable concept; it is large volume, unstructured, heterogenous information, that is being generated at a high velocity - which normally means it is being constantly updated in real time. And, in many situations, this is very difficult to work with; an analogy might be to compare the curated content of Netflix, which is a (very) large but structured data set, with the unending chaos of YouTube content, which is Big Data. The first part of this paper considers big data, and how it is defined and used, with the second part considering how large amounts of small data can be used in sociology as applied to archaeology.

Large Infrastructure projects create vast amounts of data during the course of programmes of archaeological investigation, from the description of an archaeological deposit to complex three-dimensional survey data. It is key for future research and the completion of the archaeological programme that the data support the questions we wish to answer. This paper will consider the range of data generated from HS2 Phase One, and the potential of those data in the process of analysis and interpretation and their broader spatial and research context . The paper will also consider which data are key for different stages of the project lifecycle, and the extent to which the process of data capture may influence the narratives that are developed.

Four different systems combine to form the digital legacy of the project, which complement the physical archive. These four systems are: HS2 Asset Information Management System (AIMS) and GIS systems, as well as Online Access to the Index of Archaeological Investigations (OASIS), and supporting digital data curated with the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) systems. As significant parts of the programme legacy, HS2's historic environment physical and digital archive establish an unprecedented opportunity for knowledge creation.

This article discusses some of the limitations the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) experiences as a digital repository, what is currently being done to maximise the reach of the ADS collections, and what tools have been created to aid both depositors and digital archives alike. Starting at the beginning of the data life cycle, this article shows how large infrastructure projects like HS2 allow the ADS to work with depositors to raise issues about data collection, generation, and description during project development and how collaborative efforts can improve the creation and import of data and metadata into the archive. The ADS has made steps towards keeping our data FAIR but simple, both by streamlining what metadata is essential to foster better discovery and reuse within an archive, and from there, how metadata can be passed to external data catalogues such as ARIADNEplus and The National Archives in the UK.

The University of Bradford has established wide-ranging skillsets and capabilities as Visualising Heritage that have been built around expertise with 3D imaging for human bioarchaeology and for contextual understanding of archaeological sites, landscapes, heritage structures and associated artefacts. This paper reflects upon how these have been put to use during enabling works for HS2 and also the potential of this work for analysis, public engagement and legacy. The main focus of this paper covers 3D digital documentation of the world's first railway roundhouse designed by Robert Stephenson at Birmingham Curzon Street, together with immersive content that helps to tell the story of its discovery and exposure. We discuss 3D modelling that helps to link both to the original architectural drawings and to the broader narratives for understanding changes to the design of the building during its working life. We also contextualise its place within the historic environment relative to the Principal Building – the original Curzon Street terminus for the London and Birmingham Railway, the Eagle and Tun public house and the former Park Street Cemetery.

The volume originates from a conference session co-organised by Edeltraud Aspöck, Guntram Geser and Julian Richards, at the international conference ‘Cultural Heritage and New Technologies’ (CHNT) held in Vienna in November 2022. The papers presented there have been extensively revised, and some additional ones have been commissioned. They represent a wide range of activities, and illustrate some of the impacts of ARIADNE across heritage management and research.

Following a brief introduction to the ARIADNE initiative, this article presents selected achievements of the initiative with the ARIADNEplus project. It addresses the extension and support of the ARIADNE community, the activities promoting FAIR data in archaeology, and the standardisation of datasets based on the CIDOC CRM and the domain vocabularies Getty AAT and PeriodO. It considers the ARIADNE Portal as an effective data access and research tool, and the development of Virtual Research Environments as a new innovative approach.

The archaeological research community was an early adopter of digital tools for data acquisition, organisation, analysis, and presentation of research results of individual projects. However, the provision of e-infrastructure and services for data sharing, discovery, access, and reuse has lagged behind. The ARIADNE Research Infrastructure has sought to address this situation. Developed with European funding, ARIADNE has created an e-infrastructure that enables data providers to register and provide access to their digital resources through the ARIADNE data portal, facilitating discovery, access, and research. ARIADNE has aggregated resources from over 45 data providers, spanning over 40 countries and 4 continents. The portal now provides online access to over 3.9 million research resources. It is based upon Linked Open Data technologies and is underpinned by a flexible and extensible architecture, enabling multiple combinations and presentations of the same underpinning data. We have been keen not to 'make a great heap' of all the data and, learning from previous data aggregation projects, we have defined a subset of the CIDOC CRM to be used as a strict ontology and paid close attention to data standards and controlled vocabularies to achieve a high degree of interoperability. This article discusses some of the challenges of large-scale data integration and describes the approaches adopted to ensure that the ARIADNE Knowledge Base is an effective tool for archaeological heritage management and research at a national and international level.

The contribution of the Romanian National Institute of Heritage (NIH) to the ARIADNE catalogue consists of 22,298 cultural resources, 18,277 of which are archaeological sites and 4021 are fieldwork reports. The two types of data were extracted from the two repositories that INP manages: the National Archaeological Repertory and the Chronicle of Archaeological Research. In Romania, the legislation regarding the protection of archaeological heritage establishes the National Archaeological Repertory as the means of managing the scientific data relating to the archaeological heritage, and of mapping archaeological sites as well as the threats to them. In addition, the same legislation stipulates that preliminary excavation reports should be published in a volume edited by the National Archaeology Commission, if the research was financed by public funds. As a result, for better dissemination, the reports are uploaded to a database. Both the Repertory and the Chronicle are accessible online through the INP management web portal. In order to fulfil the NIH's obligations within the ARIADNEplus project, several corrections and changes were made to the structures of both repositories (RAN and Chronicle) and data had to be updated. First of all, a photo upload module that illustrates both an archaeological site, perceived as a landscape, and its various components was developed. At the same time, the NIH team carried out a campaign to map the archaeological sites using coordinates in the WGS84 system, using various cartographic resources, such as topographic maps, aerial photographs and satellite images. The third activity consisted of creating a hierarchical list of archaeological site types and their components to support a more accurate description and retrieval of database records. Conversion of the RAN archaeological records to AO-Cat compliant RDF data was the fourth activity conducted by NIIH in order to include the RAN records in the ARIADNE Knowledge Base. Subsequently, a hierarchical list of the archaeological periods used in Romanian archaeology was developed, where every period is described by three main components: name, time interval and geographical area. This list has been converted to the PeriodO format and will be imported into the gazetteer.

This article presents an overview of the aggregation process of DB-HERITAGE data into ARIADNEplus. It includes a summary of DB-HERITAGE's strengths and of the challenges faced within the scope of the aggregation process, with examples of some of DB-HERITAGE's major outputs. Additionally, it considers the benefits and opportunities provided by participation in ARIADNEplus.

Integration of data on coin finds into the ARIADNE portal presents a number of challenges, partly related to the use of the Getty AAT as a controlled vocabulary, in particular its incomplete coverage and hierarchical structure. Further problems arise from the fact that the majority of the data are being provided not from primarily numismatic projects and institutions, but rather from disparate archaeological resources that integrate a wide range of artefacts and records. As a result, they often focus less on the peculiarities of using the AAT for coin finds and the difficulties that arise from its use. This article illustrates how this can lead to quite disparate and inconsistent mappings of data to the ARIADNE portal.

The Museum of Cultural History (MCH) at the University of Oslo, Norway, has undertaken a series of infrastructure projects with the aim of improving the standardisation of archaeological data and increasing data integration at both a national and international level. This builds on decades of earlier work and includes a revision of shared National database systems (unimus), integration of previously disparate data types and spatial data (ADED), and more recently the development of a 3D publishing platform (BItFROST). These projects feed into broader aims of large-scale data integration as part of the European-wide ARIADNE Research Infrastructure. This article provides an overview of the history and development of these systems in Norway and takes a look at some of the roads still ahead.

Making archaeological data available for the scientific community received a major boost through the ARIADNE Infrastructure projects that began in 2013. The purpose of this article is to present a methodology for converting excavation and field survey documentation from its original source into a format that corresponds to the FAIR principles and commits to the ARIADNE guidelines, with the ultimate goal to make the data publicly available and incorporating them into the ARIADNE portal.

In this article we describe an online database about human evolution, called the ROCEEH Out of Africa Database (ROAD), and discuss our experience in aggregating Palaeolithic data from ROAD in the ARIADNE data processing pipeline. As of April 2023, ROAD contains more than 2400 localities in Africa and Eurasia dating between three million and 20,000 years ago. The database is transdisciplinary by nature and includes cultural artefacts, human and animal fossils, and plant remains. These finds are stored in a relational database, which is part of a structured, web-based, geographic information system. The process of preparing ROAD data for integration with ARIADNE taught us lessons about our own dataset, which we share here.

This article focuses on the aggregation of Cypriot archaeological datasets, digitally archived in local repositories, into the ARIADNE portal. It considers, in particular, the development of an application profile for inscriptions and presents the integration of two collections, consisting of ancient coins and inscriptions carved on stones. It highlights the tools and ontologies developed for the aggregation and management of these digital resources, as well as the related pipeline and activities. The issues encountered are also presented, plus the solutions adopted and the successful results in the data aggregation of these collections into the infrastructure. Currently, thanks to the pipeline, and the semantic tools developed and used in ARIADNE, a collection of Cypriot medieval coins and a corpus of Ancient Greek inscriptions are now more widely accessible to the archaeological community.

This article discusses the creation of an Application Profile (AP) for mortuary data and how it was used to integrate the THANADOS anthropological and archaeological database of sepultures in the ARIADNEplus infrastructure.

In this contribution, we discuss the current state and future directions of the field of semantic representation of archaeological excavation data and consider several issues that constrain the applicability of existing solutions. We identify five key enabling technologies or research areas (Conceptual models and semantic data structures, Conceptual modelling patterns, Data mapping workflows and tools, Learning technologies and Semantic queries) and assign readiness levels to assess their level of technological maturity.

This article discusses the importance of the Portal of Amateur Collaborators and the Register of Individual Finds of the Archaeological Map of the Czech Republic (AMCR-PAS) in preserving data from metal-detecting activities in the Czech Republic. The context and legal framework of metal detecting in the country are explained along with the establishment of AMCR-PAS. The collaboration between amateur and professional archaeologists is also discussed. The recorded finds are analysed in terms of chronological, typological and spatial distribution. The AMCR-PAS system is recognised as a crucial tool for the preservation of data from metal detecting, and provides a valuable resource for national and transnational archaeological research, enabled especially by aggregation of AMCR-PAS data in the ARIADNE infrastructure. Overall, this article highlights the significance of the AMCR-PAS system and its potential to contribute to the understanding of the country's rich archaeological heritage. It also examines the shortcomings and challenges that accompany applying the system in practice.

This article discusses the situation that exists in several European countries, whereby information about archaeological sites and monuments, and that about finds recorded by members of the public (primarily via metal detecting), is held in entirely separate databases. This prevents heritage management decisions being taken with full awareness of known archaeology, and makes research that seeks to draw on multiple information resources difficult. The article demonstrates how the European ARIADNE e-infrastructure has facilitated the integration of large-scale artefact and site information. Over one million records from the British Museum Portable Antiquities Scheme database and over one million records for English sites, monuments, and grey literature have been integrated in an open access interface for the first time, permitting entirely new research questions to be addressed.

The Comprehensive Database of Archaeological Site Reports in Japan (SORAN) is an online index of domestic archaeological excavations operated by the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties (NABUNKEN). SORAN emerged as a response to the need to improve the findability and accessibility of Japanese archaeological grey literature and the information contained therein. NABUNKEN joined the ARIADNEplus project in 2019 and finished integrating SORAN's metadata into the ARIADNE Catalogue in 2022. In this article we give a short overview of how archaeological data, especially fieldwork reports, are produced in Japan. Next, we summarise the history of SORAN and the nature of its dataset. Finally, we explain the steps taken to transform the Japanese dataset to allow its integration in the ARIADNE Catalogue.

BaDACor is a database that contains a comprehensive inventory of archaeological sites located in the province of Córdoba, Argentina. The creation of this database was the result of a top-down approach, which involved the collaboration of decision-makers and professionals from the academic and state-governmental sectors. Furthermore, the database has also been utilised in a bottom-up approach, whereby interest groups and citizens concerned with heritage preservation have made use of it. This has been particularly important in light of the construction of Highway 38, which has resulted in damage to natural habitats and the destruction of territories of communities with traditional ways of life. Additionally, the construction of the highway has also endangered the integrity of ancestral territories loaded with symbolism for aboriginal communities. BaDACor has been employed in legal claims in cases of conflict with the state, and has proved to be an invaluable tool for heritage management. This is especially significant for local communities and indigenous groups who have historically had their heritage desecrated, destroyed, and hidden. The availability of BaDACor on different platforms has facilitated better access to information while also ensuring the preservation of digital data. The use of digital media has been reinforced through talks, conferences, and meetings with stakeholders to ensure that the voices of affected communities are heard in decision-making processes.

In Croatia, the legal framework for managing cultural heritage is defined by the Act on the Protection and Preservation of Cultural Objects. Simultaneously, archaeological activities are governed by the Ordinance on Archaeological Research, which, together with the Act on Museums, also regulates the archiving of field documentation. These regulations stipulate that, in addition to archaeological finds, fieldwork documentation must be submitted to a competent public museum institution. Consequently, museums bear legal responsibility for the archaeological documentation and its archiving. While Croatian museums have established long-standing and standardising procedures for collecting data on museum objects, no standards or guidelines have ever been established for archiving datasets created during archaeological fieldwork. Given the absence of a national digital data archiving system for archaeology, this article focuses on considering the factors necessary to establish an appropriate infrastructure for digital data archiving in Croatia.

The aim of this article is to put into perspective the efforts of more than 150 years of attempts to create archaeological repertoires and archives at a national level in Romania that correspond to changing needs through time. Along with technological advances, centralisation and digital archiving have provided the prerequisites for the creation of a national archaeological repertoire that contains, as far as possible, all the information available for each individual site, and being associated with resources that can be found in other databases, making it a dynamic tool that is continuously updated. Other databases are featured as they make up the digital record of the archaeological heritage in Romania and provide content to the national archaeological repertory. Future plans regarding the improvement of all these databases are presented.

This article provides a brief overview of the current state of digital archaeology in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) and points to major challenges for its future. It presents the most important efforts and achievements made by institutions, communities and individuals involved in various digitisation projects. The article also reveals significant obstacles that limit the current scope and speed of the digitisation process. In order to move forward, the article advocates the adoption of a 'participative perspective', where different stakeholders may participate in a socially inclusive way to remember and celebrate BIH cultural heritage through digital archives, exhibitions and storytelling practices. The article also suggests the need to take a more holistic approach to managing BIH archaeological knowledge in a digital environment in order to realise the full power of that knowledge.

The creation of a trusted digital archive in Ireland with the establishment of the Digital Repository of Ireland provides the opportunity to archive, manage and facilitate open access to archaeological and historic environment digital data. This overview explores the present situation in Ireland and describes the current responsibilities of several of the state bodies and organisations in Ireland and their response to providing open data. Examples are given within the geospatial domain, where more progress has been achieved, and the initiatives of Transport Infrastructure Ireland in opening up their resources are examined. Finally, with the advent of new government policy and potential legislation, future possibilities are highlighted.

This article presents the current state of the art regarding digital archiving for archaeology in Cyprus. The analysis of the current European situation shows that various countries have reached diverse levels of digitisation concerning archaeology and have different ways of dealing with digital archiving. These differences depend on several factors, such as the presence or lack of expertise, information regarding the procedure, and availability of funding, as well as the history of archaeology of the country. The current contribution analyses the Cypriot state of the art of digital archiving for archaeology in the broader context of the digital transformation era, which drives all major changes and strategies in various sectors of society at both national and international level. This article describes the archaeological background of Cyprus, its peculiarity and challenges and how these elements shape the digital management of the field. The article also presents the main actors involved in archival digitisation and the most relevant digital archaeological repositories, underlining innovative approaches and current gaps. Finally, it addresses the future directions of digital archiving for archaeology in Cyprus.

Archiving of digital research data according to established standards and methods is an important part of the research data lifecycle. It guarantees the long-term transparency and reusability of research results. This is especially important in the case of archaeological data where the preservation of unique and irreplaceable cultural heritage is paramount. To gain insight into the current state of affairs regarding long-term archiving in Germany, the SEADDA (Saving European Archaeology from the Digital Dark Age) COST Action and the Commission on Archaeology and Information Systems in the Association of German State Archaeologists, with the support of the IANUS Research Data Center of the DAI, conducted a survey in spring/summer 2021. This article presents the results of the survey along with recommendations for further and supporting measures aimed at improving the long-term archiving of digital archaeological data in Germany.

The digital transition in archaeology is often taken for granted, yet the process is far from complete. The topic of digital archiving has been addressed by both the EAC Working Group for Archaeological Archives and the SEADDA COST Action. These two entities joined forces to produce a special issue of Internet Archaeology, bringing together contributions on digital archiving practices from over two dozen countries. The articles were later analysed by EAC and SEADDA to compare the international situation. The results reveal both shared difficulties associated with the issue of documentary archives worldwide and examples of good practices that help to overcome these problems. A questionnaire survey was also carried out to complement the findings resulting from the interpretation of the published articles, with supporting data covering the whole European area in a balanced way. The survey allowed for the compilation of an overview of the situation in 27 countries (30 regions) of Europe. All respondents were experts involved in digital archiving and/or heritage data management in individual countries. Based on the collected information, the discrepancy between the value of archaeological data and its position within heritage management practice is already proving to be a major shortcoming.

This research aimed to understand how to optimise archives and interfaces to maximise the discovery, use and reuse of archaeological data and explore how archaeological archives can better respond to user needs.

The EAC's 23rd Heritage Management Symposium took place March 24–25, 2022, at the Natural History Museum Vienna on behalf of the Austrian Federal Monuments Authority (Bundesdenkmalamt). The choice of venue and cooperating institution attests to the symposium's interdisciplinary approach. In the following 14 papers, the authors explore three general themes: Archaeology as habitat, Archaeology and biodiversity, and Archaeological heritage and natural heritage management

The relationship between the cultural history of the human race and the natural history of our planet is indivisible. For hundreds of thousands of years, we have depended upon, been shaped by, and, in turn, shaped the natural environment which we occupy.

The archaeological site of Aguntum is located near Lienz in East Tyrol. Around ten years ago, Aguntum was not attractive to visitors, had an inconsistent appearance, and no clear policy for future development. In 2014, this led to the initiation of a broad-based process to define a mission statement for Aguntum. The goal was to create a common, homogeneous strategy that would serve as a future 'big picture' for all decision-makers to orientate themselves by. Based on this, a master plan was developed. Over the years, it has been possible to implement many measures, defined in the master plan, while still sticking to the actual basic tasks of scientific excavation work and preservation or conservation of the monument. Aguntum is a good example that cultural heritage and biodiversity are very closely related.

a new reasonable approach on conservation interventions and archaeological excavations will be taken on some of the monuments at the Archaeological Park of Butrint . These interventions will be regulated by an Integrated Management Plan implemented in 2021, and will include the management of cultural and natural assets. The Management Plan conditions will determine, control and ensure a sustainable and long-term administration of the monuments and the site.

The two Phoenician shipwrecks, Mazarrón I and Mazarrón II, discovered in 1988 and 1994 respectively, are highly significant remains of underwater archaeology. While Mazarrón I has been lifted and transferred to the ARQUA Museum in Cartagena, Mazarrón II has remained in situ, protected by a metal structure and meshes placed on the sediments. However, monitoring has shown that the structures are probably deteriorating as a result of human action. A project is planned to safely extract the wreck in order to display it in the ARQUA Museum in the future.

In Sweden, there is a centuries-old tradition of making visible and providing data about a selection of the country's ancient remains through land management and information at these sites. This work has been carried out in different ways, but the purpose has always been to protect, make visible and to inform the public about our cultural heritage. Today this is routine, but at the beginning of the 20th century there were major tensions regarding how cultural heritage should be cared for.

Prehistoric lake dwellings around the Alps have been of great interest to researchers and are now part of the UNESCO World Heritage List. These sites offer challenging but favourable building locations around a lake with constantly changing water levels, which likely resulted in a lot of movement from people and nature over time. When water levels rose, these sites were taken over by aquatic plants and animals. But owing to climate change, neozoa and neophytes are spreading quickly into new habitats. It is important to document and monitor these developments in order to understand the extent and potential threat of these species in different areas.

A considerable part of the Czech Republic has been forested with spruce monocultures, which are nowadays at risk of disastrous bark beetle infestation and consequently the destruction of forest stands. Such a development forces us to seek common grounds for landscape conservation and more consistent communication in setting forest management rules. Nevertheless, the trend of rapid deforestation implies a considerable threat to the hitherto unknown but also known archaeological heritage resource. Joint advocacy of the values associated with archaeological sites incorporated within the processes of landscape change assessment constitutes a distinct task aimed at ensuring that such an essential part of the landscape's memory becomes a publicly accepted value.

The aim of this article is to demonstrate how animal remains from archaeological sites can contribute to a better understanding of human impact on the terrestrial and aquatic environment over time. A number of case studies, mainly from Belgium, illustrate the possible effects of deforestation, overhunting, overfishing and water pollution on wildlife. Species extinctions and introductions from the last millennium are also discussed. It is shown how relevant these results are and how they can be communicated to the general public, the wider scientific community and stakeholders.

116 structures from various chronological periods have been excavated at the site 5012-West. However, pits from the Hellenistic Period (late 3rd to early 1st century BC) are most numerous and provide invaluable archaeobotanical evidence on plant subsistence and local vegetation.

In a methodologically exemplary study area in northern Westphalia, it has been possible to identify a cultural landscape that has existed since the Late Neolithic. In this diachronic synopsis, it is evident that the cultural landscape was constituted around a geological phenomenon into a sacred landscape from the Late Neolithic onwards, then persisted for at least three millennia and then became more secular in the Middle Ages. New absolute dating has made it possible to synchronise the changes in the natural environment with changes in the anthropogenic material-cultural traces in the study area. Changes in biodiversity are no longer documented exclusively in the pollen data, but can now also be read from the anthropogenic archaeological relics.

Precision agriculture is beginning to produce large quantities of varied sensing data across extensive landscape areas. This situation creates an opportunity to adapt and reuse precision agricultural data for archaeology and heritage work, extending covering and enhancing our understanding of archaeology in contemporary agricultural landscapes.

The landscape of southern Hesse is characterised by many old watercourses. These are areas worthy of protection for both nature conservation and monument protection. On the one hand, they provide special conditions for flora and fauna related to water bodies; on the other hand, from an archaeological point of view, the old watercourses are traffic routes, habitats, sacrificial sites and archives for the history of the landscape. The protection requirements of both interests leads to synergies, but also to disagreements and problems in dealing with the protected areas. Experiences resulting from cooperation are discussed in this article, as well as approaches to solutions for improving joint action.

Archaeological monuments are mostly situated in the natural environment and in Estonia are sometimes also protected under the Nature Conservation Act, meaning they are double protected and double managed as well. The system has its challenges, benefits and dangers, since the protection regimes for nature or heritage protection sites are slightly different. In some cases, they complement each other, but there are cases where the protection regimes may diverge. The nature conservation-related management of archaeological monuments in Estonia is described and a few examples of such cases are discussed.

Funded by the Federal Office for Nature Conservation in close cooperation with Nature Conservation (Rhine-Sieg District) and Cultural Heritage Protection (LVR-State Service for Archaeological Heritage in the Rhineland) , the aim of this project was to conduct a major conservation project according to environmental communication protocols, and the first to be carried out in Germany. The occasion was the establishment of a maintenance and development plan in a major conservation project, scanning more than 10,000 hectares, and their subsequent realisation. The project helped create communication, coordination, and working structures, which were not only expandable but coulf also be applied to other nature conservation projects. In many cases, for their protection, the monument sites are transferred into a sustainable nature and heritage-compatible use during the implementation period using the measures suggested in the care and development plan of the conservation project 'chance 7' in the Rhine-Sieg District. Monuments suitable for presentation are preserved and made accessible to the general public.

The article is a review of specially designated nature protected areas and Stone Age settlements in north-western Latvia, called North Kurzeme. This area was chosen because it has a special environment. It is a culturally and historically important coastal region with diverse protected natural areas, a unique coastal landscape, and important archaeological sites. The article provides information about Moricsala Nature Reserve and Slītere National Park, their management, and about the Stone Age settlements discovered there.

This article discusses the international agreements that have been made for the protection of heritage and nature. It is shown that, while there are often formal separations between the two realms, there is an increasing convergence between them. An overview is given of the significance of the various international organisations who deal with the international rules of law concerning nature and heritage. On four topics, there is further discussion about the possibilities for cooperation between the two domains: the World Heritage Convention, the conventions for biological diversity and intangible heritage, the rules concerning the Law of the sea and the Wetlands Convention.

This monograph describes the archaeological and palaeontological finds from Pin Hole Cave (Creswell Crags) in their known stratigraphic context and considers the unusual and diverse evidence within a local, regional and European context.

This article presents outcomes from The Matrix project (AHRC AH/T002093/1) that address the current problems caused by the lack of standardized approaches to digital archiving of archaeological data using the case study of stratigraphic and phasing data.

Blackmiddens Farm distillery, also known as Buck distillery, has recently been the focus of historical research and excavation. At the time of the first season of fieldwork Blackmiddens/Buck was the only farm distillery to have been excavated in the Highlands and Islands. The site represents a short-lived period of distilling in the Scottish Highlands in which whisky-making operated in a legitimate commercial capacity but as a complement to a larger agricultural unit. The excavation of Blackmiddens and historical research into it and the distilleries in the surrounding area have given us an insight into this short but vital transitional phase in the history of whisky-making in the region.

The FeedSax project combined bioarchaeological data with evidence from settlement archaeology to investigate how, when and why the expansion of arable farming occurred between the 8th-13th centuries in England. It has generated and released a vast, multi-faceted archaeological dataset both to underpin its own published findings and to support further research.

The southern North Sea preserves an internationally significant early Middle Palaeolithic finds assemblage that was discovered through aggregate dredging in marine aggregate Licence Area 240 off the coast of Norfolk. Area 240 is part of a regional block of licence areas that have been worked since the 1970s. Significant discoveries from the assemblage in 2007/2008 sparked further investigations. Through geophysical and geoarchaeological assessment the cultural material was found to be associated with a floodplain deposit of the now submerged Palaeo-Yare river system. The Palaeo-Yare catchment extended beyond Area 240 and was present in adjacent aggregate areas, which led to the development of a regional monitoring programme at aggregate wharves to manage and assimilate all new archaeological data. This was supported by a geological review of any new marine geophysical or geotechnical surveys to test hypotheses about context. This process has been ongoing for almost 20 years and here we present a review of all development-led (grey literature) works. The stratigraphic, chronological and landscape context of the important Palaeolithic finds from aggregate licence areas in the southern North Sea are considered in relation to taphonomy and patterns of inhabitation.

This article presents initial results from excavations at Maritime Academy, Frindsbury, which produced several handaxes, two of which can be classed as 'giant handaxes'. Artefacts were recovered from fluvial deposits in the Medway Valley and are thought to date from the Marine Isotope Stage 9 interglacial. This article focuses on the largest of these handaxes and presents metrical data for the artefact and initial comparison with similar artefacts from the British Palaeolithic.

This data paper highlights the GIS spatial datasets generated from the HS2 Phase One historic environment fieldwork programme. It explains the technical components of the datasets which are deposited with the Archaeology Data Service (ADS).

A programme of archaeological trial trenching and excavation was undertaken by CFA Archaeology Ltd between Maryport (Alavna) Roman Fort and Netherhall Road on the north-eastern outskirts of Maryport from 2010 to 2016. The work confirmed the presence of a large sub-square ditched enclosure with two phases of construction, which is interpreted as a Romano-British rural farm site. It contained a variety of pottery deposited in its ditches, dating from the 1st to the 4th century CE.

Although silver coins have been investigated through the lens of geological provenance to locate argentiferous ore deposits exploited in their production, we consider that this avenue of research may be a cul-de-sac, especially for studies that rely heavily on deciphering lead and silver isotope signatures that may have been altered by the addition of lead and copper (and their associated impurities) during silver refining and debasement, and by ancient recycling of coinage. Instead, we focus our attention on mints, by analysing the compositions of over 1000 silver coins from the early 1st century BC to AD 100. We propose that lead from the west Mediterranean was used exclusively to refine silver at mints in the West, and that an unknown lead supply (possibly from Macedonia), used in the East by the Late Seleucid ruler Philip I Philadelphus and later Mark Antony, was mixed with western lead. Extensive mixing of lead and/or silver coins is particularly evident under Nero and Vespasian, aligning with historically attested periods of recycling following currency reform. We further propose that coins minted in the kingdom of Mauretania used different lead and silver sources from the majority of coins minted in the western Mediterranean, and that silver coins minted at Tyre are derived from silver refined in the west Mediterranean. Coinage minted at Alexandria is consistent with debasement of recycled Roman denarii, thereby suggesting that denarii were deliberately removed from circulation to mint tetradrachms during the early Imperial Roman period.

DigVentures was commissioned by Wakefield Metropolitan District Council (WMDC) to undertake a programme of archaeological investigations as part of the Gatehouse Project, a community-focused archaeological research project based at Pontefract Castle, West Yorkshire. The social impact of the archaeological investigations, including project outcomes for heritage, for people and for the community, have been analysed and published in an earlier article. This article focuses on the archaeological evidence recovered during the excavations, and the conclusions drawn about the construction and chronology of the gatehouse at this part of the site.

The Gatehouse Project at Pontefract Castle took place between September 2019 and August 2020. This data paper describes the project data from the community focused archaeological investigation undertaken by DigVentures.

This article presents a case study in maximising the potential of publicly collected archaeological finds, through collaboration between finder, recorder, curating institution and the research community. It focuses on an object reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, of a type not usually well represented among metal-detected finds: an early-medieval antler hair comb. Typological and biomolecular analysis of the comb - found on the shores of the river Orwell, Suffolk - shows that it was manufactured in Scandinavia in the mid-10th century, before being brought to south-east England. This is the first comb found in England to be identified as Scandinavian via biomolecular means, and represents an important, scientifically-verified demonstration of contact between the regions in the period following initial settlement.

While our archaeological deposits and historic places are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, our knowledge and skills as archaeologists are also relevant to supporting society in adapting to a changing climate and a low carbon future.

This article deals with the effects of climate change on coastal heritage sites located on the south west coast of Ireland. The three case studies discussed, Dunbeg Promontory Fort, Skellig Michael and Ballinskelligs Priory, are National Monument sites in state care. The Office of Public Works (OPW) is responsible for their day-to-day maintenance and conservation. Climate change has been affecting these sites and causing damage to their historic fabric. The OPW has taken mitigating measures to reduce the impact of climate change on these sites and protect their architectural, archaeological and natural features.

Climate change is recognised by ICOMOS and the IUCN as the fastest growing threat to World Heritage (WH) properties. The Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) was first piloted at the Natural WH property of Shark Bay, Western Australia, in 2018; the first application to a Cultural WH property took place in April 2019 at the Heart of Neolithic Orkney in Scotland. This article outlines the results of the Orkney workshop together with one for Edinburgh conducted in May-June 2021 and looks at the benefits of the CVI assessment process.

n 2019, the Iberian Peninsula suffered the worst drought in recent decades, leading to a clear reduction in water levels at Spanish reservoirs. This situation allowed previously flooded lands to re-appear, and in many cases they became accessible by foot. The Dolmen of Guadalperal (made of approximately 150 orthostats) was a spectacular sight when it re-emerged and attracted several curious visitors and the media, who understood that this was a unique opportunity to visit it. The responsible administrations therefore needed to act by protecting and archaeologically studying the site.

The values and relative chronology of the eustatic benchmarks corresponding to the destruction of the classical Mesambrian fortifications (third quarter of the 5th century BC) mark the coast during the regression in the middle of the first millennium BC; the route of the late Antique fortress wall (second quarter of the 5th century AD) identify the point of the rise in the sea level until the third quarter of the first millennium AD; the collapse of the northern aisle and the renewal of the monastery basilica of 'The Holy Mother of God Eleusa' in 1341/42 probably coincides with the first stages of the transgression in the second half of the second millennium AD, while the collapse of the church 'St Protomartyr Stephen' in 1855 appears to be shortly before a slow-down in this transgression. The engineering facilities, designed in the 1980s both to preserve the coastline and act as a port, confirm the optimal choice of the ancient and medieval builders in locating their sites.

This article digs into the concept of using past data for current issues. It provides examples of how archaeological data and historical analysis can be used for current and future water-management problems.

In this article we will address the questions of 'understanding past adaptation strategies and facing future challenges' and 'the role of archaeologists in addressing climate change', based on our longstanding research and outreach activities in the Hallstatt region.

In this article we attempt to highlight the pilot character of these plans for integrating into management policies climate-related aspects that need to be addressed in a coordinated manner. This will help not only to achieve the national goals regarding the preservation and adaptation of cultural heritage to counter the effects of climate change, but to prevent and mitigate the specific dangers not only for the World Heritage Properties but, gradually, for all Greek cultural monuments and archaeological sites.

This article discusses what the archaeological heritage offers to society and the surrounding landscapes, in addition to the humanitarian knowledge of human origins and activities. Archaeological sites provide valuable habitats for insects, birds, open-air flora within the modern monoculture of agricultural lands and within commercial forests. Archaeological heritage in rural monocultural landscapes can be consciously used to sustain natural diversity.

Our heritage now faces unprecedented challenges from climate change. However, heritage can also be part of the solution. This article is drawn from the 'Heritage Responds' report issued by the Historic Environment Forum in England in November 2021, just ahead of the United Nations COP26 Conference in Glasgow. The purpose of the report was to highlight the positive actions already being taken by the heritage sector in England, and their partners in academia, ecology, development and the commercial sector, to address a broad range of climate factors. The key message is that while we recognise the very real risks that climate change presents to our tangible heritage, we also recognise there are solutions we can bring to the table that help not only to protect heritage but also bring wider benefits to local, and wider, communities.

Within archaeological research, radiography has been used with human dry bones to diagnose pathologies, demonstrate trauma and assist age estimation through dentition eruption status. This study concerns the acquisition of radiographs, including technical parameters, imaging workflow and associated quantitative analysis of bone. Collectively, these themes can be grouped under the term radiographic technique. Despite its indispensability, the available guidance literature for appropriate radiographic technique in archaeology appears sparse. The aim of this research was to quantify and characterise current knowledge and recommendations related to radiographic technique. A scoping review was conducted, involving a systematic search of academic literature within the last 20 years. Archaeological academic textbooks and journal articles from any geographical location or time period were included but were limited to studies involving human dry bone and written in the English language. Of 244 potential studies, results identified seventeen journal articles and four academic textbooks with direct recommendations or guidance for radiographic technique. The primary reason for exclusion was the omission of methodological detail. The majority of included texts addressed the identification of pathologies, cortical thickness or detection of Harris lines. While recommendations exist, gaps in the knowledge include dedicated guidelines for specific anatomy and the integration of photography during radiographic imaging.

This article presents the results of a survey of data management policies and practices of digital archaeological repositories in Europe and beyond. The survey was carried out in 2021 under the auspices of the European project ARIADNEplus and the COST Action SEADDA. Its main purpose was to collect and analyse information about current policies that determine access to and reuse of data held by digital archaeological repositories, and to investigate the guidance and support needed to make these repositories and data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable).

The Atari 2600 video game Entombed (1982) left open questions in the design and implementation of its efficient maze-generation algorithm that, through serendipity, we are able to address at last. We have analysed almost 500 artefacts that capture the development process leading up to Entombed, artefacts that have not been seen for decades, including a distinct, unreleased Atari 2600 game. This work is interdisciplinary between the fields of archaeology and computer science in the area of archaeogaming; computer science has allowed informed technical analysis of the artefacts, with processes from archaeology used to manage and organise the large number of artefacts, as well as view game development in a human, archaeological context. The deliberate inclusion of a co-author who was a first-hand participant in the game development additionally raises interesting questions about autoethnography, authorship, and objectivity.

Evidence for Final Palaeolithic and Mesolithic occupation at Maryport, Cumbria, was discovered during the excavation of Roman occupation features by CFA Archaeology Ltd. A varied lithic assemblage was recovered including worked flint (55%) and tuff (43%), with the rest consisting of a small amount of chert, chalcedony, and rhyolite. Early occupation, probably dating to the Final Palaeolithic Federmesser-Gruppen, is demonstrated through different technological styles among the lithic assemblage. Three phases of activity were identified from cut features and there was a significant amount of charred hazelnut shell, which gave radiocarbon dates centring around 8200 cal BCE. This site provides the first clear evidence that tuff was exploited directly from sources in the Central Lake District, possibly as early as the Final Palaeolithic. The occupation evidence also demonstrates intensive processing of hazelnuts centring around 8200 cal BCE and lasting for 150–558 years. The dates and occupation span are almost identical to those derived from the Mesolithic structure at Cass ny Hawin 2 on the Isle of Man.

The Covid-19 pandemic had an unprecedented impact on society, with restrictions on socialising and movement during the three lockdown periods between March 2020 and March 2021 (Baker et al. 2021; Institute for Government Analysis 2021). Easily accessible locations offering the typical qualities of tourist destinations moved into the focus of day visitors in periods when restriction eased. The Peak District National Park (PDNP), a cultural landscape comprising historical places, natural beauty spots, and 'chocolate box' villages, offered a way of satisfying the urge to escape to the countryside. The impact was also felt in the heritage sector, with a noticeable change in visitor behaviour and the relationship between park residents and day tourists.

This article discusses the outcomes of research undertaken by the Hypermedia Research Group at the University of South Wales in collaboration with the OASIS team at the Archaeology Data Service in the Linked Data for the Historic Environment (LD4HE) project. The new OASIS system allows stakeholders to record information/events accurately and consistently, using established heritage and spatial vocabularies, including those currently available via the Heritage Data platform. The LD4HE project explores one avenue of enhancing the potential re-use of information recorded by OASIS and making connections with other online data collections. LD4HE enables the creation and export of RDF from the new OASIS V system, a major step towards the production of Linked Data. The main outcomes comprise a conceptual mapping between mandatory OASIS fields and the standard CIDOC-CRM ontology, together with a template-based tool to convert records exported from OASIS to a corresponding RDF representation. A set of SPARQL queries demonstrates the outcomes of the data conversion. New specialised vocabularies required by OASIS have been published as linked data on the Heritage Data platform. The methods are described and illustrated with examples. Reflections on the case study and cost/benefit considerations for Linked Data conversion are discussed, together with possible strategies for reducing the costs of producing Linked Data.

The relics and associated reliquaries of Turku Cathedral are among the most significant early Christian artefacts in Finland preserved in situ. Despite their importance, they have not been the focus of scientific enquiry for a number of decades. This study has focused on one skull shaped relic, although the origin and name of its associated saint remains unknown. The relic is the only such example with high-status decoration in the Turku Cathedral collection and is covered with a red silk decorated with yellow yarn. The bones and fabric have been dated from the beginning of the modern era to the 13th century AD, and variance among the radiocarbon (14C) dates acquired from the bones shows the remains incorporate several individuals. In this study, oxygen and strontium isotope compositions were determined from fragmented bones and textiles. The results are the first isotope analysis performed on this collection housed in Turku Cathedral. Analysis indicates an origin from outside Finland, possibly elsewhere in northern Europe or an Alpine region. This helps take us a little closer to understanding the mystery associated with this sacred artefact.

The Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula has been closely associated with urban centres since the 8th century. Using an approach based on Network Theory, the purpose of this article is to understand and debate the influence that various cities exerted on each other through communication routes during the Islamic presence in the Gharb Al-Andalus – now in modern-day Portugal - and how this influence affected the growth of those cities. This study intends to use statistical analysis based on Network Theory and on its centrality measures in order to build a network of geographical relationships between the cities of the Gharb Al-Andalus. The study of these centrality measures indicates that mutation in the importance of such cities might result from their geographic location, but also by the influence that each city had over the nearest ones. The theory is by measuring the centrality value of a city at a certain moment, it would be possible to indicate the probability that the city would either grow or decline in the subsequent period. This influence on growth was surely due to political, military, religious or commercial contacts but, likewise, by the different ways cities were connected (terrestrial, fluvial and maritime).

A series of six science maps have been created visualising the shape of archaeological research between 2014 and 2021, using metadata from more than 50,000 academic documents. These maps present the intellectual base of the discipline as co-citation networks of sources and of authors, the language of archaeological research as both terms extracted from titles and abstracts and as author keywords, and, lastly, the networks of collaboration created by co-authorship between individuals and institutions. Comparison is made between 2014-2021 and an earlier study examining archaeological research between 2004 and 2013. Archaeology is revealed as a consistently broad and developing subject drawing extensively on methods and approaches from the sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities. It is intrinsically international in practice. Archaeological research is growing at a rate faster than the average for academic research. While there has been progress towards a more diverse community of researchers among those most highly cited, there remain significant issues in the observable diversity between different research areas within the same discipline and sometimes between similar research specialties. Classifications of archaeology by external bodies fail to grasp this diversity of archaeological research. Finally, diversity in terms variants suggests that there is a pressing need for the discipline to take control of its terminology.

The SCPX pipeline, completed in 2018, follows the line of the earlier BTC and SCP pipelines across Azerbaijan towards Georgia. The project included an archaeological programme that supplemented the discoveries of the earlier two projects. The results were very similar, but were significantly different from the earlier work. The SCPX work was carried out on 48 locations using a team of national and international archaeologists. Chalcolithic material was again found at Poylu, Xocaxan and Aılı Dərə. The Kura Araz culture of the early Bronze Age was indicated with burials at Soyuqbulaq and Tovuzçay. The Xocalı-Gədəbəy culture of the late Bronze Age early Iron Age is well represented with a cemetery found at Tovuzçay II and the kurgans at Borsunlu Camp. Antique period jar grave cemeteries were found in the Yevlax area at Əmirarx, Bəyimsarov, Səmədabad and Yaldili. Medieval settlement sites were excavated at Əmirarx, Faxrali, Lək and Hacialili. The major discovery of the project was the medieval castle at Kərpiclitəpə. This was a rectangular structure with towers at each corner and evidence of occupation that probably ended with the Mongol invasion. The report is structured as an introduction to the project, with a brief summary of excavations. The detail for each site can be accessed in the report by links to the archive on the ADS website in a similar form to the BTC/SCP project report. The reader can thus access all the information for each site together with detailed analysis of radiocarbon and other analyses of the sites for all the work in that area from the various projects. Taken as a whole, the work on the three projects provides a means to comprehend part of the very broad early history of northwest Azerbaijan.

The advent of ubiquitous computing has created a golden age for archaeological researchers and participating publics, but the price is a digital resource that is now in jeopardy. The archaeological record, in digital form, is at risk not simply from obsolescence and media failure, but the domain is also unable to fully participate in Open Data. Without swift and informed consensus and intervention, archaeology will lose the majority of its research data legacy and capacity to a digital Dark Age.

This article discusses the state-of-the art of digital archives for archaeological research in Argentina. It also presents and characterises the national and international legal framework and the role played by funding agencies and professional bodies in archaeological practice. In addition, it reports how legal corpora regulate the impact on the management of archaeological digital data. Research infrastructures available at the national level are described, such as the Suquía, an institutional digital archive devoted to archaeology since 2016. Finally, we make a general evaluation of the status quo of research infrastructures mostly concerned with preserving and disseminating data from archaeological research at the national level.

In Austria, archaeological research and excavation practice is shaped by a legislative framework and institutional actors. Besides the institutions, the role of private archaeological contractors has grown in the last decade and recently non-commercial associations have been founded. According to the Austrian Monument Protection Act, the Federal Monuments Authority issues permits for any archaeological excavation or survey activity. Documentation and preservation of physical material are regulated by the Monument Protection Act as well as by dedicated guidelines published by the Federal Monuments Authority. With the recent increased use of digital methods, the importance of preserving and disseminating digital data has risen. Although the Austrian government pursues a digitisation agenda including the promotion of Open Science, the availability of repositories suitable for long-term preservation of digital data does not meet the requirements arising from the ever-increasing amount of data.

Since 2005, the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Baden-Württemberg has been collecting semi-structured archaeological digital project data with the aim of one day turning that data into a real long-term digital archive. This process is still ongoing. In the last 15 years appropriate data formats have been defined, and the transition from CAD to GIS as the mainstay of project recording in Baden-Württemberg has been made. The research-driven development of the Software Survey2GIS (GNU GPL), initiated by the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Baden-Württemberg, facilitates on the one hand an easy-to-use transition of field data into GIS and on the other better control of data formats. We are learning to cope with increasingly more complex data - laser scan, LIDAR and sfm data. The recent advent of commercial archaeology in the state of Baden Württemberg is another factor with which we are confronted. We have experimented with the best methods of convincing archaeologists, technicians and ancillary staff of the necessity of saving their data in a central repository - for example friendliness, even occasional coercion, as well as the guarantee of recoverable data if the deposition rules are followed. The boundary of each saved excavation or survey project is uploaded to the State's own cultural heritage GIS-Application - ADAB - where it can be accessed by researchers. A simple click within the polygon will invoke metadata about the project as well as a selection of quintessential photos. The excavation archive in Baden-Württemberg is, as yet, by no means a fully accessible, usable 'real' digital archive. But we are succeeding in saving the data in a structured manner for future transition into that 'real' archive - hopefully as a pilot project within the framework of the federally financed NFDI infrastructure.

Over the last two decades, technical progress for archaeology within the Bavarian State Department of Monuments and Sites (BLfD) underwent rapid development. It began with the establishment of an information system (FIS) where the workflow of the Department of Archaeological Heritage is mapped. The next step consisted of standardisation of data capture for all institutions and companies undertaking excavation. In response, a homogeneous data model was developed and established through the application ExcaBook. In order to guarantee this solution would be used widely, an Importer was created to import data from other databases or applications. Hereafter it is also planned to process data from restoration and conservation projects, using a similar approach in order to work towards improving data exchange between all related sciences.

As in other countries, Czech archaeology has embarked on a journey of digitisation. This creates the need to cope with the rapid growth of digital data, which must be stored securely over the long term and be accessible in a comprehensible and useful way. This causes several problems. Although there is a centralised and well-resourced digital agenda that meets the requirements of the Heritage Law, outdated legislation and the absence of comprehensive rules do nothing to regulate the management of the most valuable data - the primary documentation of fieldwork events. At present, only summary information on archaeological fieldwork and the final reports, which should contain a substantial selection of documentation, are centrally collected and stored. This is a situation that is difficult to accept as primary (raw) data with a greater information value is disappearing into thin air. The premise for change lies in supplying the existing central infrastructure - The Archaeological Information System of the Czech Republic (AIS CR) - with the tools to acquire and archive primary data on a larger scale, while at the same time, amending the legal obligations imposed on archaeological practitioners. Sustainable change requires a significant overhaul of the current concept, objectives and especially the practice of archaeological fieldwork projects, particularly in the planning and post-excavation phases.

This article aims to summarise the current situation regarding digital archaeological archives in England. Across the UK there has been a great deal of work and focus on archaeological archives, driven by two main factors: archaeological archives are curated by a network of regional and local museums and currently resources are shrinking in terms of storage capacity and archaeological curators. Repositories for physical archives can therefore be ill-prepared for the curation of digital archaeological archives, which can risk loss of archaeological digital data, and in 2017 this was recognised within the UK government's Mendoza Review (Mendoza 2017). This article describes the current work to resolve these issues - including strengthening the planning process, providing standards and guidance for data creators and repositories.

This article provides an overview of the current state of archaeological digital archiving in Flanders (Belgium). It briefly outlines the legally defined stakeholders and actors through which archaeological fieldwork is regulated and carried out. It subsequently describes related digital documentation and archiving practices, and guidelines. This is followed by a discussion on compliance with the FAIR Guiding Principles, and the article concludes with notes on the past and future of archaeological digital archiving in Flanders.

This article provides an overview of the current situation in Greece regarding digital archaeological data stewardship. A brief chronicle of Greek archaeology sets the scene for a better understanding of the present situation. Greek archaeology is supervised by the Ministry of Culture and Sports, with the Archaeological Service as the central organisation in charge of antiquities. However, archaeological data resulting from archaeological fieldwork are produced by several other entities. This article presents the policies governing both physical and digital documentation archives. It introduces the current practices for archaeological data preservation and the relevant digital infrastructures, attempting to showcase the existing environment. We categorise prevailing problems on three levels, all based on the fact that digital and open access arrived recently in a well-established environment formed gradually over almost two centuries.

n Hungary, certain site documents, such as the Preliminary Archaeological Documentation (PAD), 30-day report and 1-year report, have to be submitted to centralised institutions. The content and format of these documents are regulated, facilitating their digital archiving and accessibility. However, further documents (inventories, databases, scientific assessments, interdisciplinary analysis, photos, drawings, etc.), mainly created by the museum that carried out the excavation, may not end up in the designated repositories. Instead, these documents are stored in the local museums that carried out the excavations and/or where the finds are kept.

In this article, the authors present two points of view on the preservation and dissemination of archaeological data in Israel: an official version of the policy makers (the Israel Antiquities Authority, henceforth IAA), and the view from the archaeological, especially academic, community outside the IAA. This includes an assessment of the strategies undertaken (or not) over the last 40+ years resulting in the majority of data being inaccessible, and documenting significant data loss since the 1990s. This is followed by current work to address these issues, including not only efforts to digitise but misconceptions about the problems digitisation both solves and creates, along with recommendations for how to approach the issues going forward.

apan is producing a vast amount of archaeological data because of the high number of rescue excavations taking place every year in the country. However, municipal administrations are struggling to cope with storing and disseminating the accumulated data. This article gives an overview of how fieldwork reports and archaeological illustrations are framed in national policies and how that affects the way they are handled locally, both in physical and digital form.

This article summarises the reality of archaeological digital archiving in Poland, shaped by a legally determined focus on paper documentation and the decentralisation of the state heritage service. The practice of digital archaeological archiving is illustrated by the results of a survey carried out among archaeologists from provincial heritage offices. It has revealed that, while they struggle with a lack of adequate technical measures and skills, they also opt for increasing the significance and proportion of digital archaeological archives and realise what should be done for this Digital Dark Age to end.

The creation of an archaeological data repository for Portugal is a fundamental requirement. It would allow the safeguarding of data resulting from archaeological fieldwork, along with those resulting from research, making them findable, accessible and liable to be used in future research or even to be re-analysed using new technologies and tools. This article presents the evolution of the digitisation of archaeological information in Portugal, the responsibilities for its production and safeguarding, as well as the steps to be followed for its availability in a data repository.

Hosted by Historic Environment Scotland (HES), the National Record of the Historic Environment (NRHE) is the primary place of deposit for archaeological archives in Scotland. Built up over several decades, the archives hold over 1.6m items, both analogue and digital, linked to a site inventory of over 320,000 site records relating to the archaeological and architectural history of Scotland. Initially the survey archive of the former Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, the collections now include project archives from professional archaeological companies, academic researchers and, increasingly, community projects. A range of policy and professional drivers, as well as best practice, encourage archival deposition. The digital component of the archive has grown considerably over the last decade. In response, the NRHE has invested in preservation software to manage these holdings and has submitted an application for CoreTrustSeal. The NRHE is available online through the Canmore database and web-map applications. The online presence is assessed against the FAIR Data principles.

In the Republic of Serbia, digitisation of cultural heritage was recognised as a segment of cultural development, while the digitisation process is understood as part of a complex system of managing cultural heritage in institutions of protection, such as museums, institutes for the protection of cultural heritage etc. By focusing on the issue of electronic/digital archaeological heritage management in Serbia's institutes for protection, this article briefly describes the national framework of archaeology in the country and presents some crucial moments in the journey towards digitisation and electronic management of archaeological heritage in Serbia since the 1990s. It also discusses recent efforts by the Ministry of Culture and Information in terms of regulating the procedure of cultural heritage digitisation and establishing a common information system. Finally, it identifies current challenges in archaeological data management in cultural heritage institutions and briefly discusses possible future scenarios.

The Monuments Board of the Slovak Republic (MB SR) and the Regional Monuments Boards have been the state administrators of the cultural heritage, including archaeology, since 2002. This article aims to map the current state of archaeological digital archives within MB SR and eight Regional Monuments Boards, as well as present the usage and management of digital datasets within ongoing projects. The central archive of the MB SR maintains historical plans and cultural heritage documentation, created since the 1920s and continuously digitised (the collections of negatives, diapositives, projects, plans, schematic maps, and fieldwork documentation). Since 2012, MB SR has taken part in the Digital Monuments Fund project. Within this project, 2D and 3D documentation of a great number of cultural monuments has been created. In 2019 the implementation phase of the Monuments information system (PAMIS) project started. Its basic modules are the presentation layer, the knowledge agenda and state administration. There are several features in preparation within these modules, such as: updating; collection, consolidation and GIS processing of archaeological site data that belong to the monuments fund, including data from aerial laser scanning; the archaeological excavation registry and the archive of fieldwork reports; the registry of finds in the administration of MB SR; the electronic processing of the state administration activity within the protection of the archaeological cultural heritage. The PAMIS project will provide processed data and make them accessible to the state and public administration, owners of monuments, as well as to professionals and the general public, using online solutions (web GIS) with various approaches according to defined user roles.

This article presents the archiving of archaeological digital datasets in Slovenia in its historic context. The datasets discussed have been separated into three categories: non-reproducible datasets, reproducible datasets, and registries. Several reproducible datasets created by ZRC SAZU have been freely available online since the early 2000s, but the number of users is small and those benefiting often do not adhere to clearly stated copyright limitations. There is a large discrepancy between the stated interest and the actual usage of reproducible, let alone non-reproducible, online datasets disseminated as open access. In addition, adherence to fair use cannot be expected unless enforced. The key outcome of this study is that it has exposed a total absence of systemic archiving practice for non-reproducible digital datasets. The article concludes with recommendations and next steps that could be taken to address these issues in future. First and foremost, a systemic approach to digital archiving is urgently needed if the irreversible damage to the decades worth of born-digital non-reproducible digital data is to be averted.

In the past, data from archaeological investigations, as well as research projects led by universities have not been archived or made publicly accessible. Synthetic publications such as papers, reports and articles have been available, but not the underlying data files containing the original data to be reused or combined with new/other datasets for further research.

Heritage management in Sweden has undergone a substantial transformation in recent decades. The process of monitoring and managing heritage information has become increasingly digital, relying on interconnected systems to monitor registered archaeological remains to manage investigations and contract archaeology excavations. This also has to work together with the digital systems of the County Administrative Boards that administer all permissions for excavations. Current developments deal with archiving and dissemination of reports, and documentation from fieldwork. Documentation of archaeological excavations has predominantly been digital for the past 20 years, which brings both possibilities and challenges in making sure the information will adhere to the FAIR Principles. This article outlines some of these developments and exemplifies the possibilities of reusing legacy data through the Urdar project.

This article provides a brief overview of archaeological digital archiving in Turkey. It introduces the legal framework and the stakeholders involved in conducting archaeological excavations and surveys. The current situation in archiving born-digital and digitised documentation produced during archaeological fieldwork is then introduced. Existing repositories serving as hubs for archaeological and heritage archiving are listed and briefly discussed. Analysis of online publishing practices for archaeological digital resources points to an eclectic landscape that only minimally complies with the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles. We conclude that guidelines for best practice in metadata and semantic technologies, locally applicable standards (especially controlled vocabularies), technical know-how, and a larger acceptance of open data and scholarship remain much-needed assets for archaeological digital archiving in Turkey. We also conclude that the future promises progress towards more interoperable archaeological digital archives thanks to international training, network and knowledge transfer opportunities (e.g. SEADDA Project).

Owing to its early lead in the world of digital preservation, fostered by the creation of the Archaeology Data Service in 1996, the UK is often considered to be in an advanced position for digital archiving of archaeological data. In some ways it is, but the situation is also complex, due to a highly fragmented landscape, spread across four nations, and multiple sectors. This overview article describes the organisation and structure of archaeology across the UK, and the provision for digital preservation and access. Digital archiving is still far from standard, but the situation is improving, and rests on firm foundations.

