Editorial.

Editorial. Our review of the year (overleaf o��ver��leaf?adv.On the other side of the page or leaf.overleafAdverbon the other side of the pageAdv. 1. ) shows a healthy spread ofresearch from the Lower Palaeolithic to the twentieth century, andplacing them in our arbitrary time periods shows--once again--thesurprising number of surprising things going on the world over at thesame time. It is not too much to say that archaeologists are rewritingthe human story every year. Unlike most long-running serials, ours addsmost of its new pages at the beginning. Neanderthals are getting more'modern,' designing stone tools and visualisinglandscape-yield by season, inviting us, in Terry Hopkinson's words,to review 'the boundaries we erect to police the uniqueness ofhumanity.' At Soucy in the Paris basin they seem to be planningtheir settlement--or at least its location and activities--between 365and 345 000 years ago. Definitive skills do seem to pop up earlier andearlier: they were experimenting with bread in Italy 25 000 years ago,and with geometric art in central Europe. And who can resist the imageof one of the earliest arrivals in New Guinea, then still joined toAustralia, their torso adorned with a dangling shark's toothpendant. New discoveries and analyses continue to whittle away at theevolutionary view of art: realistic horses begin in the FrenchPalaeolithic, while the primitive rock art figures found in Burma weremade by quarrymen of the sixteenth century AD. Themes as well as styleconnect to social context rather than chronology: viz. the feminine(though not exactly feminist) images in shaped flints and Jomon pottery. All this adds fuel to the argument for the archaeology of recentperiods, or of periods where there are plenty of texts. There are alwaysother tales to tell--from the crockery of the kitchens of an Australiancolonial estate or the folk art of the English country churchyard. It isnot just that history never walked that way: history wasn'tthrilled by what it saw, but archaeology was. Archaeology writes thehistory of local politics--or rather the history of those that lost thevote: the dissident underworld, in every sense. In one respect there hasbeen a human world system from the Neolithic; but a great many peoplesup to the present day did not take part in it and these arearchaeology's people too. The diversity of human experience, and the failure of progress tocorrelate with advancing time, raises venerable but vital questionsabout innovation v. conservatism--those innovating and conservingsocieties memorably identified by Stuart Piggott. (1) This topicrecently brought together a group of scholars at the Konrad LorenzInstitute in Altenberg, Austria which included anthropologists,psychologists, philosophers, geneticists and evolutionary biologists.Mike O'Brien (University of Missouri) and Stephen Shennan (UCL UCL University College LondonUCL Universit�� Catholique de LouvainUCL UEFA Champions LeagueUCL Upper Confidence LimitUCL University of Central LancashireUCL Upper Control LimitUCL Unfair Competition LawUCL Ulnar Collateral Ligament )report: "It would be difficult to find another topic in anthropologythat has played as an important a role as innovation in arguments aboutwhy and how human behaviour changes. Archaeologists have looked todiffusion and trade as a source of innovation, adopting without commentthe models of their anthropological colleagues as to how and why theinnovations arose in the first place. The workshop began with reviews of the uses and abuses ofevolutionary theory and then moved to debates over the similarities anddifferences between biological and cultural evolution and theepistemological status of analogies. These discussions set the stage fordetailed case studies of cultural innovation in animals and inprehistoric and modern human populations. The workshop finished withcase studies of technological transitions, from Paleoindian-periodprojectile projectilesomething thrown forward.projectile syringesee blow dart.projectile vomitingforceful vomiting, usually without preceding retching, in which the vomitus is thrown well forward. points in the United States to the origin of the wheel, thehistory of bicycles, the spread of modern tractors, and theproliferation of academic jargon. Writing in the 1920s, Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter made thedistinction between invention--the creation and establishment ofsomething new--and innovation--an invention that becomes economicallysuccessful and earns a profit. This distinction had been made previouslyin biology--introduction of a novelty versus long-term success of aspecies--but not in the social sciences. Many viewed population-size askey--in that more people are able to invent, and retain, more ideas in asociety. The Upper Palaeolithic transition in Europe could thus beexplained by a sharp population increase, rather than a suddenbiological change in cognition. The nature of cultural variation was a recurring theme throughoutthe