The landscapes of the central highlands of Madagascar are inhabited by the spirits of the dead as well as by the living. The ancestors are a forceful presence in the everyday world, and the archaeology of the central highlands is intimately entwined with them. This is made manifest both in the on-the-ground experiences encountered during fieldwork, and in archaeological narratives, such as the one presented here. Tombs are a traditional focus of archaeological research, and those that dot the hills of the central highlands are part of a network of beliefs and practices which engage with the landscape as a whole and through which social identity is constructed and maintained. In the central highlands, and indeed elsewhere in Madagascar, there is an intimate relationship between peoples’ understandings of their social and physical location in the world and their understanding of their relationship to the dead.

Diet and ethnicity are strongly related. Recent work on fish-bone ratios and stable carbon isotopes suggest that the Vikings increased the fish contribution to the diet of Orkney and Shetland by a greater investment in deep-sea fishing.

The catastrophic 1855 AD Wellington earthquake is used to predict likely environmental impacts of earlier seismic events (earthquake and tsunami) that have been reported for the Cook Strait region in the period following first human settlement 700 years ago. Environmental changes around Palliser Bay in prehistoric Maori times, inferred from archaeological research, parallel those that occurred in 1855 AD. We consider that devastation caused by earthquake activity and subsequent tsunami, rather than climatic deterioration invoked previously, precipitated the rapid abandonment of the Palliser Bay coast by human communities in the 15th century AD.

Mali is a country with a rich history and diverse cultures. Its cultural heritage is, however, threatened by both the pillage of archaeological sites and illicit trade (ICOM 1995; Bedaux & Rowlands, this volunle). Looting has dramatically increased in recent years, especially in the Inland Delta of the Niger, and has obliged Malian authorities to take measures to counteract this destruction. Within the framework of a long-term Malian-Dutch cultural heritage programme, the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde at Leiden recently initiated large-scale excavations in the Inland Niger Delta at Dia, in close cooperation with the Université du Mali, the Institut des Sciences Humaines and the Musée National du Mali in Bamako, the Mission Culturelle in Djenné, the Universities of Paris I and VI, the C.N.R.S., University College London and Leiden University. This excavation, financed principally by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, started in 1998 and will continue until 2004. It is a continuation of previous international programmes of site survey and documentation in the Inland Niger Delta, which the Institut des Sciences Humaines in Bamako has co-ordinated over the past two decades (e.g. Raimbault & Sanogo 1991; Dembele et al. 1993; Togola 1996). An initial season of prospection was carried out in 1998 in the Inland Delta, following which the vicinity of Dia was chosen as the principal research zone for the project.

Eritrea fought a war of liberation for three decades between the early 1960s and 1991. While professional research stagnated because of the war, amateur archaeologists provided the sole source of information for ancient material culture in the country during this era. With the coming of independence in 1993, awareness of the potential value of Eritrea’s heritage resources began to grow, leading to an initiative in 1997 to teach archaeology and heritage management at the University of Asmara.

Out of the combined training and research programmes conducted by the University of Asmara have come several major discoveries that change the way that the rise of urbanism is seen in the Horn of Africa. We highlight research showing that between 800 BC and 400 BC the greater Asmara area of Eritrea supported the earliest settled agropastoralist communities known in the highlands of the Horn. These communities pre-date and are contemporaneous with Pre-Aksumite settlements in the highlands of southern Eritrea and northern Ethiopia.

Recent archaeological reports from excavations carried out round the Royal castles and palaces suggest that a completely new chronology of roof covering for high-status buildings in Scotland should now be formulated.

Composite tools and hafted tools were used world-wide over the last 35,000 years, and possibly earlier than that (Boëda et al. 1996; Holdaway 1996). Evidence for the use of composite tools in South Africa is provided by a small number of arrows from ethnohistorical and archaeological collections (Binneman 1994; Deacon & Deacon 1999: 158–9), a handful of mounted stone artefacts, and a significant number of mastic stained stone artefacts from archaeological sites (Deacon & Deacon 1999). On the basis of the limited sample of near intact mounted artefacts found in South Africa, it appears that small scrapers were side-mounted (at almost 90° to the axis of the handle) and fixed asymmetrically by surrounding resin (Deacon & Deacon 1980: 31–2). Adzes, on the other hand, were end-mounted (on one extreme, and along the same plane, of the handle) and held by a large ovoid lump of mastic (Hewitt 1921; Goodwin & Van Riet Lowe 1929: plate 42; Sampson 1974: figure 105). From their analysis of the available material two decades ago, Deacon & Deacon (1980: 37) concluded that the size and form of the insert was determined largely by the mode of hafting.

Evidence that the earliest settlers on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) may have come from Mangareva and its outlying islands in Central East Polynesia is supported by the journey of the experimental voyaging canoe Hōkūle'a from Mangareva to Rapa Nui.

Among the general public, the extraordinarily important role played by cultural resource management (hereafter CRM) procedures in the conservation of archaeological materials usually goes unrecognized. Popular images of the swashbuckling adventures of Indiana Jones, or somewhat more generally of intrepid archaeologists making the latest Fiild of the Century, do not accord well with the concept that the remains of past human activities are actual resources, ones that can and should be managed in the interest of nations and their citizens. All too often, the significance of CRM legislation and the archaeological research that stems from it is not recognized even by academic archaeologists, in part because publication procedures and venues are so different in the worlds of academic and contract archaeology.

Ethnohistoric and representational as well as egg-shell evidence shows that the ostrich was widely distributed in Arabia. However, the absence of ostrich bones in the archaeological record suggests that they were not hunted for meat.