In a recent paper a theory was put forward to account for the end of Mohenjo-daro and of other, smaller, Indus Civilization cities in Sind and along the Mekran Coast.

Stable isotope analysis is a new, not-so-secret weapon which promises much in mapping population movement on a regional and local scale. Lining up these movements with certain economic strategies, such as farming or foraging, with social strategies such as exogamy or with ethnicity and ranking constitutes forgivable temptation. Here our astute authors urge caution. Taking the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in south-west Germany as their example, they show that caution does not inhibit interpretation, but opens the door to more subtle, more human possibilities.

Excavations at the Camel Site, in the Negev, provide evidence of desert cottage industries making (and probably trading) beads and millstones in the Early Bronze Age. But these were people for whom nomadism was the ‘default lifestyle’.

Sander Van Der Leeuw, in his recent plenary address at the 1998 Society for American Archaeology Meetings, suggested that archaeology as a discipline has moved its emphasis from site to settlement pattern, and now to the landscape. Though a landscape focus is not new, especially for the social sciences (Coones 1994; Cosgrove 1984; Glacken 1967; Jackson 1994}, the landscape approach in archaeology (Wagstaff 1987) is still in its infancy.

The brochs, great stone towers of Iron Age Scotland, are famously puzzling. Who inhabited these strongholds (if habitations they were)? New fieldwork at the broch of Dun Vulan, on South Uist in the Western Isles, prompts reappraisal of the geographical and social context of the brochs, by developing untapped sources of social evidence.

The focal point of many of the world's cities is a natural stronghold, or fortress, which may also be a religious sanctuary. The Acropolis, the great rock which stands above the ancient and modern city of Athens, is one such place. Why is it once again a place of pilgrimage? And how is its present form the result of its later history?

The authenticity of the prehistoric paintings of the caves of Altamira has now been fully recognized for about thirty years, and with the many similar discoveries which have been made in France and Spain an entirely new light has been thrown on the mentality of prehistoric men. We must henceforth acknowledge that they possessed artistic tastes and a well developed aesthetic sense. No longer may we think of them as savages, solely concerned with the most material needs of daily life, but rather as men endowed with well-developed intellect and capable of considering things over and above the mere material side of the struggle for existence.

The discovery of skeletons, obviously buried with care, and surrounded with tools and ornaments, had already proved to us that respect was paid to the dead, and that there was a belief in an after-life. But with the discovery of works of art a fresh avenue of knowledge was opened up before us.

What were the social structures of prehistoric Melanesia really like – and how did they evolve? This study of the archaeology of New Caledonia shows how the west has had a double impact on its prehistory. First, explorers altered the social structure by their arrival and the introduction of western diseases, and then anthropologists created an image of communities which were ancient, simple and static. New archaeological field data by contrast is mapping nearly 3000 pre-European years of occupation which was marked by dynamic social and cultural change involving sophisticated economic strategies. The evidence suggests that the European anthropologists of the twentieth century were actually interpreting the social effects of the European explorers of the nineteenth century. The new archaeological model is providing food for thought for the modern multi-cultural country of New Caledonia.

As well as jade, obsidian, chert and limestone, the Classic Maya of Central America were accomplished workers of another stone–slate. Recent research at the site of Pacbitun, Belize, where a possible slate workshop has come to light, is cause to look closely at Maya slate-working and the scientific means to study it.

Comment is offered on the ‘post-processual’ approach to excavation in the field advocated in the September Antiquity.

The megalithic chamber tombs that are the most striking monuments of the Irish Neolithic have long been divided by the shape of their plans. With the shapes there goes a characteristic pattern of distribution and of spacing in the landscape, and from this arise some puzzling questions of sequence as to how ‘cemeteries’ grew up. A fresh view is taken of this old problem

The study of Greek board-games is almost wholly inconclusive, owing to the scanty and extremely imprecise evidence available. Difficulties would in any case be inevitable, since most games are better grasped in actual play than by studying a set of written rules; and here the technicalities are expressed in a foreign language and were sometimes not clear even to their users, who cheerfully omit what they do not understand, or take it for granted that the reader is familiar with the main details. Further, the games so described by our authorities had often been long obsolete. Some of the difficulties may be realized by trying to reconstruct a game of Ombre entirely from Pope’s Rape of the Lock, or a game of cricket from Dickens’ account of All Muggleton v. Dingley Dell (even with the help of Mr A. G. Macdonell’s searching critique of that famous match). Here is an example of a rather different kind, which well shows the pitfalls of unfamiliar teiminology; it is translated from K. Silex’s John Bull xu Hause, and is an attempt to explain cricket to Germans. ‘Two teams of II men oppose each other; two “wickets” are set [how ?] in the ground at a distance of 20 metres, being three wooden sticks [how high ?], over which two rods (Stäbe) are laid [how?]. The aim is to hit the wicket with a ball [how big?] or to knock off the rods with it. One side defends the wicket, the other attacks; the defenders post before each wicket [where ?] a “batsman” with a striker (Schläger): the other side opposes him with a “bowler” who tries to hit the wicket with the ball [how?]. Two men only of the defence are in actual play, the rest wait their turn’ … etc.

Since the mid-1960s, significant advances have been made in the techniques and organization of archaeological research in British waters. However, the sites discovered and explored during the first decade of such work have dated without exception to the centuries after 1500 AD. The results from investigations such as those on the Mary Rose of 1545 (Rule, 1978) or the wrecks of the Spanish Armada (Martin, 1975) have clearly demonstrated the potential of such sites to shed light on periods and topics for which documentary sources are also available; nevertheless, the full archaeological significance of this new area of research remained unrealized through being limited to the post-medieval period. The discovery and study of two underwater bronze age sites in the past few years have thus changed the whole complexion of British maritime archaeology. The purpose of this note is to provide a brief interim account of the sites involved, and indicate a few of their implications for Bronze Age studies.

Forensic archaeology is a relatively recent development in the UK but has already shown its worth on a number of scenes of crime; it has a particular role to play in the location and recovery of buried remains, notably in homicide investigations. This paper explores the overlap between archaeology and criminal investigation and considers areas of mutual interest, experience and potential.

The widespread remains of the Indus Valley or Harappan civilization—contemporaneous in part with the great civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt—present at first glance a picture of sterile isolationism. Yet none of the great civilizations of the world originated or thrived in a cultural and economic vacuum. There are, in fact, certain material indications of contact between the Harappans and their western contemporaries? Also, there is a strong Mesopotamian seafaring tradition attested to in cuneiform economic documents and mythological literature. The discovery of Indus type stamp seals in southern Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf area suggested that at least part of the Mesopotamian seafaring activities were directed toward the east. The identification, some thirty years ago, of the Makran Coast site of Sutkagen-dor as a Harappan settlement added further weight to the probability of sea contacts between the Indus and the West.

Next year will mark the twentieth birthday of the ‘New Archaeology’, whose founding texts – Binford & Binford's New perspectives in archaeology in the USA and Clarke's Analytical archaeologyin Britain – both appeared in 1968. Nearly two decades on, some fundamentals are not yet resolved, which may indicate – as Lester Embree argued in the last number of ANTIQUITY – that archaeology is a harder science than most.