workshop--can it be thought of as necessity's daughter or asjust copied accidents? One cause that was often invoked, if onlyimplicitly, was social necessity, whether it be a chimp moving up thedominance rankings by clanging clang?n.1. A loud, resonant, metallic sound.2. The strident call of a crane or goose.intr. & tr.v. clanged, clang��ing, clangsTo make or cause to make a clang. trash-can lids together for the firsttime or people in psychology experiments innovating more in isolatedgroups than in open ones (presumably pre��sum��a��ble?adj.That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. a conformity effect). The lively three-day discussion highlighted how much archaeologistshave to gain though theoretical collaboration with populationgeneticists, philosophers, psychologists and evolutionary biologists.Suffice it to say that the innovation rate at the workshop was clearlyat full blast. The final product of the workshop will be a volumepublished by MIT MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press in 2009." Innovation was perhaps not uppermost in the mind of the Society ofAntiquaries of London The Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL) is a learned society, based in the United Kingdom, concerned with "the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries". when it launched its tercentenary ter��cen��ten��a��ry?n. pl. ter��cen��ten��a��riesA 300th anniversary or its celebration.adj.Of or relating to a span of 300 years or to a 300th anniversary. exhibition on 11September. Making History does not describe the emergence ofarchaeological science from its benighted roots, or even the making ofhistory; it celebrates the antiquary an��ti��quar��y?n. pl. an��ti��quar��iesAn antiquarian.[Latin antqu and the antiquarian mission.Antiquaries, it seems, are not necessarily archaeological, or evenrational, beings. According to the exhibitions honorary curator, the TVhistorian David Starkey, they should be allowed the attractions of'compelling nonsense', and the proper antiquarian response toa monument--Stonehenge for example--is not the 'smug satisfactionof knowledge' (as owed to 200 years of study) but a 'sense ofancient, atavistic at��a��vism?n.1. The reappearance of a characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence, usually caused by the chance recombination of genes.2. An individual or a part that exhibits atavism. wonder'. (2) That's as may be, but it might have been kinder not to paradea great learned society in its pre-Raphaelite underwear. Theintellectual successor to the antiquarian mission is archaeologicalinquiry--focused, conceptual, multi-disciplinary--but there was preciouslittle of that on display. The promisingly entitled section FromAntiquaries to Archaeologists featured an old 12mm movie from MaidenCastle, Wheeler on Animal Vegetable and Mineral and some clips from morerecent TV programmes. It's probably no vice for a learned societyto recount its own childhood, even to revel in it, but to pass directlyfrom Maiden Castle to Time Team is to leap from childhood to dotage in asingle bound. And what is the obsession with all this low levelephemera e��phem��er��a?n.A plural of ephemeron.ephemeraNoun, plitems designed to last only for a short time, such as programmes or postersNoun 1. ? Many of the Society's fellows have made TV programmes,but many more use its inestimable in��es��ti��ma��ble?adj.1. Impossible to estimate or compute: inestimable damage.See Synonyms at incalculable.2. library, full to the brim witharchaeology--to write books. Research is what they do. It might havebeen worth reminding visitors that over the past 50 years the Society ofAntiquaries Society of Antiquaries can refer to: Society of Antiquaries of London Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland , led by its research committee, has initiated hundreds ofmodern scientific research projects and published dozens of meatyResearch Reports. In this work lies the principal value of the Societyfor the public, and arguably its most useful legacy. My colleague the esteemed Dr Harumpher, who is not ashamed of hisantiquarian streak, reminds me of two more upcoming anniversaries: theGeographarians, who accept that the earth isn't flat, but stillrather like the idea; and the Physiwix Club, whose fellows meet onTuesdays to take tea and extol ex��tolalso ex��toll ?tr.v. ex��tolled also ex��tolled, ex��tol��ling also ex��toll��ing, ex��tols also ex��tollsTo praise highly; exalt. See Synonyms at praise. the poetic qualities of unsuccessfulpre-Newtonian equations. (3) The quinquennial quin��quen��ni��al?adj.1. Happening once every five years.2. Lasting for five years.n.1. A fifth anniversary.2. A period of five years. Congress of Medieval Europe gave me a chance toescape from Britain's louche louche?adj.Of questionable taste or morality; decadent: "The rebuilt [Moscow hotel]is home to the flashy, louche Western disco Manhattan Express"anti-intellectualism to Paris whereperhaps the most noteworthy achievement was the