Archaeology in the United States is conducted by a number of different sorts of entities under a variety of legal mandates that lack uniform standards for data archiving. The difficulty of accessing data from projects in which one was not directly involved indicates an apparent reluctance to archive raw data and supplemental information with digital repositories to be reused in the future. There is hope that additional legislation, guidelines from professional organisations, and educational efforts will change these practices.

This article provides an overview of the current state of archaeological archiving in Bulgaria. It briefly outlines the legislation that regulates archaeological fieldwork activities. Although the national legislation regulates the non-destructive and destructive activities equally, differences occur owing to the existence of the 'Archaeological Map of Bulgaria', a national 'sites and monuments' type of archaeological information system. Currently, online storage of brief data and information is possible for different archaeological sites. Its next version will be based on GIS and geographic features that allow storage of raw field survey data. According to the regulations, paper/digital reports of all fieldwork activities are collected yearly and copies of all of them are stored at the 'Scientific Archive' section at the National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Although their digitisation is still in the early stages, the good news is that the centralised archaeological workflow regulates their storage in one place, which makes them more easily accessible. The annual publication of the 'Archaeological Discoveries and Excavations' series, with summaries for all fieldwork activities in the year, is also very useful for keeping track of the archaeological work and results.

Archaeological data archiving has not been a major concern in Catalonia. The heritage legal corpus does not engage with the archiving and curation of archaeological data other than the excavation reports. However, it highlights the responsibility of the administration in cataloguing and disseminating the cultural heritage. For this reason, a lot of effort has been invested during the past few years in inventorying known archaeological sites and publishing archaeological reports, with the aim of increasing the transparency of the administration towards its citizens. This article describes the present situation for archaeology in Catalonia, its legal framework and the main initiatives carried out to archive, manage, and publish archaeological data from a user's point of view. Its main aim is to evaluate the current state of archaeological data archives and public databases by analysing the existing platforms with a set of indicators. This assessment leads to the conclusion that the current repositories and databases could be more worthwhile if some limitations were overcome, but also that the advance in archaeological data archiving is restricted by existing law.

In France, the archaeological sector has undergone a major shift in the last 10 years in terms of digital data creation and management. The digital transformation of the profession and its practices is still in progress and is not uniform. If general policies and laws are now clearly adopted at a national level, then institutional or individual situations are more complex. We can clearly separate the development-led and academic sectors, with reference to the volume of data produced and the challenges faced. A critical overview of the barriers highlights the fact that, beyond technical issues, data management (specifically sharing) is a human challenge in terms of scientific priority and in the adoption of new practices. This article gives an overview of the main questions and issues with reference to major nationwide initiatives.

This article highlights how the Italian Central Institute for Archaeology (ICA) is developing the National Geoportal for Archaeology (GNA), based on the ARIADNEplus infrastructure and its policy framework. Thanks to the GNA project, it will be possible to search and learn about archaeological documentation managed by Superintendencies and Universities holding a significant amount of archaeological data, much of which is either completely or partially unpublished.

Digital archaeology in the Netherlands is connected with investments in a new large-scale and innovative Dutch research infrastructure for the next 10 years. Priorities are set to combine forces at a national level in order to contribute to the international position of the Netherlands as a 'knowledge country'. Researchers need to coordinate and collaborate even more to set up a FAIR enabling data infrastructure with limited resources. Regarding the archaeological discipline, the use of formal quality standards and legislation that certifies archaeological organisations to carry out archaeological work improves national collaboration and stimulates the digital workflow. DANS is the dedicated national repository for archaeology in the Netherlands and is launching the Data Station Archaeology, a repository meeting the latest technological standards. Finding and sharing data of high quality facilitates knowledge of archaeological discoveries; a flourishing open access trend in Dutch archaeology stimulates a strong growth in the use of data. To keep up with innovative developments, a growing community of archaeologists and other specialists are working together in international projects to secure the future of European Archaeology.

Archaeological documentation from surveys and excavations in Norway are created by a limited number of actors. Excavations are mainly carried out by the five university museums. NIKU (Norwegian Institute for Cultural Research) is responsible for excavations of medieval cities and churches. Maritime museums excavate in lakes, rivers, and below past and present sea level. Archaeological surveys are mainly the responsibility of the counties. Riksantikvaren (Directorate of National Heritage) is responsible for the national Historic Environment Records (HER), Askeladden, which offers the possibility to upload or insert links to reports from archaeological investigations. Riksantikvaren also archives excavation documentation from churches and medieval cities. The Norwegian university museums have, since the 1990s, cooperated on digitising a national repository and making the collections available online. Presently there are also repositories at the maritime museums, Riksantikvaren and the counties. The infrastructure ADED (Archaeological Digital Excavation Documentation) is a repository for detailed excavation documentation, and the BItFROST infrastructure project contributes to better storage and availability of 3D data. Future development will be more complete national databases, and towards closer international cooperation, creating better integration and availability of several repositories.

When we assembled in Prague for the 21st EAC Symposium in March 2020 we could never have imagined how the rest of the year would develop and it is with gratitude to the various authors, editors and EAC colleagues that I can present this volume of the papers on behalf of the EAC. The event was kindly hosted by the National Museum in Prague.

The challenge of providing public benefit from development control archaeology has been a concern across Europe after both the Valletta and Faro conventions encouraged the view that the public must be the key beneficiaries of archaeological work, and since then the theoretical concept of public benefit has become well recognised across our profession. However, it seems to me that the archaeological sector does not yet provide this in a meaningful way or know how to maximise the public benefit potential of our work; indeed, this is acknowledged at the highest levels (e.g. British Academy 2017, 33).

The construction of a by-pass in North Rhine-Westphalia resulted in the excavation, recording and relocation of one of the most important archaeological monuments in the Rhineland: a stone and masonry aqueduct up to 95km long, which had supplied water to Roman Cologne. As preservation in situ was not possible the pipe was lifted in segments; some were displayed on the site, others were moved to sites nearby. The conservation of the segments was undertaken by apprentices from the Chamber of Crafts and the whole project was a successful collaboration between private, public, business and local communities.

In the Autumn of 2016, the archaeological sector in Northern Ireland came together in the first of a series of meetings and collaborations to consider how the sector needs to change to meet the challenges that it faces, especially in the context of development-led interventions. The products of that collaboration were published in December 2020 as Archaeology 2030: A Strategic Approach for Northern Ireland. The core vision of that document is this: that the heritage sector, and the archaeological sector in particular, wants archaeology to be accessed and valued by as many people as possible, led by a sector which is healthy, resilient and connected. This article is intended to give some context to how this coming together happened, how it has progressed, and to offer some perspective and reflections on where the journey may go in the future.

There has been a specific national policy for culture in Sweden since 1974. Since then, the issue of public access to culture has been a central political objective. The ambition to provide the whole population with access to culture includes knowledge about the past. Making sure that the results of development-led archaeology are beneficial for the general public has therefore been an important issue in Sweden for quite some time.

A major urban development in Cork City entailed dewatering and very deep excavations for new basements. This revealed significant archaeology from the Viking period, which was excavated where necessary. A very successful series of public events followed, with senior politicians visiting. This paper concludes by emphasising the need to provide the public with accurate information.

The preventive archaeology system in Luxembourg was developed during the 1990s. Archaeological heritage is now managed by the National Archaeological Research Centre/Centre national de recherche archéologique (CNRA), founded in 2011, although there is still no legal framework within which archaeology can be protected. A draft law implementing the principles of the Valletta Convention will provide the structure for the CNRA to assess construction projects and require archaeological investigations. This paper outlines the development of the system, notes the challenges and highlights opportunities to raise public awareness, which are keys to engage the public in local decision making, through the communes.

Italy has a long tradition of cultural heritage management, which has been framed in an art historical context. This paper outlines the challenges to public archaeology, as it is often seen as a cost rather than as a benefit. Examples are provided showing how museums and heritage sites can be made more inclusive and welcoming to all members of the public, using a combination of private funding and public regulatory frameworks.

Key to the success of archaeological projects and the provision of public benefit as a result is partnership working, whether between archaeological practices, consultants or departments within larger organisations, commercial clients or regulatory bodies. This paper presents case studies from each of these as examples of successful public benefit from development-led archaeology and outlines the move away from the 'polluter pays' principle towards a more nuanced understanding of what archaeology can provide. A Postscript refers to the Planning White Paper in the UK, which could have significant implications for how archaeology is treated within the planning system.

A discipline where several scientific fields meet, archaeology studies the material traces of civilisations, from prehistory to the contemporary era. By enriching our knowledge of the societies that came before us, it contributes to a better understanding of today's world and helps sharpen citizens' critical outlook. When it comes to protection, conservation, awareness-raising and education, archaeological heritage is a significant societal opportunity for Europe. At a time marked by concerns over identity and community, archaeology is a source of openness and tolerance. The European Archaeology Days can therefore help shape a common identity, while preserving the cultural diversity that characterises a Europe of multiplicity. Developing this initiative could encourage open access to culture for all and, among future generations, foster acceptance of the 'Other' in all their differences. In this context, it feels important to give the event a European dimension.

Three recent examples of public benefit following archaeological discoveries in London are presented, alongside an explanation of the policy context that supports them. The examples are provided from the perspective of planning archaeologists, who advise decision makers and developers on managing archaeological sites in compliance with local and national policy.

Two chance discoveries during development-led archaeology in Vilnius have brought the recent history of the Lithuanian Republic to the forefront. The burials of 20 individuals involved in the uprising against the Russian Empire in 1863–1864 were found on Gedimas Hill in 2017, and in 2018 the remains of Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas, a leader of the guerrilla warfare against the Soviet Union in 1944–1953 were found. These discoveries brought great public interest, and advanced knowledge of archaeology. Notably they also encouraged senior politicians from Poland, Belarus and Lithuania to enter into debates on matters that have historically been difficult to discuss.

This article outlines the theory and strategy behind Historic England's (HE) Wellbeing Strategy. It acknowledges the relevance of wellbeing to HE's core purpose, and proposes ways in which wellbeing can be built into archaeological and heritage projects. There is an evidenced link between access to heritage and wellbeing, which now needs to be better integrated into project design and implementation. The article concludes with an outline strategy for wellbeing-led projects, and a discussion of how the success of these projects could be evaluated.

Can the public see the benefit of archaeology without an awareness of what archaeology does? The authors consider this question while exploring the evolution of Bulgarian society's view on development-led archaeological excavations over the past 30 years, by drawing on specific examples.

In 2011 and 2015, the Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa (National Institute of Cultural Heritage) carried out two representative surveys. Subsequent polls focusing on more specific issues or groups of respondents were undertaken in 2015, 2017 and 2018. Other data from Poland come from the 2017 Special Eurobarometer survey on cultural heritage. They can be contrasted with archaeology-orientated opinion polls: a Europe-wide survey carried out within the NEARCH project led by Inrap (French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research) and several smaller-scale projects, which might be treated as starting points for more representative research.

This paper explores the idea of excavation being only the first stage in communicating the benefit of archaeology to the public. The role of museums, social media and scientific publication are all important, as are the support from private developers and the personal role of the archaeologists themselves. The use of social media can be positive but this paper also details problems with metal detectorists groups, some of which are not acting responsibly.

While the knowledge creation benefits of archaeology are widely understood, there is less awareness or assessment of other potential benefits. These can be associated with wellbeing and health, including mental health. These are significant given that archaeology is a creative and outdoor activity with the potential to enhance social bond through collaborative working. Using data from the NEARCH survey of 2015, this paper seeks to encourage wider participation in archaeology, enabling much more public benefit to be realised.

This paper provides an update on progress of the EAC Working Group for public benefit from development led archaeology, giving the background to the concept as well as outlining why the EAC is developing guidance for establishing public benefit. Understanding that there are many stakeholders all of whom have their own values and priorities will be key. An online resource with case studies showcasing public benefit is under production. This article is an adaptation of Sloane (2020).

Benefits to individuals and communities from archaeology projects are often abstract, intangible and difficult to attribute, and the discipline arguably lacks a satisfactory frame of reference around which it can express and design for these additional social values. Drawing on the language of social impact investing, this article will explore how the UK-based collaborative platform, DigVentures, has addressed this challenge.

Replica artefacts are a well-established feature of Roman archaeology, particularly as used in experimental archaeology, by re-enactors, and in museum education. 3D scanning offers a new methodology for the accurate production of such artefacts, which can then be used both in scholarly research and in public engagement activities. This article describes methodologies for 3D scanning and 3D printing, together with appropriate craft techniques, in the creation of replica musical instruments from the collection of UCL's Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London.

Recent excavations for the Army Basing Programme on the periphery of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site have revealed extensive evidence of Early, Middle and Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age activity, including a causewayed enclosure, burials, occupation, pit groups, henges, post alignments and circles. Several of these either incorporate or refer to features of the landscape such as solution hollows, dry valleys, hilltops and rivers, as well as to astronomical phenomena. An appraisal of this evidence alongside other recent programmes of research around Stonehenge suggest an accreting pattern of development of this landscape that begins in the 38th century BC, and which throws new light on the location and meaning of several of the ceremonial earthworks, including Stonehenge itself.

How are particular material culture traditions passed from one generation to the next? This digital archive supports 'Technology as Human Social Tradition: Cultural Transmission among Hunter-Gatherers' (Jordan 2015) published by University of California Press. The archive consists of 15 Excel files which were used to conduct in-depth analysis of the factors driving diversity and change in material culture traditions. Each file contains a high-resolution survey of the design features of one material tradition practised by groups living in a geographic region. Three regions are investigated: Northwest Siberia (storage platforms, shrines, skis); Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada (houses, canoes, basketry-matting); Northern California (basketry, houses, ceremonial dress).

In 2017, a team from the Wessex Archaeology Sheffield office investigated a site, Hollis Croft (NGR 434990 387580), prior to the construction of a multi-million pound commercial and student housing development and discovered substantial 18th-/19th-century remains of steel conversion furnaces (both cementation and crucible, constructed by Burgin and Wells and W. Fearnehough Ltd respectively). All findings have been brought together in a final report held in the digital archive and the physical archive (including the finds) was subsequently deposited with Museums Sheffield under SHEFM:2019.13 and Sheffield Archives. Inspired by a great deal of public interest during the excavations (and Mili's love for comics), a comic book has also been created and is published here alongside what would otherwise be a more traditional offering.

This article is a case study in doing new things with old data. In 1953 Lord William Taylour directed the excavation of a monumental vaulted tholos tomb known as 'Tholos IV' at the site of ancient Pylos, Messenia, Greece. The excavation was conducted over two months, during which detailed notes were recorded in three notebooks now kept in the Archives of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. The formal publication of Tholos IV, however, contains only a basic narrative of the excavation, offering neither precise detail on stratigraphy, object find spots, nor even a complete inventory of small finds. The present study goes back to the original notebooks kept by Taylour and combines the data contained in them with a new digital survey of Tholos IV to produce a comprehensive and accurate 3D GIS model for the excavation. Furthermore, the GIS has been produced in such a way that its dataset is compatible with new excavation data currently generated in the ongoing Palace of Nestor Excavations (PONEX) project, bringing together two excavation campaigns conducted under very different circumstances, methodologies, and recording protocols. Discussion follows on how the production of this GIS deepens our understanding not just of the legacy excavation, but also of the site and its wider landscape.

This article describes an attempt to reproduce the published analysis from three archaeological field-walking surveys by using datasets collected between 1990 and 2005 which are publicly available in digital format. The exact methodologies used to produce the analyses (diagrams, statistical analysis, maps, etc.) are often incomplete, leaving a gap between the dataset and the published report. By using the published descriptions to reconstruct how the outputs were manipulated, I expected to reproduce and corroborate the results. While these experiments highlight some successes, they also point to significant problems in reproducing an analysis at various stages, from reading the data to plotting the results. Consequently, this article proposes some guidance on how to increase the reproducibility of data in order to assist aspirations of refining results or methodology. Without a stronger emphasis on reproducibility, the published datasets may not be sufficient to confirm published results and the scientific process of self-correction is at risk.

This is an historical meditation - an essay on material culture and how humans relate to it. It is written as a science fiction piece, taking the form of a plenary address to a Material Culture conference sometime in the future. Mobile phones are well on their way to becoming universal devices and this playful essay explores ideas concerning the consequences of the mobile phone for humans, our relations with technology and our evolution.

We present an experiment in sonifying archival archaeological imagery to make the act of looking at photography strange and weird. The sounds produced will then arrest us and slow us down, and make apparent to us the different ways that archaeological vision is constructed to particular effect/affect. It makes us alive to what is hidden or elided in the image itself; in slowing down, listening/looking/moving at one, we are moved towards enchantment, and engage in a kind of digital hermeneutics that reveals more than what the lens may have captured.

Silver-bearing lead ores at Laurion in Attica were considered to have been first exploited with the introduction of coinage sometime around the birth of Classical Greece. However, in the late 20th century this chronology was radically revised earlier, to the Bronze Age, largely supported by lead isotope analyses (LIA). Here, we acknowledge that lead and silver metallurgy emerged from the earliest times but we propose that any correlation between these metals in the archaeological record is not a consequence of a geological association between lead and silver in ores such as galena until the middle of the first millennium BCE. We suggest that ancient metallurgists recognised that silver minerals (such as horn silver) dispersed in host rocks could be concentrated in molten lead and that LIA signatures of Bronze Age silver artefacts reflect the use of exogenous lead to extract silver, perhaps applying processes similar to those used to acquire silver in Bronze Age Siphnos. We further propose that lead from Laurion used for silver extraction resulted in the inadvertent transfer of its LIA signature (probably aided by roving silver prospectors) to silver objects and metallurgical debris recovered around the Aegean. New compositional analyses for the Mycenaean shaft-grave silver (c. 1600 BCE) support these conclusions. We believe that reverting to the mid-first millennium BCE for the first exploitation of silver from argentiferous lead ores is consistent with the absence of archaeological evidence for centralised control over Laurion until the Archaic period, the paucity of lead slag associated with silver-processing debris at Bronze Age sites, the scarcity of silver artefacts recovered in post-shaft grave contexts at Mycenae and throughout the Early Iron Age Aegean, the few Attic silver coins with LIA signatures consistent with Laurion until after 500 BCE and a single unambiguous mention of silver in the Linear B texts.

This article presents and discusses the use and itineraries of inset lead weights from Norway and the wider Viking world. The weights, which are mostly inset with decorated metalwork, coins and glass are likely to be of 'Insular-Viking' manufacture, which developed in the late 9th and/or early 10th century. While the Norwegian corpus has generally received attention for its 'Irish' style of metalwork and therefore Irish affiliation, this article demonstrates how some of the material may rather have travelled to Norway via England. Here, they were extensively used in Viking milieus and the Irish-style insets were probably carried eastwards from Ireland by some of the historically attested groups who joined the Viking armies in England. The alternative route suggested for the weights which ended up in Norway has several implications, especially for providing potential evidence for integrated contact between the Danelaw area and Norway. The article also investigates fragmented mounts, a material phenomenon found in Viking and Norse contexts on both sides of the North Sea. While these mounts are often regarded as one group, the article identifies different practices in the fragmentation of this material, based on morphological details. It is suggested that 're-fashioned' pieces, i.e. those carefully cut into pieces and reworked into dress ornaments can be separated from 'hack-bronze' – those that appear to have been fragmented in the same manner as hack silver and other metals intended for reuse as scrap or as bullion.

This article analyses the use of grave goods in burials across early medieval Europe and how that use changed over the course of the 6th to 8th centuries CE with the widespread transition to unfurnished burial. It uses data gathered from published cemetery excavation reports from England, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. The grave good use in these cemeteries was analysed using GIS methods to visualise regional differences, as well as statistical methods to analyse how grave good use evolved over time in those regions.

This article discusses recent Norwegian heritage policy and examines the three key terms of the most recent white paper – participation, sustainability and diversity – in light of the Norwegian government's key societal challenge of democratisation.

Excavations along an 18.5km stretch of the Angelinos trunk water main in north Oxfordshire between Tackley and Milton uncovered a panoply of prehistoric to post-medieval remains. Residual sherds of Beaker pottery suggest Chalcolithic/early Bronze Age activity within the vicinity of the development, but most of the excavated features were middle Iron Age in date, comprising linear boundaries and probable enclosures. At least three areas of domestic occupation were recorded, ranging from a single structure to multiple pits associated with various linear features. A double burial, comprising an adult male and a child, dating to the middle Iron Age was also recorded. Roman remains were largely limited to a section dug through Akeman Street, which formed a key arterial route during the Roman period. Other Roman evidence includes a possible midden or manure spread, suggestive of nearby agricultural activity. Medieval and post-medieval features ranged from plough marks to probable quarry pits.

The data in the related digital archive was collected to examine the archaeological and historical evidence for material culture in English medieval rural households, with the aim of gaining a fuller picture than what might be attainable by looking only at objects or documents in isolation. The digital archive provides a starting point for anyone wishing to research aspects of medieval rural settlement.

The North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) community initiated dataARC to develop digital research infrastructures to support their work on long-term human-ecodynamics in the North Atlantic. These infrastructures were designed to address the challenges of sharing research data, the connections between those data and high-level interpretations, and the interpretations themselves. In parallel, they were also designed to support the reuse of diverse data that underpin transdisciplinary synthesis research and to contextualise materials disseminated widely to the public more firmly in their evidence base. This article outlines the research infrastructure produced by the project and reflects on its design and development. We outline the core motivations for dataARC's work and introduce the tools, platforms and (meta)data products developed. We then undertake a critical review of the project's workflow. This review focuses on our understanding of the needs of stakeholder groups, the principles that guided the design of the infrastructure, and the extent to which these principles are successfully promoted in the current implementation. Drawing on this assessment, we consider how the infrastructure, in whole or in part, might be reused by other transdisciplinary research communities. Finally, we highlight key socio-technical gaps that may emerge as structural barriers to transdisciplinary, engaged, and open research if left unaddressed.

Since at least the 1990s, archaeologists and artists have been documenting military installations following the withdrawal of service personnel. They have usually embarked on these recording opportunities separately, experiencing these sites as derelict, lifeless places, with stripped buildings devoid of much of their meaning after their occupants have left. Archaeologists have typically created maps and made photographs. Artists have also taken photographs, but in addition made films and created soundworks. Wherever the medium and the motivation, the assumption is usually made that only those closely familiar with the rhythms and rituals of service life can begin to understand the emptiness of what remains. And being secretive military installations, creating a record during their occupation is never an option. Uniquely, in the months leading to the closure of RAF Coltishall (Norfolk) in 2006, the RAF granted the authors unprecedented access to record the base's drawdown and closure. The project brought artists and archaeologists together to see what could be achieved in unison, while still maintaining some degree of research independence. In undertaking this survey, three related themes emerged: the role of art as heritage practice, new thinking on what constitutes landscape, and the notion of a 'technological sublime'. Following an earlier publication, we now reflect again on those themes. In doing so, we offer this collaboration between art and archaeology (traditionally considered two distinct ways of seeing and recording) as an innovative methodology for documentation, not least after the closure and abandonment of such military and industrial landscapes, where occupational communities had once lived. In this article, the words represent our ideas; the images and films are an example of the result.

This article analyses Finnish maritime archaeology through a compiled bibliography of 621 scientific and popular works published between 1942–2020. General trends and turning points in the history of the discipline are identified and discussed vis-a-vis temporal and topical foci discerned in the publications. Special attention is drawn to the concentration in Finnish research on shipwrecks from the historical period, and the low international visibility of scientific production is problematised. While large-scale projects have been carried out in Finnish maritime archaeology, knowledge production within the authorised heritage discourse in particular has aimed to fulfil the needs of local and national rather than international audiences. Our compiled bibliography, which is hereby made available to the wider research community, has potential to become a valuable tool for identifying and developing future research areas.

In recent years, UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and funding bodies have been increasingly championing the merits of co-production between academic researchers and non-HEIs, including community groups. However, these undertakings are often more complex than we are led to believe and the issues encountered are frequently downplayed in published outputs. In this article we review a selection of recent projects in which digital technologies have been used in heritage-led public engagement, including two of our own related projects at Park Hill flats in Sheffield. Digital technologies are the latest means by which HEIs are seeking to engage with the public, but it is becoming clear that there are significant impediments to undertaking this successfully. These include the short-term nature of the funding, the difficulties of maintaining digital outputs over time, and managing community expectation of what can be achieved in the time, and with the funding, available, alongside variable levels of familiarity with, and interest in, digital platforms by the public. Funding schemes often prioritise new consultation activities, and co-production with communities, over making use of archival community engagement materials. We suggest that academic engagement with the public needs to be sensitive to these issues, and to recognise that valuable digital heritage projects can emerge from diverse approaches to co-production.

In 2013, Cadw published the 'Cadw Community Archaeology Framework'. This defined community archaeology practice in Wales, and outlined: a range of aims; a definition and context for community archaeology; a background to community archaeology; a vision for community archaeology; and a commitment to working with partners and communities. In 2018, five years after the publication of this document, the authors undertook a survey of the state of public archaeology practice in Wales in response to this document in order to identify best practice case studies, and from these to draw together, and share, consistent themes. Data collection took the form of a series of structured interviews with the Welsh Archaeological Trusts, as well as drawing on the authors' own experiences of public archaeology practice. We also include observations from our own practice at the Bryn Celli Ddu public archaeology landscape project. We aim to produce an inclusive, outward-facing series of research recommendations, designed to build on the Cadw/Welsh Government Framework in order to identify and support best practice, and to facilitate its dissemination.

Virtual worlds are human worlds thus ethical places/spaces. Through an authethnography of play, I try to surface and contextualize some of what I see as the ethical issues that archaeogaming presents, which I frame as provocations for further discussion. What defines 'archaeogaming' is our identity as archaeologists, and so the ethics of archaeogaming must be the ethics of archaeology; ethics are not integral to a game but emerge at the intersection of play and design.

A series of massive geophysical anomalies, located south of the Durrington Walls henge monument, were identified during fluxgate gradiometer survey undertaken by the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project (SHLP). Initially interpreted as dewponds, these data have been re-evaluated, along with information on similar features revealed by archaeological contractors undertaking survey and excavation to the north of the Durrington Walls henge. Analysis of the available data identified a total of 20 comparable features, which align within a series of arcs adjacent to Durrington Walls. Further geophysical survey, supported by mechanical coring, was undertaken on several geophysical anomalies to assess their nature, and to provide dating and environmental evidence. The results of fieldwork demonstrate that some of these features, at least, were massive, circular pits with a surface diameter of 20m or more and a depth of at least 5m. Struck flint and bone were recovered from primary silts and radiocarbon dating indicates a Late Neolithic date for the lower silts of one pit. The degree of similarity across the 20 features identified suggests that they could have formed part of a circuit of large pits around Durrington Walls, and this may also have incorporated the recently discovered Larkhill causewayed enclosure. The diameter of the circuit of pits exceeds 2km and there is some evidence that an intermittent, inner post alignment may have existed within the circuit of pits. One pit may provide evidence for a recut; suggesting that some of these features could have been maintained through to the Middle Bronze Age. Together, these features represent a unique group of features related to the henge at Durrington Walls, executed at a scale not previously recorded.

The Burial Space Research Database is a new repository for data produced from systematic archaeological surveys of burial spaces, undertaken on a per memorial basis. It enables the many local, community groups conducting research in this field to share their findings and publish results. The structure and form of the database requires groups to use a standardised recording methodology and vocabulary, meaning that datasets from different surveys are interoperable, allowing connections and comparisons to be made within and between local research projects. While burial space research is dominated by data on people and inscriptions, the database is also designed to accommodate archaeological approaches to recording that include detailed descriptions of the material form of monuments. A sophisticated search interface allows users to interrogate the archived datasets using a variety of different criteria, potentially revealing previously unrecognised temporal and spatial trends in the postmedieval history of commemoration. By acting as a central repository for burial space research, including individual people commemorated, the database also has the potential to become a powerful tool for genealogical and family history studies, drawing together disparate records in one place and making them freely available.

This article presents the emerging transdisciplinary practice of Experimental Heritage as performed within an ongoing Irish-Swedish research project involving artists and archaeologists. The project is undertaken simultaneously in western Ireland and south-eastern Sweden. It explores the chosen Irish and Swedish landscapes of Clare and Öland, their similarities and differences, with the aid of combined and integrated artistic and archaeological practices. The starting points for common explorations are: stone and water, movement and time/the multitemporal, and the tangible and intangible aspects of landscape experience. In a transdisciplinary process, we explore new ways of combining art, archaeology and heritage within and between these landscapes.

This article presents an approach to guide the planning, development and evaluation of community archaeology. This will assist practitioners of all forms of community archaeology by providing a pathway to ethical practice that will benefit all. The approach focuses attention on four elements that are integral to community archaeology and which should always be considered: Who (the people involved); Why (their motivation); the Archaeology (in the broadest sense, including research questions and research methods); and How (the specific format the community engagement will take). This framework is applied to three case study community archaeology projects in Dorset, England, in order to demonstrate challenging examples of planned and reflexive community archaeology.

This article discusses the post-excavation analysis and archiving of data generated by fieldwork undertaken at Heslington East near York in the UK. This project, stretching over two decades, involved two commercial companies and a student training and local community element, and recently concluded with a thematic publication (Roskams and Neal 2020). The article has twin objectives. First, on a theoretical level, it reflects on the complex challenges that arise when attempting to combine diverse stratigraphic, spatial and assemblage data from different sources to reach meaningful interpretations of an extensive, multi-period landscape. Second, on a practical level, it aims to act as an introduction to the project's archives to make them accessible to future audiences, something that is essential if we are to enable any re-interpretation of the site. I suggest that such archives embody a series of transformations. These comprise first the interpretation of reconnaissance and evaluation procedures, converted to generate an excavation strategy, something briefly summarised here. I then discuss at greater length: the processes of post-excavation analysis of stratigraphic and spatial data, and their relationship with the MoRPHE requirement (Historic England 2006) to select particular assemblages for detailed analysis; linking the latter, specialist reports on selected assemblages to preliminary interpretations of site evidence, an iterative process that creates more soundly based understanding; and the recasting of summaries of the most significant evidence in these secondary interpretations to fit the thematic organisation of the published report. I argue that each of these hierarchically ordered transformations needs to be understood if we are to facilitate effective re-use of site archives.

The records of archaeological stratigraphic data and the relationships between stratigraphic units are fundamental to understanding the overall cohesiveness of the archaeological archive of an excavation. The information about individual units of excavation identified on sites with complex stratigraphy is most often held in the site database records and stratigraphic matrix diagrams, usually documenting relationships based on the laws of stratigraphic superposition and the Harris matrix conventions (Harris 1979). However, once the matrix diagram has been used to record the information during excavation, there is far less consistency in how those stratigraphic records, and any associated phasing information, are finally deposited in the archives. For that valuable data to be successfully identified and re-used (particularly if the rest of the data is in a database), the stratigraphic and phasing data needs to be in a format that can be interrogated as part of the database. In practice, often only a (paper) copy of the matrix diagrams make the archive. This means that the critical temporal and spatio-temporal relationships upon which the phasing of sites is built, cannot usually be interrogated or (re)used without lengthy and wasteful re-keying of that data into another version of the database.

Digital public archaeology is increasingly exploring social networks as platforms for online outreach initiatives. Despite a growing body of literature concerning archaeological engagement on social media, there are few examinations of such applications in practice. This research critically assesses the current discussions surrounding archaeological social media use before exploring commercial digital outreach at Must Farm, Cambridgeshire. Quantitative examinations of the project's Facebook metrics and qualitative comment analyses are employed to assess whether audiences were meaningfully engaged by these online strategies. The research concludes there is substantial value in using social networks to communicate archaeology and provides recommendations for future applications.

This article presents a cost-effective method for digitising photographic film for archival purposes using a DSLR camera, focussing on the widely used colour reversal Kodachrome film produced by Eastman Kodak between 1935 and 2009. I discuss the digitisation of an archive of 787 Kodachrome slides taken between 1988 and 1989 during the excavation of Jemdet Nasr, an archaeological site located in southern Iraq (Project website). I compare results obtained using a film scanner (Nikon Coolscan IV ED) with two different scanning software solutions (SilverFast and VueScan), a flatbed scanner (HP Scanjet 8300), and two DSLR cameras with macro lens (a Canon EOS KissX3 with 105mm lens and a Canon EOS 80D with 90mm lens). The results demonstrate the cost-effective value of the DSLR method for archives where time and resources are limited, but where digital photography equipment might be readily available, such as an archaeological unit or a university department. The method allows for high quality, fast and economical digitisation of excavation and collection archives that will enhance research. The method also offers superior results in rendering the high dynamic range of photographic film such as Kodachrome.

The trade in human remains on social media happens in an ever-changing field of digital media technologies. We attempt to replicate our earlier study, exploring the differences in what we can observe now in the trade on Instagram versus our first foray in 2016 (published in Huffer and Graham 2017). While the previous study cannot be reproduced, it can be replicated, and we find that the trade is accelerating.

Our study uses computational archaeology tools to investigate how researchers in our field present interpretations of the past in patterned ways. We do so in order to illuminate assumptions, naturalised categories, and patterned interpretative moves that may direct or impact the ways we interact with our evidence and write about our research. We approach this topic through a meta-analysis, using large-scale textual data from archaeological publications, focusing on the case study of bone. Are there patterned ways that archaeologists write about artefacts like bone that are visible when analysing larger datasets? If so, what underlying ideas shape these shared discursive moves? We present the results of three analyses: textual groundwork, conducted manually by field experts, and two machine-based interactive topic modelling visualisations (pyLDAvis and a hierarchical tree based on a Model of Models). Our results indicate that there are, indeed, patterns in our writing around how artefactual and archaeological materials are discussed, many of which are overt and sensical. However, our analyses also identify patterned discourses that are less obvious, but still part of regularised discourses in written narratives surrounding bone. These include: the use of multiple conceptual positions within, rather than simply between, articles, and a lack of patterned centrality of indigenous ontologies in how our field writes about bone. This pilot approach identifies data-informed, applied tools that will aid reflexive practices in our field. These operate at a scale that impacts future scholarly interactions with both evidence and published interpretations by shifting observation and reflection from an individual or small group exercise to a larger and more systematic process.

The focus of discussion in regard to archaeological heritage management within EAC over several years has been on archaeology and development and, in particular, maximising the value of the results of development-led archaeology. This reflects the wider trend in archaeological heritage management in Europe and in many ways reflects the focus of the Valletta Convention. Themes at EAC symposia over several years has also touched on wider issues of connecting the public with their archaeological heritage which is of course a key theme of the Faro Convention.

We present the challenges facing Bulgarian experts in finding the balance between preserving the authenticity of archaeological structures and their context, and turning them into a comprehensible and attractive visitor site. Thanks to European funding over the past ten years, a number of projects have been implemented in Bulgaria for conservation, restoration, exhibition and public presentation of archaeological heritage, where the main aim is to achieve a complete visitor product.

Rapid technological development in recent years means that virtual reconstructions have evolved from an illustrative complement of archaeological presentation to becoming a standard part of the interpretative process of archaeological data. VirtualArch has been employed to develop the use of virtual reconstructions as an innovative visualisation tool.

Funding challenges for maritime archaeology in the UK means that Historic England has to seek creative solutions to historic wreck management. This article details how historic shipwrecks in English territorial waters are protected, managed and conserved by Historic England, on behalf of the nation.

The article introduces the management system of archaeological monuments of Estonia. It focuses on the state of archaeological heritage and land usage of listed monuments. The legal background is explained while discussing the need to enhance visitor experience on archaeological sites. A few successful and some unfavourable examples are given to show the struggle to find a balance between development, exposition and preservation.

Brandenburg State Authorities for Heritage Management and State Museum of Archaeology, together with local authorities, developed a project, to integrate various important archaeological sites into a shared cultural tourism concept – thus the Prignitz Archaeological Route was formed. This article highlights three of the seven sites that are included in the project: the Bronze Age grave mound from 800 BCE at Seddin, the abandoned town of the 12th and 13th century in Freyenstein and the battlefield from 1636 near Wittstock. Each place had to apply three main approaches: heritage management, research and tourism development.

Proper management of monuments and archaeological sites as well as how to present them to the wider public have been critical issues for years in Hungary. Discussions on monument protection have focused mainly on the problems posed by the relationship between research into buildings and their surroundings and redevelopment programmes. In cultural tourism, the interests and needs of these two fields can meet or clash.

The Archaeological Heritage Office of the Autonomous Province of Trento carries out institutional activities for the research, protection, conservation and promotion of archaeological heritage in the Trentino region. Its range of activities includes a conservation laboratory, an archaeological library, an education department, two museums and several archaeological sites, which are briefly outlined in this article.

The preservation and protection of archaeological sites are issues that, for many years, have retained importance among a wide range of specialists. Over the centuries, archaeological sites have changed dramatically owing to natural processes, military conflicts and different economic activities. Nowadays, Latvian hill-forts are without visible wooden structures, and medieval castles have become ruins, but they still retain their historical and scientific significance, and have become an integral part of the landscape.

In the Netherlands the state does not take direct responsibility for the care of archaeological monuments. Instead, the emphasis is on supporting private owners to look after monuments in their care. This article focuses on the range of non-governmental trust organisations that have been established to care for built heritage in the Netherlands.

Veliky Novgorod is an ancient Russian medieval metropolis that formed part of the system of European trade and cultural relations. Many important monuments central to the history of the city were damaged during the first half of the 20th century. Three sites that have been the focus of recent conservation and presentation projects are discussed here; the medieval Church of the Assumption in Volotovo, St Panteleimon's Cathedral, and the Church of the Annunciation on Gorodische, a 12th-century church of great significance in medieval Russia.

There are difficult and often conflicting agendas to balance with regard to managing historic and archaeological sites as visitor attractions. This article discusses the significant impact of high visitor numbers at archaeologically sensitive sites in the care of Historic Environment Scotland and the approaches taken to mitigate the consequent erosion and manage access.

This article presents the roles of associations in the caretaking and presentation of archaeological sites and museums in Switzerland. These very popular non-governmental non-profit organisations can help the State agencies to ensure the preservation of archaeological sites under their control. However, a few challenges have to be solved to render the work of these institutions viable for the future.

The earliest legislation in Turkey on the protection of antiquities was devised by the Ottomans, the forerunner of modern Turkey, issued in 1869 specifically to protect archaeological sites and regulate the archaeological excavations that were taking place in various parts of the Empire. The Ottoman antiquities law continued to be in force after the foundation of the Turkish republic, and revised as late as 1973 to accord with approaches that took place in Europe.

The island of Skellig Michael (in Irish, Sceilg Mhichíl) lies 11.6km off the westernmost tip of the Iveragh peninsula, Co. Kerry, Ireland. The island is approximately 21.9 hectares in area. It is owned by the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht on behalf of the Irish people, with the exception of the lower (working) lighthouse and its curtilage, the helipad and adjacent store. Skellig Michael is primarily managed as a National Monument in state ownership.

Editorial for Environmental Archaeology - Theory and Practice: Looking Back, Moving Forwards

Editorial for Environmental Archaeology - Theory and Practice: Looking Back, Moving Forwards

This article explores how the discipline of environmental archaeology has fared over the past 15 years, reflecting on several themes considered by authors in Environmental Archaeology: Meaning and Purpose (Albarella 2001). Within this timeframe, two significant factors shaping the health of the discipline, namely government research audits and the commercialisation of environmental archaeology, have remained as constant drivers; therefore it might be perceived that little will have changed. However, alongside these two factors, the major issue of global climate change has come to the fore, resulting in debates that environmental archaeologists have the potential to contribute to significantly, in turn promoting the discipline. This article attempts to reflect on the health of the discipline, aided by a basic consideration of metrics data collected via Elsevier's Scopus platform. The empirical data pertaining to publication suggests that while the discipline has blossomed during the last 15 years, it has been influenced by external factors such as research audits. However, data from journal outputs provide only a partial story since a significant corpus of environmental archaeology literature is restricted to 'grey literature' or, if published, buried within larger site reports and monographs that are less easily captured by metrics. A search of the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) website suggests that stand-alone environmental archaeological literature is infrequently archived and this has the effect of lowering the profile of the discipline, which invariably means that environmental archaeological data does not get the centre-stage attention or is promoted in a way that it deserves. Furthermore, this lack of systematic archiving has the potential to hide issues associated with data quality. This article argues that the volume of publication outputs is not the real issue that is likely to impact on environmental archaeology in coming years, but rather it is one of data accessibility and quality. The article concludes by considering how these challenges might be addressed.

Archaeologists are under pressure to demonstrate that their work has impact beyond the discipline. This has prompted some archaeologists — and in particular environmental archaeologists and palaeoecologists — to argue that an understanding of past environmental changes is essential to model future outcomes in areas such as climate change, land cover change, soil health and food security. However, few archaeological studies have explored how to put research results into practice, and most archaeologists seem unaware of a substantial literature on research-led policy design produced primarily within the social sciences and development studies. We briefly summarise this literature, report on our attempts to engage directly with policy makers and NGOs working on sustainable agriculture, and ultimately recommend that future projects should be co-designed with potential end-users from the outset.

Any environmental archaeology approach to contemporary environments and landscapes has to take into account present day ecologies and environmental histories. How we theorise our approach to these ecologies particularly those designated as wild or natural is a question that this paper attempts to examine. It argues that we should look to the environmental humanities to develop theoretical frameworks that can guide our interpretations.

I remember the 1998 TAG conference on which this 2015 TAG session was based, and the ensuing debates. The discussion about whether environmental archaeologists were overly concerned with nature over culture, and of churning out data but not engaging with theoretical approaches familiar to other archaeologists, still sticks in my mind. I've used the term 'environmental archaeology', simply because a suitable replacement has not appeared in the intervening 15 to 16 years. I have my problems with this label too, but this is not the focus of this article. The main question for the 2015 conference was '… has anything changed?' My feeling is that for environmental archaeologists working in the commercial field, methodology has diversified, and sub-specialisms have grown (geoarchaeology, for instance), but engaging with new theoretical approaches has proven to be more difficult. There are many reasons why the working environment of the commercial sector isn't conducive to grappling with new theoretical developments. Does that mean we are back in the dark ages? If that means we are on the back foot in one aspect, then we are on the front foot in others! That we are part of a sector that has been generating 'big data' for decades is an advantage. New approaches to theory need data, and we are getting much better at making a large body of data and grey literature easily accessible. It is a formidable research resource. The material archive is also growing in museums, through which methods and approaches to interpretation can be tested and developed. The data bank from new fieldwork is continually being used to re-assess how we protect archaeological sites and excavate or investigate new ones. The difference is that this arises from a cohesive and funded approach. Much of this re-assessment has been carried out by those working in the commercial sector, with some joint working with the university sector and community groups. However, if we are to investigate future sites in ways that address new concepts and furthers research, then a greater degree of joint working between those based in commercial archaeology and the broader research community would be valuable. Theory and data need to be co-dependent.

A discipline called environmental archaeology emerged in the 1970s, established itself as an important part of archaeological post-excavation practice, and promptly developed an identity crisis. At regular intervals since, the discipline has tried to decide what defines it and what its overall theoretical paradigm should or could be. This article considers some of the challenges that have inhibited the development of a consensus theoretical framework, not least the working practices of commercial field archaeology. The role of niche-construction models in archaeology is discussed, and the article considers the place of new analytical methodologies and interaction with the public as opportunities to develop new theoretical perspectives.

Too much of the work we might class as environmental archaeology can be characterised as extractive and linear. Samples of interest may be taken from a locality, but the results are seldom shared with people who may have an interest in that locality (beyond the dig director and readers of the subsequent publication), nor is the opportunity given to wider stakeholders to ask questions of the samples and find out about the things that interest them. This article argues that, to borrow the language of sustainability, a more circular and reciprocal approach, founded on wider community engagement, is in our best interest. Results of two surveys are presented. The first asked community archaeology groups in the UK about their experiences with experts in biological remains and archaeological soils and sediments. The second asked some of those very experts about their experiences of community engagement and co-creation, both in the UK and on international projects. Springing from this, an agenda is presented for a more inclusive, and more sustainable, bioarchaeology, geoarchaeology and human palaeoecology.

Archaeobotany, here taken as the study of archaeological plant macrofossil remains, is a mature and widely practised area of study within archaeology. However, plants are rarely seen as active participants in past societies. Recent critical evaluations of the field of archaeobotany have focused on methodological issues, chronological and regional overviews and biomolecular developments, rather than theoretical approaches or research practices. This article aims to reflect on future agendas in archaeobotany, which may improve the use and communication of archaeobotanical data, and invigorate discussion. First, the article briefly reviews the development of archaeobotany in Britain, before focusing discussion on the areas of data publication and archiving, and the application of archaeological theory to archaeobotanical remains. Opportunities provided by the 'plant turn' in social sciences and humanities are explored in relation to plant materiality. The use of the Internet in training and analysis is considered, before reflecting on how archaeobotany has been successfully communicated to broader audiences.

The stories of Noah, Gilgamesh and Atlantis are internationally known, telling of lands submerged beneath the sea. Similar stories exist for the European seaboard, from Brittany through southern England, Wales, Ireland and parts of Scotland. Today we know that many areas now lost beneath the sea were dry land in the not so distant past; consequently, papers purporting to link the geological events associated with flooding these lands and such stories have been written. However, these papers have been written from the perspective of the scientist, with little regard for the perspective of the story or from that of the story-teller. In this article we attempt to redress this inferred normativity by drawing attention to the problematic nature of such an endeavour, developing a discussion about how else one might approach this balance from that opened by fields as diverse as folklore, ethnography and archaeo-astronomy.

As environmental archaeology matures, I believe we should be able to keep the term inside the world of archaeology and use it to for describing a set of techniques, ensuring that we are operating at the highest professional standards and that there is longevity to the skills within it. However, we should also know that when we are talking to people outside of the discipline we need to rethink how best to communicate, and this means accepting that the term 'environmental archaeology' may have limited value with other (or non-archaeological) audiences.

Pottery is of fundamental importance for understanding archaeological contexts, facilitating the understanding of production, trade flows, and social interactions. Pottery characterisation and the classification of ceramics is still a manual process, reliant on analogue catalogues created by specialists, held in archives and libraries. The ArchAIDE project worked to streamline, optimise and economise the mundane aspects of these processes, using the latest automatic image recognition technology, while retaining key decision points necessary to create trusted results. Specifically, ArchAIDE worked to support classification and interpretation work (during both fieldwork and post-excavation analysis) with an innovative app for tablets and smartphones. This article summarises the work of this three-year project, funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement N.693548, with a consortium of partners representing both the academic and industry-led ICT (Information and Communications Technology) domains, and the academic and development-led archaeology domains. The collaborative work of the archaeological and technical partners created a pipeline where potsherds are photographed, their characteristics compared against a trained neural network, and the results returned with suggested matches from a comparative collection with typical pottery types and characteristics. Once the correct type is identified, all relevant information for that type is linked to the new sherd and stored within a database that can be shared online. ArchAIDE integrated a variety of novel and best-practice approaches, both in the creation of the app, and the communication of the project to a range of stakeholders.

This is a report on two excavations at the Carmelite friary in an area of Aberdeen called the Green. The 1980-1 excavation revealed the south-west corner of the church and the south end of what was probably the west range of the friary. The 1994 excavations uncovered the north-west corner of the church, most of what is probably the west range, a probable east wall of the church, part of the graveyard and traces of the south and/or east range. Finds included 201 burials (one of which had a copper alloy bracelet on the left wrist), window glass and leading, floor and roof tiles as well as a selection of personal items including book fittings, pins and a bone die. The friary was supplied with running water through a lead pipe and copper alloy taps from at least the late 13th century. The excavations in this area have allowed a fuller interpretation of the Carmelite friary and its setting. As a result it has now been possible to 'reconstruct' the friary and put it into its medieval setting in the Green. Aberdeen has one of the best collections of historical documents in Scotland and there are over 300 surviving documents or book entries about the Carmelite friars of Aberdeen which have been used to aid interpretation alongside the archaeological evidence. The Aberdeen Carmelite church remains buried under the car park. A plaque was erected by the developers near the site and the outline of the church has been marked out on the car park which now covers the building.

In Ecuador, bottles as containers for liquids appeared in the Late Formative period at the end of the Machalilla culture (1600 BC to 800 BC). Whistle bottles were created and perfected during the Chorrera culture (900 BC to 100 BC), and finally evolved into polyphonic bottles during the Bahía culture (500 BC to 650 AD). During the Chorrera phase, moulded aesthetic elements were developed and incorporated:, such as zoomorphs and anthropomorphs, phytomorphs, architectural forms, whose animated references were related to the acoustics they produced, giving 'onomatopoeic' sounds of nature (e.g. birds, monkeys, frogs). The current research focused on the structural and systematic study of a double ellipsoid ornithomorph bottle with a whistle from the Chorrera-Bahía culture (900 BC to 100 BC), an object that is currently in the National Archaeological Reserve of the Ministry of Culture in the city of Quito, Republic of Ecuador (Ch-B-1-38-69) (Figure 1). Two replicas and the original were investigated in situ by the Universidad Central del Ecuador and it was possible to determine that both blowing into and moving the objects when filled with water produced the sound. We interpret this as a need to 'automate' the sound production, and the acoustics derived from the movement of water is what possibly motivated Crespo (1966) to call them 'magical objects'.

A recent compositional study of Egyptian cobalt-blue glass from museum collections in Japan (18th Dynasty) and from the site of Dahshur (18th and 19th-20th Dynasties) concluded that a new source of cobalt was exploited for the later Dahshur glass, thereby suggesting that glass production continued into the Ramesside period (Abe et al. 2012). It is shown in the current article that some of this 18th Dynasty glass and the majority of the 19th-20th Dynasty glass had been recycled, not only supporting the general consensus that glass production virtually disappeared by 1250 BC, but that the cobalt source did not necessarily change. It is further proposed, however, that the generally accepted cobalt source for Egyptian glass was not the alum deposits of Egypt's Western Desert, but derived from cobaltiferous siliceous ores, possibly from central Iran. Re-analysis of the compositions of cobalt-blue glass frit found at Amarna, as well as Egyptian and Mesopotamian glass, suggests that the cobalt colourant was a by-product of silver extraction from these ores and can therefore be considered as a concentrated cobalt glass slag, which travelled in the form of a frit to glass producers who added it to locally derived base glasses and/or their precursors. Experiments conducted on ore containing cobalt-nickel arsenides with native silver demonstrate that not only can silver be extracted and that concentrated cobalt glass can be produced simply by adding a flux, but that some components of the ore partition preferentially into the silver or the glass slag, thereby weakening their associations with the other components in archaeological glass. Treating the cobalt-blue colourant as a slag composed of the gangue of a smelting system provides an explanation for the unique elevated levels of alumina and lower levels of potash found in cobalt-blue glasses, as well as providing an explanation for the cessation of cobalt exploitation at the end of the Late Bronze Age. It is suggested that the exhaustion of native silver and siliceous silver ore deposits during the Bronze Age, with argentiferous lead ores becoming the main source of silver, depleted the amount of cobalt available, thereby reducing the amount of glass produced which, in turn, led to increases in recycling during the New Kingdom period.

This article attempts to consider the social dimensions of metalworking during the Beaker period and Bronze Age in southern England. However, any attempt to discuss the social context of metalworking in these periods, i.e. who was working metals and where these activities occurred, is confronted with an extremely low evidence base of excavated archaeological sites where metalworking is known to have taken place. This lack of data and subsequent understanding of metalworking locations stands in stark contrast to the thousands of Beaker and Bronze Age metal artefacts housed in museum archives across Britain. These metal artefacts bear witness to the ability of people in Beaker and Bronze Age societies in Britain, and particularly southern England, to obtain, transform and use metals since the introduction of copper at c.2450 BC. Such metal artefacts have been subject to detailed analytical programmes, which have revealed information on the supply and recycling of metals. Likewise, there have also been significant advances in our understanding of the prehistoric mining of metals across the British Isles, with Beaker and Bronze Age mines identified in locations such as Ross Island (Ireland), the Great Orme (UK) and Alderley Edge (UK). Consequently, there is detailed archaeological knowledge about the two ends of the metalworking spectrum: the obtaining of the metal ores from the ground and the finished artefacts. However, the evidence for who was working metals and where is almost completely lacking. This article discusses the archaeological evidence of the location of metalworking areas in these periods and dissects the reasons why so few have been found within archaeological excavation, with the evidence for early metallurgy likely to be slight and ambiguous, and possibly not identifiable as metalworking remains during excavation. Suggestions are made as to where such metalworking activities could have taken place in the Beaker period and Bronze Age, and what techniques can be applied to discover some of this evidence of metalworking activity, to allow access to the social dimensions of early metalworking and metalworkers.

This article represents the next step in our ongoing effort to understand the online human remains trade, how, why and where it exists on social media. It expands upon initial research to explore the 'rhetoric' and structure behind the use and manipulation of images and text by this collecting community, topics explored using Google Inception v.3, TensorFlow, etc. (Huffer and Graham 2017; 2018). This current research goes beyond that work to address the ethical and moral dilemmas that can confound the use of new technology to classify and sort thousands of images. The categories used to 'train' the machine are self-determined by the researchers, but to what extent can current image classifying methods be broken to create false positives or false negatives when attempting to classify images taken from social media sales records as either old authentic items or recent forgeries made using remains sourced from unknown locations? What potential do they have to be exploited by dealers or forgers as a way to 'authenticate the market'? Analysing the data obtained when 'scraping' image or text relevant to cultural property trafficking of any kind involves the use of machine learning and neural network analysis, the ethics of which are themselves complicated. Here, we discuss these issues around two case studies; the ongoing repatriation case of Abraham Ulrikab, and an example of what it looks like when the classifier is deliberately broken.

This article presents the results of a non-intrusive investigation conducted at the scheduled multi-period site at Breedon Hill, Leicestershire. The hilltop is the site of a univallate hillfort believed to date to the Early-Middle Iron Age. From the 7th century AD, a minster church was founded within the hillfort enclosure, which became the site of an Augustinian Priory in the 12th century. Today approximately two-thirds of the hilltop has been irretrievably lost due to quarrying). The investigation, undertaken in spring 2016, combines gradiometer and earth resistance geophysical surveys, alongside digital terrain modelling (processed LIDAR data), to contribute to the understanding of the character and development of the hillfort interior. While previous excavations have sought to understand the development of the hillfort ramparts, little is known about the different phases of occupation at the hilltop, especially within the hillfort interior. The results of the geophysical surveys reveal several phases of roundhouses and post-built structures in the south-eastern part of the hillfort interior. The interpreted results are contextualised in relation to similar regional sites. An interpretation of a possible phase of occupation is made based on the results.

This article presents the results of the analysis of the pottery from the recently excavated site at Mahurjhari in central India. In doing so, it also proposes a new way of looking at archaeological ceramics in South Asia. Here, archaeological ceramics are traditionally defined on the basis of their visual appearance (their colour and texture), which results in a great deal of ambiguity, limits intra- and inter-regional comparison, and impedes a more material culture-based approach to their study. Indeed, there is no established pottery typology for the region in which this site is located, and despite the fact that ceramics invariably account for the majority of excavated assemblages they frequently remain unreported. Addressing this, we suggest that recording and analysing archaeological ceramics on the basis of how they were made (essentially, implementing a chaîne opératoire approach) might be a useful way to proceed. Given that such approaches are new in this area, we explain what this entails, and then present the results of the analysis of this pottery assemblage using these methods—defining classes of pottery on the basis of traces left by the ways they were made. With a typology thus defined on the basis on the practice of pottery manufacture, we then seriate the assemblage with reference to recent AMS dates obtained from the site and suggest a chronological sequence for the pots from this site. These results are then framed within a wider discussion of the potential value of the application of new ways of looking at archaeological ceramics in South Asia.

The Traces in a Lost Landscape: Aboriginal archaeological sites, Dyarubbin/Nepean River Project uses geospatial recording and analysis to recover, integrate, and map data from published and unpublished reports on Aboriginal archaeological sites on Dyarubbin/the Nepean River in New South Wales, Australia. This dataset consists of Australian Aboriginal archaeological locations of interest in the greater Nepean River area in New South Wales, Australia.

An introduction to the theme, based on contributions from the 2018 EAC Symposium.

