The Early Helladic period on the Greek mainland is a time of complexity and innovation, characterized by a marked regionalism in settlement patterns and material culture, and the presence of myriad crossscale networks within which objects, technologies, ideas and individuals circulated. Nevertheless, much about the period remains unclear beyond the relative comfort of its long ‘middle’ phase, Early Helladic II (ca. 2950–2250 BC). Its emergence from the socio-cultural processes of the Final Neolithic, particularly, continues to be obscured by a ‘fourth-millennium gap’ which has proved frustratingly intransigent. Of those few Peloponnesian sites yielding radiocarbon dates which potentially fall within the fourth millennium, those of Franchthi (FCP 5.2, P-1659, ca. 4,230–3,790 cal. BC; see Vitelli 1999: table 9), Kouveleiki Caves A and B (ID1492; Kontaxi 2006) and Alepotrypa (Bronk-Ramsey et al. 2015: 200) fall well short of its mid-point. Halieis alone potentially bucks the trend (ca. 3,909–3,367 cal. BC; Pullen 2000: 184–86; see also Alram-Stern 2007), although the range on this sample is so great as to be problematic.

Previous discussions of collections printed in Archaeological Reports have consisted of catalogues of antiquities. This contribution does not deal with antiquities per se, but with objects depicting antiquities – 46 glass plate photographic negatives dating to the nineteenth century. However, these objects are also culturally-produced artefacts. Most of them are large, approximately 20cm by 20cm, glass plates, though some are rectangular of both smaller and larger dimensions. In addition, there are seventeen duplicated images in a British standard 8.25cm by 8.25cm lantern slide format. These glass artefacts are remnants of a much larger collection of negatives and slides amassed by the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (hereafter Hellenic Society) in the late nineteenth to the first half of the twentieth century.

Does Archaeology in Greece have a purpose? Is it more than a convenient way of logging fortuitous finds? From a newcomer's viewpoint, AG may look hard to put into focus. Why does new information about landscapes and material culture matter? After all, don't we already know a great deal about the remote past of Greece? Aren't museums already full of attractive and interesting things? Do we need more of the same?

Sometimes it pays to play devil's advocate: to stand back, observe what is going on and to take stock. If we want to have a short answer to the above questions, we need go no further than the Newsround section of AG. This year, David Smith bookends the section with key developments that have at least regional, arguably global significance. At one end, we have new data on the presence of early hominids in the Aegean and, at the other end, the report of a 16th -century Spanish galleon from the era of Philip II and the first evidence of a Minoan shipwreck across the Aegean from Crete itself.

This article, based on an oral presentation in virtual format by the author at the British School at Athens (BSA) Annual General Meeting on 9 February 2022, summarizes the activities of the BSA with a focus on the calendar year 2021. It describes – selectively and concisely – research by award holders, BSA-sponsored fieldwork and study in 2021, research and events associated with the Fitch Laboratory and the Knossos Research Centre, plus other activities of the BSA in Greece and the UK, including seminars, conferences, and workshops.

The BSA Museum houses a study collection of artefacts donated to the BSA and collected by its members up to the 1960s. The collection provides a valuable resource for teaching and research, enabling scholars to gain first-hand familiarity with objects from a range of material types (including ceramics, metals, stone, terracotta) dating from the Neolithic through to the Late Byzantine period. The collection comprises some 4,000 individual artefacts and over 46,000 sherds of pottery, objects that have been displayed in different parts of the BSA premises over the past 130 years. Of the whole collection, various small sections have been published in the Annual of the BSA. What has been lacking, however, is a narrative about the museum itself: where its objects came from, who studied them, how the collection as a whole has been catalogued and organized. This paper tells that story: from the collection’s humble beginnings, with the first donation of just a few sherds in 1892, through to recently completed digitization and public engagement projects.

Following a ‘remarkable decade of fieldwork’ (Catherine Morgan in AR 59 [2012–2013] 1) and the increasing application of technologically advanced methods in archaeological investigations, emphasis appears now to have shifted from excavation to the analysis of the data collected. The present volume aims to strike a balance between articles that discuss exciting new discoveries (as is customary for the Newsround section and the Director's report of the work of the British School at Athens) and features that offer synthetic overviews on methodologies (Jill Hilditch, Jamieson C. Donati and Apostolos Sarris), specific regions (Chryssanthi Papadopoulou, Stavroula Sdrolia) or fields of study (Sylvian Fachard, Holger Baitinger). It will be clear from this description that I intend to continue the thematic organization Archaeology in Greece adopted several years ago in this edition, my first as editor.