rise and rise ofINRAP--the signal that research, far from being snubbed by the learnedsocieties, has taken root within the soul of commerce. To explain:archaeology's biggest problem today is how to give research valueto the huge volume of work turned over by the Cultural ResourceManagement process--known in France as l'archeologie preventive.Some countries (e.g. Britain) have decided that the object of theexercise is to get the stuff out of the way of developers, using themost obliging consultant and the cheapest contractor. This contractor ispaid to dig, record, report and store, not to design research or studyits results. In other countries, the research result is the product,what you came to get, so money must be found to allow informed,centralised study to take place. INRAP INRAP Institut National de Recherches Arch��ologiques Pr��ventives (French: National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research; France)(Institut national de recherches archeologiques preventives)is a giant research institute which carries out and writes up most ofthe archaeology turned up in the course of building car-parks, railwaylines and motorways in France (and Guadeloupe). It is funded by thesimple expedient of placing an archaeology tax on every square metredeveloped. (4) This tax is used to carry out evaluations (diagnostics),taking advantage of a budget which is independent of the developer.However, once a site is located and considered by the Ministry ofCulture to be a research target, the developer must either avoid it orpay to have it excavated by INRAP--or by another body accredited by thestate. INRAP's responsibilities include the 'scientificexploitation of its activities and dissemination of its results'and it also has a duty to contribute to teaching, cultural diffusion andthe appreciation of knowledge. For this INRAP funds on-site exhibitionsand also publishes works of synthesis such as Cent mille ans sous lesrails (2006, Editions Somogy/INRAP), period-series such as L'age duBronze en France (2007, Editions La Decouverte), books for children, forexample L'archelogie a petits pas (2007, Editions Actes Sud Junior)and its quarterly journal Archeopages. The great joy of this system isthat qualified specialists can be appointed to cover particular areas,such as Neolithic pottery or medieval textiles, across great swathes ofterritory, with the secure backing of a research institute rather thanbeing self-employed in a cottage surrounded by boxes. Has France cracked the problem of maximising the research dividendfrom 'compliance archaeology'? Time will tell: INRAP is only 5years old, and still undergoing both internal and external adjustments.But with its respect for research as the true mission of archaeology,the French model certainly deserves to be taken at least as seriously asthe Atlantic model in the future development of archaeologicalprocurement. Elsewhere the tendency of government organisations to adopt'preservation by record' (i.e. excavation) rather thandesigned research as the proper response to development sadly shows nosign of abatement. Our correspondent Nathan Schlanger, who happens towork for INRAP, sends me the following troubled letter from Israel:"Mammon and ideology make a heady archaeological concoction,nowhere more so than in the dense and overheated atmosphere ofJerusalem's Old City. Professional archaeologists, planners andconservators met recently at the Israeli Academy of Sciences to expresstheir growing unease over the archaeological and architectural posterityof the city. Some building works are clearly inevitable, for example theupgrade of the antiquated sewage system, the clearing of unsalubriouszones for recreation and tourism, and indeed the excavation of theunstable ramp leading to the Moughrabi Gate of the Temple Mount/Haramal-Sharif. At the same time, there are growing pressures, driven byeconomic capital and political zeal, to build and rebuild in thehistoric zone, to develop, expand and populate, indeed to take root inthese lieux de memoire. The mitigation proposals put forward are oftenunsatisfactory: they amount to entombing ancient streets and dwellingsinto concrete basements, creating on-site museums at the expense of thesites themselves, and indeed, targeting those aspects of thearchaeological heritage most cherished by the entrepreneurs concerned.In an unusual travesty of the 'polluter-pays' principle, heapsof monies are readily proffered for sites to be excavated--and the stateand municipal authorities in charge of archaeology have to resistbecoming mere sub-contractors or rubber stampers for clearing theground. Not only must archaeologists overcome the flaws inherent in thecommercial system, they have also to curb their own predilection toexcavate more and more, often without sufficient provision forpublication, restoration and public access. To be sure, Jerusalem haslong been declared an 'archaeological reserve', but in thisholy city more than elsewhere, the devil is in the detail: in