Farming in a country like the Netherlands, which has a limited surface area, high land value and critical customers, is like walking a tightrope: a farmer is always the scapegoat when it comes to the societal consequences of the job. Archaeologists, for example, have problems with modern cultivation techniques, because they can demonstrably harm archaeological sites, yet the farming community can be reluctant to accede to the archaeologists' requests, since it has many more (larger) issues to overcome. Predictive modelling as part of the development-led Dutch archaeology has not contributed to the desired mutual understanding. Yet there are signs of a growing willingness to listen to each other's needs, paralleled by developments in the environmental sector and the management of natural resources. Tentative projects to create a win-win situation for both farmers and archaeologists have been launched and even successfully carried out, but that is not enough. Archaeological heritage management requires permanent provisions, because the loss of information from the soil archive is irreversible. Attempts are being made to re-open the dialogue between farmers and archaeologists and bring about a more positive attitude on both sides. It is argued that severe actions are not effective in the Dutch polder.

When the European Union began to finance transport and pipeline infrastructure constructions in Bulgaria, large-scale development-led archaeological projects emerged. After 2011, many 'polluter pays' projects were executed with the outlined workflow containing preliminary reports and fieldwork activities in accordance with Bulgarian legislation and a defined price list. As part of the process the national 'sites and monuments' archaeological information system 'Archaeological Map of Bulgaria' (AIS AKB) plays an important part as a source of archaeological data for the territory of Bulgaria. This centralised structure controls the quality of the archaeological fieldwork and data standardisation. The aim is to transform the 'sites and monuments' information system to an archaeological geographic information system (GIS) based on geospatial features, largely using an accumulation of standardised data.

We explore the idea of the 'public benefit' of archaeology and argue that our definition of what this means needs to be broadened, so that those that fund and consume archaeological information, and those that currently do not, can better understand the full breadth of its importance and significance. Archaeological information is relevant to, and in many cases actively contributes to, discussions of climate change, the promotion of diversity, the construction of sustainable communities and the appreciation and understanding of place. We will present and discuss some of the range of projects that are currently being supported through Historic Environment Scotland's Archaeology Programme, which is now focused on the delivery of Scotland's Archaeology Strategy. Many of these projects bring together professional archaeologists and members of the public, but how do we get a greater variety of people interested? It will be argued that one of the key roles of a national body is to bridge the gap between people's day-to-day lives and archaeology, making clearer why it is important to everyone. There are clearly challenges inherent in this approach. We argue that different forms of media can be used to amplify the relevance of archaeological information, and that this could be done more effectively. At present, archaeological information is largely consumed as an academic text-based narrative, hard to understand by the general public, and its relevance to everyday life is rarely clearly conveyed. We are seeking to improve this through better, more relevant, stories and imagery. The scientific endeavours of archaeologists, varying from landscape reconstruction to analysis of ancient diet are often relevant to contemporary issues – this could be better explored and promoted.

A new Law of Heritage of Culture was introduced in Bulgaria in 2009. This short article examines the juridical and practical effects of its implementation regarding preventive archaeology in the country.

Needs and interests are two different concepts. Talking about needs, we focus on what would be necessary or ideal to have. This is idealism. Talking about the interests of somebody or a group or a legal entity, we discuss what will happen. This is realism. The two approaches go hand in hand and are yet in opposition to each other. Communicating archaeological heritage is a complex procedure, equally and simultaneously involving professionals, developers and the public in addition to other stakeholders. Their goals, tools, target audiences and messages are different, but the original subject – the archaeological site and finds – are the same. Approaching this subject from different aspects enables an overview of the communication problems and its complexity in general, presenting the contradictions and conflicts in meeting the needs and interests of the stakeholders.

This article discusses the possibilities and effectiveness of the presentation of archaeological information and topics in Czech Television News in the context of continuing media convergence. Comparisons are made between the output efficiency in linear television broadcasting and online platforms. Quantitative analysis is given of audience and attendance data on five particular archaeological themes prepared by the public service television news. This is a view from the 'other side'.

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is one of the major developments in Albania for the transportation of natural gas from the Caspian region to Western Europe through Albania and the Adriatic Sea. The pipeline is 215 km long within Albania and passes near rich areas with cultural monuments, archaeological sites and antique streets. The study, design and implementation of TAP project works has been a complex process, progressing through several phases. As a major development, TAP and archaeological heritage organisations have supported each other by enabling progress through the preservation and promotion of shared values. This cooperation has led to many enhancements.

In this article, I describe the current opportunities for citizen participation in archaeology and heritage in Austria. I introduce some associations and organisations that carry out archaeological projects with citizen participation then discuss the Austrian monument protection law and explain why it is difficult even with political consent to start such initiatives. I move on to explain who should still benefit from archaeology and monument preservation and what is the best way of dealing with the public. Finally, I introduce a new entity called 'bridge builders', which aims to reduce the barrier between science and the public, while at the same time promoting cooperation.

This introduction outlines the rationale for and concerns of the research network, 'Big Data on the Roman Table' – an international forum showcasing and exploring new ways of harnessing and analysing the extensive datasets of tablewares from around the Roman world, for agenda-changing, consumption-orientated approaches to this rich archaeological record from the early Roman Empire. The introduction sets out the problems facing more social-historical approaches to these, mainly ceramic, tablewares and includes examples from my own research into tablewares, from the Roman world and beyond, to demonstrate my reasons for initiating and co-organising this network. It also summarises the structure and the approaches of this volume and its selection of articles, from papers presented at the two workshops of this network.

In this article I present a theoretical model for assigning functions to categories of Roman ceramics. This model was designed to make broad statements about assemblages that are too large to analyse in detail. It is therefore based on the 'ideal use' of a vessel - i.e. the function the potter had in mind when he chose the clay, temper, forming techniques and so on - rather than 'non-ideal' or actual use. Characteristics considered are, among others, shape, size, weight, surface treatment and wall thickness. Seven distinct functions have been identified, taking the inherent multi-functionality of certain vessels into account. In many cases an individual vessel type will be suitable for more than one function. In a case study the commonly made functional distinction between smooth-tempered one-handled flagons (kruiken) as tableware and two-handled flagons (kruikamforen) as storage vessels is challenged. Furthermore, differences in their deposition within both grave and settlement assemblages are explored.

The use of traditional 'chrono-typologies' are rooted in the evolutionist and aesthetical principles underlying classical archaeology as a discipline. Accordingly, the use of such categories in the analysis of domestic patterns of tableware consumption in local communities during the Roman period risks introducing different kinds of biases to our current theories. I start the article with a discussion about the need to review traditional categories used to classify such finds. Based on the conclusions of this discussion, I propose an alternative procedure for the analysis of domestic patterns of Roman tableware consumption. My analytical approach is based on two main methodological principles: 1) the use of other functional classification categories established from multiple criteria ('technofunction', usewear analysis, productive and archaeological provenance, etc.) and 2) the testing of these functional categories using statistical tools for comparison between different scales. To illustrate this proposal, I apply a correspondence analysis to infer consumption patterns through comparison of functional and typological variables recorded in the analysed tableware finds from three Roman domestic contexts excavated in the province of Soria (Spain): the Domus of Los Plintos (Uxama); the Domus of the Aqueduct (Tiermes); and the Roman villa of 'La Dehesa' in Cuevas de Soria (Quintana Redonda). Some of the inferences obtained can be used to gain a deeper insight into the household economies of these settlements of Roman Spain.

There are many examples of vessel types reportedly used for drinking during the Roman period, but there have been few attempts to calculate the volume of liquid that such vessels could have held. For this article scaled reproductions of vessels from archaeological reports are used as the basis for calculating vessel capacity by applying the formula for the volume of a cylinder V equals Pi r squared h to calculate vessel volume and thus liquid capacity. Most of the vessels examined in this article consist of coarse ware and fineware pottery from the legionary fortress at Usk. The drinking silverware from the House of the Menander at Pompeii provides a comparison with the Usk pottery. The calculated capacities potentially allow distinctions between individual and communal drinking to be seen, while large variations in capacity are apparent even within supposedly tightly grouped datasets like the Drag. 27 samian ware from Usk. Comparing the capacities of different vessel types and vessel materials can also demonstrate a certain level of consumer preference. This is especially so at Usk where no vessels with a capacity of between 400ml and 500ml are found, and the majority of the vessels tend to cluster below 300ml. Identifying a specific drink being consumed from these vessels is more problematic, but by combining capacity data with other sources of evidence, such as find spots, vessel forms and materials, a number of possibilities are raised.

This article discusses the problems surrounding the matching of South Gaulish terra sigillata shapes to the descriptions used by their potter manufacturers and modern sigillata type-series produced by scholars in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It then goes on to postulate which shapes and types of vessel might have dressed a Roman table, and how those vessels might have been used. The discussion is quantified by examples of comparative frequencies occurring at the kiln site and on export sites within a historical framework of key consumer sites.

Pottery in northern Gaul represents, in terms of types and number, the largest component of funerary offerings. The function of categories and types of vessels from funerary assemblages located in the three tribal areas of the Tungri(Hesbaye), the Atrebates (Ostrevant), and the Neruii/Nervii(Hainaut), are discussed here to inform understanding of vessel use in domestic contexts. In funerary contexts, we can discern much about how particular categories of vessels provided for particular dining functions, and thus correlate the hierarchy of the graves and the vessels. However, the function of certain forms changes when used in a grave, especially when a container becomes a cinerary urn. Comparison of quantitative data clearly separates funerary series from domestic context ones and proves that if vessels share an identical function, their assemblage context gives evidence of a choice made for representation and rite. We need to look at vessels in their context of deposition to get a sense of how function varied across different social/ritual contexts.

It is popularly thought that pottery vessels deposited in graves represented meals for the deceased, but this has been little tested statistically using 'big data'. By way of redress, this article brings together pottery data from a number of large cemeteries in south-east Roman Britain, as well as from selected sites on the European Continent, and compares them with pottery data from settlement assemblages associated by location, status and date. The analysis suggests that grave groups did not represent table settings used in life, except for those in cemeteries associated with higher status settlements. Cemetery assemblages associated with lower status settlements are fundamentally different from the settlements' domestic assemblages; vessel classes well represented in graves do not have a significant presence in the non-funerary assemblages from related settlements. In contrast, graves containing suites of vessels that, it could be argued, represent full table settings were well represented at urban cemeteries, but less well represented in cemeteries associated with lower status settlements. Thus, mourners selecting and depositing pottery in graves at urban centres may well have seen the same sort of pottery on their dining tables on a regular basis. In contrast, mourners at rural settlements may have seen the pottery deposited as grave goods only at funerals. In addition, evidence from one cemetery, Pepper Hill in Kent, points to the possibility that beliefs associated with burial rites, rather than, necessarily, the desire to mirror pottery usage in life, was a factor in determining the selection of vessels for the grave.

Although the widespread use of Gallic terra sigillata in first-century AD Gallia Narbonensis represents a dramatic change in relations of production and consumption, anthropological literature on consumption practices suggests that these mass-produced dining vessels would not necessarily have been used in identical ways in different social contexts. This article examines the discarded Gallic terra sigillata assemblages from the Gallic sites of Lattara, Ambrussum, and Carsalade in eastern Languedoc, France, as well as from the Roman colony of Narbo Martius (modern Narbonne) in western Languedoc. Rather than indicating a homogeneous use of Gallic terra sigillata throughout the province, the ceramic data analysed here suggest instead that there were at least three distinctive patterns of terra sigillata use, as can be discerned by the proportions reflected in practices of discard. These patterns do not directly reflect actual dining sets or specific commensal events, but rather long-term, recurring practices among different social groups.

Intensive excavation and research over the course of decades have produced a very large dataset relating to Roman pottery from London. Research into the function of specific vessel forms has rarely been undertaken but information about the size, shape, fabric and condition of vessels recorded during routine identification and quantification of assemblages at MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) and its predecessor organisations, has significant potential to inform functional interpretations. This evidence was used to explore the function of a sample of open forms, suggesting considerable variation in use and highlighting areas in which the quality of data needs to be improved to aid further functional analysis in the future. It was possible to use this evidence to show broad distinctions in the use of fine and coarse wares and to identify recurrent wear on a range of forms, mirroring those previously identified elsewhere. More subtle patterns relating to the use of lids in cooking, and a decline in the evidence for heating on similar coarse-ware forms over time, were also identified.

This article presents an analysis of three dining-related assemblages of pottery from Roman Leicester (Ratae Corieltavorum) and compares them to the patterns already established for pottery supply and vessel use derived from other rubbish deposits across the town and its suburbs. Spatial correspondence analysis is then used to map the varying character of these other assemblages, and the emerging pattern is interpreted. Large-scale excavations in Leicester over three decades have provided a substantial dataset for broader analysis of vessel supply and usage but only rarely do tightly dated groups, relating to specific buildings and food remains, occur. Two of these groups present evidence for 'dining out' during the second century. The first is from the backfill of a cellar, perhaps from below a tavern on Little Lane, containing tablewares, drinking vessels, amphorae, and flagons, alongside animal bones and oysters. The second is the fill of a cess pit (latrine pit) from Castle Street containing amphorae, flagons, tableware bowls and dishes, but no drinking vessels, alongside exotic plant foods, fish and smoked shoulders of beef, which is considered to relate to a 'delicatessen'-style 'take-away'. The third group represents 'eating in' at the later third-century courtyard house on Vine Street and comprises a wide range of animal and plant foods alongside cooking pots, bowls and dishes, and large colour-coated ware beakers, excavated from the kitchen drain and two cess pits. The mapping of data gathered from 26 other assemblages, dating between the mid-first and late second centuries, highlights two spatial trends in vessel deposition across the town. The first is a north-south opposition, with more vessels associated with drinking in the central and northern parts of the town, while the second shows a contrast between the centre, around the forum, where there is a greater proportion of finewares, and the suburbs, where there are larger numbers of jars. Together, these trends suggest that we can identify zonation within Leicester that can be related back to different depositional practices and ultimately patterns of use and consumption.

A hand-held smart device technology (Arch-I-Scan) is currently being developed and tested for scanning and classifying archaeological artefacts. The technology is based on a new platform developed by ARM, jointly with University of Leicester within Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership project (code KTP009890), and takes advantage of new algorithms for one-trial learning based on measure concentration phenomenon in high dimensions. This article discusses the development of a 'proof of concept' for automating the classification of Roman ceramic vessel types using whole vessels held in the collections of the Jewry Wall Museum, Leicester. The 'proof of concept' illustrates the viability and technical possibility of classifying and discriminating between objects of different types on-the-fly from a limited number of images. This technology is based on recent results (Gorban et al. 2016; Gorban and Tyukin 2017) revealing peculiar geometric properties of finite but large samples of data in high dimension. The ambition is to create a dedicated software that turns commonly available devices such as smart phones or tablets into scanners capable of classifying even small vessel sherds to the correct form and fabric.

This project involves the high-resolution 3D laser scanning of a cache of Italian black gloss pottery from the Capitoline Museums in Rome. Our aim is to examine in detail the minute traces of production and use of these vessels and to produce a digital record of their form. We have experimented with several scanning devices in order to determine the optimal methods for capturing abrasions on pottery and are developing digital methods for surface analysis. The purpose of the analysis is to consider how black gloss vessels from ritual contexts (tomb and sanctuary deposits) may have been used before they were deposited and to refine our understanding of vessel production methods.

This article aims to demonstrate how an ontology can be constructed to encompass many of the criteria needed for more consumption-orientated approaches to Roman tablewares. For this it demonstrates how a dataset in a relational database can be organised for the format and capabilities of an ontology, and then how these data are input into the ontology model. Finally it includes some sample analyses to show the effectiveness of such an ontology for types of analyses that are relevant to this network.

For many archaeological assemblages and type-series, accurate drawings of standardised pottery vessels have been recorded in consistent styles. This provides the opportunity to extract individual pot drawings and derive from them data that can be used for analysis and visualisation. Starting from PDF scans of the original pages of pot drawings, we have automated much of the process for locating, defining the boundaries, extracting and orientating each individual pot drawing. From these processed images, basic features such as width and height, the volume of the interior, the edges, and the shape of the cross-section outline are extracted and are then used to construct more complex features such as a measure of a pot's 'circularity'. Capturing these traits opens up new possibilities for (a) classifying vessel form in a way that is sensitive to the physical characteristics of pots relative to other vessels in an assemblage, and (b) visualising the results of quantifying assemblages using standard typologies. A frequently encountered problem when trying to compare pottery from different archaeological sites is that the pottery is classified into forms and labels using different standards. With a set of data from early Roman urban centres and related sites that has been labelled both with forms (e.g. 'platter' and 'bowl') and shape identifiers (based on the Camulodunum type-series), we use the extracted features from images to look both at how the pottery forms cluster for a given set of features, and at how the features may be used to compare finds from different sites.

Multivariate analyses, in particular correspondence analysis (CA), have become a standard exploratory tool for analysing and interpreting variance in archaeological assemblages. While they have greatly helped analysts, they unfortunately remain abstract to the viewer, all the more so if the viewer has little or no experience with multivariate statistics. A second issue with these analyses can arise from the detachment of archaeological material from its geo-referenced location and typically considered only in terms of arbitrary classifications (e.g. North Europe, Central Europe, South Europe) instead of the full range of local conditions (e.g. proximity to other assemblages, relationships with other spatial phenomena). This article addresses these issues by presenting a novel method for spatially visualising CA so that these analyses can be interpreted intuitively. The method works by transforming the resultant bi-plots of the CA into colour maps using the HSV colour model, in which the similarity and difference between assemblages directly corresponds to the similarity and difference of the colours used to display them. Utilising two datasets – ceramics from the excavations of the Roman fortress of Vetera I, and terra sigillataforms collected as part of 'The Samian Project' – the article demonstrates how the method is applied and how it can be used to draw out spatial and temporal trends.

The Roman tableware pottery samian (terra sigillata) was distributed over the whole Roman Empire. From the early days of archaeological research, it has always been considered as an instrument not only for analysing Roman trading routes, but also for comparing consumption patterns in smaller regions and between individual sites. This article questions the degree to which samian can fulfil these expectations.

Although the study of tablewares has a long history in the Roman East, research has been hindered by the relatively few, and only very recent, interdisciplinary research projects that study and publish their tableware in depth. But in the last decades, advanced provenancing techniques, combined with efforts to study tableware en masse have been employed, resulting in a better understanding of tableware in the east. Distribution patterns for the major wares found in the East during the Late Hellenistic and Early Imperial period (e.g. Eastern Sigillata A, B, C, D; Italian terra sigillata) were successfully mapped by Philip Bes by compiling published data into a single database of the ICRATES (Inventory of Crafts and Trade in the Roman East) project (Bes and Poblome 2008). Yet many questions remain on the relationship between production and consumption of these wares and on the role more local products played, both of which are not helped by the relative paucity of well-studied closed archaeological contexts. This article addresses some of these issues through study of the tableware data for Asia Minor. As a first step, the data from Sagalassos, a city located in Pisidia (south-west Asia Minor) are discussed. The incorporation of Asia Minor into the Roman Republic and later Empire was accompanied by civic turmoil and increased Roman intervention. Sagalassos, for example, started to produce tableware at a time when Roman colonies were being founded in the region of Pisidia. At the same time, the period of the first century BCE to second century CE saw increased urbanisation in the region, while concurrently the 'Greek' culture seems to have continued. At Sagalassos, substantial production facilities for tableware (Sagalassos Red Slip Ware or SRSW) are archaeologically attested and the excavations have yielded a vast amount of ceramics. As a production site, with few numbers of SRSW being attested elsewhere at present, the next logical step is to compare Sagalassos with consumption patterns of tableware at cities elsewhere in Asia Minor (Ephesos, Assos, and Tarsos). These represent sites both in proximity to and at some distance from producers of tableware. Therefore these represent a good test bed for the consumption of tableware, both in quantity and quality (i.e. what shapes were commonly used). Diachronic data distribution methods are applied to the data from Sagalassos (50,000+ vessels) and the ICRATES dataset (c. 4800 vessels for Late Hellenistic-Imperial Asia Minor), both to observe quantitative diachronic changes and also to define the sequences of vessel forms and 'fashions'. The results represent the consumption patterns and sensibilities of usage and fashions of tableware, which must be set against a background of the societal, cultural and political changes in Asia Minor.

This article examines the variety of the locally made ceramic group known as Pannonian slipped ware (Pannonische Glanztonware - PGW). For the Roman provincial archaeology of Pannonia this group has particular meaning because it is perceived as a regional amalgam of Roman imperial taste and local Celtic traditions. This phenomenon is even more intriguing given that almost all the imitations were burnished grey and black, differing significantly from terra sigillata originals. The quality of the imitations clearly indicates that such colouring was not a consequence of a technological deficiency, but a clear expression of local taste and demand. Imitations that were made subsequently, later in the second century, show that the preference for black/grey slipped imitations of terra sigillata persisted in this region, obviously representing a distinctive alternative to the ever-present red gloss terra sigillata that was later imported from Gaul and Germania. A re-examination of other sites in the region and contextualisation of published material shows that this was not an isolated phenomenon, but that these imitations were part of a regional ceramic group known as Pannonian slipped ware (PSW). Several aspects of these imitations could be explored, but the task of this article is to investigate why these vessels were made as they were by comparing the PSW finds with original terra sigillata found in the region to determine patterns of differences and similarities.

Archaeologists in the UK and elsewhere have developed standards and guidelines for recording, analysing and archiving information about Roman pottery. A survey of Roman pottery specialists conducted for the 'Big Data on the Roman Table' (BDRT) research network showed significant variation by country, institution, project and individual researcher in approaches to pottery analysis, including use of terminology, the kinds of quantitative and qualitative data recorded and adoption of digital methods. This concurs with other studies and professional discussions at BDRT workshops and elsewhere. This article discusses recent UK initiatives to improve information standards in Roman pottery studies. It then considers their implications for future international cooperation, using digital methods needed to support the research and other objectives of the BDRT network.

In this discussion and commentary a number of themes emerging from the Workshops and articles presented in this volume are highlighted and discussed. The 'Big Data on the Roman Table' (BDRT) initiative is viewed within the context of Roman pottery studies past and present. Issues to do with sampling and the nature of site formation processes, and sample collection, are considered. Questions around form and function, use and wear are assessed. Means of presenting data, as seen in this volume, are examined. As the articles showcase resources and capabilities being applied to research goals in the present digital environment, the future prospect of, and questions for, continuing work are considered. This discussion highlights the enormously rich archaeological record of the Roman era and the potential for Big Data studies of tableware. Through a narrative that links to the on-going daily familiarity of pottery use that people of our world experience, it may be possible to bridge the gap between specialist knowledge and wider audiences.

In the Amersfoort Agenda — a call to action for Europe's archaeology — the subject of 'decision-making' (Dare to Choose) was identified as one of the three key themes in meeting the current challenges facing archaeological heritage management in Europe. It is only logical that as an offshoot of this agenda, EAC dedicated an annual symposium to the theme of making choices.

The archaeological discipline puts serious effort into achieving the greatest possible scientific added-value and supporting the potential values of archaeological heritage for society. However, choices have to be made at different stages and levels of the archaeological heritage management process. Several interests are at play when making these choices: science, society, financial, legal and logistical possibilities, and public support. Choices are based on the weighing up of different factors such as values, interests and practical opportunity.

The European Archaeological Council's working group on 'Making Choices' conducted a survey of EAC member states about the ways in which they make decisions in archaeological heritage management with particular reference to development-led archaeological investigation. The driver for this is the belief that the approaches to development-led archaeology need to be more transparent and proportional to ensure continued state and developer/investor support. Based on a significant response (73%) the survey gave a very useful insight into the way in which archaeological sites are defined and inventorised, the processes by which development-led investigations are designed, the means by which information is published and results (and collections) archived, and the means by which the public are engaged in the process. The survey identified three key areas where choice-making is very much in the hands of the professional practice. These are: developing a clearer understanding of the significance of protected archaeological sites in the context of Valletta, assessing sensitivity to change for any sites proposed for development, and the design of the investigation itself. In addition, the survey revealed a clear interest in developing better ways of advocating the public value of development-led archaeology. This article summarises the issues raised in the survey and concludes that the most useful ways in which EAC could help its members would be through the preparation of guidance, case studies or toolkits — regardless of what legal or statutory structures are in operation in a given state — on the following subjects: understanding and articulating significance, developing national and regional research frameworks into which new excavations might be integrated, articulating the public value of archaeological investigation and developing better approaches to archaeological archives.

The Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities is a Special Regional Service of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, with jurisdiction all around Greece, aiming to protect and promote the Underwater Cultural Heritage of Greece. Its mission is to locate, excavate, study and register settlements that are submerged due to tectonic phenomena or from a rise in sea level. The Greek seabed carries an enormous wealth of antiquities that make it the biggest underwater museum in the world. The Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities organises surveys in order to constantly cover the entire range of its mission. Through some examples of underwater archaeological sites, this article sets out good examples of decision-making and prioritising.

In 2011 it was decided to establish a set of National Strategies for the archaeology in Denmark. The strategies should not only help the museums in their daily work in the field, but were also intended as a tool for the administration of archaeology in Denmark. The first strategies have now been in existence for about three years and this article briefly sums up the background, development, content and future work.

Although often ignored, archaeological heritage management is part of the overall concept of environmental management. As trends are constantly changing in archaeology, these changes are strongly inter-connected with European and global financial, political and social processes. Moreover, innovations always quickly influence excavation and documentation technologies. It is quite clear that decision-making in archaeological heritage management is not separate from all these, and decisions are made at certain points along a continuous timeline while the environmental conditions (in their widest sense) are changing. Making decisions feels a highly responsible task. However, considering these influences, the question arises whether the importance of decision-making is emphasised sufficiently.

Most excavations in Northern Ireland arise from new development or land-use change proposals. The requirement to mitigate usually results in an excavation of sub-surface remains, with a nuanced approach in dealing with urban, peri-urban and rural sites. In this responsive situation, and the timescales involved, such excavations do not fall neatly into any pre-existing research framework. The dominant questions will normally be 'Is there something there, and will it be otherwise destroyed? Does it need to be excavated?', and one response might be that an excavation is necessary. However, there is a core knowledge and evidence-base that underlies the thought processes involved which archaeologists and archaeological managers use to try to navigate the most appropriate course of action. This knowledge and evidence-base needs renewal, and building this into the process helps to more clearly articulate why, or why not, an excavation is the best outcome at a specific site.

With the aim of providing knowledge for informed choices, a series of tools have been developed for archaeological heritage management in the Netherlands. They include maps, datasets, methods, guidelines, best practice and web-based applications to facilitate the effective and efficient selection of valuable archaeological remains. The products relate to archaeological predictive modelling, disturbances by agriculture and other activities, archaeological heritage maps, prospection methods, research questions and scientific syntheses to close the archaeological heritage management cycle.

This article is a follow-up to discussions held in the EAC Heritage Symposiums, and aims to answer one of the basic questions regarding the reasons for commencing any archaeological fieldwork. The subject is approached from the archaeological heritage manager's viewpoint, and question-driven fieldwork is understood here as scientific, as opposed to preventive and development-led archaeology. Basing my arguments mainly on the experiences of Polish archaeology, I argue in favour of the development-led research. It has been shaping European archaeology to the highest degree for several decades, and therefore should not be considered inferior or secondary. Considering the quality gap between purely scientific and development-led fieldwork, there is still a lot to be improved regarding the scope of research and its standards. Nevertheless, it still seems to have the highest potential for systemic heritage management consistent with the rules set out by the Valletta Convention and the Lausanne Charter (PDF), and for the development of archaeology as a science. Development-led archaeology is also the closest to the public and forces archaeologists to cooperate with various stakeholders.

Since its foundation in 2002, the laboratory of the Department of Archaeology of the Brussels Regional Public Service has been responsible for the conservation and restoration of all archaeological objects unearthed within the territory of the Brussels Capital Region. The volume of artefacts collected in the Region has drastically increased following the systematic organization of preventive archaeological research. It quickly became clear that in order to make the best use of available resources, strategic decisions would have to be made. An extensive and complete active conservation and restoration of every object found during an archaeological excavation is often neither realistically possible nor necessarily useful. The principal goal of archaeological conservation is the retrieval of information, held by the objects to further our understanding of the past. During this process it is important to try and minimise the input of resources while attempting to maximise the informational output and to preserve the future informational potential of the artefacts. Protocols for treatment should be developed for the different types of materials encountered, clearly defining different possible levels of preventive conservation, active conservation and restoration. These levels can range from strictly passive or preventive conservation to highly complex active conservation or restoration treatments. The choice for any level of treatment should be determined by the potential information yield of an object and therefore the resources invested should always be balanced with the results that could predictably be obtained. This does require careful and professional assessment of all archaeological finds by a conservator, in order to recognise the informational potential of each object and to correctly apply the established protocol.

This article attempts to highlight the way management plans could contribute to the creation of a common understanding among stakeholders for the protection, enhancement and presentation of monuments in Greece, and to the joint setting of targets among all competent state services for the protection of cultural heritage, along with the civil society organizations with an active role in this context. Specifically, the article investigates how a management plan could incorporate and balance the different responsibilities, priorities and views of all stakeholders and the challenges involved, highlighting the potential of this process to function as a framework for dialogue and effective decision-making on major management issues concerning monuments and their environment.

Is the involvement of the public, commercial, governmental or academic elements of society a desired outcome for the future of archaeology within cultural heritage? If so, how is this best achieved? The involvement of multiple stakeholders calls for a strategic approach and formalised structures. In the last three years, three organisations have developed three strategies in three differing jurisdictions — Ireland, Scotland and England. Each had varied stakeholder engagement focuses. The following analyses the choices made in stakeholder involvement, the outcomes, challenges and effects on implementation plans.

In the 1990s, with the discovery of rock engravings in the Côa valley, archaeology entered the public debate in Portugal, widely raising society's awareness about the impacts of public works on archaeological heritage. This coincided with the implementation of the Valleta Convention in Europe, which resulted in the creation of important legal mechanisms and the development of preventive archaeology and monitoring in Portugal. Since then, the promoters of large public construction projects have begun to feel the need to coordinate with the authorities responsible for cultural heritage. Also, in large development projects with significant effects on the environment, the Portuguese government have been implementing mechanisms of public consultation, allowing communities to express themselves and participate in the decision-making process. In this article some Portuguese examples are given to illustrate the initiatives fostered in the last two decades.

The issues surrounding the importance and protection of archaeological heritage became topical in Latvia in 2012 with the amendments to the law 'On Protection of Cultural Monuments' and they still have not lost their relevance. Discussions in the media that arose before and after the amendments to the law attracted a great deal of public interest towards archaeology, at the same time surfaced a lack of understanding of the work of archaeologists, of archaeological processes, research methods and results. It also points to the need for establishing standards on ethics for archaeologists in the country.

Editorial

The Iron Age roughly spans the centuries between c. 800 BC and the beginning of the Roman conquest of Wales in AD 74. It is distinguished by the impressive numbers of surviving hillforts and settlements present in the archaeological record. However, archaeological excavations have been few and far between and the material culture for the Iron Age in Wales is correspondingly sparse. What there is, largely recovered from deliberately deposited hoards, is exotic and unusual rather than domestic and every day. To understand the Iron Age in Wales we must largely look to analogies and comparisons drawn from elsewhere, and to our well-preserved and extensive surviving Iron Age settlement evidence.

Historical excavation of hillforts, largely pre-1970, is reviewed critically through selected cases from across Wales, illustrating a range of issues arising from variable strategies and procedures, and highlighting frailties in our accumulated evidence for the form of ramparts and entrances, as well as the arrangement of internal structures. It is contended that, wherever possible, future excavations should be expansive, addressing well-preserved sites, and accepting that this must also mean expensive. Early excavators were often heavy-handed, being concerned as much, or more, with recovering datable objects as with careful recording of structures or stratigraphy, and there is a danger of placing unwarranted trust in the alleged contexts of artefacts, so generating factoids. This can be true too of radiocarbon dates, some having been falsely presented as crucial to chronology. There is also cause to be critical of most surface surveys of hillforts, which, if conducted thoroughly, can be as vital to understanding as many an excavation, but often lack essential detail, as much of underlying landform as of artificial elements. All told, it is inescapable that study of hillforts in Wales remains immature.

Human activity had a significant impact on the landscape of Wales during the Iron Age and into the Romano-British period which is reflected in the palaeoenvironmental record. The effect on woodland is demonstrated in the pollen record which indicates clearance and regeneration episodes but an overall trend towards an increasingly agricultural landscape. Detailed information about crop and animal husbandry is provided by plant macrofossil and animal bone evidence which is more widely available in some areas than others. Wild resources continued to be exploited. Perception of and response to the 'natural' landscape, and to what it offered, by human communities may have been very different to that of today.

During the Iron Age the Atlantic zone of Wales exhibited similar traits to other areas along the western seaboard of Europe, most notably a large number of small, enclosed or defended settlements and a poverty of recoverable material culture. This has led some authorities to regard the area as marginal and somewhat backward compared with economic and social developments along the Welsh borders, England and continental Europe. This short article reviews the evidence for settlement, with an emphasis on west Wales, highlighting both the similarities and differences that existed along the Atlantic Coast and demonstrating that the vibrant Iron Age communities of the area were part of but different from the shared culture of north-west Europe in the late first millennium.

An outline of types and dating of hillforts in north-west Wales is presented together with the types and location of contemporary, undefended settlement and their fields and enclosures. The relationship between hillfort and settlement distribution and the varied types of fields and enclosures is interpreted as showing patterns of territory largely determined by an economy based on a mix of upland stock raising and lowland arable farming within the strong topographic framework of the mountains and valleys. This is contrasted with the entirely lowland area of the Isle of Anglesey, where such topographic limitations were absent although territories were still defined by natural features of rivers and watersheds.

Hillforts and defended enclosures are among the earliest and most enduring landmarks in the landscape of the Welsh borderland region and are vital to our understanding of its social and economic history for a millennium and a half, from the Late Bronze Age through to the early post-Roman period. Since the modern political map clearly is of no significance for this period, this review — which stems from recent survey and assessment work on hillforts and defended enclosures in central and north-east Wales — takes the opportunity to look across the border and see what is happening in the adjacent areas of England at this time.

Hillforts and defended enclosures do not appear to have played much part in the fighting connected with the Roman occupation of south-eastern Wales. Following the conquest, although a more Mediterranean style of life was introduced around forts and a limited number of new urban centres, there seems initially to have been little change in the countryside. From the 2nd century onward some defended settlements started to develop into villas, although many seem to have maintained a more traditional Iron Age farmstead form, Roman influence being mainly limited to the use of consumer goods. There are however some indications that at least part of the population was unable or unwilling to buy into a Roman way of life even to that extent.

There are so many hillforts in Wales that their 'architecture' and designs seem to be infinitely varied. In fact, dominant cultural traditions appear to have influenced the construction and design of at least some of the larger hillforts, while recurrent themes in the layout of entranceways, and the positioning and orientation of key defences, can be observed. This article argues for a fresh look at the subject of hillfort architecture and function in Wales and for long-held preconceptions to be challenged. In-depth analysis of individual sites and local groups of hillforts is discussed in preference to generalised national narratives.

Thanks to investment in walking the landscape, aerial photography, geophysical survey and excavation, there is a baseline of information on the distribution and types of enclosed settlement and examples of high-quality site-based data, often revealing complex site histories. These are our resources from which to extract meaning about the past — but what can actually be said about the Iron Age from all these data? What are the next stages in moving towards greater understanding? And what is the current management and presentation of the Iron Age to the public in Wales? This contribution reviews our current state of knowledge and its uses so that we can develop strategies to improve the data and communicate what it can tell us about the Welsh past.

This paper considers the role of digital recording methods and visualisation tools in the primary recording of archaeology at the Neolithic tell site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Operating within and building on Çatalhöyük Research Project's understanding of reflexive methods (Hodder 2000b, 2003; Berggren and Nilson 2014; Berggren et al. 2015) we incorporate elements of science and technology studies (Pickering 1995) in order to create a framework for documenting the complete process of devising, implementing, and assessing digitised and tablet-based workflows. These harness the project's existing SQL database and intra-site GIS, as well as the increasingly user-friendly suite of 3D recording technologies which are now available to archaeologists. The Çatalhöyük Research Project's longstanding engagement with digital methods in archaeology means that such a study is well placed to provide insights into wider disciplinary trends that might be described as a 'Digital Turn'. By offering a review of tablet recording and exploring the effects of its introduction upon the archaeologists' relationship with the archaeological remains, we investigate the applied integration of digital recording technologies and their role in facilitating a deeper reflexivity in the interpretation of the archaeology on the site.

Prehistoric field systems are, by their nature, extensive and often slight and intangible structures, most easily recognized when they are enclosed by walled, banked or ditched boundaries. The effects of many centuries of subsequent land use mean that many have been destroyed and those that remain complete and unmodified are of great archaeological value. This is the case even in north-west Wales, despite the presence there of many well-preserved examples of prehistoric settlement. These settlements have been the subject of numerous investigations but little is known about the types of agricultural activities that accompanied them. The present study was therefore designed to correct this imbalance by investigation of three examples of early field systems in north-west Wales. The methods used included ground survey, geophysical survey, excavation, palaeoenvironmental analysis and soil micromorphology.

Worcestershire, like the majority of the West Midlands, is not considered a focal point for the study of Palaeolithic archaeological remains, with much of the focus occurring in the east and south-east of England. Despite this, discoveries of Palaeolithic artefactual and palaeoenvironmental remains within the county, and the wider West Midlands, have shown that the area has the potential to be productive and assist in national and international research aims for the period. Palaeolithic research is usually carried out by specialists in Quaternary science and the resulting reports are difficult for non-specialists to access. The result is that Palaeolithic archaeology is often poorly represented within Historic Environment Records and unavailable to Local Planning Authority archaeological advisors in an accessible format. It is challenging in the context of National Planning Policy Framework to justify archaeological interventions as proportionate and reasonable when the archaeology is evidenced in the form of a few artefacts from poorly understood geological contexts. This article describes a Historic England-funded project which aimed to address this issue and ensure evidence of this date can be incorporated within Historic Environment Records in a way that can be interpreted and used by non-specialists, and will be of particular use to those involved in development management.

Excavations in advance of housing development on land at Island Farm, Ottery St Mary, Devon, examined archaeological remains that included what is interpreted as a medieval longhouse (c. AD 1250–1350) that had been destroyed by fire. The evidence included the charred remains of timbers and deposits of charcoal and other botanical remains. The identifications and spatial arrangements of this material are used to suggest the materials employed in the construction of the building, together with its contents, which included a variety of crops stored in the chamber. Other finds include fragments derived from the repair of copper-alloy vessels, an axe-head, and a Bronze Age palstave. Analysis has provided unusual detail of the types of wood used in the construction of the building, principally oak for the timber framing and alder and willow for the wattle panelling, and of the composition of the stored harvest, which included oats, wheat, rye, barley, broad beans, peas and vetches. The longhouse has similarities with others known from Devon, although the interpretation of partial timber-framing appears to be unique in the archaeological record from the county. The crops identified provide physical evidence of what is recorded in historical documents, but also suggest others, such as the composition of fodder. This report includes primary data on the botanical remains to allow readers to interrogate the information for further (and perhaps different) insights. The fieldwork was undertaken by Cotswold Archaeology in 2014 on behalf of Waddeton Park Ltd in advance of the construction of new housing by Bovis Homes. A full assessment report on the medieval and other findings was produced in 2016 and is available on Cotswold Archaeology's website.

This paper aims to give an account of the online activities and strategies developed and carried out by the Côa Valley Museum and Archaeological Park with the goal of reaching different audiences. Emphasis will be given to more recent efforts on social media networks, namely Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TripAdvisor. How can these be used to reach educational objectives within an evolving online environment? How can virtual audiences be engaged in significant learning experiences using time-limited windows of opportunity? How can dynamic and versatile synergies be created in online environments to create sustainable museums (marketing, education, entertainment, revenues) and audiences? Potential answers to these questions have to be considered within wider institutional communication strategies using the opportunities social media offers as fully as possible in order to reach and engage with ever-expanding, diverse audiences.

A review of the data available in the HHARP database, as well as make a preliminary analysis of the hospital records from London and Glasgow between c.1852-1921 which illustrates the value of the HHARP database in understanding disease and medical care during this period.

Recent geophysical surveys and excavations at Druid's Lodge Estate, in fields west of the Diamond Wood in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SWHS), have confirmed the existence of the Winterbourne Stoke 71 long barrow and discovered a new long barrow (Winterbourne Stoke 86) a short distance to the south. Survey and excavation show internal features at both barrows and, alongside aerial photography, suggest that both monuments were destroyed during later prehistory. These barrows are part of a cluster around the head of the Wilsford dry valley. We review long barrows in the SWHS and environs to contextualise these discoveries, demonstrating a diversity of internal features, barrow sizes and morphologies. Chronological modelling is used to place the SWHS barrows in their inter-regional timescape and to understand the timings of the first appearance of monument types of the 4th millennium cal BC. Local topography appears to be the key factor in determining the alignment of long barrows, but the eastern ends of barrows appear to be significant. Long barrows are also considered in relation to causewayed enclosures, and movement around the landscape. Long barrows are an important structuring monument in the later Neolithic and Bronze Age landscape, but their importance is mediated by their location relative to Stonehenge, and access to the monument from the south. There is a clear pattern of differential preservation of long barrows away from the vicinity of Stonehenge. Further field research is necessary to achieve a better understanding of long barrows in the SWHS, and it is hoped that this article stimulates interest in these highly significant monuments. This article also provides an interactive map of the SWHS, linking to simplified plans of long barrows in the study area, additional information and references for further reading for each barrow. Appendices are provided containing specialist methodologies and/or data from the geophysical surveys and the Historic England excavation, and primary excavation data from the Historic England excavation is downloadable via the Archaeology Data Service (Historic England 2018).

The Maeshowe digital archive (Beale et al. 2018) comprises the processed outputs and original source images from a series of Highlight-RTIs captured between the 21st–25th July 2016 in the Maeshowe chambered cairn in Stenness, Orkney. Each RTI file, accompanying assembly files, and the source images from which the final .ptm file is derived are stored in a single folder within the archive. The content of each RTI and its location within the cairn is described in the body of the paper.

This study assesses the level of knowledge, interest, and awareness of archaeology among Kuwaiti youth in keeping with the social learning theory (Bandura 1977), which emphasises the social context in which learning takes place. According to this approach, individuals acquire through observation and imitation of significant others key concepts and cultural symbols. This study also focuses on students' perceptions of how the Kuwaiti government implements the archaeology law. Data were collected from a survey conducted in 2015 on a random sample of 1193 students from 12 high schools located in the 6 governorates in Kuwait. Two high schools (representing males and females) from each governorate were selected. Emphasis was on students in the senior level of high school (17-18 years old) as the last stage in the public schooling system in Kuwait. The study analysed the impact of students' gender, socioeconomic background, and personal exposure to archaeology on their attitudes toward archaeology. Analyses using Chi-square tests along with descriptive statistics revealed that students with highly educated parents and those attending schools in well-to-do communities were more likely to be knowledgeable about, interested in, and aware of the importance of archaeology. Students with personal exposure to archaeology are more interested in and concerned with archaeology than those with no experience. In addition, gender was a significant factor as males showed more knowledge of, interest in, and awareness of archaeology than females.

The Day of Archaeology (https://www.dayofarchaeology.com) was a volunteer-led international archaeological blogging event that ran from 2011 to 2017. The project asked people who define themselves as archaeologists to submit one or more blog posts about their working day on a chosen day in June or July. This article explores the history of the Day of Archaeology project and the practicalities of running a large-scale collaborative blogging project, before examining some of the topics covered in the posts. An assessment of the impact of the project follows. Overall, we hope in this work to answer some of the basic questions regarding this type of collaborative, online, global engagement – what we did, who we reached, what they talked about – and also to provide some insights for any other similar initiatives that may follow us in the future.

As a video game enthusiast and archaeologist, the concept of archaeogaming has been on my radar since Andrew Reinhard coined the term back in 2013 (Reinhard 2013). This book is Reinhard's latest and most integral attempt at describing his idea of the many intersections of archaeology and play. This review will roughly follow the structure of the book and discuss contents by chapter, followed by a final assessment.

This special issue focuses on digitally-enabled co-production in archaeology, by bringing together papers that were presented at the session Communication as Collaboration: Digital Methods, Experiences and Values, organised at the 21st Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (University of Glasgow, 2015). The session was part of the Communicating Archaeology thematic cluster, which was partly inspired by the first published volume dedicated specifically to the topic of digital public engagement in archaeology (Bonacchi 2012). In that session and in this collection, we have been exploring communication as the collaborative construction of materials and interpretations rather than the dissemination of content at given stages of the archaeological research process

This article analyses the online reactions to a 'viral' video of an Egyptian artefact displayed in the Manchester Museum. It discusses the circulation of the video and the interpretations of this episode emerging from casual online conversations. Behind professionally led initiatives, audiences are contributing in a variety of ways on social media to disseminate and interpret archaeological news. This article discusses how user-generated data could support research on the public understanding of archaeology and it argues for more research on these casual and unintended collaborations on social media. However, while emphasising the potential for research of these data, the article also considers the impact of these unintended contributions on heritage professionals and the difficulties in negotiating competing and dissenting narratives on social media.

In 2010, five caches of top quality Migration-period jewellery were found at the Iron Age ring fort of Sandby borg, on the island of Öland, Sweden. When subsequent archaeological investigations revealed evidence of a violent massacre in the late 5th century, which left the victims lying on the spot where they had fallen, media and public interest increased rapidly. Since the local community raised concerns about the fast-growing interest in the project and the sensitive status of the ring fort, digital media was used as an important tool to communicate and work with different stakeholders. In this article, we present some experiences and insights from two separate projects with the aim of involving the public; a public outreach programme, Culture for Children, conducted in 2014-2015 and supported by the Swedish Arts Council, and a crowdfunding project launched at Kickstarter in December 2014, which enabled one season of fieldwork in 2015. The article concludes with a brief reflection on the topic of digital engagement in public archaeology.

This article draws on work undertaken during two recent research projects that focused on the practices and experiences of a group of heritage volunteers working on rural settlement archaeology on the Isle of Bute, Scotland. In it we outline the process of co-creation of the YARN digital storytelling platform, explore the methodological approach employed for successful co-design, and reflect on how our initial experiences have led to a longer term, hyperlocal focus around issues of empowerment, upskilling and digital engagement in a Scottish island community.

Swedish contract archaeology has a long tradition of making excavation results publicly accessible. Public engagement has often proceeded from the idea that archaeologists are the producers of knowledge and the public are the receivers. Public contacts have chiefly aimed at educating; at the same time, there has been a general interest in legitimising work done on behalf of citizens, largely thanks to public funds. In the last decade, digital technology has become more commonly used as a way to communicate archaeological fieldwork. Through the use of web-based technologies, interactions with the public are getting more diversified in a global, as well as a local, context. This article focuses on the use of social media and how these are intertwined with traditional communication methods in the co-production of narratives concerning historic places. These narratives are used in a range of culturally, socially and/or economically meaningful situations. The article is based on a case study and argues that contract archaeology could better develop its potential to interact with the public; to do so, archaeologists need to gain a much broader understanding of what happens when they communicate, and deeper knowledge of the practice and values underlying social media.

This article will present and discuss the process of digital co-production and audiences' responses to the full-scale interactive, gestural, visual and musical experience of a Virtual Reality arts play. This was inspired by cist-slab images from the Kivik Grave, which is Sweden's most famous Bronze Age grave. The aim of the VR arts play was to use digital technology to engage users as time-travellers and participants in a ritual and sensory experience. The play was part of the exhibition Petroglyphics — Virtual Rock-Carvings Experiences at Österlens Museum, the culture historical museum of Simrishamn, Southern Sweden (May 2013-December 2014). By physically taking part in the artistic imaginary performance of a burial ceremony depicted on one of the stone slabs inside the tomb, the museum visitor was invited to contribute to the interpretative process of Bronze Age imagery. Arising from this digital pilot project and research experiment, followed by an audience study involving over 250 museum visitors, this article first discusses the process, challenges and opportunities of digital co-production in an exhibition context, when archaeological, technological and artistic skills are combined in order to explore new ways to engage a museum audience. The focus then moves on to consider what interpretative processes look like when digital co-production intersects the physical participation of museum visitors. One of the major results is that 94% of surveyed museum visitors, adults as well as children, stated that digital technology combined with art that engages the user's body opens up new forms of knowledge and audience experiences. Furthermore, this study reveals that a full-body, interactive and multisensory experience with virtual space stimuli has the potential to involve several museum visitors, emotionally awaking feelings of identification prompted by specific archaeological findings, and nurturing vivid, individual interpretative processes in relation to visitors' own social, historical and cultural references and former experiences.

Public Archaeology 2015 was a year-long project dedicated to the creation of public engagement and involvement with archaeological projects and subjects. Month-long projects were devised and enacted by both archaeologists and non-archaeologists, with the impact of the project residing in the moments of engagement themselves rather than critical or academic analysis with the benefit of hindsight. In this short article, the convenors of the project discuss the project's central ethos and its relationship to wider debates on co-production and impact assessment in public archaeology. It expands discussion on the opposition therein between impetus provided by 'experts' and from 'amateurs'. The project aimed to use a different mode of operation to existing 'top-down' or 'bottom-up' models of collaboration, and created a democratic situation where different kinds of public engagement with archaeology took place within a wider context of those central terms — public, archaeology, engagement — being kept intentionally fluid and open to interpretation.

This study tackles fundamental archaeological questions using large, complex digital datasets, building on recent discussions about how to deal with archaeology's emerging 'data deluge' (Bevan 2015). At a broad level, it draws on the unprecedented volume of legacy data gathered from many different sources - almost one million records in total - for the English Landscape and Identities project (Oxford, UK). More specifically, the paper focuses in detail on artefact evidence - material derived primarily from surface surveys, stray finds and metal detecting. Novel computational models are developed that extend and connect ideas from usually distinct research realms (different arenas of artefact research, digital archaeology, etc.). Major interpretative issues are addressed including how to approach background factors that shape the archaeological record, and how to understand spatial and temporal patterning at various scales. Overall, we suggest, interpreting large complex datasets sparks different ways of working, and raises new theoretical concerns.

Video games, and more generally computer games, are unquestionably technological artefacts that have cultural significance. Old computer games in particular had to function under technical constraints that would be alien to many modern programmers, while at the same time providing something novel and at first foreign to consumers. How did their creators accomplish their technical feats, and what impact did that have for the player-consumer? The study of 'retro' computer games' implementation is one topic within the nascent area of archaeogaming. Digital rights management (DRM) continues to be a major issue in the protection and distribution of content in electronic form. In this article, we study an early example of the implementation of copy protection in the 1984 game Jet Set Willy, something that comprises both physical and digital artefacts. It acts as a vehicle to illustrate a number of methods that we used to understand game implementation, culminating in a full reconstruction of the technique. The methods we cover include: 'traditional' research, along with its limitations in this context; code and data analysis; hypothesis testing; reconstruction. Through this positivist experimental approach, our results are both independently verifiable and repeatable. We also approach the complex context of early DRM, its hacks and workarounds by the player community, and what precipitated the design choices made for this particular game.

A staged programme of historical research and archaeological fieldwork, involving a desk-based assessment in 2000 (Smith and Erskine 2000), an evaluation in 2013 (Mason 2013), and an excavation followed by a watching brief in 2014, the latter two by Avon Archaeology Ltd, was undertaken in order to mitigate the archaeological impact of a proposed residential development on a site of 1,260m² at the corner and on the north-west side of Little Anne Street and Wade Street, St Jude’s, Bristol. The site was formerly occupied by residential dwellings, originally established in the very early 18th century as part of a then newly planned development of artisans’ houses. In combination, the data from these studies indicate that the Wade Street site has a history of continuous occupation, from c. 1700 until the buildings on it were removed in the years on either side of the Second World War as part of a so-called 'slum clearance' project. A very small assemblage of medieval pottery recovered from the lower contexts of the site during the excavation hints at some level of activity in the vicinity during the medieval period. This publication offers an opportunity to link the results of the fieldwork to an outline study of a sample of the 19th-century census records, to give a picture of the social dynamics of a highly diverse community in the second half of that century, and which presents a surprisingly mixed picture of both long stability, and incessant change in terms of the movement of people into and out of this part of Wade Street.

Few studies have calculated the relative difficulty of walking across different types of terrain (e.g. grass, asphalt, loose sand, and so on). Nonetheless, these relative values, called terrain coefficients, are integral, alongside slope, for generating computer models of human movement, whether for emergency planning, development, archaeology, the impact of ecological change on migratory patterns or any other purposes. Additionally, the few studies conducted evaluate this relative difficulty through metabolic rate measured through oxygen consumption. We demonstrate that these values are only appropriate for energy-based models (e.g. easiest routes), because it is unlikely that the relationship between metabolic rate and velocity is linear even when terrain is held constant. Rather, our work (returning to four terrains from these earlier studies and adding three additional terrains) investigates the relative effect different terrains have on a person's walking speed, finding the effects to be smaller, with statistical significance occurring on an entirely different scale from previous studies. Therefore, these terrain coefficients should only be used for time-based models (e.g. fastest routes).

There is a thriving trade, and collector community, around human remains that is facilitated by posts on new social media such as Instagram, Facebook, Etsy, and, until recently, eBay. In this article, we examine several thousand Instagram posts and perform some initial text analysis on the language and rhetoric of these posts to understand something about the function of this community, what they value and how they trade, buy, and sell, human remains. Our results indicate a well-connected network of collectors and dealers both specialist and generalist, with a surprisingly wide-reaching impact on the 'enthusiasts' who, through their rhetoric, support the activities of this collecting community, in the face of legal and ethical issues generated by its existence.

The Pocket Guide Megaliths app was developed by Senet Mobile UK in collaboration with The Megalithic Portalwebsite. The app was released in 2016 and is currently available for iOS devices, such as iPhone and iPads.Pocket Guide Megaliths presents the Megalithic Portal's burgeoning worldwide database of ancient and prehistoric sites in a variety of innovative and engaging ways. It aims to act primarily as a guide to enjoying and exploring the rich prehistoric heritage of the world, though offers additional functionality for would-be monument explorers too.

Charles Roach Smith (1806-1890) was at the forefront of archaeological scholarship from the 1840s onwards; he played a pivotal role in recording and establishing the importance of British antiquities and archaeology, but is rarely mentioned in general histories of archaeology. This paper provides an overview of his major achievements in archaeological publishing and, through an analysis of more than 2,000 subscriptions to 11 of his volumes on British archaeology, explains how and why he published prolifically in the absence of institutional support, and often in the face of prejudice against his background in 'trade'. It argues that his rigorous and evangelising approach to archaeological publication, and the pivotal role that he played within national and international philanthropic social and intellectual networks, was instrumental in the transformation of the discipline in the second half of the nineteenth century, and underpinned the development of a national collection of British antiquities in the British Museum. His efforts also contributed to wider social and educational transformation during this period, which included greater recognition for women. Through a more inclusive and prosopographical approach it provides unique insights into the enterprising strategies and impressive achievements of those whose contributions to archaeology are insufficiently acknowledged today.

This article is the first major publication of the Gabii Project, an international collaboration led by the University of Michigan, to investigate the ancient town of Gabii, Italy. The text of the article is available online through the University of Michigan Press with an accompanying database of the excavation (a format that Internet Archaeology readers will be familiar with).

In the 1980s archaeologists embraced the rapidly expanding field of computer modelling and visualisation as a vehicle for data exploration. Against this backdrop 'virtual archaeology' was conceived. The term was originally intended to describe a multidimensional approach to the modelling of the (im)material structures and processes of field archaeology. It described how technology could be harnessed in order to achieve new ways of documenting, interpreting and annotating primary archaeological discoveries and processes. Despite their initial promise, these digital technologies failed to have the impact upon archaeological fieldwork that might have been expected. Even with the prevalence of digital devices on all archaeological excavations, the documentation, interpretation and subsequent narration of archaeological processes have retained their analogue character. While the archaeological record is now primarily digital, its sections, plans, drawings and photographs are facsimiles of the analogue technologies that preceded them. This retention of analogue conventions is increasingly out of step with the general prevalence and diversity of digital technologies as mediators of professional and private life. It is also challenged by 21st-century advances towards technologies that allow for complex engagements with and representations of physical matter and facilitate the interplay between digital and material worlds. This article argues that emerging forms of archaeological practice including gaming, mixed reality, computational photography and additive manufacturing, reveal digital archaeology to be a creative process, blending computational thinking, technological opportunities and established disciplinary traditions. We go on to suggest that digital archaeology, conceived as a form of practice rather than as a toolset, represents a locus for theory generation and critical thinking. Failure to recognise the skills and ideas that have emerged in response to digital technologies has led to an under-appreciation of the contribution that digital forms of practice have made to our understanding of archaeological practice and knowledge creation.

