In this article I address the relationship between European archaeologists and the European Union and argue that the dominant attitude of non-involvement that archaeologists have embraced over the past decades cannot be justified given recent political developments. The European project finds itself in a state of deep crisis, under siege from populist and far-right leaders within and around Europe. We cannot afford to watch from the sidelines when the future of hundreds of millions of people is at stake. As archaeologists we can make a positive contribution by harnessing the political dimension of our work, which we need to stop seeing in a negative light. We should deploy the past to help tackle the challenges of our society. European archaeologists should particularly focus on developing grand narratives of a shared past in Europe, to act as a foundation for a European identity.

This article considers the impact of both historical and digital transhuman practices in archaeology with an eye towards recent conversations concerning punk archaeology, slow archaeology, and an ‘archaeology of care’. Drawing on Ivan Illich, Jacques Ellul, and Gilles Deleuze, the article suggests that current trends in digital practices risk alienating archaeological labour and de-territorializing archaeological work.

In Anglo-Saxon and Viking literature swords form part of a hero's identity. In addition to being weapons, they represent a material agent for the individual's actions, a physical expression of identity. In this article we bring together the evidence from literature and archaeology concerning Anglo-Saxon and Viking-age swords and argue that these strands of evidence converge on the construction of mortuary identities and particular personhoods. The placement of the sword in funerary contexts is important. Swords were not just objects; they were worn close to the body, intermingling with the physical person. This is reflected in the mortuary context where they were displayed within an emotive aesthetic. Typically, swords were embraced, placed next to the head and shoulders, more like a companion than an object. However, there are exceptions: graves like Birka 581 and Prittlewell show sword locations that contrast with the normal placement, locations which would have jarred with an observer's experience, suggesting unconventional or nuanced identities. By drawing on literary evidence, we aim to use the words of the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings to illuminate the significance of swords in mortuary contexts and their wider cultural associations.

Research into the Iron Age of Anatolia has seldom paid sufficient attention to settlement patterns and the social organization of space. The Anabasis by Xenophon records the observations of a Greek outsider who travelled across eastern Anatolia and along the Black Sea coast in 400 bce, a time that was relatively early in the colonial process in this area. Xenophon's observations are used to establish a basic model for settlement in the Black Sea coastal region of Anatolia, which is then tested against the results of recent archaeological surveys and related research on the Sinop promontory. A fuller and richer model of indigenous Iron Age settlement and colonial engagement on the Sinop promontory is developed and considered in light of recent research on colonization in the western Mediterranean and northern Black Sea regions.

This article focuses on the development of preventive and commercial archaeology in Europe during the last thirty years by examining the case of Italy. This country has a mixed public-private system, where the law establishes that the State manages all archaeological activities, although archaeological services are provided mainly by private individuals or companies and funded by private developers. This framework leads to a mismatch between law and practice, which impedes the development of professional archaeology and the full implementation of the Valletta principles. The issue is examined from an historical perspective, from the 1970s to the present day, and is augmented by a brief analysis of the current trends in cultural heritage policy. The study concentrates on the regulatory elements of archaeological activities, since these legal matters are generally overlooked by scholars.

This article focuses on the maritime cultural landscape of the former Zuiderzee (ad 1170–1932) in the central part of the Netherlands. Since the large-scale reclamations from the sea (1932–1968), many remains have been discovered, revealing a submerged and eroded late medieval maritime culture, represented by lost islands, drowned settlements, cultivated lands, shipwrecks, and consequently socio-economic networks. Especially the north-eastern part of the region, known today as the Noordoostpolder, is testimony to the dynamic battles of the Dutch against the water. By examining physical and immaterial datasets from the region, it is possible to give a modern-day idea of this late medieval maritime cultural landscape. Spatial distribution and densities of late medieval archaeological remains are analysed and compared to historical data and remote sensing results. This interdisciplinary approach has led to the discovery of the remains of the drowned settlement of Fenehuysen.

Since the 1980s, Barcelona's local institutions have been pioneers in creating a close relationship between culture, urban regeneration, and the social and economic development of the city, and subsequently in implementing a new paradigm in cultural policy for entrepreneurial, cultural, and creative cities. As a consequence, the city has also become a model for place branding and cultural tourism. In this context, Born, an archaeological site of the early eighteenth century which offers detailed testimony to both the cultural and economic lifestyle of the city at that time and the defeat of the Catalans during the War of the Spanish Succession, has been preserved and opened to the public in line with the city's varying cultural policies and attitudes to national identity over the last two decades. This article discusses Born from 2000 to 2017 and the political and cultural management context in relation to the Barcelona model that has defined its current form as a cultural centre. In this context, this article also discusses the role of archaeology in Barcelona's cultural governance, as a case study through which to consider the role of urban archaeological heritage management today.

In this article, I explore how digital data collection in the context of the Berkeley-Abiquiú Collaborative Archaeology (BACA) project works, some of the affordances of this new-ish technology, and how they articulate with analogue art practices to achieve the goals of engaged research. Thinking with affordances helps me reflect critically on what digital data recording offers our research goals. In this case, the most important aspect of using digital data recording is how it changes our relationship to time. New orientations of research time created by such technology is an opportunity to engage creatively with how archaeology can represent complexity, produce embodied experience, and share senses of place through both digital and analogue practices. As archaeologists trying to think trans-humanistically, we need to reflect critically on digital technologies to produce engaged research. This is always a shifting target. New uses reveal new possibilities, and vice versa. But newness is not what makes an impact, a difference, or changes the way we do research together; what makes a difference is the result, effects, and affects of these affordances.

Inclusive approaches to archaeology (including queer, feminist, black, indigenous, etc. perspectives) have increasingly intersected with coding, maker, and hacker cultures to develop a uniquely ‘Do-It-Yourself’ style of disruption and activism. Digital technology provides opportunities to challenge conventional representations of people past and present in creative ways, but at what cost? As a critical appraisal of transhumanism and the era of digital scholarship, this article outlines compelling applications in inclusive digital practice but also the pervasive structures of privilege, inequity, inaccessibility, and abuse that are facilitated by open, web-based heritage projects. In particular, it evaluates possible means of creating a balance between individual-focused translational storytelling and public profiles, and the personal and professional risks that accompany these approaches, with efforts to foster, support, and protect traditionally marginalized archaeologists and communities.