theprocedures, the implementations, the compromises. Consensus will notalways be achieved, but Jerusalem is surely one city which shouldaccept, and indeed treasure for posterity, the material as well asspiritual heritage of its past". The website for Medieval Europe 2007 and virtually all the paperswere in French, which caused considerable stress to many Scandinavians(who nevertheless came) and to the English medieval archaeologists (whomainly stayed away). At one perspective, this is absurd--whywouldn't an international conference in Paris be largely in French?At another, of course, lack of communication diminishes discussion, anddiscussion is what moves the subject forward. I believe in, and havetried to practice, the recording and publication of sites in thelanguage of the country in which they are located (OK, I drew the lineat Gaelic). This desire is owed to some feeling that there is a connectionbetween the expression of a material culture and its expression in itslocal language. I think it would be wrong or sad to lose thisassociation. However, there is little doubt that we are about to lose itand lose it permanently. The economics of Europe and the world havealready put those who don't speak English at a disadvantage. Evenin our tiny portion of society, a Latvian archaeologist desiringadvancement is not likely to advance far in international terms bypublishing in Latvian. What is to be done? As archaeologists we shouldbe used to this kind of thing and ready to take action. In the nextcentury, some 100 languages are likely to become redundant; so they mustbe conserved--but not just added to the antiquarian haversack: it is anopportunity to study their association with the landscape and themateriality of their users. The names given by practitioners in theirnative languages to types of monuments, pottery and techniques ofexcavation and even tools have potentially much to teach us. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] While conference organisers continue to claim that simultaneoustranslation is too expensive, we risk observing the spectacle ofnon-English speakers lecturing each other in an English that even theEnglish cannot understand. But in Paris, young contributors from France,Finland, Russia and elsewhere showed us the way forward, and it was thesimplest imaginable and had no cost at all. You just put Englishsubtitles onto your PowerPoint presentation, and speak in your nativelanguage (or vice versa VICE VERSA. On the contrary; on opposite sides. ). Soon the ingenious programmers of the age willno doubt come up with the next stage: a continuous ticker tape Ticker TapeA computerized device that relays financial information to investors around the world, including the stock symbol, the latest price, and volume on securities as they are traded. of thetalk running along the bottom of the screen; and after that, please, achoice of subtitle languages selectable by every delegate from their ownseat. Time and topics: summary of studies published in Antiquity 2007 1. Before 100 000 BP: Pre-Acheulian industries in the Caucasus(Derevianko et al.); Lower to Middle Palaeolithic transition in Europe(Hopkinson); Lower Palaeolithic open settlement in France (Lhomme). 2. One hundredth to twenty-fifth millennium BP: Aurignacian cavedwellers in Iran (Otte et al.); An ornamental shark-tooth from Sahul(Leavesley); Modern humans in East Timor (O'Connor); Resisting thecold in Ice Age Tasmania (Gilligan); Grinding flour in Italy (Revedin etal.); Art in the Czech Republic (Farbstein & Svoboda). 3. Twenty-fourth to thirteenth millennia BC: Gravettian technologyin France (Klaric); Feminine flint plaquettes from Poland (Schild etal.); Images of horses (Pigeaud); A hunter-gatherer's toolkit fromJordan (Edwards); Hunter-gatherer burials in south-east Australia(Littleton); Children's finger flutings revisited (Stapert). 4. Thirteenth to sixth millennia BC: 'Lascaux on theNile': late Pleistocene rock art in Egypt (Huyge et al.); Oldestimage of a boat on the Nile (Usai & Salvatori); Water management inthe Levant Levant(ləvănt`)[Ital.,=east], collective name for the countries of the eastern shore of the Mediterranean from Egypt to, and including, Turkey. (Kuijt et al.); A funeral feast in Israel (Goring-Morris& Horwitz); Seasonal farming in Northern Greece (Valamoti); Rockengravings at Philippi, Greece (Dimitriadis et al.); Sea levels onOrkney (Dawson & Wickham-Jones); Rice cultivation in China (Li Liuet al.); Fish traps in the Liffey estuary, Ireland (McQuade &O'Donnell); Vital statistics of Jomon figurines (Hudson &Aoyama). 5. Fifth millennium BC: Urbanism in northern Mesopotamia (Oates etal.); Earliest wine-making in Greece (Valamoti et al.); Rice in thelower Yangtze (Fuller et al.); The onset of hierarchy at Varna, Bulgaria(Chapman et al.); Warfare among the Linearbandkeramik people (Golitko& Keeley); Isotopes and people in the Linearbandkeramik (Biclde& Hofmann); Architecture in Peru (Moore); Lake dwellers at Lough Lough(lŏkh, lŏk). For names of Irish lakes and inlets beginning with "Lough," see second part of element; e.g., for Lough Corrib, see Corrib, Lough. See lake. Kinale, Ireland (Fredengren). 