Media forms, digital creativity and narrative structure have a reflexive relationship to the narratives they portray. Digital media combined with creativity facilitate a wide range of narrative structures, many of which are digitally specific, beyond the norm of traditional displays. However, many of the heritage outcomes we observe through digital media employ narrative structures that do not make use of the specifically digital affordances. This article seeks to explore what narrative structure is, how digital media afford certain structures and the impact that digital media and narrative structure have on how we can engage with the past. To this end it will leverage two key case-study sectors; two digital exhibits located at Mosegård Museum, and two digital exhibitions created by the authors of this article in partnership with external practitioners. These case studies, in conjunction with wider discussion, will be used to explore how and why narrative structure is currently employed within digitally mediated heritage outcomes and what other forms of engagement might be afforded by further digitally mediated narrative structures. It is hoped that, through this research, a foundation for understanding the interrelation between the heritage sector, digital creativity,interactive technology and narrative studies can be established.

We are at a turning point in development and thought about multi-sensorial engagement using digital mediation. From Oculus Rift VR goggles, Google Cardboard, noise-reducing headphones, vibrating-haptic simulating gloves, smell generators and virtual treadmills, every week a new technology or software emerges that can be used to virtualise, augment or diminish our reality, across all of our senses. In many cases these technologies have been used by archaeologists or museum professionals to didactically present or reconstruct archaeological sites or artefacts. However, Mixed Reality is rarely used to actively explore or analyse archaeological sites. This article explores a number of ways that these new multi-sensory developments can be harnessed and linked to a traditional GIS database using Mixed Reality. Through the example of three different sensory applications, I will demonstrate the implementation of an embodied GIS - allowing a multi-sensorial experience of archaeological data in situ, and enabling archaeologists to explore data in new ways, encouraging new interpretations by thinking and working through the body.

This paper article explores archaeology as a creative practice by engaging specifically with the processes and visuals of geophysics. An area of archaeology considered highly scientific, a different way of looking reveals geophysics to be a poetic form of landscape study. The processes used to collect, alter, interpret and visualize visualise the data are creative acts that have parallels with more easily recognizable recognisable arts practices such as painting, drawing or photography. The paper article explores the ideas behind ways of seeing, the archaeological imagination, technologies and process. The section that follows explores the different elements of work and the ways of seeing and thinking they inspire. The paper article ends by showcasing how other arts practices can give alternative perspectives on geophysics and how these can in turn influence fine art.

3D visualisation in archaeology has become a suitable solution and effective instrument for the analysis, interpretation and communication of archaeological information. However, so far only a few attempts have been made to understand and evaluate the real impact that 3D imaging has on the discipline under its different forms (off-line immersive and not immersive, and on-line platform). There is a need in archaeology and cultural heritage for a detailed analysis of the different infrastructural options that are available and a precise evaluation of the differing impact that they can have in reshaping the discipline. To achieve this, it is important to develop new methodologies that consider the evaluation process as a fundamental and central part for assessing digital infrastructures. These new methods should include flexible evaluation approaches that can be adapted to the infrastructure that needs to be assessed. This article aims to provide some examples of 3D applications in archaeology and cultural heritage and describe how the selection of the infrastructure is related to specific needs of the project. This work will describe the different applications and propose guidelines and protocols for evaluating their impact within academia and the general public.

In recent years, academics have been encouraged to explore how scholarly research can have impact outside the academy, on the policies and practices of key stakeholders and heritage professionals and the cultural and educational experiences of the general public. This article explores how digital creativity provides new collaborative opportunities to those working in buildings archaeology, conservation and cultural heritage. Focusing on the issues surrounding the digital documentation of wall paintings, it focuses on a recent project at the Guildhall, Stratford-upon- Avon. Here, scholarly research has underpinned the development of the £1.4 million Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) project 'Willingly to School with Shakespeare'. Close collaboration between academics and heritage and conservation professionals has resulted in the development of a digitally creative solution to explain the complex medieval cultural inheritance of one of Europe's greatest playwrights. The project therefore provides a model for how digital creativity facilitates greater dialogue between key stakeholders in the documentation and conservation of cultural heritage, and its presentation to the wider public.

Digital Archaeology is predicated upon an ever-changing set of apparatuses – technological, methodological, software, hardware, material, immaterial – which in their own ways and to varying degrees shape the nature of Digital Archaeology. Our attention, however, is perhaps inevitably more closely focused on research questions, choice of data, and the kinds of analyses and outputs. In the process we tend to overlook the effects the tools themselves have on the archaeology we do beyond the immediate consequences of the digital. This article introduces cognitive artefacts as a means of addressing the apparatus more directly within the context of the developing archaeological digital ecosystem. It argues that a critical appreciation of our computational cognitive artefacts is key to understanding their effects on both our own cognition and on the creation of archaeological knowledge. In the process, it defines a form of cognitive digital archaeology in terms of four distinct methods for extracting cognition from the digital apparatus layer by layer.

This article examines the background and current challenges of integrating spatial data in field archaeology, particularly in the light of ongoing technological advances. This is done through a brief comparative overview of the development of field recording principles in the UK and Denmark. Archaeology in the two countries historically represents two different standpoints of methodological traditions and corresponding ideals of documentation. The question is, if technological developments - and not least the limitations of the applied digital frameworks - have been an important defining factor and continue to affect the reconditions of the methodological development when it comes to spatial data recording and the advent of more complex spatial data. This article demonstrates that 3D documentation techniques are indeed increasingly accepted and applied despite the limitations of technical frameworks such as GIS or CAD. Even more interesting is the potential of Structure from Motion and similar techniques for archaeological field recording as it may constitute a new methodological framework, bridging the gap between different field archaeological traditions; a middle ground of documentation principles, where single context planning and strict stratigraphical approaches meet the arbitrary, pragmatic geometric sectioning of features. Although different methodological approaches clearly relate to an ideal with consequences for our archaeological praxis, excavation and documentation methodologies are not necessarily restricted or determined by the available technology. Modern archaeology tends to be sufficiently open-minded and in support of continued experimentation, which is required to manage new and different methods of data acquisition and spatial documentation and representation.

In 1676 Dame Mary May commissioned her tomb from John Bushnell, a famous Restoration sculptor, and placed it next to her pew in the chancel of St Nicholas' parish church, Mid-Lavant, West Sussex, where she worshipped until her death in 1681. Tradition has it that after her death from smallpox her relatives obeyed her wishes that her effigy should be faithfully lifelike and caused its face to be stippled with pock-marks. In the course of the next two centuries the tomb was moved about the church and eventually hidden in the May vault below the chancel. Only in the 1980s was the tomb brought out and re-erected in the north aisle of the church. Using Reflective Transformation Imaging (RTI) to investigate the current state of the effigy, this article examines the controversy that has taken place since then concerning the nature of female effigial portrait sculpture and the reactions of 18th-19th century congregations to potentially disfigured sculpture. In addition, this article is a reflection on the theoretical implications of the process of the visual documentation of archaeological objects, which came out of a RTI digital image capture session of this tomb and its effigy. Both authors were present at the recording session, Smith is an expert in digital imaging for archaeology, and Jones is a specialist in early modern archaeology and the analysis of post-medieval parish churches and their monuments. The article will explore the notion that digital documentation techniques can offer the possibility of a highly reflexive, personal and social engagement with archaeological objects. The article will emphasise the performative and collaborative dimension of imaging with RTI through a discussion of the ways in which RTI as an image-making process is inherently social in nature, requiring multiple participants. Finally, this article will consider responses of the tomb's past viewers to a gendered object that may, at the time, have been perceived as visually transgressive, with a particular reflection on how RTI can form part of future responses to Dame Mary May's 'lugubrious memorial'.

The ACCORD (Archaeology Community Co-Production of Research Data) project worked together with communities to create 3D digital visualisations of heritage. Communities across Scotland chose monuments and sites that were of particular interest to them and then participated in the whole process of creating 3D visualisations of those places (from data-capture, to processing, to archiving) together with researchers and heritage professionals. In the main we used consumer-level technology and relatively easy to pick up techniques of photogrammetry and Reflectance Transformation Imaging, while occasionally also using the specialist technique of laser-scanning I was the Post-Doctoral- Research-Assistant on the ACCORD project for 12 months from March 2014 through to 2015 and this article will reflect on my experience of participating in the making of 3D digital visualisations together with ACCORD communities. It argues that there exists in the field of digital heritage an uneasy tension between the current motivation to produce objective computerised visualisations and the actual desire of heritage community groups to connect to the past on a more emotional level. The article revels in the participatory process of making 3D digital visualisations of heritage; its power as a medium for inclusion, exploration and expression. This article should be read with reference to the digital archive.

Animated GIFs are uncommonly well suited for representing archaeology. A shudder-start, temporally ambiguous fragment of sequential media, the animated GIF (just GIFs, hereafter) occupies the margins of formal discourse, visually annotating everyday life on the Internet. The creation of a GIF – compiling frames of action into a sequence – draws an easy parallel with the mode of atomizing that characterises excavation, treating archaeological deposits as discrete entities and their subsequent reassembly into a stratigraphic sequence (Morgan 2012; Morgan and Wright in press). Complex cultural expression is distilled into a brief gesture, the digital equivalent of an archaeological trace. Yet GIFs are fleetingly rare in archaeological representations, with only a handful of examples since the introduction of the media format in 1989. In this GIF essay (modelled on a photo essay), we briefly review the history of the animated GIF with particular attention to archaeological GIFs, discuss their utility in representing archaeological remains and narratives, and argue for a more creative integration of visual media into archaeological practice.

Acoustic Heritage is one aspect of archaeoacoustics, and refers more specifically to the quantifiable acoustic properties of buildings, sites and landscapes from our architectural and archaeological past, forming an important aspect of our intangible cultural heritage. Auralisation, the audio equivalent of 3D visualisation, enables these acoustic properties, captured via the process of measurement and survey, or computer-based modelling, to form the basis of an audio reconstruction and presentation of the studied space. This article examines the application of auralisation and audio creativity as a means to explore our acoustic heritage, thereby diversifying and enhancing the toolset available to the digital heritage or humanities researcher. The Open Acoustic Impulse Response (OpenAIR) library is an online repository for acoustic impulse response and auralisation data, with a significant part having been gathered from a broad range of heritage sites. The methodology used to gather this acoustic data is discussed, together with the processes used in generating and calibrating a comparable computer model, and how the data generated might be analysed and presented. The creative use of this acoustic data is also considered, in the context of music production, mixed media artwork and audio for gaming. More relevant to digital heritage is how these data can be used to create new experiences of past environments, as information, interpretation, guide or artwork and ultimately help to articulate new research questions and explorations of our acoustic heritage.

Review

Review

The articles in this issue are seen to add to a significant and growing corpus of work by others in the field of digital archaeological heritage. This background, along with the Amersfoort agenda's reference to 'the future of archaeological endeavour', provides a suitable landscape for some horizon scanning, and to give a brief examination, or 'Observatory', of possible trajectories or implications of some key emerging digital technologies, particularly where further research is likely to be of strategic benefit to the heritage sector. In any such attempt at 'reading the archaeological runes', and especially one involving possible innovations in Information Technology, the timescale cannot be quite the same as might be more familiar to archaeologists, for whom a century is considered such a brief passage of time. Undoubtedly this horizon scan and its observations will need to be supplemented by further updates or references to other forward-looking agendas over the course of the coming years. It will be interesting to what degree, and how quickly, the current pace of change in IT can overtake it.

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This short article illustrates the growth in the use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) GIS tools in European archaeology. It draws mainly on the experience gained using the programs gvSIG CE and Survey2GIS. It demonstrates the advantages of open source software for archaeological research and fieldwork, while not ignoring the pitfalls and hazards to be avoided in the FOSS world.

Over the last decades, the new non-invasive techniques employed in archaeological research have developed extensively. This article discusses the most important non-invasive surveys undertaken in the Republic of Moldova during the last two decades. Most were carried out in the framework of international partnerships meant to transfer Western experience and knowledge of modern methods of archaeological research to the Republic of Moldova. Special attention is given to the results of cooperation between Moldovan, German and Romanian archaeologists.

The National Heritage Board of Poland is responsible for implementation of the INSPIRE directive in the field of cultural heritage (Protected Sites). The implementation was not only about digitising almost 80,000 listed monuments (including over 7700 archaeological sites), but also about change of approach to data by adopting the yes/no mode instead of "about" and "probably". After having built the data model, created thesauri and digitised paper documentation we felt that the visual result compliant with the INSPIRE specification would be highly unsatisfactory with regard to the data and the amount of work. Improved presentation available on our map portal was created in cooperation with Warsaw University of Technology. The paper discusses the scope of the visible data, reasons behind the visual classification, the pros and cons, current possibilities of the use of the data and prospective development of the portal.

The Digital Archaeological Process (DAP) programme was initiated by the Swedish National Heritage Board in order to create a more seamless process for storing and sharing digital information generated through archaeological surveys and excavations. The programme aims to increase the availability of digital data as well as the quality and usefulness of the information. The Cultural Environment Register is being developed, which will contain and/or link to information about where fieldwork has been done and what was found: archaeological sites, field documentation, finds, as well as the reports and publications. In addition to creating a new system for storing this information, a large amount of old digital projects previously kept by museums and archaeological contractors is being collected to be made publicly available. Our goal is to make heritage management more efficient, and in the process the information will also become more useful to researchers, museums and the general public.

The INSPIRE Directive (2007) mandates European Union countries to share environment-related datasets so that they can be easily accessed by other public organisations within their own and neighbouring countries to inform policies or activities that may impact on the environment. Key to delivering INSPIRE is the establishment of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) providing frameworks for coordinating the policies, infrastructure and standards needed to acquire, process, distribute, use, maintain and preserve spatial data through discovery, view and download services by 2020. Archaeological information is inherently spatial yet, despite the environmental focus of INSPIRE, guidance is limited and ambiguous for archaeological datasets and consequentially there is limited engagement from data curators. Although Protected Sites is an INSPIRE theme, does it cover only those formally designated through legislation or include sites managed through legal or other effective means? INSPIRE publishes data to help inform environmental policies and if data is unpublished there is a risk it will simply be ignored. Complex modelling of environmental change through Ecosystem Services remotely consuming web services is already happening but the lack of published reference datasets from the historic environment compromises consideration of the resource in decision making processes. Development of SDIs for heritage can bring wider benefits for the profession. Too often fieldwork extents and results are confined to paper publications or reside in project archives. Consequentially we lack a spatial record of fieldwork activities. Although cultural heritage data often has a strong spatial component, the full potential of the geographies created through discovery, recording and analysis is far from being realised. Harmonisation and publication of spatial data to consistent standards through an SDI is an essential pre-requisite for mainstreaming the use of heritage data in the 21st century to get cultural heritage to work for Europe.

During the last decade in Hungary, preliminary operations for large-scale archaeological excavations have became more and more important: the stakeholders have realised that it is cost-effective to spend more on the assessment phase rather than incurring higher expenditure because of problems related to an ill-planned project. Thorough knowledge of the size and characteristics of archaeological sites can largely contribute to the protection of the cultural heritage, as well as saving time and money. From 2011 Preliminary Archaeological Evaluations have been a mandatory part of the permission process of large-scale constructions (that is to say, a total minimum cost of c.1,600,000 EUR). These evaluations consist of desktop studies (such as analyses of historical documents and maps), as well as field investigations with a budget of 0.35% of the total construction cost. The goal is to make precise archaeological project plans, and to assess the optimal mitigation process. The Forster Centre – and its predecessor – has been responsible for the coordination and execution of preventive archaeological evaluations since 2013. During that time we have established and tested a GIS-based method which has been effective in large-scale investments and which – due to financial constraints – relies greatly on non-invasive methods as tools to help our investigation strategies. Our current strategy relies on three interdependent tasks: GIS-based field surveys, large-scale magnetometer surveys and targeted trial excavations. The scale of our tasks is challenging and demanding at the same time: the investigation of large areas with various methods gives us substantial and reliable datasets on the archaeological landscape. Collecting and comparing these GIS-based datasets on a nationwide scale gives us an opportunity to determine the most effective methods to identify and protect the archaeological heritage. One of the most promising opportunities is to create a comparative database, where the outcomes of geophysical surveys and excavations from hundreds of hectares are available across the country. Using the results, we can set up a comprehensive archaeological geophysics database that would facilitate making our magnetic prospections more accurate and our methods more targeted.

Why is it necessary to store archaeological data in a digital archive that follows policies, protocols and strict procedures? Why not simply put your files in Dropbox? This article will explain in detail the benefits of the existence and use of certified digital repositories saving the cultural wealth of archaeological research data, the impact of national regulations for conducting archaeology, the trend of clustering European infrastructures with a focus on cultural heritage and, finally, give some future recommendations for shared European archaeological polices to ensure good quality of metadata, data and repositories.

The Archaeological Map of the Czech Republic (AMCR) project will soon be finished and one chapter of building digital infrastructures in the Czech Republic will be closed. It is a natural occasion to evaluate national state-of-the-art in dealing with Digital Culture Heritage, particularly archaeological data. It is a also good time to summarise our knowledge about using digital tools and to outline prospects of development for the coming years. What are the key points? The AMCR represents both an administrative system of field archaeology management and a kind of 'sites and monuments records' for the territory of the CR. Its fundamental underlying principles are interoperability, standardisation, data re-use, crowdsourcing and networking. However, a reasonable question should also concern the theoretical background to the process of digitisation of the archaeological world. Infrastructures should every time stay on the level of service for the community of researchers and every digital tool has to fulfil real needs in the fields of both archaeological theory and practice. On the other hand, the application of this virtual research environment is inseparable from archaeological legislation and institutional management.

Research e-infrastructures, digital archives and data services have become important pillars of scientific enterprise that in recent decades has become ever more collaborative, distributed and data-intensive. The archaeological research community has been an early adopter of digital tools for data acquisition, organisation, analysis and presentation of research results of individual projects. However, the provision of e-infrastructure and services for data sharing, discovery, access and re-use has lagged behind. This situation is being addressed by ARIADNE: the Advanced Research Infrastructure for Archaeological Dataset Networking in Europe. This EU-funded network has developed an e-infrastructure that enables data providers to register and provide access to their resources (datasets, collections) through the ARIADNE data portal, facilitating discovery, access and other services across the integrated resources. This article describes the current landscape of data repositories and services for archaeologists in Europe, and the issues that make interoperability between them difficult to realise. The results of the ARIADNE surveys on users' expectations and requirements are also presented. The main section of the article describes the architecture of the e-infrastructure, core services (data registration, discovery and access) and various other extant or experimental services. The on-going evaluation of the data integration and services is also discussed. Finally, the article summarises lessons learned, and outlines the prospects for the wider engagement of the archaeological research community in sharing data through ARIADNE.

As a partner in the EU co-funded 3D-ICONS project, the Discovery Programme undertook the 3D documentation of some of the most iconic cultural heritage sites in Ireland. This pan-European project aimed to establish a complete pipeline for the production of 3D replicas of archaeological monuments and historic buildings, and to publish the content to Europeana for public access. The list of Irish icons range from wider cultural landscapes to smaller ornately carved stones and includes a wide range of chronological periods: from Neolithic rock art from 2500 BC to Derry's 17th-century fortifications. The primary digitisation methods include airborne laser scanning (ALS), phase-based terrestrial laser scanning (Faro Focus 3D) and close range structured light scanning (Artec EVA). These are now mainstream approaches for surveying historic landscapes, structures and objects, generating precise, high-resolution point cloud data, primarily for viewing and interaction in proprietary software applications. The challenge was to convert these complex high-volume datasets into textured 3D models, retaining the geometric integrity of the original data. The article highlights the development of a pipeline to produce a lightweight 3D model that enables the public to interact with a photorealistic model based upon accurate survey and texture data. 3D-ICONS ended in January 2015, but a new website 3dicons.ie was launched to offer continued access to the Irish 3D models and associated content and media generated during the project. The article will consider the impact of this online content, particularly how it has been used as a teaching aid in secondary schools and how this may be extended in the future. It will also demonstrate how content from the project has been remodelled to develop an interactive and immersive experience for the great mound at Knowth, a development in partnership with the operators of the Brú na Bóinne visitor centre.

The rapid development of information technology has enabled the creation of entirely new presentation frameworks and this article will attempt to explore the subject of on-site presentation of archaeological sites. The most frequently used environment currently has been in the form of a variety of virtual museums that are accessible on the Internet; in essence these keep their visitors stuck in front of a PC monitor. One option that allows leaving the monitor and stepping directly out-of-doors into a virtual open-air museum is by means of applications for mobile phones. Terms such as 'virtual' or 'augmented reality' no longer represent a million light-years away science-fiction concepts, but rather a new tool for public archaeology and for the preservation of the archaeological heritage. This article presents several projects that have been implemented by the Archaeological Institute in Prague, who, by using mobile applications, built virtual open-air museums directly in the locations of archaeological excavations.

The Abri Faravel, discovered in 2010 at 2,133m asl in the Parc National des Ecrins, Freissinières, Southern French Alps, is probably the most enigmatic high altitude site in the Alps. This rock shelter saw phases of human activity from the Mesolithic through to the medieval period; the artefactual assemblages comprise Mesolithic and Neolithic flint tools, Iron Age hand-thrown pottery, a Roman fibula and some medieval metalwork. However, the most interesting and unique feature on the site are the prehistoric rock paintings; the highest representations of animals (quadrupeds) in Europe. These paintings are presented in this article. The paintings themselves were the object of a white-light scan, whilst the rock-shelter and surrounding landscape was scanned using a Faro laser scanner. Both of these models are presented here, and their interpretation elucidated by an assessment of the different phases of activity at the shelter, combined with a synthesis of other evidence from the area and pertinent environmental evidence.

Using 3D laser scanning, two badly damaged and heavily restored Roman portraits from English country house collections are here identified as originally being representations of the Emperor Nero. The first portrait, from Petworth House, is of Nero at the time of his formal adoption as heir by the Emperor Claudius in AD51, while the second, from Wilton House, represents a new intermediate portrait type of the fifth emperor, marking his transition from traditional Julio-Claudian prince to more flamboyant princeps, made between AD54 and 59. Given that few replicas of Nero exist in anything like their complete state, following the memory sanctions that followed his death in AD68, any 'new' discovery represents a significant find, to be analysed and cross-compared with established portraits. This article further assesses the importance of recording head dislocation and mutilation in images of Nero while the dangers of over restoration in classical portraiture, in which original identity can be obscured, are also considered.

Investigation of the Anglian and Anglo-Scandinavian settlement at Burrow House Farm, Cottam, East Yorkshire from 1993-95 was a pioneering collaboration between archaeologists and metal-detectorists, and led to the identification of a new form of Anglo-Scandinavian farmstead. It was also one of the first investigations ever undertaken of a 'productive site', so-called because of the large quantities of early medieval metalwork recovered by metal-detecting. The project provided an important demonstration of the effects of the reorganisation of land ownership following the Scandinavian settlement of Northumbria. Excavation demonstrated that the abandonment of an Anglian 'Butterwick-type' enclosure in the late 9th century was closely followed by the construction of the new Anglo-Scandinavian farmstead some 100m to the north, reinforced by the pattern seen in the horizontal stratigraphy of dated metalwork derived from metal-detecting (Richards 1999a; 2001a). Subsequently, metal-detecting has continued at the site, almost doubling the quantity of artefacts. This has led to further breakthroughs in the interpretation of the chronological and spatial development of the settlement, as well as some substantial revisions to the typology and dating of early medieval artefacts, with important implications for the chronology of the period. It allows some significant new conclusions to be drawn about settlement development at Cottam, identifying the changing function of the settlements, as well as their location: There are two phases of Anglian activity, with a transition from an 8th/9th-century estate centre to a 9th-century market, echoing the similar transitions being recorded in Scandinavia at sites such as Tissø. This is the first time such a configuration has been identified in England, and it throws important new light on the nature of 'productive sites'. There are also two phases of Viking activity, with an initial phase of looting, probably linked to activity by the Viking Great Army, before the establishment of the Anglo-Scandinavian farmstead. This captures the moment of a critical transition in Viking behaviour in England, from raiding to settlement activity. It is also the first time that the activity of a Viking raiding party has been identified at a rural site. In addition, our project demonstrates that the detailed plotting of surface finds collected with a metal-detector has now been raised to a major technique of historical investigation, and has much greater potential than has hitherto been realised. One of the initial publications of the Cottam project (Richards 2001a) was itself an early experiment in data publication, with a linked interpretation and archive. The development of e-media now allows an increasingly sophisticated presentation of data, including new means of visualisation. Here the use of Internet Archaeology shows the full potential of the new procedures. An interactive map allows others to examine our hypotheses, and to interrogate the data for themselves. In addition, the revised finds database, along with new photographs of many of the early medieval artefacts, are hosted by the Archaeology Data Service (Haldenby and Richards 2016).

A review of Evolving Planet is a game based on hominin dispersal, playing an archaeologist you investigate why a species has become extinct.

A modern burial experiment was devised to test microscopic residue survival in acidic peat and slightly acidic clay soils at the Early Mesolithic site of Star Carr (North Yorkshire, UK), and at nearby control location. The experiment addresses concerns regarding the applicability of residue analysis in varied burial environments, and particularly in highly acidic archaeological conditions. Flint flakes (n= 78, including blank controls) were used on twelve plant, animal, and mineral materials to create residues and then buried. The residues were examined 1 month and 11 months after burial. An unburied reference collection containing the same twelve residue types in a fresh state was compared to the buried residues to assess diagenesis. The residue types that survived across all burial conditions and time intervals were: softwood tissue, tree resin, bird feathers, squirrel hair, and red ochre. During microscopic analysis, it became clear that many residues lack diagnostic traits, and thus an assessment of the extent to which each residue can be identified was conducted. The degree to which residues were able to be identified was further investigated with a variable pressure scanning electron microscope (SEM). SEM images of the reference residues were compared to the reflected VLM micrographs of the same residues, which improved characterisation in some cases. Residues were grouped into three categories (diagnostic, distinctive, and non-distinctive) within a visual characterisation guide. Our in situ microscopic analyses indicated that few residue types have diagnostic traits that allow them to be identified unambiguously, and thus further characterisation techniques are often required.

This collection of short articles represents an original attempt to bring together scholarship that is usually divided along lines of specialism in time, place, method, or discipline. The shared focus of its contributions is on hair: more than an infrequently preserved element of human remains, but a widespread (and arguably cross-cultural) symbol of power, of fertility, of identity and the self. Moreover, its care and treatment using various forms of material culture, and its artistic representation in diverse media, offer a unique opportunity to examine the interface between the body and material culture. Where exceptional taphonomic conditions facilitate the preservation of hair and associated organic material, the result is some of the richest assemblages of human remains and associated material culture in the archaeological record. In contrast, 'everyday' objects associated with haircare are among the most taphonomically robust, frequently encountered and recognisable personal items known to archaeologists, and provide us with insight into the making of personal and bodily identities, even in the absence of human remains themselves. When studied in an interdisciplinary framework, the interpretative potential of this material is clear, but such work has been rare. This collection aims to set a new agenda for cross-disciplinary research focused on the nexus of human and artefactual remains, by highlighting the rich and diverse potential of this material when studied through archaeological, biochemical, artistic, historical, sociological and anthropological lenses.

Archaeologies of Hair: an introduction

An Ancient Egyptian Wig: Construction and Reconstruction

The Hair and Wig of Meryt: Grooming in the 18th Dynasty

The Egyptian Hair Pin: practical, sacred, fatal

Keeping up Appearances on the Romano-British Frontier

Tressed for Death in Early Anglo-Saxon England

Viking Age Hair

Grooming the Face in the Early Middle Ages

Hair and Sacrifice in the Andean World, as deduced by biomolecular approaches

Hair in the Middle Ages

Watery Manes. Reversing the Stream of Thought about Quattrocento Italian Heads

Hair as a Window on Diet and Health in Post-Medieval London: an isotopic analysis

Because You're Worth It: Women's daily hair care routines in contemporary Britain

Afterword: Strands of Evidence in Later Prehistory

Archaeology and photography has a long, co-constructed history that has increasingly come under scrutiny as archaeologists negotiate the visual turn. Yet these investigations do not make use of existing qualitative and quantitative strategies developed by visual studies to understand representation in archaeological photographs. This article queries the large photographic archive created by ongoing work at the archaeological site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey to consider the visual impact of changing photographic technologies and of a shifting theoretical focus in archaeology. While using content analysis and semiotic analysis to gain a better understanding of the visual record, these analyses also unexpectedly reveal power dynamics and other social factors present during archaeological investigation. Consequently, becoming conversant in visual analyses can contribute to developing more reflexive modes of representation in archaeology.

An exponential growth in research outputs, the great diversity of sources used, and the number of active researchers in archaeology make it impossible for any individual to present an overview of the discipline using reading and narrative alone. It is suggested that archaeologists might instead take a lead from scientometric studies and develop visualisations of their discipline as a research domain using data extracted from the citation indices. Three visualisations of the intellectual base of archaeology are presented, in the form of network maps of sources used, authors and terms. These maps, with their clustering of nodes, reveal the extreme multidisciplinary nature of archaeological research, patterns of overlapping and divergent communication networks among archaeological researchers, and the language and conceptual knowledge of archaeology. They also show marked variation in the gendered structure of academic reputations as created through citation practices across a series of specialisms of archaeology. Finally, these maps also suggest that archaeology as a discipline might be characterised by a process of fractal division into subgroups of practitioners following distinct but repeated forms of engagement in their archaeological enquiry.

Website review of 'The Story of Nonconformity in Wales' which is an online resource conceived by Addoldai Cymru (Welsh Religious Buildings Trust), a charitable organisation created to protect and develop Nonconformist chapels in Wales by taking vulnerable examples into ownership.

This review evaluates the potential of Google Earth Engine (GEE) for use in archaeological remote sensing. GEE is a freely accessible software option for processing remotely sensed data, part of the larger Google suite of products. GEE offers several advantages to the archaeologist: an accessible price, the ability to upload and process diverse datasets, the ability to pre-process raw data, a range of post-processing and image classification tools, and the ability to export processed data as GeoTiffs.

During the Upper Palaeolithic Britain was visited intermittently, perhaps only on a seasonal basis, by groups often operating at the margins of their range. The Early Mesolithic, by contrast, witnessed the start of the permanent occupation of the British landscape, with certain key sites showing evidence for long-lasting occupation from the very start of the period. However, currently our understanding of the timing and tempo of the Mesolithic colonisation and infilling of the landscape is limited because of the paucity of precise radiocarbon measurements. In this contribution we assess and model existing radiocarbon measurements to refine current typochronological models for the first two millennia of the Holocene. This is a necessary first step towards understanding the Mesolithic resettlement of the British Isles. Our results throw new light on the relationship between the last Upper Palaeolithic 'Long Blade' industries and early Mesolithic assemblages, as well as refining our understanding of the chronology of early Mesolithic assemblage types. Our data also suggest regional patterning to the timing of Mesolithic settlement and throws new light on issues of population movement and adoption of new technologies.

Review of stand-alone piece of software for the iPad, iDig - Recording Archaeology, for recording and visualising archaeological excavation data in the field.

In western Cornwall production of pottery in the local gabbroic fabric seems to have continued throughout the 5th century. Very small quantities reached sites in north-east Cornwall and south Devon. The date at which pottery use ended in the remainder of Devon cannot be established at present. In the final phase the pottery in use consisted almost entirely of South Devon ware and BB1 from south-east Dorset; at Exeter importation of both wares ceased at about the same time. Changes in the latest coarse ware forms are discussed, and the importance of post-Roman Mediterranean imports in dating the end of the Romano-British industries is highlighted.

Stamped pottery has had a long and varied history in Britain. There have been periods when it flourished and periods when it almost totally disappeared. This article considers two variations of the rosette motif (A 5) and their fortunes from the late Iron Age to the Early Saxon period. Having been of little importance in the Iron Age and early Roman periods, they became some of the most widely used and distributed motifs in the fourth century. By the fifth century, they were still important, but formed a much smaller proportion of the total motifs than in the fourth century. In the vast majority of cases, there is no correlation between the find spots of fourth and fifth century examples. However, I have identified nine locations where one or other of the two motifs have been found on a late Roman site, which lies within a mile of another site with the same motif, but from the post-Roman period. In these rare conjunctions, I believe that ongoing usage of the motif can be demonstrated from Roman to post-Roman times. It is also clear that pot stamp evidence can be vital in identifying these highly unusual locations and pointing other researchers to sites worthy of special attention.

In western Britain, particularly the south-west, imported pottery of Mediterranean origin has provided an important means of recognising 5th and 6th-century sites. The ability to link these finds to typologies established in the Mediterranean has led to sherds of imported amphorae or fineware being considered as key chronological markers or indicators of long-distance connections. The arrival of new forms of pottery in the mid- to later 5th century, with a distinct western and coastal distribution, has been used to indicate the emergence of a new and separate post-Roman import system, characterised by a model of direct shipment from the east Mediterranean. This model has been reinforced by a relative absence of known, comparable finds along the Atlantic Seaboard. Recent publications from the Continent, however, are starting to fill this 'gap'. Revised patterns of ceramic distribution in western France and north-west Spain suggest that British sites were integrated into a more complex Atlantic system of trade or exchange. This article will discuss some recent publications on ceramic imports to Britain, particularly those that offer new interpretations of the date and character of this import system. It will highlight emerging evidence from the Continent, particularly south-western France and, specifically, relevant publications on Late Antique pottery in Bordeaux. This will allow new comparisons to be drawn between patterns of pottery importation and use in Britain, France and the wider Atlantic region in the 5th and 6th centuries.

During large scale excavations at Baldock in the 1980s, a series of fifth-century and later deposits was identified. Analysis of the pottery showed new forms and fabrics appeared at this time. Similar fabrics were also identified on sites outside the town. This paper explores the implications of the material for understanding the Late Roman/early medieval transition in Hertfordshire.

This article discusses a late Roman Black Burnished form known as the Type 18 bowl. The lateness of this form was first discussed in 2004 but new discoveries have continued to reinforce the probably late fourth to early fifth century date assigned to this vessel. Imitations in other fabrics are also beginning to be identified with one such vessel found in association with early Anglo-Saxon pottery.

Recent research on the prehistoric and Romano-British remains at Mucking, Essex, has revealed much about the long-term settlement sequence of that important site. A minor, but potentially important, aspect has been identification of a small later Roman pottery assemblage from the site, apparently dating to a period without major occupation. This paper explores the contextual associations of this assemblage, and argues that it may represent very early 5th-century activity arising from the earliest 'Anglo-Saxon' activity at Mucking.

This paper seeks to show that a full or partial monetary economy may have continued to operate in parts of Britain into the 2nd quarter of the 5th century at least; changing our perception of early 5th century material culture in South-East Britain from one leaving very few traces in the archaeological record to one which is an extension of that previously thought to be restricted to the period c.AD 370-410 but which can now be seen to span the period c.AD 370-430/440. Some Romano-British style pottery appears to have continued being made on a much more limited scale into the mid-5th century: a distinctive type of convex-sided dish with solid spaced bosses can be shown to have been made at or near Dorchester-upon-Thames, Portchester and Alice Holt Forest during the 5th century and continued being produced at the first-mentioned place for long enough to be copied by local Anglo-Saxon potters. Adjustments in dating mean that certain peculiarly insular types of military equipment such as the Tortworth strap-end and horse-headed buckle, hitherto dated to the last years of the 4th century, could belong to British soldiers of the early 5th century.

Coinage forms one of the most recognisable categories of material culture dating to the late fourth and early fifth centuries. As a result, it has played a pivotal role in dating the 'end' of Roman Britain. This article summarises key numismatic evidence for the period and tries to go beyond chronology, illustrating how hoards and site finds can be used to explore the nature of coin use throughout the diocese of Britannia and to provide some insight into its apparent collapse in the fifth century AD.

In 2012 the Centre for Interdisciplinary Artefacts Studies (part of the School of History, Classics and Archaeology) at Newcastle University hosted a day conference on 'Roman Pottery in the Fifth Century AD'. At this conference some fifty delegates listened to papers given by nine archaeologists drawn from academia, commercial units, museums and freelance specialists. The diverse backgrounds of the contributors as well as the audience underlines why the conference and this edition of Internet Archaeology are needed. Previously there had been no venue that had brought these specialists together in the same forum. The genesis of the conference and this set of articles actually lies further back still. During my period of doctoral research at the University of York (2002-2005) I investigated the end of the Dorset Black Burnished pottery (BB1) industry in south-western Britain (Gerrard 2005). Part of this research involved reaching out to colleagues who worked with Romano-British pottery and it showed that a surprising number considered they had evidence that Romano-British pottery was being used and/or produced in the 5th century AD. When asked whether their views were published the response was, perhaps unsurprisingly given that many of these individuals worked in commercial archaeology, that they had neither the time nor the resources to disseminate their data and interpretations (Perrin 2011). Extremely interesting material was thus languishing unpublished or was hiding in obscure papers and monographs. The publication of some of this material was clearly an important step in problematizing how the 'end' of Roman pottery production in Britain was interpreted (Willis 2004, 16-17). It is hoped that this collection of articles will go some way to resolving the lacuna I first observed a decade ago.

The Late Iron Age, Roman and early Saxon settlement at Elms Farm, Heybridge, Essex was excavated in the mid-1990s, in advance of the construction of a large housing estate by Bovis Homes Ltd. The large-scale of the excavations is matched by the substantial and important artefact assemblage recovered, which included 6.4 tonnes of Late Iron Age and Roman pottery, 2,910 Roman coins and over 9000 animal bones. Together this has enabled an appreciation of the development of the settlement over time and space, of the changing functions, status and economy of individual areas and the settlement as a whole, and the issues of transition, change and finally decline. The site revealed evidence for activity from the Bronze Age to the post-medieval period. The evidence for the earliest settlement dates to the Late Iron Age period and is rather fragmentary in nature. However a centrally located shrine, with a series of strip-plots to the north and south were tentatively identified. This settlement was remodelled around the mid 1st century AD, with the creation of a formal infrastructure of metalled roads, as well as a new temple precinct on the earlier sacred site and a reworking of the strip-plots into enclosures. This remodelling spanned the Late Iron Age/early Roman transition period. To the north of the settlement area were a number of burials, pyre sites and pyre debris dumps. Early Roman cremations were added to this area slightly later. Some of the pyre sites exhibit higher-status elements, and at least one may have been 'aristocratic', suggesting the presence of a local elite. The later 1st to mid 2nd centuries saw a period of broad continuity and development. With the essential infrastructure already laid down, there was little substantive change made to the roads or to the layout of the settlement, and little change is evident to the functions of individual enclosures. The exception is the temple precinct, which underwent a second phase of remodelling in the early 2nd century with the adjacent areas adopting a support role in relation to it. The finds and the layout of the settlement suggests a decline in its status, with the settlement acting as a large village or small town with a market and religious function. The late 2nd to mid 4th centuries saw occupation activity contracting towards the settlement nucleus, which is conjectured to lie to the west of the temple complex. Much of the remaining area was increasingly given over to peripheral, perhaps purely agricultural, uses and the side roads were gradually going out of use. The evidence for the latest Roman and early Saxon periods is again rather fragmentary, although the continued decline and contraction of the Roman settlement toward its core to the west of the area of investigation is evident. The main thoroughfares may have survived to the end of the Roman period, but all around the infrastructure appears to be fragmenting. However, the religious focus functioned into the late 4th century, when the precinct wall and adjacent monumental post were removed and a substantial building was placed over the former boundary. It is tentatively suggested that the new structure could have been an early Christian chapel. What remained of the former Roman settlement into the 5th century, and whether there was continuity of occupation into the early Saxon period, is unclear. Early Saxon material, was recovered from across the site and a number of buildings are identified. However, on the basis of the evidence from Elms Farm and from other excavations in the area it is thought that the main focus of the early Saxon settlement was on the marginally higher ground to the north-east in the area of the modern Crescent Road. The final episode of occupation at Elms Farm does not appear to have lasted beyond the 5th century.

This article describes the methodology of a two-year research project to create an analytical database and GIS of 583 (proto-)urban centres on the Italian peninsula that existed between 350 BCE and 300 CE. The article is linked to the project's data files, deposited with the ADS, and is essential reading for users of the database. The research design, format and functionality of the database are described in conjunction with the challenges encountered during the methodological development of the project. The relevance of the project to the historical development of urbanism on the Italian peninsula during the period under study is outlined. An overview of the project's results provides an insight into the potential of the research methodology. It is relevant to anyone interested in ancient urbanism, Italian and Roman archaeology, or in the methods and results of combining ancient textual and archaeological legacy data with geospatial data.

Humans are agents capable of helping others, learning new behaviours and forgetting old ones. The evolutionary approach to archaeological systems has therefore been hampered by the 'modern synthesis' - a gene-centred model of evolution as a process that eliminates those that cannot handle stress. The result has been a form of environmental determinism that explains human evolution in terms of heroic struggles and selective winnowing. Biologists committed to the modern synthesis have either dismissed agency as a delusion wrought in our bodies by natural selection, or imposed a sharp, Cartesian split between 'natural' and 'artificial' ecologies. We revisit the seminal literature of evolutionary biology and show that the paradigmatic fault lines of 21st century anthropology can be traced back to the 19th century and beyond. Lamarck had developed a two-factor evolutionary theory - one factor an endogenous tendency to become more advanced and complex, the other an exogenous constraint that drove organisms into conformity with environment. Darwin tried to eliminate the progressive tendency and imposed linearity constraints on evolution that Thomas Henry Huxley rejected. When experimental evidence falsified Darwin's linear hypothesis, the race began to develop a new, gene-centred model of evolution. This became the modern synthesis. The modern synthesis is now under pressure from the evidence of anthropology, sociology, palaeontology, ecology and genetics. An 'extended synthesis' is emerging. If evolution is adequately summarised by the aphorism survival of the fittest, then 'fitness' cannot always be defined in the heroic sense of 'better able to compete and reproduce'. The fittest organisms are often those that evade selective winnowing, even when their ability to compete and reproduce has been compromised by their genes. Characteristically human traits like language, abstraction, compassion and altruism may have arisen as coping strategies that allowed genetically vulnerable populations to negotiate new ways of being fit. The extended synthesis allows for the possibility that great apes were agents long before they were human and that this agency enabled them to fit their environments to their own needs. This article summarises features of the extended synthesis that seem most relevant to archaeology. Some of the topics it discusses may seem abstruse and perhaps unnecessary because they amount to an acknowledgement of socio-natural complexities archaeologists have understood for decades. However, they are extremely significant in study-domains where biology and archaeology intersect. Archaeologists can no longer uncritically accept the conclusions drawn by molecular geneticists because the theoretical framework of evolutionary biology is under reconstruction.

The introduction of digital data capturing and management technologies has transformed information practices in archaeology. Digital documentation and digital infrastructures are integrated in archaeologists' daily work now more than ever. International and national institutions and projects have contributed to the development of digital archiving and curation practices. Because knowledge production in archaeology depends heavily on documentation and information dissemination, and on retrieval of past documentation, the question of how information is managed is profoundly intertwined with the possibilities for knowledge production. Regulations at different levels articulate demands and expectations from the emerging digital information practices, but how are these different regulations coordinated, and do they support archaeological knowledge production? In this article we look into the state of information policy - the sum of principles guiding decisions about information - in archaeology and related areas. The aim of the article is to shed light on how information policy directs practice in archaeology, and to show that analysis of such policies is therefore vital. Information policy in legislation and guidelines in Swedish archaeology serves as a case study, and examples from development-led archaeology and the museum sector illustrate how information policies have varied roles across different heritage sectors. There are historical and local trajectories in the policy documents specific to Sweden, but the discussion shows that the emergence of Swedish policies have many parallels with processes in other countries. The article provides recommendations for information policy development for archaeology and related areas.

This article focuses on the use of Google Earth as a tool to facilitate public engagement and dissemination of data. It examines a case study based around one of the largest archaeological investigations of the Stonehenge landscape, the Stonehenge Riverside Project. A bespoke layer for Google Earth was developed to communicate the discoveries of the research by creating an engaging, interactive and informative multimedia application that could be viewed by users across the world. The article describes the creation of the layer: Google Under-the-Earth: Seeing Beneath Stonehenge, and the public uptake and response to this. The project was supported by a Google Research Award, and working alongside Google enabled a 'free to download' platform for users to view the data within in the form of Google Earth, as well as the integration of a variety of applications including: Google SketchUp, YouTube, and Flickr. In addition, the integration of specialist software, such as Esri ArcGIS, was fundamental to the integration of the spatial data gathered by the project. Methodologies used to create the application are documented here, including how different outputs were integrated such as geophysical survey, 3D reconstructions and landscape tours. The future possibilities for utilising Google Earth for public engagement and understanding in the discipline are examined.

This article takes a fresh view of unpublished archaeological reports, common in archaeological practice in England since the advent of PPG16. Although these reports are almost ubiquitously referred to as 'grey literature', they are but a facet of a larger corpus of publication and dissemination techniques used by the archaeological community. It is argued that the term 'grey' has become synonymous with a liminal status and inferior quality that is in fact contrary to the realities of the increased online publication of fieldwork reports. The article also considers the current upsurge in research projects and academic theses using fieldwork reports, and highlights the necessity that findings from research are fed back into the curatorial sector and baseline data to inform all aspects of archaeological work rather than isolated in published literature often unavailable to those outside of academia. Finally, the article argues that although the challenge of increased access - via the web - is being met, this is not consistent across the country, leading to lacunae in the information landscape. Furthermore, as the number of online reports grows into the tens of thousands there is a need for greater sophistication and archaeological context in the accompanying metadata, to aid classification and reuse.

The articles in this section of Internet Archaeology came out of a Theoretical Archaeology Group session at Manchester University in 2014. The session was motivated to explore issues associated with 'digital public archaeology' (DPA). It addressed the ways in which digital methods mediated or challenged the practice of public archaeology, an aspect of archaeology that has often emphasised communities defined by an attachment to place, frequently framed by the archaeological site. Increasingly digital technologies are allowing a breakdown of the focus on physical place, and change in the concept of 'community' (cf. Waterton 2010), with the potential to connect geographically disparate populations. Moreover, we wondered whether the mitigation of archaeological practice by digital media, which has been argued to lead to the unclear ontological statuses of material culture (Tringham 2010; Carusi et al. 2011), led to any specific issues with the practice of digital public archaeology. The need for archaeologists to engage thoughtfully with digital technologies has been recognised by a number of organisations (including in the UK the Archaeology Data Service, Heritage Lottery Fund, and Institute for Archaeologists), and anecdotally, greater numbers of projects appear to be defined by their predominantly digital work. These have variously leveraged notions of 'crowd-sourcing', 'engagement', 'dissemination', or 'publicity' (e.g. Richardson 2013; Bonacchi 2012). As well as the challenges and opportunities relevant to all public archaeology initiatives, work that includes a significant digital public archaeology component might share a series of more specific concerns. Projects can adopt approaches to engagement with the archaeological record that range from 'bottom up' to 'top down' (cf. Tully 2007; Moshenska 2008; Belford 2011), and web platforms can also enable the collaborative production of resources by groups who might not define themselves as archaeologists, but who nevertheless strongly and directly connect with the historic environment (e.g. neopagans, historical reenactors, and metal detectorists). The articles presented here deal with a number of themes which arise when doing digital public archaeology. Williams and Atkin dissect the highly specific encounters that may occur with human remains, memorials and other aspects of mortuary archaeology in digital public fora. They consider the ethics of interaction with human remains and the strategies by which digital media can promote, educate and engage public audiences with archaeological projects and research relating to death and the dead. Bonacchi and Moshenska situate DPA within the wider context of public archaeology approaches, and the potential that digital media have to augment communication strategies with members of the public. At the same time they emphasise the importance of critically evaluating the effectiveness of digital work - especially in terms of impact and sustainability. Griffiths et al. point out that DPA is not mere uni-directional knowledge transfer, and that it can include post-excavation and methodological research - that public archaeology should not be limited to activity 'at the trowel edge'. We hope that these articles, and all the webcasts from the original TAG session on YouTube, will provide food for thought in terms of the role DPA may play in the future. We do not wish to appear as proselytisers for a shiny new digital future that is the panacea to issues in contemporary heritage and archaeology. However, we do suggest that as part of a need to be publically accountable and accessible, a digital component is increasingly important in projects, whether undertaken in the academic, professional or other spheres. DPA touches on a wide array of issues, as the article on crowd-sourcing archaeological research by Griffiths et al. emphasises, but as part of the toolkit for exciting, creative and playful engagement, digital approaches offer a range of possibilities.

This article presents critiques and analyses of recent work in digital public archaeology (DPA) in the United Kingdom. It first locates different strands of DPA within the wider field of public archaeology, and begins to map out the diverse forms, aims and sources of DPA. Next it critically examines the models of 'communication' that are present in DPA, suggesting that greater attention should be paid to audiences in particular, and monitoring and evaluation in general. Finally the article considers the democratising effects of digital media on archaeological knowledge economies, highlighting some current and potential future areas of interest.

A recent digital public archaeology project (HeritageTogether) sought to build a series of 3D ditigal models using photogrammetry from crowd-sourced images. The project saw over 13000 digital images being donated, and resulted in models of some 78 sites, providing resources for researchers, and condition surveys. The project demonstrated that digital public archaeology does not stop at the 'trowel's edge', and that collaborative post-excavation analysis and generation of research processes are as important as time in the field. We emphasise in this contribution that our methodologies, as much as our research outputs, can be fruitfully co-produced in public archaeology projects.

Archaeologists are increasingly working with crowd-sourced digital data. Using evidence from other disciplines about the nature of crowd-sourcing in academic research, we suggest that archaeological projects using donated data can usefully be differentiated between generative projects (which rely on data collected by citizen scientists), and analytical projects (which make use of volunteers to classify, or otherwise analyse data that are provided by the project). We conclude that projects which privilege hyper-local research (such as surveying specific sites) might experience tension if the audience they are appealing to are 'cyber local'. In turn, for more 'traditional' archaeological audiences (when the primary motivating interests may be the tangible, physical nature of portable material culture or the archaeological site itself), then intangible, digital simulacra may not provide an effective medium through which to undertake digital public archaeology.

Over recent decades, the ethics, politics and public engagements of mortuary archaeology have received sustained scrutiny, including how we handle, write about and display the archaeological dead. Yet the burgeoning use of digital media to engage different audiences in the archaeology of death and burial have so far escaped attention. This article explores categories and strategies by which digital media create virtual communities engaging with mortuary archaeology. Considering digital public mortuary archaeology (DPMA) as a distinctive theme linking archaeology, mortality and material culture, we discuss blogs, vlogs and Twitter as case studies to illustrate the variety of strategies by which digital media can promote, educate and engage public audiences with archaeological projects and research relating to death and the dead in the human past. The article then explores a selection of key critical concerns regarding how the digital dead are currently portrayed, identifying the need for further investigation and critical reflection on DPMA's aims, objectives and aspired outcomes.

In 2015 an engraved shale pendant was found during excavations at the Early Mesolithic site of Star Carr, UK. Engraved motifs on Mesolithic pendants are extremely rare, with the exception of amber pendants from southern Scandinavia. The artwork on the pendant is the earliest known Mesolithic art in Britain; the 'barbed line' motif is comparable to styles on the Continent, particularly in Denmark. When it was first uncovered the lines were barely visible but using a range of digital imaging techniques it has been possible to examine them in detail and determine the style of engraving as well as the order in which the lines might have been made. In addition, microwear and residue analyses were applied to examine whether the pendant showed signs that it had been strung or worn, and whether the lines had been made more visible through the application of pigments, as has been suggested for some Danish amber pendants. This approach of using multiple scientific and analytical techniques has not been used previously and provides a methodology for the examination of similar artefacts in the future.

Review of the book, Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage.

Editorial to mark 20 years of Internet Archaeology.

What is the context of our archaeological blogging? When we blog, are we merely shouting into the void? Do archaeological bloggers link only to one another, and do we shout only to each other (which, it must be admitted, is what our journals and conferences do, too, albeit at a slower pace)? Assume a person knows nothing about archaeology: would that person find your blog? Your project website? Your department's website? Does academic blogging matter? One way to answer these questions is through a mapping of the archaeological web. When a layperson finds a site, she might signal its perceived value through linking, retweeting, commenting (once upon a time, on the blog post itself; now more likely via a tweet), and writing her own blog posts about it. Therefore, various network metrics of this map of the archaeological web can be taken as a kind of proxy for evaluating the likely impact of our blogging. Given that these blogs are all publicly available (if one knows or can find the address), blogging is a kind of public archaeology. Not necessarily an archaeology done for the public, but rather an archaeology done in view of the public (cf Richardson and Almansa-Sánchez 2015 on the variety within public archaeology). It would be interesting to know if this kind of public archaeology has an impact at all. These signals and linkages in the general noise of the Internet are the subject of this article. In order for us as archaeologists to generate the strongest possible signals on the web, we need to understand the structures that have emerged within the web to best facilitate dissemination. This can help us increase our signals' visibility, even though all roads eventually lead to Wikipedia.

The dominance of social media technologies on the Internet has located virtual communities around the use of proprietary social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, although the situation, location and definition of any online community are constantly evolving. Belonging to a number of these online communities, through social networking sites or forums is becoming a normal practice among Internet users. Yet much of the academic analysis of these online communities and networks takes place in isolation from the activities of the community itself in real life. This abstracts the community ties that people also hold offline with their online networks and does not consider the relationships and interactions that may also exist offline. This article will explore the experiences of archaeologists using the micro-blogging platform Twitter, and explore how the format and communication supported by Twitter creates a sense of community online and offline, and support professional and personal networking, using the concepts of weak ties and social capital.

Project Eliseg involved three field seasons (2010-12) of survey and excavation at the multi-period mortuary and commemorative monument known as the Pillar of Eliseg, near Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales. Each season incorporated an evolving range of media and public engagement activities, with digital media employed to disseminate ongoing work both globally and locally, including to those unable to access the site during the excavation seasons. One of the key strategies employed via digital media in seasons 2 and 3 was a daily video-blog (hereafter: vlog). This article presents and appraises the rationale, design, content and reception of the Project Eliseg vlog revealing key lessons in the use of digital media in archaeological fieldwork, particularly for those engaged with the archaeology of death, burial and commemoration.

The international cultural heritage economy has long been underpinned by a reserve army of unemployed/underemployed labour. The entry-level workforce is being further undermined and unpaid/underpaid labour is additionally being consolidated through the crisis and austerity measures. Independently and under different pressures, archaeologists across Europe have begun to use blogging, micro-blogging and other social media in concerted national efforts to document, analyse and resist exploitative and exclusive employment practices. This article focuses on the development of movements against unpaid labour (free archaeology) in the UK, against unpaid and underpaid internship (volontariato and stage) in Italy, and for employment (istihdam) in Turkey. Using insights gained through observing and participating in these movements, and through running a research blog on precarious labour in the cultural heritage industry, this article examines the benefits and limits of blogging/micro-blogging as a tool for debate within the profession, communication with the public, and activism.

Surprisingly few bioarchaeology blogs currently exist, but their numbers belie their reach. In this article, we survey the ecology of the bioarchaeology blogosphere and address the impact of blogging in bioarchaeology, specifically addressing its utility in outreach and public engagement. In providing specific examples from our collective decade of blogging and from other bioarchaeology bloggers, we provide best practices to encourage bioarchaeologists who may want to add their voices to this sphere. The difficulties and potential issues of blogging bioarchaeology are far outweighed by the benefits of expanding communication and furthering disciplinary engagement in an increasingly digital world. We call on bioarchaeologists to be protagonists and advocates of our discipline.

n this article we will discuss the challenges involved in presenting the looting of archaeological sites and the illicit trade in cultural property to the interested public. We will contrast our experiences of building two popular illicit antiquities-focused blogs (Things You Can't Take Back and Anonymous Swiss Collector) with the process of developing an informative academic website on the same topic (Trafficking Culture). We will discuss our motivations for starting these blogs, our struggles with the tone of the popular discourse on this topic, and our inability to escape our own emotions; why we have moved away from illicit antiquities blogging in the past year and why we are coming back. Finally, having learned from our mistakes, we will make recommendations to others wishing to engage with the public about sensitive issues via social media.

