In September 1994 the European Association of Archaeologists held its inaugural meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia, a sovereign nation formerly part of Yugoslavia. As was to be expected in such a place and at such a time, questions of ethnicity and identity were much in evidence. Here a classic case-study in defining an ancient European entity is explored from a fresh starting-point in contemporary Australia; it was first developed in the Ljubljana session on ‘Contemporary myth of the past’.

The intensification of agriculture as farming communities grew in size did not always produce a successful and sustainable economic base. At Ras an-Numayra on the Dead Sea Plain, a small farming community of the late fourth millennium BC developed a specialised plant economy dependent on cereals, grapes and flax. Irrigation in this arid environment led to increased soil salinity while recurrent cultivation of flax may have introduced the fungal pathogen responsible for flax wilt. Faced with declining yields, the farmers may have further intensified their irrigation and cultivation schedules, only to exacerbate the underlying problems. Thus specialised crop production increased both agricultural risk and vulnerability to catastrophe, and Ras an-Numayra, unlike other sites in the region, was abandoned after a relatively short occupation.

The Moche tombs at Sipán, on the north Peruvian coast, are a major addition to our knowledge of high-status élite burial rituals. Its Tomb 1 contains the remains of nine individuals — three adult males, one adult female, three adolescent females and one child — besides the principal burial. Who are these people, as their biological remains instruct us?

A new look at the old collections from Jebel Moya, the site in the southern Sudan excavated by the Wellcome expedition early in the century, sets Jebel Moya in the light of modern understanding of the Nile and Sahara sequences.

The historically documented burial samples of the Babenberg and Habsburg dynasties allow a detailed analysis of the circumstances that led to dismemberment, evisceration, disturbance, exhumation and reburial over a millennium. The results may provide deeper and more broadly applicable insights into relevant cultural formation processes of élite burials.

ANTIQUITY's recent report on direct radiocarbon dates for human bone from Welsh caves had them concentrated in two distinct Postglacial periods. The larger pattern for Britain as a whole is also striking.

The date of the volcanic eruption of Santorini that caused extensive damage toMinoan Crete has been controversial since the 1980s. Some have placed the event in the late seventeenth century BC. Others have made the case for a younger date of around 1500 BC. A recent contribution to that controversy has been the dating of an olive tree branch preserved within the volcanic ash fall on Santorini. In this debate feature Paolo Cherubini and colleagues argue that the olive tree dating (which supports the older chronology) is unreliable on a number of grounds. There follows a response from the authors of that dating, and comments from other specialists, with a closing reply from Cherubini and his team.

History, legend and memory have long pointed to Co Loa, an earthwork enclosure outside Hanoi, as the seat of an indigenous power that gave identity to the people of the Bac Bo region, north Vietnam. Survey, excavation and a set of radiocarbon dates now put this site on the historical map. The main rampart of the middle circuit was built in the later centuries BC, before the coming of Han Imperial China. Nor was this rampart the first defence. The authors show the potential of archaeology for revealing the creation and development of a polity among the prosperous people of the Dongson culture.

Six years ago we reported the discovery of a central place at Uppåkra in southern Sweden which promised to be unusually rich and informative (Hårdh 2000). At 40ha it already stood out as the largest concentration of residual phosphate in the whole province of Scania, with surface finds of Roman and late Iron Age metalwork (second-tenth century AD). Following this thorough evaluation, the project moved into its excavation phase which has brought to light several buildings of the first millennium AD, among them one that has proved truly exceptional. Its tall structure and numerous ornamented finds suggest an elaborate timber cult house. This is the first Scandinavian building for which the term ‘temple’ can be justly claimed and it is already sign-posting new directions for the early middle ages in northern Europe.

The site of Bronocice provides a valuable chance to explore aspects of economic changes in the later Neolithic of central Europe, thanks to its large sample of animal bones, and to a remarkable trace of haulage on a horn-core.

The megalithic monuments of western Europe have long been a celebrated proof of the engineering achievements possible in an early farming society. With the engineering skills to raise up the stones went the capability to move them to the site, with Stonehenge the best-known example of an apparent long-distance transport, incorporating Welsh bluestones and sarsens that perhaps originate in the Avebury region to the north. Following their recent challenge to the belief that the builders of Stonehenge did carry its bluestones from west Wales, the authors look critically at the larger pattern of megalithic manoeuvring.

All too often in the past, state politics has exerted a strong influence over the direction of academic archaeology. This was particularly true of the German Archaeological Institute under the Third Reich in the 1930s. Here, Klaus Junker offers an intriguing insight into the events and outcomes of this uncomfortable episode, and how the Institute managed to retain its leading position during and after the Nazi régime.