6. Fourth millennium BC: Statuettes at Rawk (Steimer-Herbet etal.); Detecting pork casseroles in Britain (Mukherjee et al.); Onset ofcereal cultivation in Britain and Ireland (Brown). 7. Third millennium BC: Urbanism in Syria's and zone (Castel& Peltenburg); Bell Beakers in Europe (Vander Linden); Silbury Hillin its landscape, England (Bayliss et al.); Monumentality and settlementat Stonehenge (Parker Pearson et al.); Measured landscapes in England(Hill); Chopping up sheep with an Irish halberd halberdWeapon consisting of an ax blade and a sharp spike mounted on the end of a long staff. Usually about 5–6 ft (1.5–2 m) long, it was an important weapon in middle Europe in the 15th and early 16th centuries. (O'Flaherty);Neolithic ash mounds in India (Fuller et al.); Landscape survey inMongolia (Wright et al.); Copper alloy composition in Anatolia(Zimmerman & Yilidim). 8. Second millennium BC: Interpretation of the Nebra disc (Pasztor& Roslund); the Bronze Age in the southern Urals (Hanks et al.);Cowpea cowpea,black-eyed pea,or black-eyed bean,annual legume (Vigna sinensis) of the pulse family. Introduced in the early 18th cent. cultivation in Ghana (D'Andrea et al.); Death by spearing inAustralia (McDonald); Rethinking Erlitou (China) (Li Liu & Hong Xu);An earthquake in Anatolia (Okse); Further evidence for mummification inBronze Age Britain In Great Britain, the Bronze Age is considered to have been the period from around 2700 to 700 BC.Periodization late neolithic: Meldon Bridge Period EBA (2700-1500) (Parker Pearson et al.); World's oldestchocolate (Powis et al.). 9. First millennium BC; An earthen sculpture from Guatemala (Love& Guernsey); Plant offerings on funeral pyres in Greece (Megaloudiet al.); Image of an ammonite ammonite(ăm`ənīt), one of a type of extinct marine cephalopod mollusk, related to the nautilus and resembling it in having an elaborately coiled and chambered shell. on a Greek coin (McMenamin); Obsidian inthe South Seas (Galipaud & Kelly). 10. First millennium AD: Rome and Mesopotamia importing potteryinto India (Tomber); A mass grave in the catacombs (Blanchard et al.);High altitude iron smelting in the Alps (Morin et al.); Roman militaryoccupation in Turkey (Bennett & Goldman); The temple at Uppakra,Sweden (Larsson); Emergence of Viking towns (Sindbaek); Fur traders inSami country (Bergman et al.); Irrigation irrigation,in agriculture, artificial watering of the land. Although used chiefly in regions with annual rainfall of less than 20 in. (51 cm), it is also used in wetter areas to grow certain crops, e.g., rice. and nomads in Iran (Alizadeh& Ur); Buddhist land control in Sri Lanka (Coningham et al.); Azteccity of Calixtlahuaca in Central Mexico (Smith et al.); Cultivatedwetlands and complex society in Chile (Dillehay et al.); Later Stone Ageoccupation on the Ghaap plateau, South Africa (Herries et al.);Transition to farming in Kenya (Lane et al.); Creating towns in Tanzania(Wynne-Jones). 11. Second millennium AD: New towns in Wales This is a link page for towns in Wales. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a town is any settlement which has received a charter of incorporation, more commonly known as a town charter, approved by the monarch. For convenience, cities have also been listed, marked in bold. (Lilley et al.);Popular culture in British churchyards (Mytum); Crockery and socialorder in Australia (Brooks & Connah); German merchants in Finland(Immonen); Urbanism in Finland (Herva et al.); The power of Ottoman bows(Karpowicz); Rock art by artisans in Myanmar (Burma) (Gutman et al.);Copper ingots and society in Zimbabwe (Swan); Gold mining in New Zealand New Zealand(zē`lənd), island country (2005 est. pop. 4,035,000), 104,454 sq mi (270,534 sq km), in the S Pacific Ocean, over 1,000 mi (1,600 km) SE of Australia. The capital is Wellington; the largest city and leading port is Auckland. (Jones). Martin Carver York, 1 December 2007 (1) Ancient Europe (EUP EUP Enterprise Unified ProcessEUP Eastern Upper Peninsula (Michigan, USA)EUP Experimental Use PermitEUP Edinboro University of PennsylvaniaEUP Energy Using ProductEUP Environmental Use PermitEUP Equipment Usage Profile 1965): 17. (2) David Starkey in Making History. Antiquaries in Britain1707-2007 (Royal Academy of Arts Royal Academy of Arts,London, the national academy of art of England, founded in 1768 by George III at the instigation of Sir William Chambers and Benjamin West. Sir Joshua Reynolds was the Academy's first president, holding the office until his death in 1792. , London): 11-13. (3) We are pleased to publish a somewhat divergent verdict on thisexhibition by our Exhibitions Correspondent in the Debate section. (4) Redevance d'archeologie preventive or RAE. In 2006 it was0.37 euro a square metre. The budget in 2006 was 129m euros. Anestimated 70 000 hectares are developed in France each year.