This article expands a 2008 article prepared by William Caraher for Archaeology Online which celebrated the first generation of scholarly blogging in archaeology and classics. Caraher remains tremendously optimistic that the widespread accessibility of blogging platforms, the growth of social media, and new expectation for academic publication has created new communities of scholarly practice poised to revolutionize archaeological communication. Andrew Reinhard offers a more cautionary perspective on the relationship between blogging and publishing by introducing a global perspective on academic publishing and some of the practical issues related to including blogs within the larger tent of scholarly communication. Reinhard's perspectives reveal that the communities of practice in academia may not always be compatible, but like both article authors, they leave plenty of room for new publishing possibilities in a range of rapidly changing digital media and platforms.

Over the past few decades, digital and public archaeology have grown in importance in archaeology. With the advent of social media, the importance of using digital tools for public engagement has increased. However, the basic training received by archaeology students has not provided adequate instruction in the use of these tools. The archaeological field school, the traditional means of training archaeology students, provides a perfect opportunity to begin to instruct students in this area. At Michigan State University, the Campus Archaeology Program developed a public blog written by field school students, and used this platform as a successful tool for teaching students about archaeological methods, public archaeology, and the use of digital tools for public engagement.The project also became an excellent way of assessing how well students understood and incorporated basic archaeological concepts.

While blogging in archaeology has a genealogy that can be traced back nearly two decades, the relationship between such practice and the constitution of disciplinary expertise has barely been probed. Arguably directly relatable to early web-based efforts to reconfigure the archaeological interpretative process and redefine professional identity (e.g. as evidenced in Cornelius Holtorf's 1998 hypermediated PhD dissertation), blog work has long been drawn into the exercise of crafting skilled bodies and accredited knowledge bases. In the last 10 years, however, it has increasingly been applied to the academic classroom, where it is used as a formal teaching tool at all levels of university education. The implications of this pedagogical phenomenon are profound, yet the epistemological consequences for the professionalisation of archaeology are hardly understood. Here I combine a critical analysis of students' experiments with blogging in my own undergraduate archaeology courses with an overview of comparable classroom-based and professional weblog work elsewhere. I draw upon evidence collected through survey, interviews, course assessments and reflective reports to make a case not only for blogging as a meaningful creative exercise, but as a mechanism by which the very nature of archaeology itself can be prodded, extended and perhaps even fundamentally reconfigured. Although often fraught with tension, blog work is an influential intellectual tool for the discipline. I outline here how it promises both to narrow the gap between archaeological theory and practice, and simultaneously to hone and empower emerging professionals.

I was taught to think of archaeological photography as faceless, a to-scale and accurate depiction of ancient artefacts and sites but these rules only apply to one part of archaeological photography, the 'official' one.

This special volume of Internet Archaeology collects the leading voices of blogging in archaeology to provide a critical examination of informal, online self-publication. This collection of articles is one result of over a decade of digital communication. Articles are intermingled with perspectives from contributors who have started blogging in the intervening time, and with peer review comments from archaeologists who have blogged for a long time, and from those who do not blog at all.

This article considers the issues of archaeological authority, expertise and organisational reputation in the UK from an online perspective, and questions whether the participatory promise of social media technologies can, and should, challenge archaeological authority. It explores how these issues are approached and mediated online, the issues of digital literacy for audience reception, and the approaches used by archaeological organisations to address the challenges of undertaking digital public archaeology projects whilst maintaining archaeological rigour and the visible performance of expertise. It discusses how the concepts of archaeological authority and expertise are demonstrated and practised online, using data from my doctoral research, undertaken from 2011 to 2013. This article questions if the presence of websites dedicated to the promulgation of alternative archaeologies on the Internet can present challenges for the performance of archaeological expertise online, and how organisations monitor and respond to alternative archaeological interpretations and news stories.

This article presents a detailed overview of the Insular artefacts found in Viking-Age burials from the Trøndelag region of mid-Norway, most of which have not previously been published in English. The archaeological evidence indicates that contact between Trøndelag and the British Isles was well established at an early stage of the Viking Age. The main evidence for contact comes from the 9th century, when a number of significant patterns can be discerned. Some local concentrations of Insular goods show the continuing importance of some pre-Viking centres, while other areas suggest co-operation between several neighbouring families in order to equip and provision overseas expeditions. Later, the datable Insular artefacts indicate significant changes in the nature of contact. North Sea trading towards the end of the Viking Age appears to be affected by increasing centralisation of power in Trøndelag during the 10th century.

On 27 August 1549, the popular East Anglian insurgency known as 'Kett's Rebellion' was defeated in a bloody confrontation with loyalist forces at the valley of Dussindale, just outside Norwich, England. Despite the battle's significance, and its vital implications for the study of mid-16th-century warfare, its exact site has yet to be determined conclusively, hampering attempts to analyse the conflict further and to record its location accurately for archaeological and heritage purposes. This article will demonstrate how geographical information systems can be utilised alongside historic maps and written sources to identify the 1549 battlefield within the modern landscape. To do this, it will employ methodologies of map regression, similar to those used at Towton (1461), Bosworth (1485), and Edgehill (1642), as a means of testing and advancing the findings of Anne Carter, who in 1984 suggested the most credible theory regarding the engagement's location. With the help of these tools, the article will not only ascertain where the battle took place, but will also reconstruct its historic terrain, fulfilling an essential requirement for considering its tactical aspects. By doing so, it will demonstrate the ways in which digital technologies can be applied to broaden and support traditional research.

Decades of Internet study have arguably done little to shed light on the nature and implications of web-based communications in archaeology. Since the late 1990s, the online world has been lauded by archaeologists for its capacities to engender dialogue, participation, intellectual change and even democratic revolution. Yet the dangers associated with its use have barely been probed. Threats to privacy, equality, access, security of data, and personal safety and well-being are seemingly characteristic of all communication technologies. However, the naive zeal with which many archaeological and heritage organisations are employing online platforms for dissemination, profile-building, 'impact' and public accountability is fraught with risk and deserving of interrogation. This article explores the effects of digital culture on the professional identities and careers of archaeologists, heritage specialists and museum workers. Through a multi-disciplinary survey of over 400 individuals, nearly one-third of whom self-identified as archaeological or related heritage practitioners (working both inside and outside of the academic sector), we consider the various ways in which online technologies are used to express, promote, facilitate, strengthen and undermine both professionals themselves and professional practices in archaeology. Situating ourselves in the intersectional and feminist literature, we argue that web-based harassment and lack of adequate e-safety mechanisms are rife in the discipline, putting it in jeopardy of fuelling structural inequalities. Our findings suggest that close to one-third of practitioners report victimisation via online communication; the majority know their abusers offline; and, although the prevalence of such abuse is roughly equal among men and women, its nature is split along gender lines. Of especial concern, most practitioners choose to ignore their abuse, a decision that may be motivated by the non-existent or victim-harming institutional e-policies rampant in the sector. We call, then, for archaeology and heritage organisations - and their funders - to recognise their incontrovertible duty of care to staff, volunteers, students and communities engaged with their online platforms. As chronicled here, the meaningful public impact, access and empowerment sought by the profession via the social web are not achievable without investment in robust protection and prevention measures.

Review of Dactyl, an an Interactive 3D Osteology App for iPads.

Review of Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna), a game built on the Unity engine that explores a central story from the Iñupiat, Native Alaskans, with the rewards of additional storytelling by elders and community members.

In this article we evaluate the application of Polynomial Texture Mapping (PTM), a technique within Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), to a group of pre-Columbian rock art panels in southern Brazil. Our case study, the Avencal 1 rock art site (Urubici, Santa Catarina state), is one of the largest and most recognised sites in the southern Brazilian highlands. This study is the first detailed analysis of the site since it was recorded five decades ago. The record produced with PTM is more complete when compared with preceding sketches. Furthermore, its utility as a prospection tool is underscored by revealing for the first time the existence of multiple eroded motifs. Interpreting the PTM data, we recognise several new aspects of the panels that have gone unnoticed. Discrepancies between the published plans and the panels are illustrated, as are hypothesised sequences of production for specific panels and multiple techniques of engraving used at Avencal 1. Following our study, it is clear that PTM has applications for both analysis and conservation of pre-Columbian rock art and beyond. This article is accompanied by the dataset produced from our project in Urubici, which is referred to extensively. The data files are hosted by the Archaeology Data Service.

Palaeoanthropologists and early prehistorians work hard to reconstruct ancient human-environment relationships and their influences on our lineage's ecology, biology and behaviour. These studies use a range of datasets (from ice-core records to animal bones and pollen grains to soils) and may focus on anything from the extremely local (site-specific) scale all the way up to global patterns. One aspect of past environments, however, remains obscure: we still know little about spatial patterning or landscape. This may be because well-known problems of taphonomy and spatial averaging in the fossil record prevent detailed reconstructions of palaeolandscapes, or it might simply be that landscapes have not received much attention. This article addresses that gap in our knowledge. It analyses the spatial structures of extant African environments at different scales across four regions of potential significance to early human evolution. It then explores how these patterns relate to the structure and function of the Earth system, as a means of increasing understanding of broad landscape patterns and the relationships between environmental variables and assessing the contributions this sort of data might make to studies of the past. It suggests, among other things, that the optimum scale for reconstructing ancient landscapes may be neither the global/continental scales typically employed by modellers nor the single-site scales used in palaeoanthropological research, but the 'local landscape' scale. At this scale, it may be possible to integrate data from typically large-scale climatic reconstructions and small-scale landform analyses to mutual benefit.

Data paper describing the data collected via low-altitude UAV at Blackquarries Hill Long Barrow.

The editor's first editorial since Internet Archaeology switched completely to open access.

Remains of the highly nutritious aquatic plant Fox nut - Euryale ferox Salisb. (Nymphaeaceae) - were found at the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel. Here, we present new evidence for complex cognitive strategies of hominins as seen in their exploitation of E. ferox nuts. We draw on excavated data and on parallels observed in traditional collecting and processing practices from Bihar, India. We suggest that during the early Middle Pleistocene, hominins implemented multistage procedures comprising underwater gathering and subsequent processing (drying, roasting and popping) of E. ferox nuts. Hierarchical processing strategies are observed in the Acheulian lithic reduction sequences and butchering of game at this and other sites, but are poorly understood as regards the exploitation of aquatic plant resources. We highlight the ability of Acheulian hominins to resolve issues related to underwater gathering of E. ferox nuts during the plant's life cycle and to adopt strategies to enhance their nutritive value.

This article presents evidence for over 4200 prehistoric shell midden sites distributed on opposite sides of the southern Red Sea. These sites were primarily discovered using survey methods and site location models developed for locating shell midden sites on the Farasan Islands, where over 3000 have been found during previous research. These sites have been extensively excavated in the field and dated. Combining predictive models with remote sensing, an additional 1200 sites have been detected on the opposite side of the Red Sea, centred on the Dahlak Islands in Eritrea. Before these discoveries on the Farasan and Dahlak Archipelagos, the number of published prehistoric shell midden sites in the southern Red Sea was less than twenty. Combined, these sites represent a significant addition to the prehistoric coastal archaeology of the region. These new shell midden sites, and their apparent similarities on the two opposing coastlines, may indicate evidence of cultural contacts across the Red Sea during the Holocene Red Sea.

Historical and archaeological records of consumption practices indicate that people living along the Swahili coast relied largely on fish for subsistence; however, little research has been done to explore how aquatic subsistence strategies varied among different settlements in the region, both spatially and chronologically. Such questions are particularly interesting, as the communities were largely urban, and relied on fish for the bulk of their protein consumption. We compared evidence of subsistence strategies and exploited fish habitats in two Swahili regions that represent different maritime landscapes. Because particular fish species generally inhabit different sections of the marine environment, the composition of these species at each site can be used to estimate the variable exploitation of these habitats. Overall, the analysed samples showed a heavy exploitation of fish found around coral reefs, but with varying proportions of other exploited habitats, such as estuary, mangrove, sandy/muddy, and outer reef zones. The general pattern indicates that samples from offshore islands have higher representations of fish from coral/rocky habitats while samples from near-shore islands show a lower reliance on coral species. Over time there is an increase at certain sites in the exploitation of oceanic and pelagic fish that coincides with the more frequent consumption of domesticated bovids. We discuss the historical and environmental implications of these variable patterns of aquatic subsistence strategies along the East African coastline, and propose that there is a close link between their ability to exploit these marine resources, their success as urban settlements, and the development of feasting rituals.

The daily lives of Achill Island's inhabitants were heavily influenced by their relationships with the ocean, its resources and the seasons. Ireland's largest island, situated along its predominantly rural western coast, Achill remains in many ways idyllic and pastoral, descriptors used in the modern and recent historic era to draw tourists but also used in previous centuries to denigrate the culture and lifeways of the islands' inhabitants. Achill Island's maritime landscape, including its shoreline and coastal resources, was one of contest during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The island and its surrounding waters formed an active landscape within which the island's population resisted government control by maintaining, as much as possible and in some cases against government order, their preferred relationships with the ocean and its resources. Methods developed by the islanders for boatbuilding, natural resource exploitation, agriculture, labour, and travel related directly to the maritime landscape; these practices also relied on familial and extra-familial groups that provided community cohesion and a support network that allowed for cultural resilience. Achill's residents structured agricultural, labour and maritime practices according to seasonal cycles and traditional practice, often not in the manner preferred by landlords and government bodies charged with improving rural living standards. Archaeological, archival and ethnographic evidence shows that the islanders' practices, uniquely adapted to the maritime and terrestrial conditions of Achill, were in many ways better suited both to their daily lives and their surrounding environment than those imposed by external agents.

This article provides initial results on the use of shellfish by the inhabitants of Clos des Châtaigniers, Normandy (France) during the Late Bronze Age. The settlement is located at Mathieu, 10km from the coast. The French National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) conducted excavations on this site in 2010, under the direction of David Giazzon. A semi-circular domestic enclosure from the end of the Late Bronze Age was discovered. The diet of the inhabitants of Mathieu was partly based on mussels, which were found in large quantities. These shells were collected at low tide on a rocky to muddy/rocky shore. They were then transported inland to be eaten fresh or processed. Other marine invertebrates were also present on this site. Some of them were collected with the mussels. In fact, they were mixed with or fixed to this bivalve. Many other small fragments of shells are present on the site and could have come from the stomach contents of fish.

Bottom-fishing is a major step in the increase of exploitation of marine resources, requiring specialised craft, technology, and practitioners. However, the onset and development of bottom-fishing is almost impossible to observe directly in the archaeological record, and is usually reconstructed by implication. The shells of common whelk (Buccinum undatum) from a kitchen midden at Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight, southern England, showed a pattern of damage characteristic of harvesting by bottom-fishing, rather than the usual baited pots. Some whelks had survived being dredged several times. The very consistent size-shape relationship made it likely the whelks were all from a single habitat, probably in the fast tidal flows typical of the oyster-beds just north of the island. The whelks were harvested along with oysters: the whelks' shells were encrusted in a similar way to the oysters in the same midden, and the whelks even bore sub-adult oysters (spat), despite these being potential prey for whelks. This may be the first time whelks have been shown to have been harvested along with oysters and also seems the first direct evidence for a bottom-fishery for whelks.

This article explores the economic significance of marine resources in the south-western Baltic Sea during the transition to agriculture. Faunal remains are used in order to explain subsistence patterns, including preferred prey, exploitation of specific ecozones, hunting methods and techniques, butchering and dietary patterns. Seasonality can be linked to specific economic advantages that result from natural faunal abundances and not selective hunting. The importance of marine resources remains steady during the transition to agriculture, as shown by residue analysis on ceramic vessels from the same archaeological context as well as by faunal abundance.

The Badagry Cultural Area (BCA) is one of the significant socio-cultural places in coastal south-western Nigeria. Palynological and archaeological studies at Ahanve, a settlement in the BCA were undertaken recently to improve the understanding of past human exploitation of aquatic resources. Collected data revealed contrasts in the availability and utilisation of aquatic resources between a first occupation phase (9th-17th centuries AD) and a second occupation phase (17th century AD to present). The environment during the first phase was characterised by secondary forest and freshwater swamp. During this period, the inhabitants consumed cat-fish (Clariidae) and bivalves (Anodonta sp.), and engaged in salt production. The salt was produced from brine obtained from the Atlantic Ocean. Aquatic food resources were supplemented with terrestrial animal and plant foods. During the second occupation phase, aquatic resources (cat-fish and bivalves) declined and subsequently disappeared; salt production was discontinued while terrestrial foods, particularly plant-based types, increased significantly. These events coincided with the arrival of European travellers. Oral sources suggest that the decline in the exploitation of aquatic resources was in part due to the fear of being taken captive while on fishing expeditions, restrictions by Europeans who controlled the water-ways, and the massive importation of salt which replaced local production.

The Ertebølle culture is a late Mesolithic hunter-gatherer-fisher culture in southern Scandinavia, northern Germany and Poland. Archaeological finds as well as scientific analyses of humans and their artefacts indicate the great importance of aquatic resources, both marine and freshwater, to Ertebølle subsistence. In northern Germany, modern freshwater fish samples can have very high apparent radiocarbon ages (up to 3000 years). If such dramatic 'freshwater reservoir effects' also existed during the late Mesolithic, they could lead to artificially old radiocarbon dates for the bones of Ertebølle humans and domestic dogs, and for carbonised food crusts on cooking pots. Conversely, if we can demonstrate radiocarbon age 'offsets' in such samples, we can often attribute them to the exploitation of freshwater food resources. This article discusses methods of identifying freshwater resources in prehistoric pottery, including radiocarbon reservoir effects. We consider the results of radiocarbon, stable isotope and elemental analyses of food crusts on prehistoric pottery from four sites in the Alster and Trave valleys: Kayhude, Schlamersdorf, Bebensee and Seedorf.

The objective of this investigation is to look at the use of various aquatic, in this case marine, resources in relation to mobility during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. On the island of Öland, in the Baltic Sea, different archaeological cultures are represented in the form of material culture and skeletal remains at three sites. We have analysed δ34S values in human remains representing 36 individuals, as well as faunal remains. We investigated intra-individual patterns of mobility from childhood to adulthood, primarily focusing on a passage grave. Taking into account previously published dietary data that demonstrate a wide range of dietary practices involving aquatic resources, we applied a model to estimate the contribution of δ34S from terrestrial protein, to separate mobility from dietary changes, thereby identifying individuals who changed residence, as well as individuals with non-local origins. Evidence of mobility could be demonstrated at two sites. For the third site the consistently marine diet inhibits inferences on mobility based on δ34S analysis. Chronologically, the frequency of non-locals was highest during the Bronze Age, when the diet was very uniform and based on terrestrial resources.

Aquatic landscapes such as rivers, lakes, and seas played an important role in past human behaviour, affecting modes of subsistence, patterns of mobility, access to material resources, and technological choices and their developments. The interaction with aquatic landscapes was also influential in the establishment of economic and social structures and in the formation of communal identities. The aim of this special themed issue of Internet Archaeology is to contribute to a better understanding of different forms of human interaction with aquatic landscapes.

This article discusses the approach and methods adopted during a computer-generated visualisation project, which resulted in the animated outcome 'Jarlshof'. The challenge of visualising the relationships between a sequence of lost structures and the remains as they exist today was tackled by setting reconstructed elements within a computer-generated reproduction of the current day environment. The resulting imagery closely resembled the low altitude aerial photographs that the outcome was based upon. The process by which the existing structure and surface texture information was gathered and the resulting imagery synthesised with other upstanding sites, as well as fabricated elements, is discussed in terms of the methods and approach used. Discussion reflects on how a focus on gathered imagery contributed to the fidelity of the end aesthetic, and how photographic and cinematic considerations were incorporated into a narrative toolkit in order to tell an 'improved' story of the site. The role of the camera and the appropriateness of the low altitude aerial perspective is also raised.

This article revisits the archaeology of the Viking-age settlement and ring fortress at Aggersborg, Denmark, based on a large-scale geophysical survey using magnetic gradiometry and ground-penetrating radar, as well as legacy excavation data. Late 10th-century Aggersborg, the largest known fortress in Viking-age Scandinavia, commanded a key position at the narrow strait of the Limfjord, a principal sailing route between the Baltic and the North Sea. Previous excavations established that this location was on the site of an earlier settlement, which was burned-down prior to the construction of the fortress. The character and extent of this prior activity, however, have hitherto remained ill-defined. The geophysical survey identifies previously unknown elements of the fortress structures and elucidates the extent and character of the earlier settlement. The analysis is combined with a comprehensive reconsideration of primary data from early excavations, and demonstrates how this evidence can guide the interpretation of geophysical data to yield a detailed reassessment of spatial structure, and even suggest chronological phasing. The excavation trenches show dense traces of occupation with a large number of sunken-featured buildings (SFBs). Anomalies consistent with similar features are mapped in the geophysical surveys, and their distribution is shown to complement results from the excavations, demonstrating the important contribution of non-invasive survey to our knowledge of scheduled monuments. The surveys suggest that the total number of SFBs may be as high as 350, equal to or exceeding the largest number of such buildings previously identified at any site in Scandinavia. The ring fortress, by implication, must have replaced a site of particular function or importance, albeit of a very different organisation. An interpretation of the communication landscape is combined with a visibility analysis to argue that the long-term significance of the site relates to the potential of the location as a central place. These new observations transform understanding of a key site in Viking-age archaeology, and of the choice of location and the purpose behind the exceptional fortress. They offer a case for a reassessment of the much-discussed group of so-called 'Trelleborg' fortresses, thus adding new substance to models for understanding the political and tactical role of fortified places in Early Medieval Europe.

A review of the Gabii Goes Digital website which looks at how archaeological projects may be standardised in terms of data recording and publication.

This article presents a case-study demonstrating the potential of GIS visualisations for analyses of mortuary data, recorded half a century ago at the site of Holešov, Kroměříž district, in the Czech Republic. This cemetery consists of 10 Bell Beaker and 420 Early Bronze Age graves, giving the impression of continuous development over a considerable period of time. The temporality of the cemetery is examined in detail, via its chronological development, as well as the inseparable aspects of its social use and structuring through time. The original data were converted from the printed catalogue into a Geographical Information System (GIS) consisting of digitised plans and a database. Exploratory analyses of the data were conducted, based on two complementary perspectives: the spatial reference of recorded features and objects, and the formal similarity of burial assemblages. The former approach includes spatial density and trend surface analyses, the latter applies multivariate factor analysis visualised in GIS, where the extracted factor scores define a new reference system. The methods employed are sometimes unorthodox, specifically because such plots describing formal space have been little employed in GIS-based studies of mortuary behaviour. This article strives to highlight the positive aspects of contemporary computer software in order to encourage researchers to pursue new ways of conceptualising their research ideas through the integration of concepts and methods, which traditionally have been applied to different research domains.

This article deals with methodological issues connected with least-cost path (LCP) calculations in archaeology. The number of LCP studies in archaeology has increased rapidly during the last couple of years, but not all of the approaches applied are based on an appropriate model and implementation. Many archaeologists rely on standard GIS software with default settings for calculating LCPs and are not aware of possible alternatives and the pitfalls that are described in this article. After briefly introducing the aims and applications of LCP methods in archaeology, LCP algorithms are discussed. The outcome of the LCP calculations depends not only on the algorithm but also on the cost model, which often includes several cost components. The discussion of the cost components has a focus on slope, because nearly all archaeological LCP studies take this cost component into account and because several methodological issues are connected with slope-based cost models. Other possible cost components are: the load of the walker, vegetation cover, wetlands or other soil properties, travelling and transport on water, water as barrier and as attractor, aspect, altitude, and social or cultural cost components. Eventually, advantages and disadvantages of different ways of combining cost components are presented. Based on the methodological issues I conclude that both validation checks and variations of the model are necessary to analyse the reliability of archaeological LCP results.

A data paper describing the AustArch dataset in ADS which consists of 5,044 radiocarbon determinations from 1,748 archaeological sites across Australia.

Teeth are often the preferred substrate for isotopic and genetic assays in archaeological research. Teeth can yield isotopic signals from different periods of an individual's lifetime, useful in dietary reconstruction, climate research, and investigation into mobility of people and animals in the past. Additionally, it is generally accepted that teeth preserve biomolecules (e.g. DNA, collagen) and isotopic signals better. Despite the importance of dental tissue in archaeological research, no systematic study has been carried out concerning diagenetic alterations at histological scale. This article reports the results of a thorough histological characterisation of post-mortem alterations observed in 34 ancient teeth. Such alterations are well described in bone whereas similar analyses of teeth are scant and highlight the need for diagenetic screening before analysis. Micrographs have been made, illustrating typical diagenetic features occurring within the dental tissues cementum, dentine and enamel including bioerosion, cracking, etching and staining. The photo catalogue produced can be used within fields such as archaeology, forensics and palaeontology.

Data paper for the digital archive for excavations at Heathrow Terminal 5

This article summarises the methodology we have applied to an intensively investigated part of the Upper Thames Valley. We discuss the potential of digital spatially referenced data to help bridge the gaps between the various commercial units who work side by side in the landscape, as well as between the various planning authorities. This article will be of interest to anyone working with digital data or with diverse datasets to understand wider landscapes, as well as anyone working with various funders, developers, and consultancies to plan for the best use of such 'big data' to improve heritage management and archaeological enquiry.

Editorial for issue 36.

The first half of the nineteenth century was a formative period in the development of archaeology as a discipline and archaeological publishing played a key role in this. Libraries were an essential marker of social and intellectual status and there now exists a considerable body of scholarship on the most impressive publications of the day and on the factors influencing their presentation; for example, in relation to the publication of Mediterranean classical antiquities. The crucial role which publishers played in the selection and dissemination of scholarship has been addressed in recent studies of the history of the book, and there is a growing literature on the role of publishers in the dissemination of scientific knowledge, but there has to date been very limited evaluation of the role of publishers in the selection and dissemination of archaeological knowledge in Britain in this period. This study will investigate the extent to which the publication and dissemination of archaeological knowledge, and hence the discipline itself, was shaped by the intellectual and/or commercial concerns of publishers, with a view to providing a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which knowledge was filtered and the impact that this had. Key trends in archaeological publishing in the period 1816-51 will be identified, based on the London Catalogue of Books, and will show how and why this kind of study should be seen as an essential component of any research which considers the history of the discipline. Selected case studies will show the immense, and previously unacknowledged, importance of decisions made during the publication process on the development of archaeology in Britain, and directions for further study will be identified.

Bryozoans (Phylum Bryozoa) are colony-forming invertebrates found in marine and freshwater contexts. Many are calcified, while some others have chitinous buds, and so have archaeological potential, yet they are seldom investigated, perhaps due to considerable difficulties with identification. This article presents an overview of bryozoans, as well as summarising archaeological contexts in which bryozoans might be expected to occur, and highlighting some previous work. It also presents methods and directions to maximise the potential of bryozoans in archaeological investigations.

This article discusses the outcomes of the Digital Research Video Project, which was part of the larger Social Media Knowledge Exchange program at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge and funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (UK). The project was founded on the premise that open access publication of research, while important, does not necessarily make research accessible. Often, PhD students and post-doctoral scholars lack the skills needed to communicate their research to a broader audience. The goal of the project was, first, to provide communication training to early career researchers (achieved through a workshop held in autumn 2012) and second, to create illustrated videos highlighting projects by early career researchers that would help them engage with their work using multimedia and share their results with a larger audience. This article considers the methods of dissemination and impact of the project.

The first systematic archaeological investigation on Barbados since the 1970s at Mount Plantation, St George, Barbados, has yielded significant material and landscape data relating to world-changing economic and social structures, from the dramatic early 18th-century escalation of slavery to the agro-industrial production in the British Caribbean during the late 19th century. This article focuses on two related research aims. It offers the evaluation of systematic archaeological fieldwork which combines geophysical survey techniques and fieldwalking in the British Caribbean, thus offering the first results from a methodology for rapidly assessing the archaeological potential of plantation sites. Secondly, it systematically characterises the plough-zone archaeology on a Barbadian plantation. The site provides an example of shifts in plantation organisation and labour over the 18th and early 19th centuries, and forms an integral element within the study of created and transformed landscapes owned by the Lascelles family in Barbados and Yorkshire (UK), thus connecting Caribbean cultural landscapes directly with those in Britain.

Evidence from silver hoards found in Phoenicia is linking Tarshish, the legendary source of King Solomon's silver, to ores in the western Mediterranean. Biblical passages sometimes describe this lost land as a supplier of metals (especially silver) to Phoenician sailors who traded in the service of Solomon and Hiram of Tyre in the 10th century BC. Classical authors similarly attribute the mercantile supremacy of the Phoenicians to their command of lucrative supplies of silver in the west, before they colonised the coasts and islands of its metalliferous regions around 800 BC. Conservative rejections of such reports have correctly emphasised a lack of evidence from silver. Lead isotope analyses of silver hoards found in Phoenicia now provide the initial evidence for pre-colonial silver-trade with the west; ore-provenance data correlate with the ancient documents that indicate both Sardinia and Spain as suppliers, and Sardinia as the island of Tarshish.

Locally-produced ceramics are the most ubiquitous find on archaeological sites in East Africa and their study offers the potential to develop a robust understanding of activity and interaction within and between sites. In particular, understandings of the Iron Age societies that developed on the East African coast and its hinterland have been transformed by exploration of a particular group of vessels known as Early Tana Tradition or Triangular-Incised Ware. During the late first millennium, c. AD 600 - 900, sites across East Africa were united by the production and use of these ceramics, consisting of necked jars with incised decoration and a series of other jar and bowl forms in varying quantities. The Ceramics and Society project sought to explore this corpus of Early Tana Tradition ceramics, creating a database of sherds from excavated sites across the region. The history of research in East Africa has resulted in a very diverse set of methodologies and analytical systems being applied to different sites, and through systematic comparison Ceramics and Society sought to bring these data into a common framework for comparison. In a project funded by the British Academy and the British Institute in Eastern Africa, a series of key ETT/TIW sites were revisited, and sherds analysed according to a single system, allowing quantitative cross-site comparison for the first time.

Data paper summarising the Burdale digital archive which comprises a broad range of primary and secondary data derived from fieldwork and post-excavation analysis. It complements the summary report published by Richards and Roskams 2012.

Review of: MAGIS Mediterranean Archaeology GIS Version 1.6. Collaboratory for GIS and Mediterranean Archaeology. DePauw University Indiana, USA.

This article describes a project set up to explore the potential of web-based tools for archaeological interpretation of LIDAR data by a non-expert audience. This is accomplished through the creation of bespoke web-based tools designed to facilitate crowdsourced transcription of archaeological features, and trialled through a case study using LIDAR data covering 100km swathe of the Cotswolds, Gloucestershire. A group of non-expert volunteers were tasked with transcribing archaeological features and provided feedback on both the effectiveness of the application and their user experience, in order to tease out potential barriers to public participation.

Data paper: The dataset (Claridge and Rendell 2010) comprises both original digital and digitised (scanned) archival records relating to archaeological, topographical and geophysical fieldwork carried out by British teams at Castelporziano from 1984 to 2009 and geomorphological and environmental fieldwork in the area during 2006-2009 (Rendell et al. 2007; Bicket et al. 2009). The data are organised in 8 sections and 53 subsections, defined primarily by type of survey and then subdivided by individual site or group of sites, and/or data type.

Editorial by Judith Winters for Internet Archaeology Issue 35

The capacity to conceptualise and measure time is amongst the most important achievements of human societies, and the issue of when time was 'created' by humankind is critical in understanding how society has developed. A pit alignment, recently excavated in Aberdeenshire (Scotland), provides an intriguing contribution to this debate. This structure, dated to the 8th millennium BC, has been re-analysed and appears to possess basic calendrical functions. The site may therefore provide the earliest evidence currently available for 'time reckoning' as the pit group appears to mimic the phases of the Moon and is structured to track lunar months. It also aligns on the south east horizon and a prominent topographic point associated with sunrise on the midwinter solstice. In doing so the monument anticipates problems associated with simple lunar calendars by providing an annual astronomic correction in order to maintain the link between the passage of time indicated by the Moon, the asynchronous solar year, and the associated seasons. The evidence suggests that hunter-gatherer societies in Scotland had both the need and ability to track time across the year, and also perhaps within the month, and that this occurred at a period nearly five thousand years before the first formal calendars were created in Mesopotamia.

In the last 20 years landscape archaeology in Britain has developed in many directions, providing increasingly sophisticated understandings of prehistoric people's sense of place. In contrast to the growing body of work considering landscape, little attention has been given to the sea. Some archaeologists have noted the significance of the sea to the settings of monuments, where the sea is interpreted as a symbolic or metaphorical backdrop to life, and death, on the land. But prehistoric coastal, and island communities did not just gaze across the sea, but physically engaged with it, through the daily practices of seafaring and fishing. This article argues that the sea was not merely a neutral backdrop for human action, but was an active medium through which prehistoric communities lived, experienced and ordered their world. It will be argued that a consideration of the social construction of prehistoric seascapes is central to an understanding of the archaeological record of island and coastal communities in British Prehistory. The article draws upon recent studies within landscape archaeology, maritime archaeology and maritime anthropology in order to construct a framework for exploring prehistoric seascapes. The archaeological evidence for the prehistoric use of the sea will be summarised for Western Britain and Ireland and key themes for further study identified. These themes will be examined through a detailed case study exploring the prehistoric archaeology of the Isles of Scilly. The case study will consider how we might begin to study the seascape and journeys made within it and how such journeys might be linked to the prehistoric archaeology of island and coastal landscapes. The social and symbolic meanings of the archaeological record will be investigated through an examination of their distribution, configuration and relationship to marine and terrestrial topography. It will be shown that the construction of the archaeological record of prehistoric coastal and island communities is intimately linked to the sea and that through such construction, experience of the later prehistoric landscape and seascape was manipulated and transformed.

The emergence of the modern human mind and modern human behaviour is a prominent issue in palaeolithic archaeology. The consensus has been that modernity, understood in terms of increased rates of innovation and the emergence of symbolism, is enabled by a heritable neurophysiology unique to Homo sapiens. This consensus is characterised as biological essentialist in that it understands modernity as genotypically specified and unique to Homo sapiens. 'Archaic' hominins such as the Neanderthals are understood to have lacked the modern neuroanatomical genotype and therefore to have been innately incapable of modern cognition and behaviour. The biological-essentialist programme, however, is facing a serious challenge as evidence for innovation and symbolism is found in the archaeological records of the Eurasian Middle Palaeolithic and the African Middle Stone Age. An alternative programme is emerging that understands modern human behaviour as an emergent property of social, demographic and ecological dynamics. It is argued that this programme is currently inadequate since it cannot explain the emergence of symbolically charged material culture and relies on inexorable long-term population growth. It is suggested here that the problem is better understood in terms of hierarchy theory, a body of ideas concerned with systems organised on multiple scales. Palaeolithic behaviour is reconceptualised as social practice emerging from a multi-scale knowledge system. It is shown that enhancements in the rate at which knowledgeable practices disseminate through social fields - the social transmission of knowledge - will have the effect of increasing the likelihood that novel practices will be incorporated into long-term structuring principles and thus become persistent practices. They will also effect a scalar convergence of domains of knowledgeability such that technical practices become incorporated into the construction of personhood as meaningful or symbolically charged material culture. It is therefore concluded that 'modernity' is an emergent property of life lived at particular conjunctures of social, demographic and ecological temporalities. As such it is a relational phenomenon, and there is no reason to think that 'archaic' peoples such as the Neanderthals were innately incapable of modernity.

There are profound differences between the foci of past activity and their material remains: elements of agricultural processing, storage, transport, and domestic habitation leave the most visible archaeological evidence of life in the rural landscape, but how we interpret that evidence is a subject of some debate. These are the 'end points' of past sequences of behaviours, but the individual points along those sequences are difficult to pinpoint within archaeological material. Archaeological surface survey is good at recovering aggregate remains of past behaviour, but how we interrogate and interpret them is another matter altogether. Agriculture is a seasonal activity, but this seasonality is often elided by the archaeological material and how we, as archaeologists, present it. This article examines elements of these archaeological traces in order to suggest a new way to approach our understanding of archaeological survey, using the case study of the rural Roman Peloponnese.

The supply of fresh water is a central requirement for human settlement. This article discusses evidence associated with the construction, use and demise of a late-Roman well recently excavated at Heslington East near York, UK. It seeks to suggest that, by a holistic analysis of all archaeological evidence, we can distinguish the ideological from the functional dynamics that made up the site formation processes within this feature. The assemblages that evidence these activities might be considered mundane in some respects but their integrated assessment, along with a detailed examination of depositional and formation processes in the feature, produces compelling evidence for what has been termed "structured deposition".

In February 2013, the Petrie Museum released a new iPad app, available for download at no charge from the iTunes App Store. Version 1.1 was released in July 2013. The app is entitled Tour of the Nile and promises 'a virtual journey along the Nile Valley' plus the chance to 'handle' objects through the technology of augmented reality.

The application of least cost analysis by archaeologists in Northern America and Europe has increased considerably during the last decade, and the readily available tools for this purpose have led to a much wider interest in the application of this set of techniques for research. The volume under review mainly presents the papers held at the symposium "Tracing trails and modeling movement: Understanding past cultural landscapes and social networks through least cost analysis". This symposium was organised by the editors of the volume at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeologists in Atlanta in April 2009. As the book, which contains 14 chapters by 18 - all US-based - contributors, took three years to appear, inevitably some references to more recent publications on the subject of least cost analysis (LCA) were not included.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology 34.

While it is common to focus on the detail and intent of heritage law, this article focuses instead on the social and cultural attitudes of both archaeologists and finders towards the finding and ownership of portable antiquities, not least in the different laws regarding portable antiquities that operate within the United Kingdom.

Since February 2010, the issue of Users of Metal Detectors (UMDs) has been a hot topic in France. If the issue unleashed passions, although this has not really been reflected in the French media, a question is implicitly linked to the subject: apart from preventing the very real danger of new archaeological sites being destroyed, will this spell the end of amateur archaeology? With the creation of the National Archaeological Excavations Association (INRAP) in 1973, which became a public service called the National Institute for Preventative Archaeological Research in 2002, coupled with the growth of private companies in archaeology, the professionalisation of French archaeology has significantly changed the relationship between this profession and amateur archaeologists. This evolution now underlines the ambiguous position of the French state, which, on the one hand, supports the contributions of civil society to the profession, yet on the other hand, is still very suspicious about organisations that are not directly dependent upon the state. After a quick review of relevant legislation and the evolution of French archaeology, we will present a profile of the UMDs, their impact on archaeology and the reactions to this subject by professionals as well as the state, communities and citizens. Then, we will broaden the issue by asking if UMDs represent the only human danger for archaeology. Finally, we will discuss potential solutions to the problem of looting while still encouraging the involvement and recognition of amateur archaeologists and citizens committed to the protection of French heritage.

In the UK battlefields are becoming more frequently associated with the label 'heritage at risk'. As the concept of battlefield and conflict archaeology has evolved, so too has the recognition that battlefields are dynamic, yet fragile, archaeological landscapes in need of protection. The tangible evidence of battle is primarily identified by distributions of artefacts held within the topsoil, such as lead projectiles, weapon fragments or buttons torn from clothing; debris strewn in the heat of battle. Much of the battlefield therefore remains as a faint footprint and, where it survives, may provide valuable information, if recorded accurately. The unrecorded removal of artefacts from battlefields and other sites of conflict is a key issue in the management and conservation of this unique archaeological heritage. With a particular focus on current doctoral research, this paper aims to address the role of metal detecting in the UK as an important factor in this equation, having both a positive and negative impact on battlefield archaeology. Furthermore it will also consider the nature of metal detecting on UK battlefields; the perceived value of battle-related artefacts; the quality of information available for recording material from such sites, and what may co-operatively be achieved.

The Isle of Man is a self-governing British Crown dependency. As such, legislation for many areas of life differs from the neighbouring jurisdictions, including that which governs portable antiquities. The Island has a rich and varied heritage, with physical evidence from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age, through the early Christian period to Vikings and beyond. Both the Manx Treasure Trove legislation and the Act under which Manx National Heritage operates are currently under parliamentary review. These are intriguing times for Manx portable antiquities and this article seeks to explain why change is due and what options are possible.

The concept of ownership is highly political. Ownership provides power to the one legally seen as an owner or those tasked with the responsibility to protect and preserve heritage resources. This is no different when it comes to heritage resources, whose ownership is always contentious. The main reason for such contention is because ownership impacts on those who value objects in different ways. For example, the nature of access to heritage resources approved for people who may still attach spiritual values. As a direct result, the relevance of such heritage resources to such people may be brought into question, as the need to have them available to all citizens gain momentum. Heritage resources in South Africa have been subject to legislation since 1911, when the Bushmen Relics Act was passed. Since then, much other legislation and amendments have been passed over the years. They all aim to protect different kinds of heritage resources. Central to protection efforts is a decision to have the ownership of heritage resources put under the national estate. Ownership of heritage under South African heritage legislation will be discussed in this article. Drawing on case studies from southern Africa, the main aim of the article is to identify the challenges and opportunities attached to such a form of ownership. Opinions relating to the best approach to ownership of heritage resources are offered.

This article discusses the potential of the internet-based, metal detecting forum for interaction and dialogue between the profession of archaeology and the hobby of metal detecting. It also discusses its role as a focal point for those interested in, and requiring information and guidance on, all aspects of metal detecting and its associated disciplines, with particular reference to the United Kingdom Detector Net (UKDN) forum.

Nighthawking is the illegal removal of archaeological material whether from legally protected sites or other locations. Following the publication of The Nighthawking Survey in 2009, organisations in the UK Historic Environment Sector have sought to develop responses, including partnerships with enforcement agencies, and this article explores that process and considers some of the issues involved.

This article provides a response to the other articles on metal detecting and archaeology in this issue of Internet Archaeology and provides a summary of the Treasure Act and Portable Antiquities Scheme in England and Wales.

This collection of articles presents a series of snapshots of different aspects of the regulatory framework and practice of metal detecting (and related issues).

The goal of the law is to encourage behaviour that is beneficial to society and to deter conduct that is detrimental, including conduct that imposes negative externalities (or costs) on others. One such detrimental activity is the looting of archaeological sites, which confers economic benefit on the individuals involved in the network of looters and smugglers, but which causes detriment to society through the loss of the knowledge that could otherwise be gained from the proper excavation of archaeological sites and the information that they contain. Yet different nations have adopted different legal rules to respond to the problem of unscientific exploration. The articles in this collection address from diverse perspectives the divide between archaeologists and collectors of artefacts, as epitomised by the metal detecting community, and, perhaps more importantly, the question of whether this divide can be bridged.

This article is a condensed version of the background paper created for an Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG) presentation at the 2010 CBA, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, and Newcastle University conference in Newcastle, England. It presents a view shared by many American collectors and independent scholars. The ACCG, a member of the International Numismatic Council, is a registered non-profit organisation within the United States but enjoys the active support of members worldwide.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 33.

This article presents the results of archaeological survey, computer modelling and archive research on the Guild Chapel, Stratford-upon-Avon. The Guild chapel of the Holy Cross was rebuilt in the 15th century by guild member, Stratford merchant and one-time Mayor of London, Hugh Clopton. The 15th century Guild Chapel was originally decorated with an impressive cycle of medieval wall paintings. In the chancel were a series of images relating to the Discovery of the Holy Cross and over the Chancel arch was a 'Doom' or Last Judgement painting. The south wall of the nave appears to have featured scenes from the 'Life of Adam', whilst the north wall of the nave was decorated with a cycle of images known as the 'Dance of Death'. The west wall of the chapel contained images of St. George, The Whore of Babylon, St. Thomas a Beckett and a poem and memento mori scene ' Erthe out of Erthe'. During the 16th and 17th centuries the paintings gradually disappeared from view. The most famous contributor to this process was John Shakespeare, one of Stratford's chamberlains and father of the famous William, who recorded a payment of 2d in 1563/4 for 'defasyng ymages in ye chapel'. Like many other medieval painted schemes, Stratford's wall paintings were re-discovered during restoration works in 1804. They were described by the Antiquarian Wheler, and drawn by another Antiquarian Fisher. Some, such as the Holy Cross cycle, were destroyed at this date whilst others, such as the Last Judgement, were only re-uncovered by the famous wall paintings expert, E W Tristram, in 1928. The Dance of Death was not identified until 1955 when the Art teacher and 20th century Antiquarian, Wilfrid Puddephat made a painstaking photographic and drawn records of the images. The palimpsest of antiquarian drawings of the paintings are provided in the model, set within their 3-dimensional architectural context, allowing the user to compare and contrast differences in the recording methods, iconographies and interpretations of the scheme.

Since their declassification in 1995, CORONA satellite images collected by the United States military from 1960-1972 have proved to be an invaluable resource in the archaeology of the Near East. Because CORONA images predate the widespread construction of reservoirs, urban expansion, and agricultural intensification the region has undergone in recent decades, these high-resolution, stereo images preserve a picture of archaeological sites and landscapes that have often been destroyed or obscured by modern development. Despite its widely recognised value, the application of CORONA imagery in archaeological research has remained limited to a small group of specialists, largely because of the challenges involved in correcting spatial distortions produced by the satellites' unusual panoramic cameras. This article presents results of an effort to develop new methods of efficiently orthorectifying CORONA imagery and to use these methods to produce geographically corrected images across the Near East, now freely available through an online database. Examples of how recent development has affected the archaeological record, new discoveries that analysis of our CORONA imagery database has already made possible, and emerging applications of CORONA including stereo analysis and DEM extraction are presented. The terraforming of the Near Eastern landscape since the 1960s means that, in many regions, recent satellite imagery — even at very high resolution — reveals only a portion of the sites and features that were extant a few decades ago. Precisely because of its age, CORONA imagery preserves a picture of an archaeological landscape that, by and large, no longer exists.

Listoghil, the central monument and focal point of the Carrowmore passage tomb complex close to Sligo in north-west Ireland, has been ruined, excavated and eventually partially restored. However, the chamber is preserved in its original position. A horizon survey, the isolation of directional features in the monument, and computer modelling of the monument and skyscape were among the methods used to examine the hypothesis that Listoghil was deliberately aligned to mark seasonal transitions equivalent to astronomical cross-quarter days. Folklore and legends around seasonal transits, locally, in Ireland, and in many and varied (and independently arising) contexts at temperate latitudes of the world, are seen as information sources complementary to data gathering and observation. A re-examination of the view that only solstice events may be accepted as legitimate targets for the builders of passage tombs was considered, with examples from other transitional festivals across the same latitude as Listoghil indicating a tendency among peoples sharing the same climate to mark times of seasonal turning points.

In the context of lower-division archaeology courses, the present study examines the efficacy of 3D virtual and 2D archaeological representations of digs. This presentation aims to show a 3D application created to teach the archaeological excavation process to freshmen students. An archaeological environment was virtually re-created in 3D, and inserted in a virtual reality software application that allows users to work with the reconstructed excavation area. The software was tested in class for teaching the basics of archaeological fieldwork. The application interface is user-friendly and especially easy for 21st century students. The study employed a pre-survey, post-test, and post-survey design, used to understand the students' previous familiarity with archaeology, and test their awareness after the use of the application. Their level of knowledge was then compared with that of those students who had accessed written material only. This case-study demonstrates how a digital approach to laboratory work can positively affect student learning. Increased abilities to complete ill-defined problems (characteristic of the high-order thinking in the field), can, in fact, be demonstrated. 3D Virtual reconstruction serves, then, as an important bridge from traditional coursework to fieldwork.

This article discusses the use of 3D laser scanning as an objective means to record and identify damaged Roman portraits in stone, in this case three mutilated images recovered from Romano British contexts that can now be identified as being of the fifth emperor of Rome, Nero (AD 54-68). The potential significance of such sculptured pieces has frequently been overlooked and the portraits themselves have, to date, made little or no contribution to the understanding of Roman art, the nature of imperial identity, the dissemination of artwork throughout the Roman world, the worship of the head of state in the provinces, or the development of Britain following conquest and assimilation by Rome. This report represents the first stage of a wider project set up to create a 3D digital database of Roman portraiture and the subsequent dissemination of datasets in an educational and interactive format.

Review of an edited email conversation arising from research into social media support for the CAA conference in March 2012, evaluating the effectiveness of the use of such platforms and an exploration of their potential future impact on the CAA community.

A review of "Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration" examined the claim that archaeology is undergoing a catharsis analogous to that of the World Wide Web's embracing of radical changes of software design and web delivery in the early 2000s. The reviewers disagree with the premise of the book, maintaining that the well-meaning authors have misunderstood the implications of Web 2.0 and its aftermath, and that their perspective is hopelessly narrow, although the contribution of the book to the debate relating to the uses of IT in archaeology was appreciated.

This article presents the preliminary results of a new research and fieldwork project on the site of S. Omobono in the area of the river harbour of Rome. At S. Omobono, a series of excavation campaigns between the 1930s and the 1990s partially exposed a sequence of major cult buildings dating between the 6th century BCE and the 2nd century CE. Important architectural pieces, inscriptions and imported Greek wares found at the site have attracted a lot of attention and have spurred intense debates, but the basic archaeological data were never processed or published in full. Massive amounts of archival material (journals, drawings, photographs) and of artefacts have never been related to the phasing and interpretation of the sanctuary. A new project aims at a full reconsideration of the entire body of evidence, aided by new hypothesis-driven excavations. This article takes stock of the overall situation, critically collates a large portion of the available evidence and outlines a new research agenda for the project. Crucial archival documents, such as the detailed plan of the site, are published at high resolution for the first time, providing all the essential information to open a new phase of the debate on this fascinating archaeological context.

This article introduces the types of figurines found in Roman Britain. Over 1000 figurines of Late Iron Age or Roman date are known from Britain, but there has been no consideration of the group as a whole. While many individual pieces have been published in excavation reports or as notes, many more remain largely unpublished and unknown. The publication of this corpus makes the data available to a wide audience, and in particular those involved in the study of Roman material culture. While the majority of figurines are of copper alloy, there is a small number in other metals including iron and lead. The figurines from Britain comprise a wide range of types depicting Roman and Gallo-Roman deities, human figures, birds and animals. The spatial and social distribution of the major types are discussed.

In the last decade 3D technologies have become very effective and are widely used for managing and interpreting archaeological data. A better way to perceive, understand and communicate Cultural Heritage has been achieved through VR applications, which have enabled archaeologists to make both reconstructions of original landscapes and to put artefacts in their original context. Furthermore, the exponential growth of the Web has led to a massive availability of digital content, even in the field of Cultural Heritage, that can be accessed in an easier and more intuitive manner by a broader audience.The case study presented here is designed to demonstrate the potential importance of Web3D technologies for communicating specific research aspects, such as the ones connected to the GIS-based spatial analysis applied to the archaeological landscape. To this end, a research project was undertaken in order to get a final predictive model for detecting archaeological presence in an area of the Pisa coastal plain, implemented in a Web-orientated Virtual Reality system. The end-user is able to navigate the model in real-time and observe different thematic layers, such as the distribution of the archaeological sites, maps of lithology, land use and, finally, the assessment of the archaeological risk.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology 31.

Access analysis of Hut Platform 4 at the Bronze Age site at Black Patch, combined with study of the artefacts and ecofacts from the site, gives some insight into the relationship between the constructed spaces and the way they were used. The accessibility of places in which activities occur affects and is affected by the perceived status of these activities. A unifying theme has been that there does appear to be evidence for the separation of different aspects of life on a farm in the later Bronze Age. This separation seems to have occurred in a multitude of ways. However, there are also aspects of the archaeological evidence that do not reflect such separation, for example the pottery. The high status of flint during this period was also inferred from the amount of use. The ubiquity of flint throughout the site suggested that in a sense it was a "portable activity", and the necessity of its use, and that of pottery, in many different contexts meant that as artefacts they transcended status divisions. Consideration of access can allow us to draw new conclusions about sites that have not been approached in this way before. The importance of a firm interpretation of the phasing of the site was considered, with many possibilities conceivable.

Review of a website programme that provides a guide to the Archaeological methods commonly applied to the gathering and recording of archaeological data in the field, from site definition through to the recording of finds and features in excavation and associated survey techniques.

Review of a two-volume book offering case studies, arguments and a framework for integrating documentation into the conservation process and claiming to offer new concepts and ideas to advance the field. The book puts forward a clear set of twelve principles and guidelines which it suggests will help heritage managers and decision makers in ensuring that they succeed in understanding their roles and responsibilities. In doing so, the authors believe this will help them to choose the correct documentation strategy for their project. The book deals at length with where heritage information activities fit into the conservation process. Although there is no internationally accepted standard of conservation processes, it suggests that consensus has been reached on six stages of conservation each of which requires or produces documentation or information. The review concludes by welcoming the publication as much for providing a point-in-time review of heritage management and recording, as for identifying standards to which all those working or interested in heritage in all its diverse forms should aspire to, although perhaps resources would have been better spent creating an on-line living document and best practice guide which could be available to a much wider audience and be relevant well into the future.

This article addresses the application of high-precision 3-D recording methods to heritage materials (portable objects), the technical processes involved, the various digital products and the role of 3-D recording in larger questions of scholarship and public interpretation. It argues that the acquisition and creation of digital representations of heritage must be part of a comprehensive research infrastructure (a digital ecosystem) that focuses on all of the elements involved, including (a) recording methods and metadata, (b) digital object discovery and access, (c) citation of digital objects, (d) analysis and study, (e) digital object reuse and repurposing, and (f) the critical role of a national/international digital archive. The article illustrates these elements and their relationships using two case studies that involve similar approaches to the high-precision 3-D digital recording of portable archaeological objects, from a number of late pre-Columbian villages and towns in the mid-central US (c. 1400 CE) and from the Egyptian site of Amarna, the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten's capital (c. 1300 BCE).

In today's increasingly interdisciplinary and publicly accountable research environment, archaeologists face new challenges in disseminating and validating their research. Experimenting with hyperlinked media, the "Ye Devill Among Ym" Project explores the potential of interactive media to communicate a data-rich study to a wider audience, still including archaeologists but simultaneously penetrable by scholars from other disciplines and non-academics. Using new research into the material culture of discipline employed by the early post-Reformation Scottish church as a case study, the project strives not only to describe experiences in the past, but also to translate both those experiences and elements of the archaeological interpretative process. To accomplish such a translation, it is necessary to facilitate user-led interpretation and to create engaged, participant audiences. This may be done by providing readers with the ability to mobilise the cultural capital gained through the reading process in individual and unique ways. This article presents both the context of the original experimental article and the feedback collected from participants on their engagements with the material provided. The data collected indicate that all readers experienced a deeper sense of participation in the interpretative process, a stronger level of connection with the material past than is facilitated by conventional text formats and, crucially, found the format inclusive and valuable, rather than exclusive. Both specialist and non-specialist reader feedback indicates significant potential in user-led interpretation facilitated by mixed representation, both as a way of engaging new audiences and existing audiences in new ways, and as a way of bridging gaps between the archaeologist, the audience and the subject.

As an aid to understanding chronology, economics, identity and culture contact, the early medieval bone/antler hair-comb is an under-exploited resource, despite the existence of an extensive literature borne out of a long-standing tradition of empirical research. Such research has been undertaken according to diverse traditions, is scattered amongst site reports and grey literature, regional, national, and international journals, and is published in a number of different languages. The present article provides a general synthesis of this data, together with the author's personal research, situated within a broad view of chronology and geography. It presents the author's classification of early medieval composite combs, and applies this in a review of comb typology in space and time. It makes use of recently excavated material from little-known and unpublished sites, as well as the classic studies of familiar towns and "emporia". The atlas is intended for use as a reference piece that may be accessed according to need, and read in a non-linear fashion. Thus, it may act as a first port-of-call for scholars researching the material culture of a particular spatio-temporal context, while simultaneously facilitating rapid characterisation of freshly excavated finds material. It should provide a useful complement to recent and ongoing question-oriented research on combs.

This project emphasizes the unique character and construction of Mousa broch, questions the model of Mousa broch as a roofed home (an interpretation adopted by Historic Scotland in 2002) and considers the way in which sound and light informs our understanding of the spaces contained within its structure. Underpinning the approach to data collection was the architectural concept of aural space. The author attempts to convey an impression of aural space inside Mousa broch by the creation of an audio-visual record supported by acoustic analysis, archaeological discussion, and an architectural breakdown of the spaces within the broch structure. Audio recordings, sound samples, photographs and movies were made on Mousa island and inside Mousa broch during the period of the Summer solstice of 2009.

Results from two AHRC funded research projects that investigated the use of semantic techniques to link digital archive databases, vocabularies and associated grey literature were reported. The main outcome was a research Demonstrator (available online), which cross searches over excavation datasets from different database schemas, including Raunds Roman, Raunds Prehistoric, Museum of London, Silchester Roman and Stanwick sampling. The system additionally cross searches over an extract of excavation reports from the OASIS index of grey literature, operated by the Archaeology Data Service (ADS). The scenarios show that semantic interoperability can be achieved by mapping and extracting different datasets and key concepts from OASIS reports to a central RDF based triple store. It is not necessary to expose the full detail of the ontological model; the Demonstrator shows that user interfaces for retrieval (or mapping) systems can be expressed using familiar archaeological concepts. Working with the CRM-EH archaeological extension of the CIDOC CRM ontology allows specific archaeological queries, while permitting interoperability at the more general CRM level, potentially extending to other areas of cultural heritage. The ability to connect published datasets with the hitherto under-utilised grey literature holds potential for meta studies, where aggregate patterns can be compared and hypotheses for future detailed investigation uncovered. Connecting the interpretation with the underlying context data via the semantic model facilitates the revisiting of previous interpretations by third parties, the possibility of juxtaposing parallel interpretations, or exposing the data to new research questions.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology 30.

A review of a collection of papers, framed as a "snapshot" of digital approaches to academic disciplines.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and South Caucasus Pipelines (SCP) were constructed through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey during the period 2003-5. BTC was built first from the Caspian Coast to the Georgian border during 2003 and 2004, while the SCP pipeline was built from the Georgian border towards the Caspian and parallel to the BTC in 2005. To investigate and mitigate the effects of this construction, a four year archaeological fieldwork programme (2001-2005) was carried out, followed by a further six-year post-excavation programme that ended in early 2011. This article draws on this extensive archaeological project that combines both the broad corpus of material known in Azerbaijan and new techniques introduced in the Republic for the first time and used on a range of sites that are of both national and international significance.

The article presents the Archaeological Fish Bone Images sustainable digital archive and XTF-based image search and presentation tools developed with University of Sydney Library. The archive contains over 500 images of modern and archaeological fish remains and was developed as part of an archaeological research project into colonial and traditional Aboriginal fishing practices in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia from c.3000 years ago to the late 19th century. Links are provided to research information about fish ecology and fishing, the cultural and historical significance of fish taxa and details of taxonomic and anatomical nomenclature. The article explains how and why the archive was developed, and identifies and discusses the research implications of significant gaps in current fish reference collections. Archive content is useful to researchers who need to identify and interpret fish remains of the same or similar biological taxa from Sydney or elsewhere. The design of the archive and online tools is relevant to other applications that use digital images to aid identification and interpretation of archaeological and other collections.

Medieval and Tudor buildings have been altered in order to display them to the public since the late 19th century. Using a sample of 112 houses, all those in England originally constructed between 1400 and 1600 that are currently open to the public, this research analysed the impact of reconstruction work on historic houses. Analysis of the structures of these buildings as well as documentary research into records of alterations, together with photographs were used to trace changes in buildings, focusing on those alterations over the last 130 years that had the specific aim of displaying the building to the public. The philosophies behind works undertaken on individual buildings are considered in the context of contemporary ideas of the conservation movement, and tensions between the broad conservation philosophies of the time and the work undertaken on individual buildings are investigated. This recent history of buildings is an important element in the planning and management of them into the future, and this research enhances understanding of this history.

Sheffield, in the north of England, grew rapidly in the 19th century and gained an international reputation for its cutlery, tableware, and steel products. The material legacy of this age of industrialisation is extensive, and archaeological work in the modern city over the last 20 years has, for the most part, focused on the above and below ground industrial archaeology relating to metals trades' production sites spanning the 19th and 20th centuries. This article describes recent archaeological work around the Upper Chapel, a Unitarian Meeting House in the city centre where archaeological work recovered a possible buried medieval soil deposit, which contained an assemblage of medieval pottery dating from the 12th to 15th centuries. The presence of waster sherds and fragments of kiln furniture within this assemblage suggests that pottery production may have taken place on or near the site, making this the first putative evidence for pottery production in medieval Sheffield. The archaeological investigations also recovered four human burials from the 18th to 19th century burial ground associated with the Upper Chapel. The Upper Chapel burial ground differs from other recently excavated cemeteries in Sheffield as it potentially contained graves of high-status individuals, with at least a proportion of the skeletons and coffins well-preserved owing to waterlogged ground conditions. Detailed studies of the human remains, coffins, and incorporated material, including brass shroud pins are also discussed.

At the Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) conference in Durham in December 2009, a session on the philosophy of recording was organised in order to consider some fundamental questions about the recording that archaeologists undertake but which are often overlooked, and think about these in a theoretical way. The three articles presented here address some of the fundamental questions posed by the original session abstract. Geographically they cover the whole of Great Britain, considering the legacy of paper records in England, scheduling in Wales and the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

This article describes a potential new research resource for looking at the development of archaeological practice longitudinally, from its roots in antiquarianism through to the modern discipline. As a result of a Natural Language Processing (NLP) exercise carried out at the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) we have a rich dataset comprising frequency counts of place and period names from a corpus of historical archaeological journals. This potentially provides a tool to examine the reflexive nature of the relationship between archaeology and broader society, particularly with regard to what aspects of the past, periods and areas have prominence at various times in the development of the discipline. For example, while it is well recognised that there are strong links between interest in the Roman Empire and the construction of an imperial vision of Britain in the Victorian age, demonstrating this metrically is a laborious and time-consuming activity. Similarly, conclusively identifying bias towards a particular time period or geographic region can be difficult to do with a hundred and fifty years' worth of journals to work with. This can mean that the sometimes subtle, transient notions of what, when and where has been significant in our past can be hard to critique retrospectively.

This article considers some of the ways that monuments and sites that receive statutory protection (Scheduled Ancient Monuments) are recorded in Wales and in particular examines some of the limitations of the current UK legislation designed to protect monuments and sites. It explores the concept of the type-site and considers the implications of using monument or site typologies to classify and characterise the past. The purpose of scheduling is to prevent unwarranted development at defined locations. This makes sense at a site level, but is a nonsense for large areas. It is suggested that in order to protect the historic environment in the 21st century we require an approach that looks beyond the rigid boundaries of defined sites and considers inhabitation of whole landscapes. In particular, this article considers the rolling out of a uniform landscape characterisation process in Wales as a first step for protecting landscapes. Principally the examples used in this article will be drawn from Wales, but the same concerns are likely to be paralleled in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The NMR contains over 10 million archive (mostly physical) items, as well as material such as photographs, plans, correspondence, and so on. It also curates information on a number of databases and GIS including 500,000 monument records (archaeological sites and historic buildings), 80,000 records of recording events, 35,000 records of listed buildings (the legal designation protecting the built heritage) and records on 20,000 scheduled monuments (the legal designation protecting archaeological sites). Many of the datasets originated in a pre-digital age as card indexes, annotated maps and other records, which were then digitised and have since been migrated from one system to its successor, in some cases several times, and reflect evolving data standards and terminologies as well as changing dissemination methods. It is this change in the physical medium and how this alters the record and its perception that this article will explore.

Review focussing on two functioning databases at the centre of Databases about Aegean Subjects, one being The Cretan Hieroglyphic database and the other a database of the Aegean collection of The National Archaeological Museum of Florence.

A review was carried out of the website Saint-Denis: A Town in the Middle Ages, concluding with an overwhelmingly positive response.

Editorial for Issue 29.

Iron Age settlement in Wales is dominated by defended settlements, ranging in size from large multivallate hillforts to small farmsteads protected by a simple bank and ditch. There are a total of 787 defended settlements in southwest Wales (Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire) alone, which include 59 definite or possible hillforts, 166 definite or possible promontory forts and 562 definite or possible defended enclosures. This short article summarises the results of several years' survey, during which all those defended settlement sites that had no statutory protection as Scheduled Ancient Monuments were visited and recorded, and one in ten scheduled sites were visited.

As part of the excavations at Star Carr in the summer of 2007, a 'block' sample of peat from the archaeologically rich lake-edge deposits was removed for micro-excavation in the laboratory. The main aim was to compare on-site excavation and excavation in the laboratory. The techniques employed for the block were intended to maximise the chances of recovering fragile organic remains and provide an understanding of the spatial relationships between them. In addition, the time and resources required to excavate the block were evaluated in order to assess the merits of undertaking block lifting and excavation, with a view to informing future work.

Aerial photography in 1957 resulted in the discovery of a rectangular double-ditched enclosure overlooking the Severn floodplain near Bewdley, Worcestershire (UK). Excavation in the 1970s, in advance of gravel extraction, provided limited evidence of Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age activity prior to occupation in the later Iron Age, when the enclosure was established. This comprised a ditch and bank, and later a palisade and ditch, with single and double portal gateways respectively, and with buildings internally. Pottery and briquetage indicate trading links with the wider region, respectively with west and north Worcestershire, and with Droitwich. The main Iron Age occupation is dated from the 2nd century into the 1st century BC. By the 3rd-4th centuries AD the site was apparently cultivated, as small quantities of Romano-British pottery were scattered across it, probably as a result of manuring arable fields associated with a nearby, but as yet unlocated, settlement. Similarly, in the medieval and post-medieval periods a thin scatter of finds in the overlying soils indicated further agricultural activity. Unusually, the 1979 Iron Age site structural analysis has been largely retained in the current report without full revision but accompanied by a separate modern commentary, allied with the updated finds and environmental reporting, and overall discussion.

Zooarchaeological results are often best presented in the form of anatomical diagrams, but these can be very time-consuming to produce. This article presents ArcGIS format skeletal templates for six common mammalian species, allowing faunal analysts to link their data directly into a representation of the relevant species. The symbology tools within ArcMap can then be used to view data and produce output diagrams much more rapidly than is possible using a conventional graphics package.

This article focuses upon pre-Columbian objects - including gold, ceramics, and stone artefacts - from a small, localised area of the Chiriquí region of western Panamá in the context of the volcanic landscape. The discussion is intended as a provocative introduction to the archaeology of highland Chiriquí rather than an exhaustive exploration, and seeks to convey the contemporary context of an understudied archaeological region.

Beyond Illustration is a timely edited collection of essays that look at our fascination with the use of visual models and visual evidence, particularly applied to the study of the past. Many of the chapters in the book rightly make the point that visualisation is not a novel process created by the advent of computational technology but has been used for centuries to refine, process and aid us in understanding complex information. Like many books dealing with emergent technology, this collection suffers a little from delays in publication. It is understood from the introduction that many of these essays were prepared in 2004 and the rate of technological change means that there have been many developments in the area of computational reconstruction, networking and the holistic use of archaeological data from collection to visualisation and publication since then.

Editorial for Issue 28 of Internet Archaeology.

This article presents the results of archaeological, (ethno-)historic, and ethnographic research in the Shala River valley of northern Albania. We argue that through time and in different periods of occupation - Middle Palaeolithic, Iron Age, Late Medieval, and Modern - the valley's residents have met similar challenges of extreme geography and a harsh environment differently, in particular by interacting in different ways and at different levels of intensity with the outside world. These shifts caused changes in population, settlement, and socio-political organisation that are reflected strongly in the local landscape and built environment. Population, settlement, and socio-political organisation did not hold constant, but were influenced by external forces, despite the seeming isolation of the valley and its occupants.

This paper results from three small excavations undertaken when much of the agricultural land in large parts of England was inaccessible for fieldwork owing to restrictions related to foot and mouth disease. The objectives of the DigIt project were twofold - to examine groups of features identified through remote sensing, in this case primarily geomagnetic survey and air photography, and to examine through experimentation a range of digital recording techniques applied in archaeological excavation. The excavation objectives were in part unusual as they were focussed not only on excavating large areas with many features but also on trying to assess the condition of the archaeological deposits, which had formerly been protected by blown sand. Recent ploughing was shown to be aggressively truncating the buried deposits in one area, just starting to erode them in another, but causing minimal impact in the third. The opportunity to examine the blown sand itself in minute detail revealed a stratigraphic and chronological sequence which was only visible in the three dimensional distribution of tiny fragments of material. The excavation assessment is supported by specialist assessments of the environmental evidence and the Anglo-Saxon ceramics. The excavation confirmed the interpretation of some magnetic anomalies as Grubenhäuser, which were directly comparable with those excavated at West Heslerton 2.5km to the west; however, it failed to conclusively resolve the nature and purpose of the hundreds of small ring ditches termed 'barrowlets', revealed along 8km of geophysical survey, although evidence hints at their function as cremation burial sites. It also confirmed the presence of preserved and intact surface deposits associated with a segment of Iron Age and Roman "ladder settlement" where they had been sealed by blown sands. The Landscape Research Centre (LRC) had been pioneering the use of hand-held computers and other tools within a primarily digital recording system for more than 15 years and this project provided an opportunity, through a collaboration with the English Heritage Centre for Field Archaeology, to test a full range of digital recording techniques employing more up to date technology than had been used in the past. If this experiment deploying different technologies was to be of any value then it was important that they were tested in a normal environment and thus this article combines both the excavation assessment report and discussion of the digital recording approaches and, where these were fit for purpose, uses them to support the needs of archaeological documentation and excavation objectives. The context of the work within the LRC's established methods and philosophy with regard to excavation recording is discussed and reviewed with reference to changes in the available technology.

This article applies digital modelling techniques to the later Neolithic landscape and monument "complex" around the Avebury area of Wiltshire, England. The models produced are combined with a phenomenological approach to examine a journey along the megalithic avenues of this area, and to better understand possible meanings associated with, and relationships between, the monuments. The article also seeks to briefly demonstrate how phenomenological approaches might be enhanced by the use of digital 3D modelling.

The Faynan district of southern Jordan is an area rich in copper ore, a resource that has made it a focus for human settlement since prehistory. During the Roman and Byzantine periods, the Faynan was the site of a metallum, a State-owned extraction industry. The imperial administration in charge of the Faynan used a variety of methods to regulate and direct the copper industry, ensuring large-scale copper production. This article explores one of the management techniques employed, the use of surveillance as a mechanism to control the local population of workers and slaves. North American historical archaeology has studied control through surveillance in relation to slave populations on plantations. I argue that these theories can be applied to the placement of observational structures and the role of buildings in the Faynan landscape. Roman sources attest to the presence of convict labour at this metallum. As an example, the administration building in the Wadi Ratiye, WF1415, is discussed in detail. This building had towers and I argue that its placement in the landscape in relation to the nearby copper mines was not merely to observe them but to enforce discipline through surveillance. To test this hypothesis the GIS technique viewshed analysis was employed. The main argument of the article hangs on understanding the views and surveillance possibilities, therefore the viewshed produced needed to be very robust with a clear methodology. To accomplish this, the unique environment of the Faynan and limitations of human visual acuity are taken into account to create a regionally and theoretically appropriate model. I posit that the imperial administration displayed a thorough understanding of control through observation and that surveillance of the miners and convicts in the region encouraged their hard work and obedience while discouraging misconduct.

This article aims to reconstruct agrarian land use for a rural community in the Roman frontier zone in the Netherlands. The Dutch River Area was characterised by a dynamic landscape. Rivers regularly flooded the surrounding low-lying land. Only the higher streamridges provided suitable places for habitation and arable agriculture. The limitations of the landscape dictated to a large extent both the types and quantities of crops and animals that could be produced. An interactive map of the micro-region of Tiel-Passewaaij shows how the land was used for agrarian production and sourced for other products. These symbols link to short texts that discuss the archaeological evidence for aspects such as growing cereals, raising livestock and the exploitation of wood and wild animals. The complex and dynamic geological situation of the Dutch River Area is also explained, and the consequences for agriculture discussed. Three main research questions are addressed. How were the different elements of the riverine landscape used by rural inhabitants? How were arable agriculture and animal husbandry organised spatially, both within the settlement and in its immediate surroundings? Which natural resources were used and managed? Our research is mainly based on one large and well-excavated settlement complex (Tiel-Passewaaij), but we will use complementary data from several other settlements in the region. The results show that the river landscape offered plenty of opportunities for agriculture. The interaction between arable and pastoral farming was essential, with livestock providing manure and agricultural labour, and the fields offering fodder and additional grazing (after harvest or during fallow years). The location of large enclosure ditches suggest that even minor differences in height, caused by older streamridges, may have made arable farming possible in the flood basin.

The temples and associated buildings at Karnak together form one of the largest religious complexes ever constructed, but our comprehension of their function and development over time has been made difficult because of the scale and long history of the complex. Further, the piecemeal nature of much of the archaeology that has been conducted in the last two centuries, and the even more fragmentary published output, means it is rather difficult for young Egyptology students, and especially non-Egyptologists looking for cultural comparanda, to easily gain a meaningful insight into the temples, their function, and development. The review of the Digital Karnak website found there was the core of a very worthwhile resource here, most strikingly attested with the model, the period-specific maps and the Google Earth facility. There were areas that could be developed or improved, and the potential of this site, for undergraduates, Egyptologists and enthusiasts alike, would be greatly enhanced.

Editorial for Issue 27.

Lithic scatters are complex palimpsests. Cores, waste and tools, when interpreted in their landscape context often appear to constitute multiple episodes of activity. These seasonal and cyclical episodes represent different lengths of duration and/or function. This article deals with assemblages from central Somerset, UK, containing artefacts of flint and others of greenstone and sandstone and argues that discarded/deposited artefacts sometimes served as a resource for cultural memory.

Recent excavations at Durrington Walls have revealed a series of archaeological remains unparalleled in southern Britain. The most artefact-rich part of the site lies just outside the eastern entrance to the henge where a series of five houses was discovered flanking the Durrington Avenue. These houses were surrounded by a large midden that comprised a massive quantity of animal bone, pottery and worked flint. The number of articulated animal bones within the midden is suggestive of large-scale and 'wasteful' feasting episodes. This article presents the preliminary analysis of the worked stone from the midden. Durrington Walls represents a site of massive consumption: consumption of labour, wood, meat, pottery and worked stone. The material from the midden will be understood in these terms, as an act of massive, final and conspicuous consumption.

Field surveys have revealed a substantial number of lithic scatters on the south-west Cumbrian coastal plain and the eastern limestone uplands of Cumbria. The raw materials used for toolmaking in the two areas show interesting contrasts, including predominant use of Irish Sea beach pebble flint in south-west Cumbria during the Late Mesolithic and Neolithic, with minimal importation of chalk flints from Yorkshire and (possibly) Antrim during the Neolithic. In eastern Cumbria, raw materials in the Late Mesolithic were predominantly local cherts but with a significant element of pebble flint and chalk flint from Yorkshire. By the Neolithic, Yorkshire chalk flint had become the dominant raw material. In both locations, pebbles of fine-grained volcanic tuff akin to Group VI were being used as a substitute for flint by communities using Late Mesolithic technologies, although there is no evidence for exploitation at source during the Late Mesolithic. Thus in eastern Yorkshire, Late Mesolithic communities can be demonstrated to have been using volcanic tuff at the same time as they were obtaining flint from Yorkshire. A substantial number of flakes of volcanic tuff arising from the use or reworking of stone implements has been found in eastern Cumbria. These provide evidence for different types of stone implements in actual use.

This article explores the idea that the movement of axes away from their source of procurement, such as those of Group VI, reflects in part an invisible trade in perishable goods. In particular, it hypothesises that the pattern of movement was stimulated in the early Neolithic by the dispersal of those exotic goods required to establish farming. The evidence for and the implications of this are explored, and it is suggested that in order to facilitate understanding of both the 'trade' in stone axes and the Neolithic in general, what is needed is a systematic programme of petrological sourcing of pottery and other artefacts.

In 2004 David Clark wrote of the concentrations of arrowheads found at a number of sand dune sites in Scotland that 'at present we have no narratives that seek to explain, or even acknowledge this situation.' This paper seeks, through an exploration of the manufacturing processes involved in producing a particular arrowhead from Luce Sands, Wigtownshire, to provide some of the detail to allow the construction of a wider narrative. While heat treatment cannot be proven to have been an integral part of the manufacturing process of fine quality flint artefacts it is undeniably true that: the process is relatively simple and does not require much expenditure of effort; it would seem probable that it would have been discovered accidentally; and it is extremely effective. Furthermore there is, at present, no alternative explanation for the method by which obdurate pebble flint was rendered compliant enough to produce the many fine arrowheads that have been recovered from the sands. If heat treatments were being used, the flint users of Luce Sands would have had access to a source of attractive and highly workable material from which to produce highly accomplished examples of the knapper's craft.

It is now widely recognised that monument building in the fourth and third millennia cal BC often involved transporting selected blocks of preferred stone many kilometres over difficult terrain. Some structures incorporated blocks from several different sources, brought together as an ensemble in much the same way perhaps that assemblages of flint and stone axes reflect both local and distant sources. This article explores alternative models accounting for the selection of stones, contrasting those that foreground symbolic attachments and imposed meanings with those that focus on the intrinsic qualities of particular types of stone and their source. The assemblage of different stone types that accumulated at Stonehenge, Wiltshire, over a period of more than a thousand years is used as a case study.

This article considers some archaeological, geological and petrographical aspects of stone implements from a sand dune site in south-eastern China. A sample of preform, ground and polished stone implements from Macau, Coloane and Taipa are considered in relation to the archaeological landscape of the Zhujiang (Pearl River) estuary. Particular attention is focused on evidence for the manufacturing technology of ornamental stone, jade and quartz rings. The possibility of selective exploitation of jade (quartz), which occurs locally as veins within the granitic outcrops, for tool and ring manufacture, and its relationship to mineralogical and textural characteristics, is considered. It is planned that more stone tools from Macau will be examined during 2009-12.

The Wong Tei Tung archaeological site was discovered in 2003. Two periods have been proposed: an earlier period dating to around 40,000 years bp, and a later period dating to around 7000 years bp, but these dates should be treated cautiously. Initially, reported research found a few traits of the Wong Tei Tung assemblage to be similar to South-east Asia lithics, especially the short axe and Sumatralith cores. It has been reported that the Wong Tei Tung assemblage is a lithic cluster of certain 'techno-complex' implements rather than an archaeological culture; it offers a glimpse of lithic manufacturing in adaptation to its particular coastal environment. The published evidence points to a production of stone tools that considerably exceeded anticipated immediate local need. It is likely, therefore, that products from the site were distributed widely across the Zhujiang Estuary (Pearl River) area and beyond. This article presents the results of initial investigations into the geological setting of the site; provides new petrographic descriptions using data obtained from thin sections and geochemical analyses; and makes tentative comparisons with similar archaeological stone tool manufacturing sites in Britain.

Traditionally, the sourcing of prehistoric stone tools in Britain has been done most successfully by comparing the petrological and geochemical characteristics of individual stone tools with rock and debitage from known prehistoric quarry sites and stone tool production sites. However, this is a very rare occurrence because only a very small proportion of stone tools in Britain have a secure archaeological provenance, including those from prehistoric quarries or production sites. Substantial numbers of stone tools in the British archaeological record are chance finds; they lack a secure archaeological context. Through a case study of Carrock Fell and the Implement Petrology Group XXXIV, this article presents a new methodological and statistical model for assembling, analysing and interpreting fieldwork evidence, which combines petrological, geochemical portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) data, and geochemical inductively coupled plasma-atomic spectroscopy (ICP) data to establish a signature for 17 gabbroic prehistoric stone implements. These results are then compared with similar data gathered from rocks at outcrop. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, seven gabbroic implements could be securely provenanced to rock from particular outcrop locations. The model is transferable to other similar contexts where sources of implement rock are sought from apparently random distributions of stone tools.

In the south-west of Spain, the archaeological site of El Jadramil (Arcos de la Frontera, Cádiz) presents a great number of vertical cylindrical pits and horizontal subterranean galleries, with an estimated chronology of the Bronze Age (3000-2000 BC). A new interpretation of underground extractive mining techniques used at the site is presented in this article. The archaeology of the site shows how agricultural societies exploited local raw materials. A preliminary geoarchaeological study of these mining structures and an aerial survey of the site have been carried out. The geological relationship to the possible raw material extracted from this site and the properties of these materials are discussed.

The title's quote comes from Knowles' 1889 paper on his fieldwork, where he collected lithics made from various raw materials. He commented on the difficulty of identifying such lithics and the consequent biases produced in the archaeological record. However, these comments were effectively overlooked, and flint continued until recently to be perceived as the premier lithic raw material: the Antrim flint deposits were regarded as the lynchpin of Irish prehistory, and, when noted, other materials were seen as substitutes rather than proper materials in their own right. This article outlines research on the social archaeology of the Mesolithic in the west of Ireland, and how the 'flint gaze' has shaped our understanding of prehistory. The article's main focus will be on the social implications of the variety of lithic raw materials that were used at that time - materials that included chert, siltstone, greywacke, quartz, slate, flint, tuffs, and rhyolite, as well as other types used in the manufacture of stone axes.

This article explores the use of quartz as a raw material in the early prehistoric period in Ireland. Archaeologists have invariably ignored quartz as a raw material because of its perceived difficulty in analysis. The basis of the research is the development, through experimental knapping, of an analytical framework for quartz working in Ireland and testing this framework by a detailed analysis of Later Mesolithic quartz assemblages.

While central southern England is well known for its extant Neolithic monuments and for the fine artefacts recovered from some of its Bronze Age barrows, Neolithic artefacts from the region have received relatively little attention. This might be considered surprising, as the area not only witnessed some of the earliest investigations into the source of materials, notably the Stonehenge bluestones, but it also harbours some of the earliest dated ground axes in the country. This article examines the occurrence and distribution of ground axes found in Wessex when compared to other artefact types, but, more importantly, comparison with the location of extant monuments allows a rather different view of Wessex to emerge. The article considers the influence of local resources, of flint mines such as those at Durrington, Easton Down and Porton Down in Wiltshire, and the extent and processes by which axes of non-local materials may have been introduced and dispersed across the landscape.

The use of texture, petrology and geochemistry of Neolithic greenstone hand axes, to determine provenance, is well established. However, as many UK greenstones are essentially meta-dolerites (mildly metamorphosed medium-grained basic rocks) it is often necessary to consider the type and degree of alteration superimposed on the primary igneous mineralogy to establish different petrological groups of axes. In particular, alteration and texture can be highly variable in any one large outcrop that might have been used for the manufacture of axes. Similarly, geochemical fingerprinting of axes and subsequent comparison with known outcrops will only be successful if sufficient chemical data are available from any suspected source region when the full range of natural variation has been ascertained.

Different ground stone tool production-distribution systems have been proposed as present at the site of Huizui in the Yiluo River Basin, central China, during the Erlitou period (1900-1500 BC). The current study used an economic approach to identify if differences could be observed between the systems. Using efficiency as the main parameter for comparison; raw material procurement and on-site production were investigated. Raw material procurement was shown to be efficient for all of the tool types studied, with particular focus on distance to source and the functional and extractive properties of the raw materials. Efficiency in production was less clear, with scale of production instead being the distinguishing factor. In total, two different production-distribution systems were identified; the mass produced oolitic dolomite spades which appear to be distributed regionally, and the locally produced and consumed adzes, axes, chisels, knifes and grinding slabs. Both of these systems appeared to be retained within the household context and may have operated independently of elite control, which is a contrast to the heavily circumscribed production and distribution of elite items. This study also showed that whilst efficiency is a useful tool to elicit detailed information from the stone tool production-distribution systems, further parameters need to be included to provide a more accurate contrast between systems.

In order to understand the manufacture of stone bangles in Neolithic France, the Hombori region of Mali was visited to study the last surviving generation of makers of stone bangles there. From field observations and from many interviews with various artisans, a considerable amount of information was obtained about a tradition of manufacture that has, until recently, been largely unknown. The details gathered cover every stage of the manufacturing process, from the way in which outcrops of the raw material are selected, to the manner in which the calcareous stone is worked in the manufacture of the bracelets. The various phases involved in the chaîne opératoire and the ways in which the finished products are dispersed from their place of manufacture were documented. Much still remained to be discovered, notably about the past history of bangle manufacture in Hombori, and the ways in which the finished bracelets were perceived by the people who acquired and used them. Nevertheless, we have been able to develop models that help us to understand the societies in post-Linearbandkeramik Europe that adopted the practice of wearing stone bracelets.

The particular aim of this article is to examine territories and the role of lithic raw material extraction and production sites in the Seine basin during the Neolithic. While producer sites are indeed central to the diffusion process, they are not necessarily located in the geographical centre of a territory, and their distribution should be analysed in relation to other sites such as settlements, burials and places of communal assembly. The evidence from several categories of monument is considered in relation to the mapped distribution of over 3000 axes, some of them originating in the Armorican Massif and the Alps. The resultant patterns suggest that the Seine valley was a circulation and exchange route, serving as a geographical interchange for the diffusion of Armorican and Alpine axes.

Survey and research undertaken of a 20x30km study area in the Foulness Valley, East Yorkshire, has resulted in the location of over 70 polished stone and flint axeheads. Examination of many of these tools suggests heavy use and reworking, yet a number, the most impressive in terms of workmanship and aesthetics, remain in pristine condition. This contribution discusses the significance of the distribution of these tools and considers possible explanations for their condition, in terms of what is known about the Neolithic landscape of this region. Recent palaeoenvironmental investigation shows that in the Neolithic the Foulness Valley was a mosaic of heavily wooded areas and wetland, dominated in the south by a tidal estuarine inlet of the River Humber, contrasting with the rolling chalk hills of the Yorkshire Wolds to the north and east. The inlet and its associated waterways may have provided a means of communication and exchange for some of the axeheads.

The arrival of late LBK populations in north-western Europe (Hainaut, Hesbaye and the Paris Basin) was accompanied by a change in the functional and symbolic practices related to grinding stone tools. Contrary to former LBK practices, grinding tools were by this time no longer objects of long-distance exchange or circulation. Instead, they were made quasi-systematically on local sandstones of pretty high quality or on local granites on the western or southern periphery of the sedimentary Paris Basin (Normandy, Yonne). Despite the use of these more local resources, grinding stone tools kept their symbolic value in the late LBK of western Europe. This can be seen in the manner in which individual examples were broken up, hoarded and deposited. This article locates this symbolic value in the association of grinding stones with cereal processing, with categories of people and, more broadly, with an agricultural way of life.

Obsidian artefacts from Domuztepe (a large late Neolithic site in the Kahramanmaraş plain in south-east Turkey belonging to the Halaf culture and dated to c.6000-5500 cal. BC) account for about 18%, or some 10,000 artefacts, of the chipped stone assemblage. Obsidian is one of the few non-local materials at Domuztepe and as well as being used to make tools it is also used to make items of jewellery, mirrors, bowls and axe-like objects. It is known from the geochemical analysis of a relatively small number of artefacts that the obsidian was imported from eight different and widely separated sources in Central, NE and SE Anatolia. These sources are between 200 and 900km distant from Domuztepe. All these factors suggest that obsidian was valued not only as a raw material for tool manufacture but also as a material from which to make luxury items. As an exotic material it is also likely to have a key role in forging and maintaining social and economic relationships, both within the site and more widely. Understanding of the origins of the obsidians and the form in which they were obtained, worked and used, context by context, is key to this. However, difficulties arise with provenancing such a large assemblage, not least because conventional geo-chemical methods are unfeasibly expensive. This article documents the approaches developed to overcome this problem.

This article presents recent results of our analysis of the operative sequence of production and consumption of Olmec greenstone artefacts. It documents the multi-disciplinary approach taken to the kinds of manufacturing techniques used by the Olmecs, the quarries where they extracted raw materials, and the contexts in which they sometimes buried their tools. This project uses implement petrography, energy dispersive spectrum (EDS), neutron activation analysis (NAA), and particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE).

The Yiluo region witnessed a long history of Neolithic development, followed by some rapid social changes during the Bronze Age. This is a heartland of Chinese civilisation, as the earliest state emerged at the Erlitou site in the centre of the Yiluo basin. Our Yiluo archaeology project, initiated in 1997, is a long-term internationally collaborative and interdisciplinary programme, which holds a key position in the quest for the origins of early states in China. A number of methods and approaches to investigate many aspects relating to social change in the region. The full-coverage regional survey has helped to reveal settlement patterns, and identify important regional centres, some of which were craft production sites. Spades were utilitarian in function and may have been primarily used by commoners for agricultural or other purposes. However, the sources of raw material were not widely available to every village, and some communities/social groups may have taken advantage of their settlement locations to control access to the raw material. Production of stone tools most likely operated on a household basis, and the products were not only meant to fulfil the subsistence needs of makers and their neighbours, but also helped some individuals to gain higher social status and wealth through trade. The fact that dolomite spades found their way up to 100km away from their place of manufacture indicates the existence of region-wide trade networks in the Erlitou hinterland. Through these networks, not only utilitarian items but also elite goods (e.g., white pottery drinking vessels), were circulated, suggesting that lesser elite and commoners in the Erlitou hinterland created their own opportunities in the competition for power, prestige and wealth. From this perspective, the social formation of early states in China was not only hierarchical, but heterarchical at a regional level. Stonemasons at Huizui were most likely independent craftsmen, whom we know little about in the traditional archaeological record. Our study on these specialised craftsmen sheds light on a new aspect of social formation in early Chinese civilisation.

Re-examination of 149 IPG Group I (119), Group Ia (17) and Groups III and IIa (13) axe petrographic thin-sections in a short period of time resulted in 24 sub-groups being identified, each sharing distinct petrographic features. Approximately 5% (8 thin-sections) had distinctive mineralogy, different from that of altered dolerite (greenstone), which defines these IPG Groups. All 149 thin-sections are visually compared with 73 new petrological thin-sections that were produced from 13 greenstone exposures in North and South Cornwall. The closest petrological match between axe and greenstone suggests Mounts Bay, possibly Long Rock. Mousehole and Penlee exposures may be the source of material for some of the 24 sub-groups. Two greenstone samples found in north-west Cornwall, away from known exposures, provided the closest petrographic match found between axe and rock thin-sections. This supports previous research suggesting that IPG Group I originates from Mounts Bay, but indicates it is unlikely that a single exposure provided the material for all IPG Group I axes. Further analysis using a novel quantitative technique supports the results of the visual examination and may prove to be the basis of a future tool to be used in recording and assigning Neolithic axes to IPG Groups.

Although the population of Turkmenistan is essentially Moslem, older traditions co-exist. In the rural areas medical services are poor, infant mortality and maternal mortality and morbidity are higher than in the West, and superstition is rife. Barrenness is considered a female failing. Women of child-bearing age are under great pressure to be fertile, and make spiritual pleas at venerated sites when pregnancy fails to occur or an infant is lost. There is veneration not only of shrines and revered burial sites but also of ancient sites and old dead trees. Many offerings are in the form of stone or fossils, with continued reuse and deposition of ancient materials. Cloth strips and miniature cradles bearing 'babies' are left in association with stones in pleas for child-bearing. Some stones are handled in special ways. One large stone was used for masturbation in the hope of fecundity. The legend of Paraw Bibi incorporates many of the beliefs and features related to rock that occur across many cultures and are common to folklore of old. Resonances of the same thought processes and behaviour patterns could have originated in the ancient past.

Using chipped stone data derived from the analyses of trans-Pennine Mesolithic assemblages and Clark's (1954) Star Carr assemblage, this article examines the influence of lithic technology within the mobility strategies of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Northern England. A model for equipotential tool use at both site and landscape levels, together with its influence on hunter-gatherer mobility strategies, is proposed.

A 10-30m wide dolerite dyke on the northernmost of the complex of granite hills in the Sanganakallu-Kupgal area became one of the main sources of raw material for the production of stone axes in southern India during the late prehistoric period. At least three large hill settlements (several hectares each) were established in the hill complex, and one of them appears to have gradually developed into a large-scale production centre. Quarrying and axe flaking started around 1900 cal BCE, during the so-called Ashmound phase of occupation, and reached its maximum development between 1400-1200 cal BCE, when a large region of the south Deccan plateau might have been supplied with finished and half-finished products from Sanganakallu. Systematic archaeological excavation and survey carried out since 1997 in the Sanganakallu-Kupgal area, including the dyke quarry itself, has yielded tens of thousands of production flakes, blanks and macro-lithic tools related to the flaking, pecking and polishing of the axes. The ongoing study of these materials permits us to gain insight into the organisation of production in this area from a temporal and spatial perspective. In view of the social and economic transformations taking place in the Deccan plateau during the second half of the second millennium BC, some key questions concern the relationship between intensification of production and the social division of labour between different working areas and settlements.

In the last few decades, there has been a great deal of interest in the stone used as building material in megalithic monuments. Several studies have been carried out on the location of quarries and on the monumental and symbolic role of stones in various types of architecture. However, very few works exist on the relationship between the parietal art of these monuments and the materials that carry them. This is in contrast to work on the Upper Palaeolithic, where there have been several studies exploring the links between paintings and the relief of caves. In the case of Neolithic monumental art there are many questions left unanswered; is the stone only a support for the carved motifs? Is its role only practical, without significance? Or did it have a more developed function related to the symbolism of the carvings? In this article, we would like to show through different examples in Ireland and Brittany that the stone did have a role in Neolithic monumental art. Different case studies show that there are relationships between carvings and stone texture, stone colour and stone relief. After the presentation of these case studies we would like to show how three-dimensional modelling can be a relevant tool for this kind of archaeological question.

Courbet-Marine is one of the few open area sites belonging to the Iberomaurusian, a Late Upper Palaeolithic culture in the north-eastern littoral of Algiers, for which primary siliceous outcrops are lacking. The methodology used is based on a techno-economic approach and introduces new data concerning the inventory and characterisation of mineral potential of surrounding areas, and, furthermore, the different knapping techniques applied to the prehistoric lithic raw material. The field survey has contributed to the characterisation of both geological and archaeological siliceous rocks, supported by petrographic and geochemical analyses. Moreover, the re-examination of the Courbet-Marine lithic assemblage provided evidence for the strategies used in obtaining a non-local brown flint. This last, selected for its homogeneous texture and its large size, was transported in the shape of semi-finished products to the prehistoric site. In addition, this brown flint allows a more elaborate knapping technique than flint of alluvial origin.

Different cultural and research traditions have led to distinctively different approaches to lithics analysis. An integration of different approaches can often give new 'ways of seeing' artefact assemblages and distribution patterns and provide valuable insights into past activities. Here we present the preliminary results of a project integrating detailed analytical techniques, focused on processes of production and consumption and social dynamics in ethnarchaeological contexts in Tierra del Fuego with existing detailed lithic analysis at Mesolithic sites in the Central Pennines. Such methods, taken from Argentina (Álvarez) and Spain (Briz), that were developed in ethnoarchaeological contexts employed detailed edge morphological analysis and use wear. When applied to site A at March Hill, these techniques yielded interesting new insights about activities at the site, and provided a test case for such techniques.

This article draws attention to a unique sequence of flaked debitage at Bryn Cegin and describes the conscious exfoliation of carefully and laboriously executed ground and polished axes of Graig Lwyd source rock over a protracted time-span, covering the whole of the Neolithic period in Wales. It also draws attention to the same phenomenon being practised in other parts of Britain, establishing it as one of a number of specialised acts involving the burial of stone and flint axes. It is argued that Graig Lwyd polished axes, unflaked nuclei, and axe-making debitage were brought from the source area to Bryn Cegin, where they were systematically disaggregated and the resultant flaked assemblage buried in a series of pits. The act of disaggregation appears not to have been undertaken for any domestic/utilitarian purpose, but may be considered as an example of the ritual fragmentation of a highly valued commodity, a phenomenon that has been identified elsewhere in the Neolithic of Britain.

Large numbers of bracers from Ireland were illustrated and published by Peter Harbison in 1976. In association with the preparation of a similar corpus of the bracer material from England (as part of a Birmingham University Leverhulme project on Early Bronze Age grave goods), 32 Irish bracers housed at the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin, have been re-examined. Consideration of lithology showed that far more of the bracers were made from red jasper than was evident from Harbison's publication. Other rocks employed were mainly grey-brown in colour and included a few examples of porcellanite from the Group IX Neolithic axe factory sites. Detailed study of fragmentation and traces of manufacture showed that more than half of the bracers had been broken in antiquity, and then reworked for use as pendants. This article will examine all these aspects, and will compare the results with the different patterns of rock type, colour and fragmentation found in England and Scotland.

Ground stone tools are characteristic of the Neolithic period in China. This article provides a general review of this material, encompassing raw material choices, geographical distribution, and the forms and functions of implements. This review provides a basis for inferring something about the social, economic and political conditions in which stone tools were produced and used at this time.

The Xuejiagang culture is associated with the latter part of the Neolithic period in southern China. Since the 1970s, we have found many cemeteries associated with this culture, in which stone implements make up an important and significant part of the funerary objects. The perforated stone knife, the yue axe and the adze were especially important. Analysis of the frequency and relationships between raw material, technology and tool types provides a basis for distinguishing between the different production sites associated with the Xuejiagang stone industry. This article discusses the relationship between rock types and stone tools, and between stone artefacts from different production sites. Thin-section analysis was used to identify and characterise stone used for implement manufacture.

There are many theories explaining later prehistoric 'trade' and 'exchange systems' in stone artefacts. Evidence matching the petrographic information of transported implements with the country rock (local bedrock) where 'factories' produced flaked stone axes is felt to be compelling. Consequently, across Europe it is widely believed that the only way 'factory' rock could have reached the places where artefacts have been found was by human carriage. The discovery of implement working floors, or 'factories' in montane areas (c. 1900-1970) on primary exposures of stone, lithologically almost identical to polished axes found considerable distances from them, has led to a belief in the industrial, economic or social processing and carriage of finished products. There are caveats to this proof of evidence, however. Natural processes constantly redistribute incalculable numbers of durable erratic pebble- to boulder-sized clasts, so why could these not have been used for making prehistoric artefacts? There is abundant evidence in the archaeological record that artefacts were crafted from such material. And although there is now an archive of petrographic thin-sections available to help to identify the origins of the artefacts, no comparable data are available on re-cycled stone. Implement provenancing is therefore unlikely to be of lasting scientific value until investigative programmes have accumulated far more accurate petrographic data on pebbles and erratics from superficial deposits. Comparisons between some British-Irish implement distribution patterns with those of glacial erratics suggests the available evidence already better fits an interpretation of deterministic and opportunistic stone procurement rather than one involving long-distance travel by prehistoric peoples. Extensive, long-term sampling and provenancing programmes are now needed to address this requirement

More than a millennium passed between the arrival of the first Bandkeramik farmers in Limburg, in present-day Netherlands, and the gradual incorporation of an agricultural way of life by the indigenous hunter-gatherers. During this time flint from further south found its way to the wetlands. Use-wear analysis of these imported flints shows a distinct difference in the way these objects were treated during the earlier and the later phase of the Michelsberg culture. In the earlier phase, tools were brought to the wetlands in an already used state, perhaps as a token of the affiliation with the farmers in the south-east. In the later phase, exotic tools were appropriated by the wetland communities and given a place in the technological system, albeit a very special one. It is argued that studying the hidden biography of objects gives us an 'inside' view of the neolithisation process and sheds light on how a new agricultural identity was negotiated.

This short paper summarises the character and context of a middle and late Taosi Culture period (2300-1900BC) quarry on Mount Dagudui, in northern China. A characterization of the raw materials is offered, providing the basis for description and discussion of patterns of stone and artifact dispersal across the Linfen Basin in prehistory.

This notable book in the series Digital Research in the Arts and Humanities, gathers a set of papers from an Expert Seminar run by the AHRC ICT Methods Network in 2006. These experts shared an agenda of using advanced ICT methods to answer their research questions in the general area of the past. What is evident is that the willingness of these experts to share methods, tools and philosophies has resulted in this excellent work that will be of great interest not only to historians and archaeologists, but to anyone teaching and researching in the area of digital humanities.

Editorial for Issue 26 of Internet Archaeology.

This article outlines approaches for interpreting the Islamic city of Sultan Kala (Merv), c. 8th-13th centuries AD, based upon aerial photographic and satellite imagery. Hierarchies of assumptions (identification of individual wall lines; which frame spaces, rooms and courtyards; which are grouped as parts of specific buildings; which are part of urban blocks) and ontologies (information about these assumptions and the variable confidence of interpretation, from the position of lines to spatial function) provide a dynamic structure for the presentation of data, interpretation and theory.

In the last fifteen years the role of metal-detected objects in archaeological research has greatly increased through reporting to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) and the Early Medieval Corpus (EMC). There are now thousands more artefacts and coins known than a decade ago which, in conjunction with fieldwork, have the potential to revolutionise our understanding of the early medieval period. This is the first time that these data have been examined on a national scale. Such an approach enables the detailed analysis of the nature of portable antiquities data, the bias within such datasets and the relationship between patterns of recovery and historic settlement. In the light of these new interpretations of the overall datasets, the most artefact- and coin-rich sites, known as 'productive sites', can be analysed within a new framework of understanding (Section 4). This article is a major outcome of the Viking and Anglo-Saxon Landscape and Economy (VASLE) project, funded by AHRC research grant APN18370. In addition to the narrative elements of the article, readers are able to access the original datasets to draw their own maps, and to call up charts of the artefact assemblages for over 60 'productive sites'. The secondary datasets developed for the project are also available from the Archaeology Data Service.

This article presents the results of a pilot programme of fieldwork carried out between 2000-3 in the Arroux Valley in southern Burgundy close to Autun and Mont Beuvray. In the late Iron Age, this region was inhabited by the Aedui, an early ally of Rome, who had their principal stronghold at Mont Beuvray (Bibracte), high up in the Morvan. The 19th century excavations established this oppidum as a type-site for the European Iron Age, and since 1984 it has been the focus of an international research programme, which has greatly enhanced our knowledge of the site. In the Augustan period, Mont Beuvray was however replaced by Autun (Augustodunum) on the banks of the Arroux as the new civitas capital. It rapidly developed into one of the major cities of Roman Gaul and like Mont Beuvray has been the subject of extensive excavations.

There is constant pressure on field archaeologists to be familiar with the core concepts of a diverse range of specialist disciplines. Soils and sediments are an integral part of archaeological sites, and soil and sedimentary analyses applied to archaeological questions are now recognised as an important branch of geoarchaeology. However, the teaching of soils in archaeology degrees is variable and many archaeologists complain they lack the confidence and skills to describe and interpret properly the deposits they excavate. SASSA (Soil Analysis Support System for Archaeologists) is a free-to-use, internet-based system designed to familiarise archaeologists with the concepts and possibilities offered by the scientific study of soils and sediments associated with archaeological sites.SASSA consists of two core components: a knowledge base and a field tool. The 'front-end' of the website is the knowledge base; this uses wiki technology to allow users to add their own content and encourage dialogue between archaeologists and geoarchaeologists. The field tool uses an XML data structure and decision-tree support system to guide the user through the process of describing and interpreting soils and sediments. SASSA is designed for use on both 'static' (PC) and 'mobile' (PDA and laptop) hardware in order to provide in situ field support as well as office-based 'reference book style' help. This article presents SASSA as a user might experience it, and discusses the computing technology used to construct the system.

Most unsuccessful palynological work is never published. As a consequence, pollen analysts waste time re-processing sterile sediments, and the available literature exhibits a uniformly positive record of success in pollen extraction. Here we report failures with Quaternary pollen analyses in the Iberian Peninsula; that is, case studies where it was not possible to extract palynomorphs for pollen counting. Both totally sterile and partially sterile sites are considered. Sites and perspectives for future studies are suggested. The majority of the failed studies are open-air archaeological and palaeontological sites, caves and rockshelters, but there are prominent cases of success. Peat bogs have provided positive results, but only with sequences formed under continuous sedimentation processes in marshy environments. Lakes are often successful sites, but a multi-core strategy, following the facies change along a transect from the shore to the depositional centre, is recommended for saline lacustrine deposits, salt marshes and lagoons, especially when there is evidence of temporary desiccation. Cave and rockshelter infills should be considered case-by-case, and these sites definitely require a palyno-taphonomical approach to post-depositional processes. Indurated deposits are sometimes surprising in their high pollen concentration, but one must be prepared for sterility. Coprolites have been insufficiently exploited, and offer a great potential, especially those of Pleistocene Crocuta. This article shows that venturing into sediments assumed a priori to be 'difficult', like fluvial terraces, slope deposits, speleothems, cave travertines, and palaeosols, may nevertheless be successful. A summary is proposed of the various factors causing sterility, before, during and after sedimentation.

A review of ImageMaster Close-Range Photogrammetry Software by Topcon, concluding that, while not a catch-all automatic measuring solution, it does offer a clear way forward, balancing cost, accuracy, efficiency and usability. It is a tool that well deserves a place within the archaeological field toolkit.

Editorial for issue 25 of Internet Archaeology.

This article discusses the application of GIS technology to examination of the social significance of mortuary dress and personal ornament. Using published data from Phase II of the Iron Age Italian cemetery of Osteria dell'Osa, The aim was to show how GIS can illuminate aspects of gender, kinship and status systems that might not emerge from traditional statistical analyses. The methodological challenges of analysing a large body of non-geo-referenced data are discussed, and one approach to presenting such data in a GIS environment is explored. Inference of social determinants for cemetery layout from spatial data presented in ArcMap is critically examined. Spatial patterning is identified that suggests social identity and kinship were both important factors in the selection of dress and personal ornaments for burial.

Legacy data have always been important for Mediterranean archaeologists. Over the past decade, one specific category of legacy data, that deriving from regional survey, has become particularly important. Not only has the scale of research questions become larger (requiring greater reliance on others' data), but the surface archaeological record is deteriorating (diminishing the ability to recover good data). The legacy data from many individual surveys have now been subject to digitisation and GIS analysis, successfully redeploying data collected for one purpose within new theoretical and interpretive frameworks. However, a key research focus is now comparative survey - using the results of many different Mediterranean surveys side-by-side to identify regional variability in settlement organisation, economy and demography. In order to overcome the significant methodological differences between these surveys, attention has focused on the documentation of metadata. Yet, many legacy data lack vital information about their creation and hence how they might be (re)interpreted and compared. GIS has been advanced as an environment in which to contain, order and analyse the data necessary for comparative survey. However, there is a danger that the technology will facilitate inappropriate use of these datasets in a way that fails to acknowledge and understand the very real differences between them. Here, emphasis is placed upon the use of GIS as a space for exploratory data analysis: a process that encompasses and emphasises the integral processes of digitisation, visualisation and simple analysis for the characterisation of datasets in order to derive an alternative form of metadata. Particular emphasis is placed upon the interaction of past human behaviour (e.g. in the Roman period) and archaeological recovery (i.e. the behaviour of archaeologists in the present, or recent past); these two sets of 'social action' combine to create distinctive archaeological datasets. This search for 'contextual' metadata within individual legacy survey datasets supplements more 'formal' metadata and facilitates both interpretation of individual surveys and comparison between them. Case studies from Italy are used to illustrate the kind of iterative and incremental approach to legacy survey data advocated.

This article outlines a new methodology developed to disentangle the hitherto incomprehensible maze of poorly preserved architecture at the Archaic through late Roman period Panhellenic sanctuary at Isthmia, Greece, into clearly defined buildings with their relative construction phases. The methodology combines on-site architectural analyses with the digitisation and reintegration of the site's legacy data within a GIS. The results of this study, still in its preliminary stages, reveal an area east of the Temple of Poseidon at Isthmia as a built environment of rather large and complex units in contrast to the conventional interpretation of a series of small and unimportant structures.

This article commences with a summary of the ways in which various types of retail outlets have been identified at Pompeii. The conventional approach has been to identify them, and to determine their supposed activities, by the Latin terms that were casually attached to them on their discovery in the 18th and 19th centuries, even though these labels have no corroboration in the archaeological record. Subsequent scholars have commonly treated this interpretative compilation as 'primary data'. I propose a different approach to the identification of Pompeii's different types of retail food and drink outlets, one that draws on the available primary archaeological data, as well as to the use of excavation records to create 'legacy data'.

This article outlines the approaches used in the Australian Research Council funded project, 'Engendering Roman Spaces', and summarises some of the results. The project investigates the distribution of artefacts and artefact assemblages and the presence, activities and status of women and children within Roman military forts. It uses data from published excavation reports of 1st- and 2nd-century AD Roman military sites on the German frontier. It includes excavation reports from throughout the 20th century, which have varying levels of comprehensiveness. The relevant data from these excavation reports are digitised and manipulated, through a series of software packages, and then classified according to gender and function, so that spatial distribution patterns of people's activities can be visualised and analysed using GIS. Interpretations of these data are indicating that women played a greater role in military life in the early Roman Empire than has previously been acknowledged.

Preparing data from artefact catalogues of previously published German excavation reports, in the project 'Engendering Roman Spaces', required ongoing refinement of data translation and digital manipulation using a variety of software packages. This process included the use of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, spreadsheets, database and graphics programs, and the final presentation of the data in ArcGIS as an interpretative tool. With each step, a number of challenges were encountered relating to the quality of the data and original cataloguing processes, and the limitations of the software packages being used. Excavation reports of four Roman military sites - the forts of Vetera I, Ellingen, Oberstimm and Rottweil - are used in this article to highlight the range of problems encountered and solutions arrived to resolve them, a process requiring constant revision and refinement.

SahulTime is an interactive map of the Australian continent through time, linked to a timeline of sea level change over the last 140,000 years. Navigation within the timeline modifies the coastline of the region, while additional features on the map - such as labelling of geographic areas and symbols for archaeological sites - switch on and off at appropriate times. Symbols on the map lead to pop-up visualisations which are also linked to the timeline.

Introduction to Issue 24 of Internet Archaeology, presenting a number of projects that demonstrate the usefulness of digital environments for analysing such non-digital data. These projects use these 'legacy data' within true GIS, pseudo-GIS, or other digital environments to answer specific questions concerning social behaviour and particularly the social use of space. The articles discuss approaches taken to retrieve, format, and synthesise these data; to incorporate them with other recently collected and digitised data; and to analyse these large datasets. They also discuss the significance of spatial mapping to the specific aims of these projects. They include discussions on the various computer techniques used to collate and analyse these data, and on how digital environments facilitate the re-analysis of such data.

The article stems from a one-year project funded by the University of Wales Board of Celtic Studies to collect and analyse all the evidence for excavated prehistoric and early historic roundhouses in Wales. The resulting dataset will serve as a resource for researchers and, through the analysis provided in this article, provide an important counterpoint to similar studies from elsewhere in Britain. The methodology of the project is presented, and the limitations of the data are discussed in detail. The principal difficulties were associated with dating the building and duration of use of individual structures, and the bias created by a few sites with large numbers of excavated structures.

This article considers the implications of the Yorkshire regional assessment for how we categorise, analyse and synthesise the past. It argues that we must transcend the existing frameworks, especially their chronological elements, if we are to fully engage with the evidence currently at our disposal, and do so in a way which takes account of all of its lacunae and limitations, yet details and potentials. This has implications not only for the UK, but for problems facing archaeologists across the world: how to organise, within a coherent framework, the rapidly accumulating masses of data generated by developer-led archaeology and its international equivalents in cultural resource management, and how to forge a stronger relationship between the academic and curatorial spheres of archaeological endeavour.

The use of three-dimensional computer models in archaeological projects is a relatively new but rapidly growing area, both as a means of presenting research to the public and also as an aid to interpretation. This work uses the House of the Surgeon in Pompeii as a case study and seeks to illustrate the most effective ways to display information to a range of audiences. In using the flexibility of computer modelling techniques it seeks to show that the levels of detail in a 3-D computer model can be tailored to individual circumstances to produce the most effective result.

This article proposes a multi-technique GIS (Geographical Information System) approach to visibility analysis intended to address some of the shortcomings of the traditional binary viewshed. Its ultimate aim is to obtain more accurate viewsheds and, thus, gain more robust archaeological conclusions from their analysis and interpretation.

This article explores the use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and Ajax in the context of an archaeological project. An interactive image on the Web was developed for the Sikyon Survey Project using these technologies, applying the concepts and principles of Virtual Research Environments (VRE) to the design of this tool (although that aspect will not play a major role in this article). The Sikyon Survey Project and its needs are addressed to provide context for the interactive image, followed by a discussion about the development of the tool itself. Finally, this article looks at the developments of the Sikyon interactive image and the potential for extending it further.

The online publication in October 2007 of the Novum Inventorium Sepulchrale (NIS), a digital corpus of Kentish Anglo-Saxon graves and grave goods was a response to the celebratory exhibition hosted by the Royal Academy, Making History: Antiquaries in Britain, 1707-2007, which showcased a treasure-trove of art, antiquities and manuscripts. Through this project a wealth of primary data has been made accessible as never before. This resource will be of interest to all those researching Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, particularly material culture and mortuary practices. Whilst the editors express the hope that the NIS will 'enable future generations of researchers to gain a better understanding of the origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms', users will find themselves both delighted and frustrated by the quantity and format of the data presented in it.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology 23.

Palaeodietary reconstruction is a key to understanding Mesolithic lifeways. Dental microwear analysis is a tool for investigating palaeodiet using microscopic tooth wear patterns. In this study, dental microwear analysis was performed on both Mesolithic and Neolithic human individuals from Brittany, southern Britain and the northern Irish Sea region. The analysis evidences significant differences between Mesolithic and Neolithic diet among the population samples studied, suggesting that different foodstuffs were consumed by the two groups, or that food preparation methods were different. Microwear at Cnoc Coig in Oronsay is dominated by large features. Overall variability in microwear is higher among Mesolithic populations, a finding that provides tentative evidence that Mesolithic diet was more varied than Neolithic diet.

This article discusses some of the most dominant approaches to early prehistoric, and in particular Mesolithic movement and mobility. After outlining the significance of mobility studies to Mesolithic research, the most commonly employed models of mobility, including some of their greatest problems and shortcomings is reviewed. As a way forward an alternative approach, based on an integrated study of lithic artefacts within a landscape perspective, is offered. Three brief case studies from different parts of Ireland are presented to test and illustrate this approach.

The North Sea has long been known by archaeologists as an area of Mesolithic occupation, and has even been argued as the heartland of the Mesolithic in North Western Europe. Yet this area remains effectively terra incognita to archaeologists, and the nature of its occupation, tantalisingly elusive. The submergence of this landscape has therefore effectively hindered archaeological research into this vitally important region. Yet this region contains one of the most detailed and comprehensive records of the Late Quaternary and Holocene, and its preserved sedimentary successions represent a mine of information that remains untapped by archaeologists. However the lack of direct data pertaining to this region results in all previous maps of the prehistoric landscape being at best hypothetical. This paper presents results which illustrate that through the utilisation of spatially extensive oil industry data, the recovery information pertaining to the actual Mesolithic landscape of the North Sea is now possible. This information reveals the diversity of this landscape and shows that much greater consideration of submerged Mesolithic landscapes is now required of archaeologists. Whilst the study of such landscapes is in its infancy, the availability of such information offers the possibility of transforming how we interpret traditional terrestrial data and its relationship to the larger European Mesolithic.

Recent research has indicated the continuation of a hunting-fishing-gathering way of life in the lower Scheldt basin (Belgium) for over a millennium after the first arrival of agriculture in the middle Scheldt. Current evidence suggests multiple hiatuses in cultural change from the late 6th-late 5th millennium BC. This article provides the outline of a model that seeks to explain these hiatuses from the perspective of indigenous hunter-fisher-gatherer cultural landscapes. The outline investigates the significance of palaeoecological and social contexts in relation to contact and cultural transmission processes during the transition to agriculture. Recent ethnoarchaeological research from hunter-fisher-gatherers in temperate and boreal environments is referenced as a structural analogy for illuminating the important relationship between territoriality and social mediation within hunter-gatherer groups at the Mesolithic-Neolithic interface.

The changes that occurred in the Danish Mesolithic/Neolithic transition are examined via the seasonality and collecting patterns found in the common cockles (Cerastoderma edule (L)) from two Danish kitchen midden sites, Norsminde and Krabbesholm. Three main data sets were used to produce a picture of cockle variability through time. The seasonality results were then compared to oyster seasonality research from the two sites.

This paper provides an account of the author's current doctoral research into the Mesolithic period in the northern Irish Sea basin and western Scotland. It explores the extent to which modern understandings of the world and modern geo-political boundaries have been responsible for shaping studies of the period in the area and questions how such interpretations may be re-evaluated. In doing so this paper outlines a series of alternative approaches to understanding hunter gatherer identity, exploring how identity intersects with sensual material engagements and understandings of place. It also outlines a way to explore such elements in practice, and presents some initial interpretations of the material that have arisen from the study. This in turn suggests that such an approach may be potentially significant in providing a more detailed, socially situated understanding of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and the changes that such populations underwent during the transition to farming in the northern Irish Sea basin.

Review of the website Mesolithic Miscellany.

Foreword to Internet Archaeology Issue 22.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 22.

Portable antiquities (sometimes known as small finds or chance finds) are often recorded within most Historic Environment Records to a spurious level of precision. For example, finds located only within a parish, or general area, are often mapped within GIS systems to exact points. Similarly, finds known only to the nearest kilometre square are usually mapped in the bottom left-hand corner of the square in GIS. While such mappings can be taken into account to some extent when trying to assess the archaeological potential of an area, the degree to which the records may give distorted views of the archaeological potential of an area may not be fully appreciated. This may mean that the full archaeological impacts of development may not be taken into account during development control decision making. This article looks at an alternative method for mapping such finds in order to produce an Artefact Density Index for areas, which more usefully reflects the pattern of activities across the landscape. The Artefact Density Index (ADI) was divided to reflect broad archaeological periods (e.g. Roman, medieval etc.), as well as broad artefact types (e.g. weapons, tools etc.). The ADI was based on combining weighted values for finds types, with the weight reflecting the precision of the location of the finds (i.e. finds recorded only at parish level will be given less weight than those recorded more precisely). An ADI was developed for a sub-area of the North Yorkshire County Council HER area, and also incorporated data from the Portable Antiquities scheme as a case study for the project.

This paper outlines an approach for the interrogation of excavated pottery assemblages from archaeological sites, as a means of providing insights into themes such social practice and identity, at an intra-site resolution. Particular emphasis is placed on the extensive digital archive from the late Iron Age to Roman site of Elms Farm, Heybridge, Essex. Using a combination of simple (tables) and more complex statistical procedures (correspondence analysis), the contents and contexts of multiple pottery assemblages from this site are analysed with a view to shedding light on patterns of food consumption and identity. Finally, the resultant narrative of changing patterns of eating, drinking and disposal at Elms Farm is discussed in terms of the cultural, social, and economic impact of the arrival of Roman hegemony in Britain.

This article presents the Faceted Query Engine, a system developed at Columbia University under the aegis of the inter-disciplinary project Computational Tools for Modeling, Visualizing and Analyzing Historic and Archaeological Sites. The system is based on novel Database Systems research that has been published in Computer Science venue. The goal of this article is to introduce the system to the target user audience - the archaeology community. The use of the Faceted Query Engine is demonstrated on a previously unpublished dataset: the Thulamela (South Africa) collection. This dataset is comprised of iron-age finds from the Thulamela site at the Kruger National Park. The project is the first to systematically compile and classify this dataset. A larger dataset, a collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts from the Memphis site, is also used to demonstrate some of the features of the system.

The development of an urban property in the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester, Hampshire, England) is traced from the late 1st to the mid-3rd century AD. Three successive periods of building with their associated finds of artefacts and biological remains are described and interpreted with provisional reconstructions of the buildings. Links are provided to a copy of the Integrated Archaeological Database (IADB), archived by the Archaeology Data Service, which holds the primary excavation and finds records.

This article has been written in reaction to recent developments in medieval history and archaeology, to study not only the buildings in a town but also the spaces that hold them together. It discusses a more objective and interdisciplinary approach for analysing urban morphology and use of space. It proposes a 'new' methodology by combining town plan analysis and space syntax. This methodology was trialled on the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands. By comparing the results of this 'new' methodology with the results of previous, more conventional, research, this article shows that space syntax can be applied successfully to medieval urban contexts. It does this by demonstrating a strong correlation between medieval economic spaces and the most integrated spaces, just as is found in the study of modern urban environments. It thus provides a strong basis for the use of this technique in future research of medieval urban environments.

Review of the Website A Journey to a New Land.

Review of the website "Informing the Future of the Past: Guidelines for Historic Environment Records 2nd edition".

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 21.

There are a variety of ways to make vector-based information available on the Web, but most are browser- and platform-dependent, proprietary, and unevenly supported. Of the various solutions currently being explored by the greater Web community, one of the most promising is called Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), which is part of the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). SVG was defined by a working group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and has subsequently become their official recommendation for representing vector graphics on the Web in XML. Because SVG is an XML application, it is freely available, not dependent on a particular browser or platform, and interoperable with other XML applications. While there is no guarantee that SVG will be widely adopted for rendering vector-based information on the Web, development and recommendation by the W3C generally carries a great deal of weight, especially as browser developers move towards less proprietary support of W3C standards. In addition, use of XML continues to grow, so XML-based solutions like SVG should be explored by those interested in presenting vector graphics on the Web. This discussion explores SVG as a potential tool for archaeologists. It includes some of the ways vector graphics are used in archaeology, and outlines the development and features of SVG, which are then demonstrated in the form of a case study. Large-scale plan and section drawings originally created on Permatrace were digitised by Guy Hopkinson for use in the Internet Archaeology publication Excavations at Cricklade, Wiltshire, 1975, by Jeremy Haslam, designed as an exercise in 'retrospective publication', to illustrate how traditional forms of visual recording might be digitised for online publication. Hopkinson went on to publish his methodology jointly with Internet Archaeology editor, Judith Winters in Problems with Permatrace: a note on digital image publication, and generously made these drawings available for the SVG research discussed here. The particular goal, was to use this set of images and re-create them online using SVG, while maintaining the same functionality built into them by Hopkinson, as interpreted for Haslam's publication.

One of the most common criticisms of archaeological predictive modelling is that it fails to account for temporal or functional differences in sites. However, a practical solution to temporal or functional predictive modelling has proven to be elusive. This article discusses temporal predictive modelling, focusing on the difficulties of employing temporal variables, then introduces and tests a simple methodology for the implementation of temporal modelling. The temporal models thus created are then compared to a traditional predictive model.

The Trent Valley is one of Britain's major river systems, and the dynamic history of the river has produced a rich and varied palaeochannel record. This paper reports on a catchment-scale survey of surface-visible palaeochannels within the Holocene floodplain of the Trent, using aerial photographs as a primary data source. This is an important contribution towards comprehensive geomorphological mapping of the Trent floodplain. In addition, the GIS database produced by the survey has enabled a significant part of the palaeoenvironmental resource in the valley to be located within the archaeological cultural resource management framework for the first time. The catchment scale of the survey has allowed analysis of changing geomorphology and land-use along the course of the valley, and the implications of these factors for the preservation and visibility of palaeochannels in different zones.

One of the major challenges facing intensive surface survey, even after some 30 years of development, is how to interpret surface artefact scatters in terms of past human activities and relationships. How can we combine the wealth of systematically collected survey data with the interpretative sophistication of contemporary landscape theory? This study uses web-based GIS and database technologies to provide a complete landscape data set and a fully integrated interpretative text carefully grounded in current landscape theory. The material comes from the Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project, which carried out intensive survey in the northern foothills of the Troodos Mountains in central Cyprus between 2000 and 2004. This survey covered all periods from the Neolithic to the present day, a wide range of topographical and environmental contexts, and a broad spectrum of disciplinary and interdisciplinary expertise. In this study we focus on some core themes, particularly the relationship between farming and mining, the control of production, and the spatial differentiation of human activity across the landscape. By interpreting the material traces of routine practices such as labour and subsistence, we attempt to reconstruct social landscapes of the past.

In recent years the impact of animal disease on human societies has had an extremely high profile, with the spread of diseases such as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and foot and mouth among animal populations, as well as the transmission of diseases such as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Ebola and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) from animal to human populations. The social and economic impact of such illnesses has been profound. However, studies on the effect of animal disease in past human populations have been widely neglected. This is partly due to the inconsistent manner in which instances of animal disease (palaeopathology) are recorded, diagnosed and interpreted which, together with the typically low incidence of specimens per site, has precluded detailed studies of regional or temporal trends. This article outlines the archaeological rationale behind developing a generic methodology to enable the consistent recognition, recording and description of animal palaeopathological data. Furthermore, the experience of palaeopathologists concerned with human populations has been drawn upon to develop a downloadable, stand-alone recording system to facilitate the recording of animal palaeopathological data and enable questions concerning past animal health and disease to be better explored in future.

A review of a documentary by Caterina Borelli is a study of the craftsmanship involved in the construction of the mud brick architecture of the Hadramaut and Do'an valleys of the Yemen, and the cultural aspects of a traditional architecture which incorporates an understanding of buildings which dates back centuries. Expanding the existing knowledge of these earthen heritage properties, examining their behaviour in the local climate and the preservation of traditional craftsmanship as part of a sustainable conservation future are the other prominent concerns of this work. A second documentary illustrates qudad, a lime-based plastering technique that was historically widespread in the Arabian Peninsula for the waterproofing of religious and major buildings. The documentary discusses the sudden decline of ethics which occurred in the conservation of the historic buildings of Yemen during the last three decades, and why qudad is today neglected by local craftsmen. The fact that the number of masons who still know this technique is so small makes the work ever so important and necessary. This study of preindustrial materials and manufacturing techniques is documented through an 18 year long project started in 1983 after a collaboration between the Yemeni Government and the Dutch Government.

A review of a PC game, "Review of Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Circle".

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 20.

This article presents, for the first time, multidisciplinary geoarchaeological work by a joint Belgo-Italian team from the universities of Ghent and Cassino in and around the Roman urban site of Ammaia in the northern Alentejo region of Portugal. This project is a geoarchaeological case study to investigate the conditioning effects of landscape and landscape evolution on a Roman urban site (and vice versa) in the Iberian peninsula.The site and landscape presentation is followed by a brief discussion of the aims and approaches of the chosen geoarchaeological strategy. With this study we approach the cultural landscape around Ammaia by means of techniques which combine methods both of the geosciences and of archaeological survey. The specific problems of assessing and reconstructing a Roman landscape, much altered by physical movements of the soil and by a two-millennia long period of human interference, will therefore be tackled in a multidisciplinary way. This means first of all making use of all relevant cartographic material, available aerial photographs and relevant satellite images. All important pre-existing archaeological information is inventoried and mapped and new fieldwork organised. This fieldwork, combining traditional archaeological survey techniques and geomorphologic observations, is being used to build a database of landscape features and sites with archaeological relevance for the period concerned. As many field data and cartographic elements as possible are being assembled in a Geographic Information System, specifically developed for this project. This GIS has already enhanced much new cartographic material of crucial importance in reconstructing the landmarks of the site and territory of Ammaia in the first centuries of our era and has helped to evaluate and interpret the evolution of the landscape shortly before, during, and since Roman times. A large part of this contribution is dedicated to reporting on some major observations and results obtained during three field campaigns, in the summers of 2001, 2002 and 2004. These results relate primarily to three fields of archaeological concern with specific relevance to the landscape background: the tracing of the circuit wall of the Roman city, the intra-urban cartography and the supply of water to the urban area during Roman imperial times. The authors believe these investigations to be examples of good practice in the field of geoarchaeology of the classical Mediterranean landscape.

In recent years, GIS landscape models have begun to move towards more sophisticated techniques for representing the land surface in order to analyse site territories, pathways and travel costs. Many of the major commercial GIS packages now offer the ability to generate anisotropic cost surfaces. In addition, recent papers have proposed methodologies for generating cost surfaces to model social preferences affecting travel. In terms of practical applications, however, GIS models of catchment areas and paths between sites continue to be dominated by those constructed on the basis of slope alone. In parallel with this, regional analyses of site location, with few exceptions, have been undertaken either within large land masses, largely ignoring the effects of rivers, lakes and the sea on travel costs and affordances, or within single islands, neglecting travel to other neighbouring islands or the mainland. The reasons for this appear to be twofold: first, there is little information available on travel costs and travel rates using pre-industrial transportation technology, beyond very general statements; second, critical analysis of what constitutes an 'acceptable' travel distance is lacking, especially in situations where both water and land transport are possibilities. This article presents some preliminary results from a research project examining the location and distribution of Middle Iron Age sites (brochs) in the landscape of Orkney, Northern Scotland. It employs a terrain model, taking into account differing friction values for land and water surfaces, as well as the nature of the shoreline (cliffs, beaches) and how this affects access from land to sea and vice versa. It also attempts to model pathways between sites following three friction models: lowest-energy, lowest-visibility (hidden) and highest-visibility (exposed).

The Upper Usumacinta region was the scene of an intense interaction between the different kingdoms of the Classic Maya Period. This interaction took the form of political and marriage alliances as well as warfare and is well attested in the inscribed monuments of the region, especially towards the Late Classic Period (c. AD 600-900). The potential that GIS offers is used to model movement across the physical setting in order to define the potential boundaries between kingdoms in the light of the available archaeological and epigraphic data. Regarding the latter, the hieroglyphic inscriptions record a couple of devastating attacks that Piedras Negras launched upon Pomoná in AD 792 and 794. It is argued on the basis of the characteristics of the physical landscape and the territory controlled by each of these polities that, in order to carry out a successful campaign, Piedras Negras must have exercised control of one of the few natural passes that separate the coastal plains, where Pomoná lies, from the remainder of the Upper Usumacinta region, where Piedras Negras is located. One of these passes lies in the Redención del Campesino Valley; however, no subsidiary site of significance was known to exist in this valley. In this sense the 2004-2005 archaeological reconnaissance of the valley was geared to search for a site of this nature. Once again taking advantage of the spatial modelling capabilities of GIS, a probability model based on Dempster-Shafer Theory was designed to identify the areas of high potential where the presence of this type of site may occur. The probability model was tested in the field and a site located that, due to its monumental architecture, could be characterised as a subsidiary site of high strategic and political relevance.

This article looks at the long-term continuity and change of architecture in an island community in north-west Scotland. As 'buildings archaeology' in the broadest sense, it draws on diverse sources to explore particular features of the use of local materials, the adaptation of local designs and the use of space over a 2000-year period. The vernacular architecture of the Western Isles has been the focus of archaeological research for the last 150 years. This has been almost exclusively period specific, largely concentrated on buildings of the middle and later Iron Age, and has adopted a biased and explicitly negative view of the vernacular buildings of the post-medieval period. This article presents a model where aspects of use, materials and design are explored from a perspective informed by the study of post-medieval buildings in the same locale. By drawing together evidence from ethnography, photography, folklore studies and archaeology, it facilitates a new understanding, where this tradition of buildings is seen as a dynamic continuum rather than a series of unrelated architectural paradigms.

This article presents an interpretative synthesis of the development of a medieval landscape in the English Midlands. It explores its administrative organisation and divisions; the exploitation of its woodland, pasture, and arable resources; and the creation, growth, and decline of its villages, hamlets and farmsteads. It takes as its central theme two inter-related oppositions: continuity and change, moments and processes. In particular it examines the role these played in the development of varying settlement morphologies (the area under investigation contains both nucleated and dispersed settlement forms) and in the introduction and demise of the open field system. The article is based on the investigation of twenty-one medieval villages and hamlets and their surrounding landscapes, straddling the Northamptonshire-Buckinghamshire boundary and previously falling within the royal forest of Whittlewood. This work was undertaken between 2000 and 2005 as part of an AHRC (formerly ARHB)-funded research project. This enquiry, and the use it has made of the comparative method, has pinpointed moments of village and hamlet 'creation' and the alternative forms that these could take in their earliest phases. The subsequent development of these settlements has been charted, revealing the divergent paths they took towards the nucleated or dispersed plans they present when first mapped in the 17th, 18th or 19th centuries. This dynamic pattern of settlement has been set against a background of related changes to the authoritative landscape, which saw the fission and fusion of administrative units; to the economic landscape, which witnessed the development of the open field system and the re-organisation of woodland; and to social and cultural landscapes, affected inter alia by the growth and decline of population, and the imposition of Forest Law. The reconstruction of these medieval village territories has only been achieved by adopting an interdisciplinary approach. Methodologies have included test pitting in village cores, larger excavations and trial trenches both within and outside the village, geophysical and earthwork survey, extensive fieldwalking, exhaustive documentary research, retrospective analysis of a rich corpus of early maps, targeted palaeoenvironmental sampling, detailed place-name study, and the comprehensive survey of the standing buildings of the area. This has generated a substantial body of evidence, the broader conclusions from which are due to be published in 2006 in a monograph entitled Medieval Villages in an English Landscape: Beginnings and Ends (Macclesfield, Windgather Press).

Review of The Story of Alderley Edge website.

Review of Adlib Museum Lite software.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 19.

Arctic archaeologists have long suspected that the whalebones used to construct semi-subterranean winter houses by Thule culture peoples were symbolically resonant. These assumptions are based on observations of the non-utilitarian use of jaw bones and crania in Thule house ruins, and ethnographic descriptions of architectural symbolism relating to the whale hunt in Historic Alaskan Inupiat houses. In this paper, we use a 3-dimensional computer reconstruction of a semi-subterranean whalebone house to search for visual expressions of whaling-related ritual in Thule architecture. Results suggest that the whalebone superstructure may have been designed to evoke important themes when viewed from specific locations within the house, and under different lighting conditions. These themes, which appear in Inupiat myths and stories, involve the belief that women transform houses into living whales during the time of the hunt.

This article reflects the participation of the Institute of Archaeology, Iceland, in the actions of the ARENA project. In particular the article highlights issues along the pathway to interoperability that the Institute found most important in its participation; that is communication and dissemination of information to the public. Archiving material is not enough, the material to be archived must demonstrate its value, through its diversity and as a commentator on archaeological practice across Europe. Access to archives more than anything else imbues them with value. The archives prepared as part of the ARENA project highlighted a number of problems and tensions that are considered here, they also demonstrated the dissemination advantages of digital publication. The preparation of archives for preservation purposes is also considered, in particular the possibilities explored in Iceland for representing old data transformed into new data.

This article reflects the participation of the Museum Project, Norway in the actions of the ARENA project. In particular the article highlights issues along the pathway to interoperability that the Museum Project found most important in its participation; that is the digitisation of archaeological records and the connection of information from these resources. The article includes the problems encountered due to the fact that the data from the various collections often do not fit together, at least not without extensive human interaction. The article describes in particular the presentation of digital data from selected locations in Norway, the settlements at Hegge and Egge. A solution to linking data is suggested using an event based (CIDOC CRM) model.

The ARENA project has brought the idea of a common European heritage web resource closer. With sites and monuments data from six nations available for interoperable search valuable insight has been gained into the technical and other difficulties involved resulting in a clear view to the next logical steps. Drawing in a discussion of the status for internet use within the sector of cultural heritage in Denmark a number of perspectives for using the internet for cultural heritage management and information dissemination is drawn up. Denmark is offered as an example, others could probably be found.

The ARENA project gave the Archaeological Museum in Poznań an opportunity to work on the preservation and dissemination of archives of international significance in the museum's care. In addition to carrying out preservation work on digital archives two specific resources were presented, the Image collection from Biskupin and the publication of the excavation report from Kowalewko. This activity allowed the team from Poznań to contribute in particular to the role of digitisation in the preservation process, and to demonstrate the value of on-line publication of an important work that is only narrowly available in print form.

The ARENA project was created to confront issues of data preservation and archiving, dissemination and European information interoperability in archaeology. In achieving these goals the project raised many issues that deserve deeper discussion. This paper sets out to draw together vital pathways that must all be followed if archaeology and heritage management in Europe is to be served by a suitable network and information infrastrucure. Some of the issues raised here have a resonance in other papers in the ARENA special edition of Internet Archaeology, others are discussed in greater detail elsewhere.

For the visitor to the ARENA Portal for Archaeological Records of Europe Networked Access, the first option is to choose the language of the interface: Danish, English, Icelandic, Polish, Norwegian or Romanian. These are the languages of the six partners in the European project developed between 2001 and 2004. We expect a significant number of visitors from these countries, which made the choice of each respective mother tongue a natural one. Is the option of several languages just a courtesy for our public? It is more than that - it is a tool to facilitate access to multilingual archaeological information. Before we were ready for visitors to our sites, we had to understand each other, to index our digital resources using common terms, to find the right equivalents for archaeological realities described in several languages, to explain the concepts behind the words. Language is related to culture, identity and memory. There is a growing concern about the dominance of English as a global language of communication, while probably the majority of known languages are in danger of disappearing and cultural diversity is menaced. If we wish to make cultural heritage resources accessible to more people and to share knowledge, language is a key. My article is an attempt to address these issues. I will explore the role of language in scientific communication, multilingualism on the Internet, language policies, and also have a closer look at terminological tools for cultural heritage, especially for archaeology.

Where the other papers in this special edition of Internet Archaeology look at the experiences and achievements of the ARENA project this paper looks to the future. Portal technologies like those used by the ARENA portal are already moving into new and exciting areas, areas such as web services and portlet technologies in particular. This paper considers the work of the ADS in projects such as ARENA, but also HEIRPORT and CREE, work that has revealed new and exciting paths towards data sharing on a European scale. Are these the paths that any new ARENA project will have to follow to sustain the dream of interoperable data sharing for European archaeology?

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 18.

This study was directed towards making the best use of samian evidence as a key resource for exploring a range of questions in Roman archaeology. The study collates a large body of data and applies hitherto under-utilised methods in an endeavour to extract archaeological information from this material, particularly in the key areas of dating, the social distribution of samian and cultural practice. One avenue in respect of dating has been to explore the extent to which trends in the composition of groups of samian, in terms of forms present, may be used as a guide towards establishing the date of a group without having to depend heavily upon the dating of stamps and diagnostic decorated sherds, which may be comparatively rare. It is intended that the resulting guide, presented here, proves to be an accessible and straightforward tool for the non-specialist user.

Widely accepted zooarchaeological procedure for recording butchery marks and other types of bone modification involves two processes: Drawing the bone showing the exact location and orientation of the modification and recording all of the information about the bone and its modification into an electronic database. No recording templates have ever been published, however, resulting in individual zooarchaeologists repeating the effort of developing their own templates or drawings for each bone in an assemblage showing a modification. Both of these tasks are time consuming and lead to inconsistencies in recording and quantification methods. To help alleviate this problem a series of caprine (sheep and goat) bone templates have been created. These templates show every bone in a goat skeleton, apart from the skull, from six views at life-size when printed on A4 paper. They have intentionally been produced with a minimum of detail (without shading or stippling etc.) so that the recorded butchery marks and bone modifications will be clearly visible. Because the skeletal morphology of sheep and goats is so similar these templates may be used interchangeably for either species. They may also be used for many other artiodactyl species such as cattle and deer as no scale has been indicated. The study of butchery marks and bone modification has the potential to provide zooarchaeologists with information about taphonomy, site formation processes, burial/ritual practices, human behaviour, ancient technologies and possibly ethnicity amongst other things, but only if the recording of these bone modifications is undertaken in a standardised fashion across the field. While much effort has been directed towards standardising the recognition and classification of various bone modifications, the recording of these modifications regularly occurs in various ways. Using standardised recording templates will save valuable time and help to alleviate problems of data comparability between researchers.

This article outlines the results of one of the aspects of a multidisciplinary project currently conducted in the upper part of the basin of the Western Dvina River in North-Western Russia. The project was targeted at prehistoric lake dwelling sites in the valley of Serteya River, a small tributary of the Western Dvina, and aimed at the precise dating of the initial transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture in that area. The methods used included pollen, diatom and geochemical analyses under strict time control provided by radiocarbon dating. The initial settlement emerged at c. 6200 cal. BC, when the valley was filled by a fresh water lake with a relatively high lake-level. The initial indices of agriculture became perceptible in the deposits of Usvyatian Culture (4600-3400 cal. BC), featuring large-scale constructions of pile-dwellings. Indices of swidden type agriculture became apparent in the deposits of Zhizhitsian Culture, 2300-2200 cal. BC.

'Engendering Roman Spaces' is a research project concerned with using artefact assemblage analyses to better understand spatial and gender relationships in the early Roman Empire and to produce more engendered perspectives of Roman society. This paper discusses the methodology and analyses being used in this project to investigate social behaviour within Roman military forts and fortresses of the 1st and 2nd centuries CE through analyses of the spatial distribution of artefacts at these sites. The processes involved include digitising previously published maps and artefact catalogues from Roman military sites to create searchable databases and GIS maps. They also include the classification of the artefacts according to a number of functional and gender-associated categories (e.g. combat equipment, male and female dress, toilet etc.) so that the spatial distributions of the relevant activities can be plotted. This data is then used to interpret the spatial relationships of these activities and the people involved in them. The double legionary fortress of Vetera I, on the Lower Rhine, has been used to exemplify these processes. This fortress was excavated in the early 20th century and the artefacts were comprehensively published in 1995. The paper includes descriptions of the methods and software employed in the digitisation of relevant material from these volumes, the formation of relational databases, and the importation of this data and of site maps into a GIS programme. To illustrate these processes and to present some of the results, the paper also includes a number of examples of the analyses carried out, together with interactive GIS maps of these analyses.

This article has arisen through the author's interest in two contemporary issues within archaeology: the production and dissemination of grey literature and the potential of XML. Grey literature is examined, with specific reference to unpublished reports literature produced in the present climate of developer-funded archaeology in England. There are concerns about the accessibility of this literature, both from within and beyond the archaeological profession. The vast majority of reports are word-processed and then printed in hard-copy format for limited distribution. The original, digital document however, has largely been seen as a by-product. Awareness of the importance of these digital reports, and their preservation must be raised. Electronic means of delivery and dissemination via the World Wide Web offer huge potential and present opportunities for new ways of working. Archaeology is not alone in seeking to promote the accessibility of grey literature; indeed there are many disciplines that have created online initiatives aiming to do just this, utilising a variety of means and a range of electronic file formats. The use of XML technology appears to offer many advantages over traditional formats, such as word-processed, PDF and even (X)HTML files, particularly with regard to the manipulation and presentation of encoded electronic text. Increasingly, XML technology is being used for electronic delivery and dissemination and the pros and cons of so doing are discussed in this article.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 17.

The area around Buckley in north Wales has been associated with the production of pottery since the 13th or 14th centuries. Nineteen different pottery sites have been identified, producing a wide range of ceramic wares in the six-hundred year period up to the mid-20th century. In the 17th and 18th centuries, many of the wares produced were of high quality, on a par with Staffordshire wares of the same date. In the early 17th century, the technique of sgraffito decoration spread to north Devon and Somerset from mainland Europe. Buckley is the only known site to produce early sgraffito wares in northern Britain. This article aims to establish the date of the production and range of early sgraffito wares at Buckley and to examine the derivation of the designs and illustrations on the vessels. An illustrated catalogue has been produced and a comparative study made of sgraffito wares elsewhere to place Buckley into a national and international context.

This article discusses the relationship between philosophy, archaeological theory and the use of GIS. It is argued that although specific theoretical issues have been discussed, epistemological and ontological questions with regard to the characteristics of data and data processing have not been subjected to rigorous theoretical critique. This is essential to understand the archaeological and non-archaeological qualities of data formats and GIS procedures.It is argued that GIS has to be integrated into every research process in order to answer archaeological questions and that the results have to be interpreted according to a set archaeological theoretical framework. If the archaeological research process follows the principles of Bhaskar's realistic philosophy the critical application of the method is a natural consequence. It is also argued that the combination of realistic and pragmatic frameworks allows, theoretically, all critical use of archaeological GIS applications. Furthermore, the integration of post-structural ideas is shown to be crucial in the explanation of results provided by GIS modelling.

In recent years there has been a flourish of archaeological studies focusing on prehistoric cognition or motivation on the basis of GIS-generated interpretations. These have taken two very different forms on either side of the Atlantic. In the empirically driven positivist community of North American researchers, Cultural Resource Management (CRM) projects have created a tendency toward using GIS-based archaeological data in the context of so-called 'predictive modelling', or within typically large-scale interpretations of environmental motivations for settlement. This perspective has its origins in the nature of the North American archaeological record, and the development and dominance of processualism. In contrast, the highly complex European archaeological record and the influence of both post-processualism and landscape forms of archaeology have led to a European focus on using GIS as a tool for reconstructing social and cognitive landscapes. Most frequently this has been in the form of visibility and viewshed analyses of henge-type monuments, hill fortifications and their surrounding landscapes. The disconnect between these two dichotomous traditions suggests on the one hand that North American approaches could benefit from methods that generate a more enriching discussion of agency and social theory, while European approaches could benefit from a less speculative form of epistemological argumentation. These ideas may come together through the use of an enhanced discussion of explanation and causality (in keeping with developments in the history and philosophy of science) and key tools such as the use of spatial variables as proxies for cognitive decision-making and social agency.

Spatial analysis has traditionally considered settlements in relation to each other and aspects of topography. Criticisms of environmental determinism, and identification of problems with site data and analytical models, have followed. Transferring spatial analysis to a GIS platform has not resolved these concerns. This article highlights the fact that there are cultural assumptions within spatial analyses, through examining the land-use systems practised by New Zealand Māori, and argues that models based on modern European land use are not necessarily appropriate for other times and cultures. This test case also supports the contextual archaeology definition of landscape as a dynamic inclusive system between people and land. It is concluded that the resolution of such problems, especially when analysing societies with a recent ethnography or history, requires a landscape approach together with multi-disciplinary data and the further development of dynamic modelling and simulation through GIS.

Within the archaeological discipline, the agency debate has re-emphasised the importance of human volition within the archaeological landscape. Human action is influenced by how groups perceive their worlds and, more importantly, structured by the way in which they interpret affordances, created by the dynamic interplay between humans and their animate and inanimate surroundings. This conceptualises the notion of 'taskscape', in which different interpretations of space, time and accumulated experience generate a variety of potential pictures of past human lives. Human taskscapes are dynamic and built upon the historicity of human action, emphasising that spatial patterns of human practice are not static but contexts reflecting back on past and predicting future behaviour. For archaeological analyses of the spatial structure of past human activities, the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has mostly been restricted to the recognition of spatial patterns in one-dimensional space and time. Static GIS therefore yields only an ahistorical picture of the past. Dynamic or temporal GIS includes the possibility of looking at dynamic taskscapes over time, enabling them to become both medium for and outcome of human action.

The main motivation behind this article is to encourage new ways of approaching landscapes (i.e. 'listening to' instead of just 'looking at' them). This article challenges the privileged status of vision in modern humanistic-oriented GIS studies and thereby stresses the importance of multisensuous approaches within the study of past landscapes. The article is divided into three parts. Firstly, it offers some theoretical perspectives on the perception of sound and its role in social life, and reviews some conceptual problems concerning modelling perception within GIS. Secondly, it guides the reader through the process of constructing a digital soundscape model. The main goal of this article is to develop tools and approaches to understand past soundscapes. The process of creating a soundscape model is illustrated using an example from the late medieval soundscape of church bells in Polhograjsko hribovje, Slovenia. Thirdly, the article offers some technical and mathematical background to the model and presents the use of the software package which is freely available with the paper. The model presented is still in its infancy and much discussion and further development need to be undertaken. Its rationale and potential are addressed here.

This article attempts to further our understanding of tells in southeast Europe by considering their landscape context, where the research methodology comprises an innovative hybrid of modern landscape theory, and GIS-based visual analysis. Tell landscapes are explored through the detailed analysis of a group of case study tells located in the Romanian Plain, in southern Romania, dating to the fifth millennium BC. A visual, so-called phenomenological approach is adopted, but novel to this paradigm is the use of GIS as the prime tool with which to conduct visual research. GIS offers a convenient means to visualise and quantify visual parameters of landscape, but its formal nature also brings some rigour to phenomenological research, which has been criticised for lack of standard method. Viewshed tools are utilised in standard form, but also in enriched 'Higuchi' and 'Directional' forms. The temporal nature of tell settlements is explored through the generation of viewshed maps from different cultural levels of the mound. Results of the analysis are presented and common patterns in the dataset identified. Taking inspiration from the Heideggarian notion of dwelling, a generalised interpretive framework is forwarded. It is suggested that tells were located with respect to visual entities in the environment, and that the nature of the visibility tells us something of the lives of people dwelling on and around them.

The Neolithic monuments of the Carnac area of southern Brittany are of international importance. However, archaeologists have tended to study the monuments as individual sites, rather than investigating their landscape settings. This is in part because the landscape is difficult to explore in the field. Modern houses and conifer plantations obscure views; earthen structures have been significantly reduced in size, indeed some have been entirely levelled. As it is difficult to conduct fieldwork in this landscape, digital techniques are particularly informative. The landscape is a subtle one, and environmentally deterministic interpretations are implausible. However, this does not mean that topography was unimportant to the choices of monument location. The visual characteristics of locales can vary greatly even in relatively slight topography. Small rises can obscure features near by, or give considerable prominence over longer distances. This article explores the potential of visibility analysis and dynamic visualisation for investigating the visual context of two of the monument types, the earthen long mounds and angled passage graves. Traditional viewshed maps allow direct quantitative comparisons to be made between sites. The effect of monument dimensions is explored. However, as has been discussed in earlier articles in Internet Archaeology, viewshed analysis does not represent the whole of human visual experience. Therefore, visualisations have been used to explore the landscape further. A dynamic visualisation of a journey up the Crac'h estuary provides a more subjective view of the landscape settings of the monuments. The VRML version of the landscape model provides the opportunity for readers to explore the landscape themselves, and expand on the interpretations offered. However, the visualisations are limited in their resolution, and thus it is important to refer back to the viewshed maps for specific information. Through using complementary techniques, our understanding of the landscape is extended beyond that which is possible from a single approach.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 16.

This article looks at the nature of readers and readership in relation to the presentation of archaeology online. In particular, it asks how the medium of the World Wide Web affects the reception of archaeologists' messages, and examines a range of issues associated with the archaeological use of hypertext. It argues that archaeologists have adopted a particular perspective of hypertext that does not reflect the full range of theoretical approaches to the medium. It identifies a need for information about how people access online information, and the development of best practice guidelines for archaeological online writing.

Virtual reality and visualisation technologies developed over the past thirty years have been readily accessible to the archaeological community since the mid 1990s. Despite the high profile of virtual archaeology both within the media and professional archaeology it has not been taken on board as a generally useful and standard technique by archaeologists. In this article we wish to discuss the technical and other issues which have resulted in a reluctance to adopt virtual archaeology and, more importantly, discuss ways forward that can enable us routinely to benefit from this technology in the diversity of archaeological practice.

In the past, SMRs have all too often been cast as the Cinderellas of British Archaeology — underfunded, inconsistent, unreliable and difficult to use. Recent events indicate that this picture is changing, and changing fast. The paper discusses the recent changes and how these are affecting SMRs' use of computing, and concludes by an attempt to chart some trends for the future, notably the impending change of SMRs to broader-based Historic Environment Records (HERs). The most recent assessment of SMRs in England by David Baker (1999) has shown that, since the first SMRs emerged in the 1970s, their development across the country has been uneven and often on an ad hoc basis. However, recent years have seen rapid development in the field of SMRs and there are some encouraging signs that the future progress of SMRs may be different. SMRs are aspiring to cover a wide range of material, from artefacts to landscapes, and there are increasing moves towards providing greater access to this information in more creative ways. The article examines the current trend towards greater integration of information about the historic environment, through widening the scope of SMRs or linking them to other systems. Finally, the article looks at the need for more academic use of SMRs and provides some suggestions how this might be achieved.

This article argues that archaeologists have shown relatively little concern for the social, cultural, and economic changes in modern society associated with the introduction of new information technologies, despite interest in such developments in past societies. As a consequence, there has been little discussion of the ways in which the application of information technologies may affect the practice of archaeology itself. Aspects investigated here include the 'scientific' reductionist processual approaches typically associated with the use of computers, the language and community of archaeological computing practitioners, the effects of distance and agents, issues of data recording and retrieval, and the implications of internet delivery of information. In the process, data may be wrenched from context, argument separated from evidence, interpretations transformed into 'facts', explicit knowledge separated from tacit knowledge, and push-button solutions substituted for knowledgeable actions.

This article reviews the development of online national archaeological records, and the changes brought about by the shift in focus towards computer-based inventories and their wider accessibility through the Internet. It identifies a series of issues that have arisen at least partly as a result of this wider dissemination of information, and proposes a number of ways forward. (Note: while including references to the NMRs in England and Wales, this article largely reflects the experiences and concepts of the National Monuments Record of Scotland).

The field of mathematical modelling is long established in archaeology, and since the 1970s has been frequently associated with computing through the development of increasingly complex methodologies ranging from large-scale simulations to Bayesian statistics. This article looks at the background and use of these models, and asks why there has been an apparent downturn in their use. A distrinction between 'tactical' and 'strategic' models is drawn, and number of areas of future development identified.

Online archives are of increasing importance in Archaeological Informatics, but like any new genre they prompt a number of questions. What is their relationship to publication? What should go in them? How should they be delivered and indexed? Can they be preserved? Whilst their delivery requires technology, we must also consider how that technology should best be employed in the service of our discipline. This article attempts to address some of these questions. The problems posed by effective publication of archaeological fieldwork have exercised the profession for many decades. The issues raised go to the core of discussion of whether preservation by record is a valid concept, and indeed whether archaeological data exist. There are different schools of thought about the relationship between publication and archiving, but hopefully we can accept that data are recorded observations but still agree that they have a re-use value for re-examination and re-interpretation. Since the 1960s archaeology has experienced a publication crisis point. Digital technology now offers the means by which the crisis may at last be overcome. It provides an opportunity to provide unprecedented access to archaeological data through online digital archives and to integrate synthetic interpretation with recorded observations in a seamless fashion, in a way which has been pioneered by Internet Archaeology. It may even allow a virtual re-integration of the paper and artefactual archives, which in the British Isles have become physically separated. However, the growth of the World Wide Web brings with it its own problems of locating relevant resources of quality which need addressing by effective indexing and access. Such resources need not be brought together in a central place but can instead be searched across distributed sites. On the other hand, if we maintain archives at a local level we must be aware of problems of data integrity. The trend for archaeological data to be captured and held in digital format, and even to be born digital raises issues of data preservation.

Databases are deeply embedded in archaeology, underpinning and supporting many aspects of the subject. However, as well as providing a means for storing, retrieving and modifying data, databases themselves must be a result of a detailed analysis and design process. This article looks at this process, and shows how the characteristics of data models affect the process of database design and implementation. The impact of the Internet on the development of databases is examined, and the article concludes with a discussion of a range of issues associated with the recording and management of archaeological data.

In archaeological prospection, computer processing is essential for all stages of data manipulation. This article investigates the contributions which informatics has made in the past and looks at its potential for the future. It is shown how the workflow of satellite imagery, aerial photography and geophysical prospection can be broken down into measurements, acquisition, processing, visualisation and interpretation. Based on these categories, the advantages of digital data manipulations are explored with individual examples. It is shown that informatics can greatly assist with the final archaeological analysis of the measurements but that human experience and assessments are crucial for a meaningful interpretation.

Rather than attempt to write a balanced or complete overview of the application of GIS to archaeology (which would inevitably end up being didactic and uncritical) this article sets out to present a discursive and contentious position with the deliberate aim of stimulating further debate about the future role of GIS within the discipline. To this end, existing applications of GIS to archaeology are reviewed, concentrating on two areas of application, predictive modelling and visibility analyses, and on their wider disciplinary context. It is argued that GIS cannot be simplistically held to have been a 'good thing' or a 'bad thing' for archaeology, but rather that these different application areas may be analysed separately and found to have quite different qualities. Although they are in no sense alternatives to one another, the areas of predictive modelling and visibility analysis can be seen to represent quite different agendas for the development of an archaeology of space and/or place. The development of correlative predictive models is considered first, both from the perspective of explanation and of cultural resource management. The arguments against predictive modelling as a means of explanation are rehearsed and it is found to be over-generalising, deterministic and de-humanised. As a consequence, it is argued that predictive modelling is now essentially detached from contemporary theoretical archaeological concerns. Moreover, it is argued to be an area with significant unresolved methodological problems and, far more seriously, that it presents very real dangers for the future representativity of archaeological records. Second, the development of GIS-based visibility analysis is reviewed. This is also found to be methodologically problematic and incomplete. However, it is argued that visibility studies — in direct contrast to predictive modelling — have remained firmly situated within contemporary theoretical debates, notably about how human actors experience places (phenomenology) and perceive their surroundings (cognition). As such, it is argued that visibility analysis has the potential to continue to contribute positively to the wider development of archaeological thinking, notably through laying the foundations of a human-centred archaeology of space. The paper concludes by qualifying the claim that there is a 'hidden agenda' for archaeological applications of GIS, particularly by making it clear that this does not imply an attempt to distort the discipline. Instead, this is explained in terms of institutional and disciplinary inertia that should be addressed through greater debate and communication over these issues.

This paper about the future of electronic scholarship takes the form of a commentary about the author's experiences with publishing an electronic monograph. An earlier version of that work was originally submitted to the University of Wales as a hypermedia Doctoral dissertation in archaeology. To what extent (if any) the electronic and multilinear format of my work proved valuable in challenging and advancing some foundations of current academic discourse is discussed. A key question is how academic credibility can be maintained, while at the same time pioneering some radical possibilities of electronic scholarship. It emerges that the criteria for this credibility are themselves at stake.

Preface for Internet Archaeology Issue 15.

Introduction to themed issue, edited by Jeremy Huggett and Seamus Ross.

The town of Cricklade in Wiltshire, England is one of the most regular examples of the class of Saxon urban fortresses, created as part of a fort-system in the late 9th century, which are included in the Burghal Hidage List. Its defences are relatively well preserved, and show particularly good evidence of rectilinear planning. It has been the subject of detailed archaeological and historical research over the past 55 years, and its defences at least can lay claim to being the most systematically explored late Saxon fortress in England. Prior to housing development, two excavations were carried out at Cricklade in 1975: Site A, an area within the north-west quarter of the town, which provided evidence of occupation throughout the Roman period; and Site B, on the south-west corner of the late Saxon defences, in which several trenches as well as larger areas across the line of the defences were excavated. A sequence of several successive phases of construction, refurbishment, destruction and rebuilding of the defences from the late 9th century into the medieval period was found. The interpretation of this sequence of phases differs from that put forward based on earlier excavations on the defences since 1948 (excavations which are also reassessed here). Accompanied by interactive plans and sections, this article presents the results of the excavations, followed by an examination of the archaeological and historical development of the defensive sequence and early development of the town. This electronic publication has been grant-aided by English Heritage as part of its policy to explore new media publication.

This article demonstrates the potential of applying GIS viewshed analysis to Roman urban studies. It examines the visual dynamics of the Roman city of Empúries, Spain, through an analysis of the visibility of, and view from, a temple and a domus within the city. The analysis proves that the two buildings in question would have had wide views of the Gulf of Roses to the east of the city, and could easily have been seen by people in boats in the Gulf, but they were virtually invisible from within the city and would certainly not have dominated the cityscape. The article concludes that the absence of the villa and temple from the intramural cityscape of Empúries cautions modern investigators of ancient cities against simply assuming that currently prominent ruins on hills or ridges were also highly visible from near as well as far in antiquity.

Flaked stone tools are synonymous with prehistory to the extent that it is arguable that without these, the discipline would not exist. Yet we know relatively little about how people used them and what role they played within the material cultures of which they formed a part. The opportunity to study habitual users of flaked tools in an ethnographic context has always been limited and is now arguably non-existent. But in 1983, despite having steel tools, stone was still used for many of the everyday tasks performed by the Wola, of highland Papua New Guinea. The extensive knowledge of Wola life and material culture has afforded an opportunity to examine stone tool use within a broad material and socio-economic framework. This has provided new levels of contextual information, including the observation of habitual storage of raw material and tools despite abundant local raw material and an expedient technology; their important manufacturing role and the use of tools made from other materials in place of stone for many tasks. Flaked tools also feature in non-material contexts, such as myths, suggesting that their cultural significance is more complex than initial appearances suggest. Women used the bipolar method to obtain flakes, though they were prohibited by convention from using stone axes. Multiple authorship of objects is common though women's work is often hidden in items such as string which is made by women and which forms a constituent part of many male items such as muscial instruments. Use-wear data are recorded and a statistical method developed to further their analysis objectively. Finally, an examination of possible reasons for the simple yet sophisticated nature of chert technology suggests that a combination of material, environmental, social and economic factors may be responsible.

This summary presents the key results from a timely and extensive survey of readers' expectations and use of archaeological publications across Britain and Ireland. Fieldwork publications are held to be fundamental to the furtherance of archaeological research and synthesis. This survey has filled an important gap by focusing on this area, with the intention of obtaining information both on the actual use of different parts of publications, and on needs and expectations. This information was then used to assess the effectiveness of conventional fieldwork publication in meeting the diverse needs of the discipline, taking due account of any regional or national variation. Analysis of the survey results revealed patterns with major implications for publication rationale and practice. These are discussed, together with recommendations for future action, in this summary of the full report.

This short article looks at emerging options for sharing information in ways that are more 'active' from a user's point of view. Using appropriate software it is now possible to be sent automatic notification when new information appears, and this information is available to be shared to the extent that it can even be incorporated within other web pages, and customised to fit in with the look and feel of any web site. Examples of these new services have been established by the Council for British Archaeology and the article describes how these services can be accessed and fully used.

The methodology presented here developed out of work required to convert the hard-copy illustrations submitted to Internet Archaeology for publication of the 1975 excavations at Cricklade. The publication (and digital image preparatory work) was funded by English Heritage and was, in part, an experiment designed to explore some of the possibilities presented by digital image publication. Various challenges in how to transform the drawings on permatrace to a digital format were encountered. While a full exploration of the potential of all areas of digital image preparation and publication was not possible, some interesting technical options were evaluated. This short article explains the processes applied in creating the images that were finally incorporated within the publication. It also examines some other avenues regarding the presentation of archaeological drawings that could be explored in both future Internet Archaeology content and other digital publications.

Review of Worcestershire On-line Fabric Type Series website.

Review of The Earl of Abergavenny. Historical Record and Wreck Excavation CD-Rom.

These three CD-Roms have been produced by Trevor Croucher DataGraphics. The first, Discovering Craven, is an interactive guide to the Craven area of North Yorkshire. The other two are virtual catalogues of the 'Richard Harland Lithics Collection' of the Hull and East Riding Museum in 2000, and, most recently, the prehistoric lithics collections of the Craven Museum, Skipton, in 2003.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 14.

Landscape has always been an important aspect of archaeological research. Recently there has been emphasis placed not on the identification of specific sites and artefacts but on past attitudes towards social interaction within the landscape. This has stimulated debate on how people, both as individuals and collective societies, understand space and human action. Many of these studies integrate computer applications and quantitative methods with current theoretical agendas focusing on landscape and social practice. The combination of theory and practice is essential to archaeological enquiry, enabling hypotheses to stand upon firm data. This article explores theoretical understandings of space and landscape and the practical application of these agendas in a study which focuses on the production and consumption of artefacts, specifically pottery, in Anglo-Scandinavian Lincolnshire. Many archaeological approaches to landscape studies involve the ways in which monuments and monumental landscapes structure and are structured by the societies which built them and inhabited them. Alternatively, this article focuses on how the social practices associated with the production and consumption of pottery participated in the social cognition of the landscape. It specifically concentrates on how travel practices can be associated with artefact distributions by measuring the distances in hours rather than kilometers, travelling beneath the crows rather than following their straight line of flight. Much of the analysis and exploration of the data was done via a GIS (Geographical Information System). In order to simulate this interactive process, java applets were employed to allow the reader to investigate the patterns of data for themselves. This enables the author and reader to establish a discourse through the reader's participation in the cognitive processes involved in the analysis of data and the interpretation of maps and landscape.

The integrated calibration of radiocarbon determinations and contextual information based on Bayesian statistical inference is known as 'Bayesian calibration'. Bayesian calibration was developed in the 1990s and there is software available, or under development, to perform various different types of applications: BCal, OxCal, Cal25 or CalPal; see also BCal, in Internet Archaeology. However, no software is available for performing fully Bayesian wiggle-matching including an outlier analysis. Wiggle-matching is used when a floating chronology of radiocarbon dates needs to be fixed in the calendar scale. In this article the technique of Bayesian wiggle-matching is outlined, including outlier considerations, and an explanation given of the type of results obtained. In particular the usage of the software Bwigg is described, an Internet-based software for Bayesian wiggle-matching.

Even though visual recording forms are commonly used among human osteologists, very few of them are published. Those that are lack either detail or manipulability. Most anthropologists have to adapt these or develop their own forms when they start working on skeletal material, or have to accompany the visual forms with detailed, often time consuming, textual inventories. Three recording forms are proposed here: for adult, subadult and newborn skeletons. While no two-dimensional form will fit the requirements of every human osteologist, these forms are sufficiently detailed and easy to use. Printed or downloaded, they are published here in the belief that, with feedback from the anthropological community at large, they have the potential to become standard tools in data recording.

This article looks at the possibilities, opportunities and the difficulties of bringing together content about the historic environment on the Internet. Based on the experiences of HEIRNET (the Historic Environment Information Resources Network - a network of organisations from across the heritage sector) it looks at initiatives that are exploring the evolution of an integrated information environment in which archaeologists might interact with resources drawn from different organisations. HEIRNET was formed in 1998 in recognition that increasing numbers of individuals and organisations are creating valuable information resources about different aspects of the historic environment and that both conservation managers and researchers faced difficulties in accessing these resources. HEIRNET has responded with a number of initiatives. The creation of an Internet-based register of historic environment information resources is intended to help users to discover potentially interesting resources and, by providing up-to-date contact details, to help people to make use of those resources. HEIRNET members have also been working together to explore the development of a web-portal for the historic environment - HEIRPORT. This portal exploits computer communications technology to enable users to carry out simultaneous searches of four geographically separate databases: the Archaeology Data Service, the National Monuments Record for Scotland, the Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network and the Portable Antiquities programme. This article looks at what is involved in developing these resources - the metadata, the communications protocols used and the importance of co-operation between individuals and communities.

This article presents the York System, a database used for recording animal bones. It is based on the recording protocol used at the Department of Archaeology, University of York, and incorporates that used at the former Environmental Archaeology Unit. The York System has been designed in Access 2000 and includes the commonly identified British mammal, bird, fish, reptile and amphibian species. Emphasis has been placed on database flexibility, within a framework of inter-analyst comparability. The system can be used by experienced zooarchaeologists, while an integrated help file has been included to guide students through the recording process. This article presents the recording protocol behind the database as well as a background to the database design process. A web-based demonstration is provided that replicates the actions of the database, while copies of the database and associated help files are provided for downloading.

Review of a CD-ROM, which is the culmination of a community based project based on the medieval abbey at Ramsey in Cambridgeshire.

Review of a A 9 CD-Rom package and accompanying book, which aims to provide one possible solution to 'a major lacuna militating against the effective exploitation of many post-medieval to mid-Victorian historical sources collected by local administrative areas.' That is 'the lack of information on the boundaries of those administrative areas: the so-called "historic" or "ancient" parishes of England and Wales.' There is no doubt that this is indeed a problem, and that such information will find a wide potential audience. As they admirably illustrate in the accompanying book, parish boundaries have been some of the most enduring and stable organising units, certainly formed by the thirteenth century and largely unchanged until the nineteenth. However, a series of Victorian parliamentary acts sought to rationalise the parochial pattern, and no national sources exist that record the status quo preceding these changes. Kain and Oliver point to an impressive number of historians of locally compiled sources who would benefit from reliable information on these pre-Victorian boundaries, and their list is by no means exhaustive. The core of the package is a database of 'metadata', intended for use with either Acrobat Reader or Microsoft Excel, which records the character of each administrative unit mapped, and the origins of the evidence for its boundaries. Three CDs contain this database in addition to maps of the 'historic' parish boundaries of England that can be read using Acrobat Reader, with the necessary reader software supplied. A further six CDs contain those same maps saved as three separate interactive layers, to be viewed using Adobe Illustrator but this software is not included.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 13.

Citizenship has become a significant part of the National Curriculum in England (QCA 1998) and is also a component of the curricula of Scotland and Wales. This reflects a Europe-wide concern with the concept of democratic citizenship as a direct response to post-1989 socio-economic and political changes and the fall of the Communist Bloc. Users of component areas of the English National Curriculum are examining the rationale of their subjects to demonstrate congruency with the citizenship concept in order that their continued inclusion in the already over-crowded experience of school pupils may be justified. Since archaeology is not a major component of school curricula in the United Kingdom, but it is likely that artefacts, buildings and sites will be used diffused across the curriculum in subjects such as history, geography, art, science and technology, the term 'heritage education' is used to identify pupils' learning experiences. This article examines the relationship between democratic citizenship education and the concept of heritage and, by implication, heritage education.

This article presents an overview of efforts to provide training and educational resource materials in lithic analysis for beginners to intermediate level university students. A CD-ROM entitled Digital Stones that presents an interactive introduction to analysis of stone tools was scripted. The analytical system presented in the CD has been used at Idaho State University as part of standard laboratory and field training for the past decade. In the Fall semester of 1999, these materials were used as the basis for a completely online course entitled 'Anthropology 491: Stone Tool Analysis'. This course included online chat rooms with recognised experts in lithic analysis and these conversations are preserved as online documentation. Some aspects of the work have added to a solid foundation for future building of this online lab course. Some aspects need to be drastically revised and others need refinement. The online experience in teaching a hands-on subject has reinforced some concerns expressed for online education in general and has led to some strong conclusions regarding the potential for this type of teaching.

It is recommend that we should move to a flexible, modular system, in describing courses and training, in defining the skills needed to operate as archaeologists and professional career structures, and in describing ourselves as archaeologists. A 'Thesaurus' of skills and knowledge can be constructed, with levels of expertise, which will give us a simple and flexible tool for describing the range of activities necessary to the profession. Two or three examples are discussed, and ways in which quality can be controlled without too much bureaucracy. Potentially this approach has a world-wide application.

This article outlines a personal view on the content and production of a CD-Rom on the Roman world produced by The British Museum, Channel 4, Verulamium Museum and Braunarts: Journeys in the Roman Empire. I discuss some of the benefits of and problems with multimedia production and outline feedback from various evaluation projects of the CD-Rom. I also briefly discuss the future of CD-Roms in the face of a rapidly expanding internet with reference to other multimedia projects at The British Museum.

The many digitisation initiatives over the last ten years have made available thousands of new resources for learning and teaching. Students of archaeology now have unprecedented access to detailed views of delicate artefacts, remote landscapes and rare maps, as well as virtual reality reconstructions, interactive panoramas, and all kinds of online archives, databases and tutorials. But does this increased access to information automatically lead to improved learning? Some of the emerging problems of this new learning landscape include information overload, poorly understood and badly implemented technologies and a lack of time and skills among educators to explore properly what's newly available. On the other hand, one of the most interesting outcomes of the introduction of the new educational technologies has been a renewed and lively debate as to what learning involves and how exactly it takes place. This article will discuss the potential of digital resources to add value to learning. It will consider current ideas about learning in order to identify some of the key ingredients of a good learning experience. It will then identify the different ways in which a digital resource base can contribute to such an experience. Specifically, it will discuss how the resources contained within SCRAN, an online multimedia resource base for education, can be used in the context of learning and teaching in archaeology. There is evidence that electronic resources are not yet being fully exploited by the current generation of educators and students. By grounding this discussion of their potential within a sound pedagogic rationale, this paper aims to promote informed use and properly placed enthusiasm for these resources.

The Reticulum Project was initially set up as a partnership between The Museum of Antiquities at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the First Schools in the Blyth Valley, Northumberland, as part of the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) Museums and Galleries Education Programme (MGEP). The aim was to use the resources of the Museum to encourage children to develop a greater understanding of life in the North of England during the Roman period. Project staff worked alongside teachers in both the Museum and their classrooms, providing pupils with opportunities to handle artefacts and develop their thinking skills. Alongside traditional teaching methods we offered support with ICT and explored ways in which video-conferencing and e-mail could be used as interactive tools for learning. Visits to the Museum by school groups have been maximised by the multi-faceted approach of the Project. Pupils are already familiar with museum staff from school visits and video-conferencing and they arrive with an enhanced expectancy; the observational skills they have learnt in the classroom equip them to view the objects on display with greater awareness; they are more confident when asking questions. The Reticulum Website is an informative mix of text and images based on the children's work. The majority of the illustrations are by children who have been involved in the Project, interspersed with images of objects, maps and diagrams. It is still under construction and will be continually updated. As the Project has progressed, productive relationships between the schools, Museum and the wider community of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne have developed which continue to benefit children within our region. This article sets out to disseminate some of the elements of the Reticulum Project, which is ongoing, outlining the highlights as well as drawing attention to some of the problems encountered during the running of the Project.

This article reports on a small-scale study into how the Internet might be used for tutorial teaching in archaeology, which was undertaken by the authors as part of their project work for a Teaching Diploma at Oxford University. A workshop was developed to explore how the Internet and image-rich resources online could be exploited within the curriculum, and in turn what changes might need to be made to that curriculum in order to embed a critical, reflective approach to student learning. The practicalities of using the computer in the classroom were also investigated, in terms of available facilities, staff and student training, and the impact of computers on staff-student dynamics. Condron was also involved in a more extensive study of the use of C&IT (communication and information technologies) in small-group teaching across a range of subjects (the ASTER project), to which the Oxford case studies have contributed.

In the UK, increased levels of developer funding has led to increased demand for archaeological fieldworkers, the producers of the primary data upon which all archaeological work and research depends. But archaeologists entering the profession are underskilled - while increasing numbers of students are receiving archaeological degrees, recent graduates do not have the levels of practical knowledge that are required to work on major projects. This skills shortage is not restricted to junior fieldstaff. Throughout the profession there is a lack of structured vocational learning, and training is undervalued both by organisations and individuals. This article discusses archaeologists' engagement with the challenge of creating a skilled archaeological profession in the UK.

Many web sites use maps delivered as non-interactive images. With the development of web-enabled mapping, new methods of presenting and contextualising archaeological and historical data are becoming available. However, most current examples are static views of contemporary framework data or specific time slices, and do not provide interactivity relating to the time dimension, which is so important to archaeology and related disciplines. This article examines some of the advantages of time-enabled interactive mapping and map animation in providing educational experiences to museum visitors and the web-browsing public.

This article is a reflection on the problems, challenges and strengths of network-based distance learning in archaeology. Based on the experience of one project - the PATOIS (Publications and Archives Teaching with Online Information Systems) Project - it looks at how archaeologists might best respond (and by implication how they ought not to respond) to the use of information technology in teaching. The PATOIS project is an attempt on behalf of a consortium of UK higher education institutions and allied research bodies to tell students about the information tools that are emerging in archaeology, and which are changing the culture of scholarship. Funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and led by the Archaeology Data Service (ADS), PATOIS presents students with these new research tools and novel forms of academic literacy by direct exposure to 'primary' datasets. The PATOIS project is producing a set of Internet-based tutorials that lead students through different datasets and show how they may be deployed in research. This article describes the institutional and intellectual background to the project, and reports on the content of the tutorials themselves. Perhaps more importantly, it looks at the process through which PATOIS was developed, reviewing the challenges and constraints that the development team faced. Thereafter, we turn to the implementation of PATOIS in real teaching scenarios and look at how and when these have been successful as well as the challenges that remain unanswered. The project is not yet complete, so at this stage we can come to no firm conclusions about the long-term impact of PATOIS in facilitating change in undergraduate research training. Nonetheless, from the perspective of development work, the project has largely been completed, so those conclusions that may be drawn are most appropriately addressed to developers hoping or planning to undertake similar work in the future, or academics looking to develop research skills among their students. Reflecting the experience of one computer-based learning project, this article provides thoughtful guidance and advice that will be relevant to anyone interested in developing online teaching and learning resources.

Review of the electronic companion for a book, the CD Cornaline de l'Inde was developed to provide a level of interactivity not possible with conventional publication.

Review of an online game based around a fictional rescue excavation in Greenshire; its aims are to recover a prehistoric burial under threat of destruction by a quarry, introducing the user to some important archaeological concepts.

Review of an educational CD-ROM that combines exceptional images with a high and enjoyable educational element and academic rigour.

This book/CD-Rom publication seems intended to enhance the 'method and theory' segment in many undergraduate archaeology degrees, to escape from traditional drawings of sections and information on various digging styles. As such it is a bold move, especially when budgetary considerations also feature writ large in the planning - as indeed they must on all real excavations.

Review of an online game that centres on putting together a crew to undertake a raid on the monastery at Lindisfarne.

Review describing a variety of activities that have taken place at Whitby Abbey since 1999 and considering some of the issues raised from these various activities, in particular issues of community learning, widening audiences and social inclusion.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 12.

Over 1700 prehistoric burial sites have been summarised and analysed for Southern Britain from the start of the Early Neolithic, through the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages up to the Roman Invasion in AD43. This is the first time that such a study - covering c.4400 years of British prehistory - has been undertaken on such a scale or in such detail. The article includes the complete database of sites on which the research was based, with the facility to search using a wide variety of characteristics in combination so that the reader can construct their own collections with focuses of special interest. There is a bibliography of over 2700 references which can also be searched, and collections made relevant to sites or areas. Site and bibliographic references are accessible from the article's main text. The aim of this research was to identify the elements contributing to mortuary ritual, and then if possible to analyse the purposes and meanings underlying the mortuary activity. In doing this, the research also sought to compare changes in patterns of behaviour and belief over time, for and between the south-west, south and south-east areas of Southern Britain. After initial analyses of mortuary process from the evidence of the sites themselves, anthropological theory about mortuary ritual was next examined and a generic model built to which the initial analyses were related by testing propositions on practice and belief. No prejudices were held about likely outcomes, and the analysis and synthesis was made as scientific as possible. The results appear to show that beneath the superficial differences of expressed form, a remarkable continuity of underlying mortuary ritual existed throughout the four and a half millenia; and also the probability that essential beliefs about relationships between the dead, the community of ancestors, the living community, and the kin of the dead may have changed little through the period. Some ideas about societal change have support, for example the likely gradual transfer of influence from those drawing their power from ancestor associations to those with material power, as the influence of ancestors declined to be replaced by that of powers seen as deriving from forces of nature which directly affected living. Spiritual and temporal power wielders may have emerged to co-exist in the last centuries.

A preliminary, broad-scale vegetation map reconstruction for use by archaeologists and anthropologists is presented here for the world at the Last Glacial Maximum (18,000 BP, but broadly representing the interval from 25,000 to 15,000 BP). The global LGM map was produced from a range of literature and map sources, and drawn on a GIS with topographic information. Extended coastlines due to LGM sea-level drop were obtained using bathymetric information. The map is available in image and Geographic Information System (GIS) formats, on a global or regional basis. Accompanying each regional map is a bibliography detailing the principal literature sources of evidence on Late Quaternary palaeovegetation and climates. The maps presented here are merely a preliminary attempt at appraisal of current knowledge and opinion, and future updated versions are intended as more information on LGM environments becomes available. Nevertheless, together with the accompanying citation summary they should provide a valuable and readily accessible source of information on current opinion in the Quaternary community. It is also hoped that the maps will themselves act as a catalyst for archaeologists to use their own data to contribute to the broader climatic/palaeovegetational picture.

The City of York Council has been pursuing a strict policy of in situ preservation of archaeological deposits since April 1990. Planning consent is normally granted in the historic core of York for a new development so long as less than 5% of the archaeological deposits that are preserved on a site are destroyed. During archaeological evaluation work carried out as part of the redevelopment and expansion proposals for Marks & Spencer plc on Parliament Street, deposit monitoring devices were installed to investigate and monitor both the character of the archaeological deposits present and also the burial environment surrounding them (of particular importance because the burial environment, in terms both of its characteristics and stability, is thought to play a vital role in the preservation in situ of a site's archaeological deposits). The monitoring programme was undertaken between June 1995 and April 1998. As a result the data from a total of 30 site visits have been collected and are presented in this report.

In 1977 the wreck of HMS Pandora (the ship that was sent to re-capture the Bounty mutineers) was discovered off the north coast of Queensland. Since 1983, the Queensland Museum Maritime Archaeology section has carried out systematic excavation of the wreck. During the years 1986 and 1995-1998, more than 200 human bone and bone fragments were recovered. Osteological investigation revealed that this material represented three males. Their ages were estimated at approximately 17 +/-2 years, 22 +/-3 years and 28 +/-4 years, with statures of 168 +/-4cm, 167 +/-4cm, and 166cm +/-3cm respectively. All three individuals were probably Caucasian, although precise determination of ethnicity was not possible. In addition to poor dental hygiene, signs of chronic diseases suggestive of rickets and syphilis were observed. Evidence of spina bifida was seen on one of the skeletons, as were other skeletal anomalies. Various taphonomic processes affecting the remains were also observed and described. Compact bone was observed under the scanning electron microscope and found to be structurally coherent. Profiles of the three skeletons were compared with historical information about the 35 men lost with the ship, but no precise identification could be made. The investigation did not reveal the cause of death. Further research, such as DNA analysis, is being carried out at the time of publication.

Review of the the story of the thirteenth-century stone choir stalls in the cathedral at Santiago in Galicia in north-west Spain. The stalls were constructed under the supervision of one 'Maestro Mateo' and completed in about the year 1200. Four hundred years later the stalls were demolished and replaced with a wooden version when liturgical changes demanded new seating arrangements. Fragments of the decorative stonework were then re-cycled, dumped, buried and dispersed and largely forgotten until 1900 when excavations began in the cathedral. New discoveries enabled small sections of the choir to be reconstructed in the 1960s and 1970s. The major group of stonework was then recovered in 1978 (photographs of excavation work in progress reveal this to have been a robust operation). This was followed by publications and the financial support of the non-profit-making Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza in 1995. By 1999 the process of consolidation and restoration of 17 'seats' was complete, new pieces in the possession of the cathedral combining with the old to 're-create' the original. The results can be seen in the museum of the Cathedral of Santiago. The CD-ROM reviewed here is spin-off from that reconstruction project.

Review of the CD-ROM of "Investigating Olduvai: Archaeology of Human Origins" - 4 years on.

A review of the CD-ROM "Stonehenge Landscapes and Stone Circles".

A review of the CD/website "Monumental Past: The Life-histories of Megalithic Monuments in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany)".

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 11.

This article discusses research carried out in 1999 at the School of Performing Arts of the University of Surrey, Dance Studies Department. For this research project, computer animation modelling techniques were used to recreate a series of dance movement sequences depicted in the reliefs around the balustrade of the main temple at the Prambanan temple complex in Central Java, built in the 9th century CE. The reconstruction and re-creation of the dance movements from the reliefs are inseparable from the context of the temple complex. The issues of heritage, its interpretation and conservation are also discussed, particularly since the construction of dance as heritage is widespread in Southeast Asia and is linked with tourist consumption of archaeological sites. The article makes a case for the use of computer technology in research areas previously regarded as distinct and disconnected, such as archaeology, art history and dance, and in this specific case study, computer technology has provided a bridge between these disciplines.

This article shows that the interpretation of Polynesian influence drawn from the stratigraphic record of sub-fossil land snails at Kalaeloa (O'ahu, Hawai'i) is based on a unique stratigraphic sequence at a single sinkhole. The interpretation was then applied to other land snail sequences, despite their lack of evidence for Polynesian influence. A reanalysis of the stratigraphic record is presented to conclude that Polynesians had little, if any, effect on land snail populations in sinkholes. Directional change in land snail populations was underway before Polynesians colonised the islands. Decreases in the diversity of snail populations, possibly indicative of environmental stress, do occur near the end of the stratigraphic sequence. Based on available dating evidence, however, these changes probably took place in the post-Contact period when the regional environment was radically altered by sugar cane cultivation.

One of the Scottish Early Medieval Sculptured Stones project (SEMSS) project's objectives is to generate accurate three dimensional models of these monuments using a variety of data capture techniques from photogrammetry to Time of Flight laser measurement. As the landscape context of these monuments is often considered crucial to their understanding, the model's ultimate presentation to the user should include some level of contextual information. In addition there are a number of presentation issues that must be considered such as interactivity, the relationship of reconstructed to non-reconstructed sections, lighting and suitability for presentation over the WWW. This article discusses the problem of presenting three dimensional models of monumental stones in their landscape contexts. This problem is discussed in general, but special attention is paid to the difficulty of capturing landscape detail,interactivity, reconstructing landscapes and providing accurate representations of landscapes to the horizon. Comparison is made between 3D modelling packages and Internet specific presentation formats such as VRML and QTVR. The proposed technique provides some level of interactivity as well as photorealistic landscape representation extended to the horizon, without the need for a complete DEM/DTM, thereby making file sizes manageable and capable of WWW presentation. It also allows for the issues outlined to be tackled in a more efficient manner than by using either 3D modelling or QTVR on their own.

The presence of Anglian and Anglo-Scandinavian settlements at Cottam, East Yorkshire, was first indicated in 1987 by numerous finds of copper alloy coins, dress pins and strap ends by metal detector users. This report presents the results of fieldwork carried out on behalf of the Department of Archaeology, University of York, between 1993-5, including field walking, geophysical survey, and excavation. This revealed an enclosure of the eighth-ninth centuries, containing traces of a small number of post-built halls. In the late ninth century this settlement was then abandoned, a process which led to the incorporation of a human female skull in a domestic rubbish pit. A new enclosed settlement was laid out nearby, which was occupied briefly in the early tenth century. It is argued that the Anglian settlement may have been part of a royal multiple estate but that as a result of estate reorganisation after the Scandinavian settlement it developed into an independent manor. Cottam is the first so-called "productive site" in the environs of York to be the subject of archaeological investigations. The results suggest that it was a prosperous but not exceptional site, and that the primary activity was farming, with limited evidence for trade or manufacture. This work also prompts a reassessment of the typology of crop mark enclosures and the re-examination of the large number of undated enclosures in the area.

The findings from two phases of archaeological fieldwork at Hacienda Zuleta, in the northern sierra province of Imbabura, Ecuador, provide the context for examining the evidence for the location of a major Late Period Caranqui chiefdom at this important ramp-mound site. The fieldwork has established the first unequivocal evidence for the presence of intensive raised field agriculture (camellones) here, capable of sustaining the high population densities postulated for the region during this period. The impact of potentially catastrophic events upon the subsistence basis for such a site and their wider socio-political implications are discussed with reference to the finding of tephra deposits identified as deriving from the eruption of Quilotoa volcano in c. 800 BP. New radiocarbon dates provide further clarification for the chronology of this major volcanic episode, now believed to determine the start of the Late Period in Ecuador's northern sierra.

A review of a virtual reconstruction of a small part of the town of Carnuntum. The result, in the form of this CD-Rom, is a promotional product which aims to further public interest in Roman culture and in the town of Carnuntum specifically.

In 1990, the London Chapter of the Ontario Archaeological Society published an anthology of invited articles dealing with the entire range of aboriginal cultural occupations in southwestern Ontario. Because of its goals and content, and its striking cover colour, the book was quickly nicknamed. Since that time, the 'Green Bible' has become the primary reference work for all archaeologists working in this region, and an indispensible aid for research in adjacent parts of Canada and the United States. This is a review of a CD-ROM edition of the book.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 10.

The article presents the results of the HRB-funded survey of a sample of the Ave valley undertaken between 1994 and 1998. Introductory sections describe the geographical background and summarise the approaches followed. The field-walking results are then presented with especial emphasis on the ceramics. The field-walking evidence is used to identify a series of newly discovered sites which are assessed. The results of geophysical surveys of several of these sites are also presented. Information about the settlement patterns is presented based on a GIS analysis of both previously known sites and the results of the field-walking. Patterns in the changing distribution of settlement are discussed in relation to local social dynamics and the Roman annexation and exploitation of the region. The article is supported by databases which present the results of the field-walking and ceramic analyses. The article is jointly authored by: Martin Millett, Francisco Queiroga (Universidade Fernando Pessao, Porto), Kris Strutt, Jeremy Taylor and Steven Willis. The nature of a field-walking survey which produces a sequence of related databases (for field and finds) attached to a sequence of maps is particularly appropriate for electronic publication. Attempting such a publication in electronic form seems a worthwhile project in itself aside from the importance of the results.

In 1994, in advance of construction work on new houses, York Archaeological Trust excavated at Welton Road, Brough-on-Humber, east of the Roman walled settlement. The town is usually identified as Petuaria and assumed to be the civitas capital of the Parisi, the local Romano-British tribe. This interpretation is controversial and it has been argued by some that the settlement should be understood as a military supply base. This report will contribute towards the resolution of this debate. Excavations revealed a Roman settlement and field-system. Roman structures were identified, both along a road and elsewhere on the site. Other recognisable features included a T-shaped corn-drier, human graves, both cremation and inhumation, and possible ritual animal burials. There was a large finds assemblage, showing evidence for a range of domestic activities, as well as indicating a possible local pottery industry.

Editorial for themed section of Internet Archaeology Issue 9, dealing with applications of ceramic petrography.

A mineralogical and chemical study of clay figurines excavated in Turkey is presented with the aim of characterising the raw materials used and to suggest possible provenances. These figurines may be amongst the earliest examples of fired clay, and the suggestion of the use of pyrotechnology to harden the clay is investigated.

This paper aims to characterise and provenance a number of common ceramic types from the Southern Levantine region. The application of the 'petrographic group' method for inter-site and regional comparisons enables a broader understanding of pottery production systems and their continuity in time and space. For this purpose, rich databases and standardisation of the petrographic descriptive methods are essential. The ever-growing body of data makes this goal possible to accomplish now.

This study, which forms part of a larger project on Canaanite amphorae, illustrates the use of ceramic petrography in refining the visual classification of the fabrics of imported New Kingdom amphorae excavated from Memphis and Amarna in Egypt. Provenances for the Canaanite amphorae are suggested which contradict previous assumptions.

This paper on Red Lustrous Wheel-Made Ware, which is found over an extraordinarily wide area of the Near East, is an initial attempt to address the problem of its source. Using recently excavated pottery from Kilise Tepe in south-central Anatolia, a study of the typology and petrography of this pottery has been undertaken to compare the possible sources of Red Lustrous Wheel-Made Ware, which include Cyprus, Syria and Anatolia.

This paper does not use petrography to specifically provenance pottery, but rather to examine the raw materials used in a single potter's workshop. The authors have sought to reconstruct the manufacture of ceramics from clay procurement, preparation of the raw clay to forming techniques and decoration.

Petrography has been used to elucidate patterns of production and consumption of kitchenware at a typical Early Christian desert monastery on the Pilgrim route. While some vessels may have been produced locally, there is evidence for long distance trade of other vessels.

Technologically advanced stonepaste ceramics were produced in the Islamic period in Syria, not just in a single centre, but at a number of production centres. Stonepaste ceramics excavated at Aleppo and other sites were investigated with the aim of characterising and provenancing some of these wares.

Review of a book, "On the Theory and Practice of Archaeological Computing".

Review of a CD-ROM entitled Electronic Beowulf.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 9.

A simple experiment is described which details what happens to the bones of cod when they are walked on by a man. The pattern of fragmentation for various elements is illustrated and an index of robustness proposed for those elements in a cod skeleton most frequently recovered from archaeological sites.

Excavations directed by the writer in 1982-3 for the University of York Archaeological Society uncovered the foundations of a small structure on the shores of a fishpond that belonged to Byland Abbey in the 14th century. The site's location, combined with a number of associated lead net weights, suggest that it was connected with organised, large-scale, fish farming.

The City of Newcastle, situated some 10 miles inland on the River Tyne in north-east England, is not now an important fishing port. Most of the fresh fish marketed in the city has been landed at the nearby coastal ports of North and South Shields. Excavations at two sites behind the present Quayside in Newcastle, however, have yielded quantities of fish bones, representing a wide variety of species. This is in contrast to excavations in other parts of the city, where few fish remains have been recovered, and suggests that the quayside in Newcastle was an important centre for the fishing industry during the medieval period. It seems likely that most of the fish remains represent waste from landing and processing fish on or near the quayside. Yet, when taphonomic factors are taken into account, the limitations of using even large bone assemblages to interpret processing activities is demonstrated. As always, the need for a programme of on-site sieving to obtain representative samples of fish bone is evident.

2820 antler remains from the Lower Palaeolithic site of Bilzingsleben, Thuringia, Germany (excavations 1969-1993) were the subject of detailed investigations. A detailed morphological description of the antler material provided the basis for the investigation. A prerequisite was the transfer of provenance data onto an x-y coordinate grid. Taphonomic aspects considered in this work include the relative frequencies of antler elements, estimates regarding the minimum number of individual deer, their age structure and seasonality, and, insofar as the condition of the antlers allowed, the classification of surface preservation, size classes and spatial distribution of the finds. The assemblage of antler finds, the majority of which seems to have come from red deer, is dominated by small fragments, mostly of tines. About one quarter of the finds are larger than 150 mm. Lower beams are more abundant than upper beams (e.g. crowns). Detailed counting, substantiated by systematic reconstruction, shows that in general the antlers are incomplete. After reconstruction of unshed antlers, it was possible to assess the minimum number of heads at 150 animals. Preliminary counting of postcranial and cranial (non antler) cervid material points to about 70 cervids. Intentional accumulation of antlers by hominids can only be accepted as the reason for these disproportionate figures if other site formation processes can be ruled out. In fact, the correlation between sediment thickness and maximum antler densities, at least for finds smaller than 120mm, suggests that fluvial accumulation has to be taken into account as a probable element of the site formation history. Further, the mixture of unifacially abraded finds together with finds that exhibit bifacial abrasion points to a succession of changing fluvial environments in the area of accumulation. More investigation is needed to help the understanding of site formation processes, without which head counts and evaluations of age structures and seasonality of the antler material are of little use for examining hominid contribution to the antler accumulation. Hominids are represented in Bilzingsleben by 30 cranial fragments. A very large number of stone artefacts confirms intensive hominid occupation. Nevertheless, the breaking of antlers, by far the main reason for the fragmentation of complete antlers, cannot definitely be attributed to hominids. Causes other than hominid activities need to be considered including sediment pressure (and subsequent dislocation of finds?) and trampling by large animals. Desiccation is responsible for the disintegration of cervid skulls with unshed antlers. The destruction of antlers by natural processes must be seen in conjunction with the fact that only five of the total antler finds exhibit possible use. On the basis of these observations, the suggestion that the modifications to the antler material were caused by hominid activities cannot be supported.

This article discusses ways of perceiving subtle features within landscapes and of transposing them into hypermedia. It sets out to examine the problems encountered when navigating, recording, and analysing forms of landscape-related artefacts such as prehistoric 'monuments', land art, sculpture parks, and landscaped gardens. In particular, techniques for examining and recording both the local properties - including texture, form, weathering, and construction techniques - and the wider properties such as relationship of artefacts to their site, topography, inter-visibility etc., are considered. As a pilot study, Apple Computer's QuickTimeVR technology has been used to record several representative landscapes, including some of the prehistoric carved rock art of Yorkshire and Northumberland, with particular reference to inter-visibility between sites. The recordings are examined with reference to the local and wider properties of the sites and the landscapes that contain them to determine how successfully the technique captures their features for remote viewing.

The use of computer images of ancient monuments provides scholars with a double-edged sword. We can present more compelling and believable images than ever before, and we need few artistic skills to do so. On the other hand, the images can be so compelling that even rather sophisticated viewers may accept uncritically the information presented. Thus, if we use the power of the technology without taking great care, we risk doing archaeology a disservice, because we may inadvertently imply certainty where it cannot exist and agreement where it does not exist. It is probably too early in the history of archaeological computing to determine answers, but perhaps we can begin here by trying to ask some of the right questions.

Archaeologists have recently become interested in exploring the importance of the landscape in the past, particularly in relation to Neolithic monuments. As the interest in landscape archaeology has grown over the past decade, however, problems of representation have also begun to emerge. This article will highlight a few of these issues and present a case study which illustrates how computing and the Internet may offer assistance in the presentation and understanding of prehistoric landscapes.

Facial reconstructions in archaeology allow empathy with people who lived in the past and enjoy considerable popularity with the public. It is a common misconception that facial reconstruction will produce an exact likeness; a resemblance is the best that can be hoped for. Research at Sheffield University is aimed at the development of a computer system for facial reconstruction that will be accurate, rapid, repeatable, accessible and flexible. This research is described and prototypical 3-D facial reconstructions are presented. Interpolation models simulating obesity, ageing and ethnic affiliation are also described. Some strengths and weaknesses in the models, and their potential for application in archaeology are discussed.

The use of computer visualisation techniques is an increasing part of archaeology's illustrative repertoire - but how do these images relate to the wider visual language that archaeologists use? This article assesses computer visualisations in the light of a range of anthropological, art historical, and cultural critiques to place them and their production squarely within the broader spectrum of the discipline's output. Moving from identifying the shortcomings in the methods and scope of existing critiques of archaeological illustrations, a comprehensive approach to understanding the visual culture of archaeology is outlined. This approach is specifically applied to computer visualisations, and identifies both the sociology of their production, and the technological nature of their creation and reproduction as key elements influencing their readings as communicators of archaeological ideas. In order to develop useful understandings of how the visual languages we employ act within the discourse of the discipline, we must be inclusive in our critiques of those languages. Until we consider the cultural products of our discipline with the same sophistication with which we examine the products of other cultures (past and present), we will struggle to use them to their full potential.

This paper looks at aspects of archaeological three-dimensional reconstruction modelling from two perspectives: issues and solutions relating to the modelling process, emphasising a flexible approach developed using standardised components located and structured using basic parameters; and a discussion of a case study involving the reconstruction of a medieval timber castle, incorporating a detailed topographic survey with reconstructed structural elements derived from interpreted excavation evidence. This experimental presentation attempts to combine a traditional linear paper cast in a hypertext framework, with a more dynamic document that responds to the reader's chosen pathway through it. This paper- or more correctly, these two papers - have been developed using a number of simple JavaScript functions. The success or otherwise of this approach to hypermedia presentation will remain to be seen.

Review of a CD-ROM multimedia package of a complete digitization of Tim Asch and Napoleon Chagnon's 1974 film The Ax Fight, supplemented with a variety of additional information in the form of still photographs, genealogies of the main participants, maps, diagrams, short essays and transcriptions.

This review investigates two software packages, ArchEd and Stratigraph, which have been developed to assist with the recording and analysis of archaeological excavations. Both provide facilities for the automatic production of Harris matrix style diagrams from stratigraphic relationships. ArchEd limits itself to this single function. Stratigraph, on the other hand, attempts to take things further by incoporating its matrix-drawing capabilities into a full excavation recording database.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology 8.

This paper describes newly launched software for on-line Bayesian calibration of archaeological radiocarbon determinations. The software is known as BCal and members of the world-wide archaeological research community are invited to use it should they so wish.

Electronic publication offers field archaeologists the opportunity to publish the results of their fieldwork in a rapid and cost-effective manner. There is the potential for even greater benefits if such publications can be made usefully searchable. In this paper, we look at the current state of electronic publication in archaeology and consider the shortcomings of existing search tools on the web. We then propose an XML-based approach to creating 'structured site descriptions'. These would form an integral part of web-published site reports or summaries, and contain information similar to that found in the abstract or summary of a conventional printed report. The difference (and consequently the benefit) lies in the way this information is structured, enabling users to conduct moderately complex searches more effectively than is currently possible.

This article describes the author's experiences when writing up an excavation report for publication on the Internet,a t a time when internet publication was a relatively new phenomenon to archaeology.

A short, informal, navigational tour of the Leskernick Project website.

This project (undertaken at the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute, University of Glasgow, Scotland, between May and October 1998) investigated the practicalities involved in using VRML to create a virtual reality model for use in a public space. A model of the Egyptian tomb of Sen-nedjem was developed for installation in the Egyptian Gallery of the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow, in the hope that the introduction of this computer display would encourage the museum visitor's interest in the gallery's existing artefacts. Creation of the model would also investigate the possibility of using VRML to build accurate archaeological reconstructions cheaply and efficiently using publicly available software and existing archaeological resources.

Editorial for the special collection Fish Remains and Humankind III in Internet Archaeology Issue 7.

Review of a CD-ROM, Compendium of Pevsner's Buildings of England.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 7.

In this paper the author wishes to reinforce the view that there is a potential in the use of the Internet by archaeology for an important change in the organisation and institutionalisation of archaeological knowledge. As many have argued, this change involves a shift from hierarchy to networks and flows. But there are dangers that the Internet will simply translate old forms of elite knowledge into new forms, increasingly excluding the un-networked. Care needs to be taken to provide different modes of access for different groups and to find ways round the exclusive tendencies associated with the dispersal of any new technology.

This paper outlines why and how the author used hypermedia technology and the World Wide Web in the construction of his Ph.D. thesis.

In the past, the provision of authoritative, interpretative, syntheses is what archaeologists sought through publication. Now the first real challenge of the digital age has been to balance this trend and in contrast to archaeological practice over the last two decades, we are seeing a shift toward the dissemination of raw data. This move towards dissemination to put it on an equal footing with publication and synthesis is both irrevocable and fundamental. The provision of interactive data will begin to allow the formation of new relationships between archaeologists, archaeological organisations and the practice of archaeology. The range of digital provision which may be expected within a medium-sized archaeological organisation, is demonstrated with reference to the situation at the University of Birmingham and Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit (BUFAU).

This paper will describe the Levi Jordan Plantation web project in which interactivity is seen as more than just providing web site visitors with buttons, sound bites and video clips, and multivocality as more than the passive presentation of "diverse pasts". Collaborators (including archaeologists and descendant community members) are attempting to use web site content as well as various on-line mechanisms to promote conversations about the past between archaeologists and the public, and between members of the public with each other. This paper will describe the specific strategies being used, and will comment on the theoretical, epistemological, and practical challenges that archaeologists face in this new communicative environment.

This article presents the advantages of mass storage and easy access which are inherent to electronic media, in contrast to Cornelius Holtorf's article in Internet Archaeology, Issue 6 (1999) which contains a strident call for a radical application of hypermedia techniques to archaeological publishing.

This article highlights some of the ideas that went into the initial development of the website built around field research at Gardom's Edge in Derbyshire, how it relates to various aspects of research, and how the first forays into this field have thrown up new questions and problems. How web-based media offer novel forms of access and engagement is explored.

Archaeology, like so many academic disciplines, is in the midst of a period of dramatic change. One of the major sources of this change is the dramatic development of information technologies and how these impact on scholarly communication, particularly the publishing process. This paper explores some of these issues, and argues that a conservation ethic for data preservation be adopted that is explicitly digital.

Review of the CD-ROM "Excavating Occaneechi Town".

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 6.

In the summer of 1996 work to build a new golf course on the coast at Crail in Fife, Scotland, uncovered a small patch of dark soil associated with microliths. Excavation revealed an arc of seven pits or post-holes, a hearth site and several other pit-like features. There was a small lithic assemblage, and also a quantity of carbonised hazelnut shell, samples of which were sent off for radiocarbon assay. The site was remarkable for several reasons. Its size (75 square metres) was unusual in that most Mesolithic sites in Scotland (and elsewhere) are often much larger. Small sites have played an important role in theoretical interpretations of the Mesolithic way of life, but few have been excavated. The lithic assemblage was small, even for such a small site, and comprised solely of flint, which is very rare in Scotland. There was relatively little knapping debris, but several retouched tools, over half of which were narrow blade microliths. The microliths were very interesting because they were dominated by crescentic microliths, while more common types such as scalene triangles were absent. A series of fourteen radiocarbon dates were obtained for the site and all centred round the same period: between 7400 and 7600 BC, calibrated. This was earlier than had been expected, and is an interesting addition to knowledge of the early settlement of eastern Scotland since most other early dates have been from west coast sites. The similarity of the dates adds weight to the argument that the site represents a single occupation which, in view of its size, is likely to have been of short duration. This, and the nature of the lithic assemblage, have lead us to the interpretation that the site was a specialised camp site, probably making use of coastal resources.

Web-CD catalogue of and excavation archive for the West Heslerton Project.

Some diseases have played a more significant role in human development than others. Here we describe the results of a trial to diagnose ancient tuberculosis using chemical methods. Palaeo-epidemiological studies of the disease are compromised, but it has become apparent that tuberculosis (TB) is a 'population-density dependent' disease. From modern studies, it is also apparent that the prevalence of TB can be used as an indicator of the level of poverty within the studied population. Mid-shaft rib samples from articulated individuals recovered from the former Newcastle Infirmary Burial Ground (1753-1845 AD) were examined for mycolic acids that are species-specific for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The 24% of ribs positive for mycolic acids correlated with the documented 27% tuberculosis prevalence. Mycolic acid biomarkers have the potential to provide an accurate trace of the palaeo-epidemiology of tuberculosis in ancient populations, thereby providing an indication of the overall level of poverty - a useful adjunct for archaeology.

The excavation of the Early Anglo-Saxon or Anglian Settlement at West Heslerton, North Yorkshire, between 1986 and 1995, represents one of the largest excavations conducted in Britain in the last two decades. The project, funded by English Heritage, combined the fundamental needs of rescue and research archaeology. The excavation has produced a wealth of new evidence which is forcing us to re-evaluate much that has been said about the formative period of the English nation.

This article presents preliminary findings from excavations at two recently-discovered cave sites in Murcia (SE. Spain) with Neanderthal hominid skeletal remains, middle palaeolithic tools, and early Upper Pleistocene faunal remains. The sites are in contrasting environments, the shaft of Sima de las Palomas being near the coast whereas the Cueva Negra rock-shelter is in the hinterland. The origins and development of the field research project are outlined with special reference to strategical and methodological considerations. Cueva Negra has afforded half-a-dozen adult Neanderthal teeth and the shaft of a forearm bone. Sima de las Palomas suffered damage from nineteenth-century mining that exposed an 18-metre-high column of breccia in a natural shaft, and geophysical determinations suggest that it spans a period from roughly 125,000 to 50,000 BP. Adult and juvenile Neanderthal teeth and bones have been excavated at the top of the column and many others have been found sifting mine rubble both outside the cavern and on the floor inside, some of which have characteristics that are more in keeping with pre-Neanderthal morphology.

Review of Archaeological Applications of GIS - CD-ROM Proceedings of Colloquium II, UISPP XIIIth Congress, Forli, Italy, a publication on the archaeological application of GIS, providing an insight into the development (or not) of the application of GIS to archaeology.

Review of the World of Money CD-ROM, an interactive exploration of money worldwide from ancient times to the present day.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 5.

Editorial for the special collection relating to fish remains and humankind in Issue 4 of Internet Archaeology.

This study presents some of the results of 18 years of research in the Albegna Valley/Ager Cosanus area, Tuscany, Italy. Thousands of artefacts have been collected and hundreds of sites recorded during this period by systematic field survey. This study concentrates upon a part of the finds made during field walking: the ceramics dating to the Etruscan period (8th-3rd century BC). The collection largely consists of finewares, coarsewares and amphorae. Together with the study of the ceramics from the Etruscan city at Doganella, and the excavated Etruscan farm at Podere Tartuchino, both also in the Albegna Valley, the present study forms the most extensive detailed study of Etruscan ceramics from settlements identified by systematic survey that has been made to date. Collections from individual sites have been published in the past but the Albegna Valley/Ager Cosanus is the first part of Etruria, investigated at a regional scale, where the Etruscan ceramics have been fully studied and published.

This article presents the first results of a research project aimed at the elaboration of a complete corpus of all individual Gallo-Roman graves and cemeteries, including funerary monuments and inscriptions; and the analysis of the structures and objects (typology, chronology etc.) as well as the study of the religious, cultural and social attitudes and their evolution during the Roman period. The geographic area for the study is the modern Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, a major part of the ancient civitas treverorum. The project covers the period from the second half of the first century AD to the fifth century AD.

This article presents the first results of a research project aimed at the elaboration of a complete corpus of all individual Gallo-Roman graves and cemeteries, including funerary monuments and inscriptions; and the analysis of the structures and objects (typology, chronology etc.) as well as the study of the religious, cultural and social attitudes and their evolution during the Roman period. The geographic area for the study is the modern Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, a major part of the ancient civitas treverorum. The project covers the period from the second half of the first century AD to the fifth century AD.

This electronic article has a structure adapted to the possibilities of this interactive medium. The issues and solutions that have governed our archaeological investigation in the south-east of the Netherlands are discussed three times, covering the same subject in parallel.

'Poggio Colla. The 1995 Season Sampler' is a single CD-ROM for the Macintosh published by the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Southern Methodist University. It contains details of the first season of excavation at Poggio Colla, an Etruscan hilltop settlement in the far north-east of Tuscany. The excavations in 1995 were directed by Greg Warden of Southern Methodist University and Susan Kane of Oberlin College. The CD-ROM contains a multimedia presentation and associated text and image files.

Review of the CD-ROM multimedia companion to the Middle Palaeolithic site of Combe-Capelle Bas (France).

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 4.

The archaeological interpretation of fish remains is especially biased by taphonomic factors. Although fish bone is consistently recovered by hand collection at most sites in Hungary, water-sieving seems indispensable in archaeoichthyological research. This paper summarizes fish finds identified during the last 35 years in Hungary in relation to the quantity of macrofaunal remains. Data obtained by recent water-sieving experiments are used to shed light on the broad taxonomic spectrum that may facilitate the study of ancient fish exploitation strategies.

A picture of the past lifestyle of a people gained through the study of ethnographic documentation may be significantly different from one based only upon the interpretation of archaeological data. This paper examines that assertion by comparing the results of an analysis of fish remains from a coastal-midden site on Mabuiag Island, Torres Strait, with European descriptions of Islander fishing practices recorded in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

A known quantity of fish bone was placed within a designated area and left for five weeks. The area was trowelled and the soil was collected and sieved to recover the fish bone. The bone elements recovered show that less than 1% of the material laid out survived. Various factors affecting dispersal of fish bone are briefly discussed.

The article concerns the pottery of the Sereer and the tumuli of Senegambia. The number of tumuli made of earth or sand in Senegal comes to 6,868, spread across 1444 sites. To this can be added the 3448 tumuli of the megalithic type, and 903 more tumuli made of shells. This large distribution does not constitute an homogenous phenomenon. The 14C dates gathered from the excavated sites in Sine and Saloum, or in the middle Senegal valley, do not show chronological opposition. According to the the present state of the research, the Senegambian tumuli are dated from the first two millennia of our era - more precisely from the Fourth until Twentieth centuries AD. Thanks to historical accounts we know that the Sereer have built up burial tumuli in this region since at least the 16th century. Knowledge of the Senegambian tumuli is very limited. Anthropology and history may help us to pose certain questions. This study is the first stage of a differentiation of ceramic cultures between the ethnic groups which inhabited Senegambia. The Sine and Saloum seems to be a key sector in the understanding of the phenomenon of the Senegambian tumuli.

The article contains a gazetteer of sites in an attempt to fulfill the need for a single, comprehensive reference tool for researching individual sites and settlements in sub-Roman Britain, with an invitation for reader response and cooperation in the future expansion and revision of the database.

An article discussing the potential of electronic publishing and archaeology in the late 1990s.

Review of FieldWorker, a data collection tool that combines general purpose recording forms and GPS data logging on the Newton MessagePad range of hand-held computers.

Review of Perseus 2.0: Sources and Studies on Ancient Greek Culture CD-ROM.

Editorial of the special collection of four papers representing a trawl of the reports presented to the Fourth meeting of the International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ) Fish Remains Working Group, which met at the University of York in 1987.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 3.

A critical discussion is presented of an article by Casteel published in 1972, in which attention was drawn to the possibility of seasonal dating excavated fish remains by means of reading growth rings. This article has been referred to by many archaeozoologists. However, there are methodological misconceptions which undermine the conclusions drawn by Casteel in his publication. As the problem arises from a failure to set parameters before carrying out the growth ring analysis, some discussion of problems in both interpretation and observation is presented here.

Cranial elements of modern redear sunfish (Lepomis microlophus) were examined for characteristics that distinguish it from other species of sunfish (Lepomis spp.). Distinctive elements include the lower and upper pharyngeal arches, the parasphenoid, the basioccipital, and the prootics. These elements were used to identify archaeological specimens from the fill of an Emergent Mississippian pit house at the Range site in St Clair County, Illinois, as remains of redear. The finding of this species in an archaeological assemblage appears to be of some significance because the native distribution of the redear lies south of the Range site location and because some sources state that the redear was introduced to Illinois in the 1900s.

Remains of Esox lucius (pike) are familiar to archaeologists working on medieval European sites, but the attention medieval Europeans gave to the capture and culture of this species is revealed in different ways by extant written records. Until the fourteenth century chance references by the literate minority suggest something of how the then-illiterate majority had learned to obtain pike. Widening of practical literacy during the later Middle Ages resulted in intentional written compilations of this information. The kinds, purposes and contents of the texts changed. By the sixteenth century a body of European knowledge about catching and rearing pike had become part of a cumulative literate culture.

A machine for bulk processing wet and dry matrix for the extraction of fish bone is described. Other current methods of sediment processing are briefly reviewed.

Three-dimensional modelling is an attempt to represent the world in three dimensions, simplifying through deliberate assumptions. In archaeology, this has developed as an extension of the traditional use of three-dimensional drawings to help present and record data. The debate in the archaeological literature over whether surface or solid modellers should be used is one based on the premise that the purpose of three-dimensional modelling is data visualisation. This concentration on perception modelling has been at the expense of research on the modelling of structure. Surface and Solid Modellers are introduced and defined. I argue that developments in modelling software mean that there is no longer a clear distinction between the two types of software along application lines. We should think of models in terms of their applications rather than the software which generates them. Although data visualisation (including virtual reality) is an important part of three-dimensional modelling, I argue that it should be explicitly divorced from the related field of photo-realism at a research level. Perception modelling can be performed by surface or solid modellers. Modelling structure is better performed with a solid modeller, if we wish to be as explicit as possible in our modelling. A structural model can be used as a spatial database. If we wish to ask questions about the physical properties of a structure, then we must use solid modellers. In addition to the engineering properties of structures, solid modellers can also be used to answer questions about the economics of construction. For historical reasons, the construction industry has preferred to use surface modellers, but I argue for the advantages of solid modelling in the archaeological study of construction.

This article presents the chemical analysis of over 1500 Iron Age and Roman copper alloy artefacts. The data are considered as a whole and in the light of a number of key archaeological variables: chronology, typology, provenance. Patterns evident from the analyses carried out have enabled the nature of alloys to be reliably characterised. Iron Age alloys are almost exclusively of one type only - a tin bronze which often contains a small amount of arsenic (up to 1%). This alloy is quite distinctive when compared with the range of alloys used in the Roman period (brass, bronze and gunmetal, all with varying amounts of lead). The contrast between Iron Age and Roman alloys allows a reconsideration of many 'Celtic' items. It is now clear that the majority of 'Celtic' metalwork which survives dates to the end of the Iron Age or the Roman period (despite the traditional equation of the Iron Age with 'Celtic' material). The most successful means of representing the range of Roman alloys used has been the three-dimensional plot. This examines the relationship between two elements (in this case zinc and tin) and shows the relative frequency of the different alloy types. This 3-D plot also illustrates some general features of Roman alloying and possible recycling. There are a number of peaks in the distribution of zinc and tin contents that represent specific alloy types which were commonly produced. The largest peak relates to the commonest alloy: bronze. The second peak relates to brass and the third to copper. All the remaining analyses fall into a diffuse area between the bronze and the brass peaks, and these are referred to by the modern term gunmetal. It is clear that copper alloys were recycled and that some care was taken over the ways in which this occurred. The lack of low zinc brasses shows that this alloy was rarely recycled on its own. If brass was recycled then it was always mixed with some bronze. The proportions of bronze and brass that were mixed varied widely as there is no distinct peak within the distribution of the zinc and tin contents of gunmetals. The paper uses an overall view of Roman copper metallurgy (and that derived from previous work) to examine changes in alloy production and use. The results (interpreted in the light of metallurgical theory and practice, and of wider archaeological theory and data) challenge many of the traditional accounts of chronological and cultural change, and of the deposition processes operating in the Roman period. Access to the data is provided by means of a clickable map, a typological catalogue, a site catalogue or an individual record.

Archaeological sites are the product of dynamic interaction between individuals within the social group, rather than static structures to be simply classified by typological lists or by measurement of debitage. This dynamic interaction can be studied with the chaîne opératoire approach that allows for a greater understanding of the complex human behaviour that lies behind the archaeological data.

The Heslerton Parish Project was established in 1980 to provide a research framework for the rescue excavations then in progress at Cook's Quarry, West Heslerton. The project research area covers a 10km square, centered upon West Heslerton, and spans a number of distinctive geomorphological zones which extend both to the east and west of the area and form a representative sample of the landscape at the interface of the Yorkshire Wolds and the Vale of Pickering. In parallel with rescue excavations, a ten-year program of intensive oblique aerial photography (1978-1988) was undertaken with the assistance of a local farmer and pilot, Carl Wilkinson. By 1988 this survey had generated new evidence which radically changed our understanding of the landscape, particularly in the low-lying plain of the Vale of Pickering. By 1990 it was felt that the returns from additional oblique air-photography had reached saturation level, such that only changes in agricultural methods on a field-by-field basis were likely to generate a significant increase in returns. The present project has been made possible by the award of an Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Data Award, a grant from English Heritage to cover data processing and interpretation and the support and assistance provided by the University of Durham and the North Yorkshire County Sites and Monuments Record (SMR).

Metadata means 'data about data' or 'information about information'. It is a technique for cataloging the contents of information files, whether digital or paper-based, so related resources can be more easily linked and so potential users can decide quickly and easily whether to spend time exploring the file contents in detail. In our digital age with ever-increasing quantities of archaeological data being collected, stored, and distributed in computer-readable forms, interconnection of information is becoming essential. In this paper we provide a general background to metadata especially for archaeologists. Three of the major types of metadata (the Dublin Core, Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), and Direct Interchange Format (DIF) are discussed in order to provide an overview for the variety of metadata approaches which exist. The Dublin Core seems the most useful metadata system for the majority of archaeologists as it provides an easy and concise 15 element core designed to describe any type of information. Though much more complicated, both FGDC and DIF are useful to archaeologists who work with more specialized categories of information (e.g. satellite images and palaeoenvironmental data). An archaeological example of Dublin Core style metadata in action is included.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 2.

The main aim of this paper is to illustrate by example some of the advantages of kernel density estimates (KDEs) for data presentation in archaeology. At their simplest KDEs can be thought of as an alternative to the histogram which is possibly the most commonly used statistical device in archaeology. The appearance of a histogram, and hence the archaeological inferences drawn from it, depends on both the interval width used and the starting point of the first interval. A KDE overcomes this latter defect and results in a smoother diagram that is more useful for comparative purposes. The problem of choice of interval width remains, but theory exists to guide this choice and this is discussed in the paper. Two-dimensional histograms are difficult to interpret and require large amounts of data, and KDEs offer clear advantages in this case. After a non-technical introduction to KDEs the core of the paper is two sections on univariate and bivariate KDEs. These illustrate potential uses in archaeology and discuss some of the choices that need to be made in implementing the methodology. Some more experimental work with trivariate KDEs is also reported. Papers by the authors that deal with the more technical aspects of the methodology are electronically available.

Landscape-based archaeological research has been transformed as the widespread introduction of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) has begun to revolutionise the way we, as archaeologists, manage and manipulate spatial information. As GIS-based applications begin to reach maturity and the role of GIS as a flexible mechanism for the articulation, exploration and analysis of landscape data becomes more fully realised, GIS is increasingly being seen as much as a place to think as a simple data management and mapping tool.

The excavation of the Late Roman and Anglian settlement at West Heslerton, North Yorkshire, has been one of the largest excavations undertaken in England in the last twenty years. It has been the setting for a number of developments and experiments in the application of 'the new technology' to field archaeology. Parts of the site, which extended over c.20 Ha., proved to have high magnetic susceptibility and were ideally suited for magnetic prospection techniques. Feature visibility contrasts were, however, frequently low and therefore a series of experiments were undertaken using high resolution fluxgate gradiometer surveys following removal of the topsoil. The results of the high resolution surveys undertaken on the cleaned excavation surface proved highly successful in providing an enhanced pre-excavation plan, adding considerable detail to the surveys undertaken prior to the start of the excavation. The careful examination of the results, using G-Sys geographic data management software, which enabled the magnetic data, finds plots and digitised plans to be fully integrated, indicated areas where stratigraphic relationships could be tested and assisted in the development and re-definition of the excavation strategy as it progressed. Following initial small area tests in 1991, nearly two hectares were documented in this way during 1995 facilitating the completion of a targeted sampling operation which ensured the completion of the excavation within the limited budget available. The approach proved highly successful and offers great potential for use on sites which have a high magnetic susceptibility and are liable to large area destruction as occurs in the case of mineral extraction or subsoil ploughing operations.

In 1982 Allan Peacey published a study in the form of a synthesis of two chronologically separated kilns used in the production of clay tobacco pipes. The aims of the present work are to improve upon this framework; to establish how these type of structures fit into the broader picture; to fill the gaps, before, between and after these cameo views; to improve understanding of the technology employed and see the roots from which such technology developed. The primary objective is to catalogue all relevant material know to exist in museum and private collections. It is hoped that by this means an understanding of the varied physical characteristics will lead to the establishment of object or function categories around which reports may be structured. Contemporary source documents are also examined to shed further light upon the likely function of the archaeological material. Among the results achieved are the compilation of an extensive catalogue of material associated with tobacco pipe kilns; the establishment of type series for pipe kiln furniture and furniture supplements; a proposed development sequence for pipe kiln muffles; a pattern of consistency in kiln design throughout the study area, and details of the methods used for stem tipping. Readers will be able to view the archaeological evidence as distribution maps, and will be able to explore other aspects of the data through the timeline and site catalogues.

The Archaeobotanical Computer Database is an electronic compilation of information about remains of plants from archaeological deposits throughout the British Isles. For the first time, this wealth of published data, much of it post-dating Godwin's (1975) History of the British Flora has been brought together in a form in which the user can explore the history of a particular species or group of plants, or investigate the flora and vegetation of a particular archaeological period or part of the British Isles. The database contains information about the sites, deposits and samples from which the remains in question have been recovered, together with details of the plant parts identified and their mode of preservation. It also provides some interpretative guidance concerning the integrity of contexts and the reliability of dating as an aid to judging the quality of the data available. In this paper the compilers of the ABCD make use of the database in order to review the archaeological evidence for food plants in the British Isles. The paper begins with a definition of its scope, examining the concept of a "food plant" and the taphonomy of plant remains on British archaeological sites. It then summarises the principal changes in food plants from the prehistoric period to post-medieval times. The body of the paper is a detailed discussion of the evidence for the use of berries, other fruits, vegetables, pulses, herbs and flavourings, oil plants, cereals and nuts. Finally, the paper compares the archaeological evidence with that known from documentary sources. Readers will be able to view the archaeological evidence as distribution maps and will be able to explore aspects of the database online, enabling queries by taxa, site or worker. Instructions on obtaining electronic copies of the database tables and registering as an ABCD user are also included.

This article is a survey of the principal classes of amphorae circulating in Britain during the Roman period (1st c. BC - 4th c. AD). The form, fabric, sources, contents and dating of each type are described in a series of Atlas Pages, accompanied by a series of computer-generated maps. The Atlas pages can also be accessed through a clickable map, based on the source of the amphorae, through a time-line, showing which types are circulating at any period, a visual index, as well as through a full text search. The supporting data include a bibliography and a database of the distribution of these amphorae in Britain.

Editorial for Internet Archaeology Issue 1.

Foreword for Internet Archaeology Issue 1.