New radiocarbon dates confirm the evident possibility that Machu Picchu was not an Inca foundation on a wholly new site, and give a first indication of the duration of the citadel's previous occupation.

Vegetable remains are a rarity in Palueolithic contexts. These new determinations on material from southern Egypt establish securely the date of an intensive grass-tuber and fish economy in the Nile Valley towards 20,000 years ago.

The Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic resettlement of northern Britain, as glacial conditions receded, has a n obvious local interest and raises wider questions for the region. Here is a significant new find from northwest England.

For the last half-century, the story of very early hominids, and their stone industries, has been almost exclusively ‘in Africa’. This first report of a very early industry takes the story ‘out of Africa’ and into the Indian sub-continent – that is, in a geographical direction towards the early industries of eastern Asia.

Under King Sesostris III (Twelfth Dynasty) two sarcophagi of the Third Dynasty seem to have been removed from tombs below the Step Pyramid and buried within the king's pyramid enclosure, probably as a kind offoundation deposit to complement the complex's imitation of Third Dynasty forms. Their extraction is perhaps our earliest evidence for subterranean exploration based on effectively antiquarian motives.

Excavators have been starting to use video as a recording tool. Here is a report on some experiences so far.

Apparent deficiencies in Irish legislation for the protection of archaeology have been much commented on (e.g. ANTIQUITY 62: 4–5); here, the Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum points also to some of its strengths – for example, in protecting artefacts and non-artefactual material as well as sites and monuments – and explains the vigorous measures now taken to bring the law and the penalties up to date.

A salutary test of the advances made in the communication of archaeology to a non-specialist audience is to go into a children's bookshop and ask for books about prehistory. It can be an unsettling experience. This note looks at what was produced on a visit to a children's bookshop in Cambridge, as it indicates the sort of haphazard collection available to a casual buyer.

Where and when does a living culture cease, where and when does archaeology begin? The issue has been raised again, this time concerning the repainting of Australian rock pictures.

Another proposal is made as to why there often are ard marks under barrows.

ANTIQUITY reported last year on the start of the British project ‘to teach yourself how to sail a classical warship’. The second season's trials, benefitting from the lessons of the first, took place in the summer, and it begins to come clear that the classical reports of the trireme's astonishing performance are well founded.

The precise placing of spots in the landscape from the evidence of old photographs – whether of things themselves of archaeological interest or for re-locating old excavations – is obvious enough in principle, and clearly useful. Here is a practical means to do this, with two examples from historical archaeology in the United States, a context where matters of archaeological interest come more often into the era of photography than they do in some other places.

The new Monuments Protection Programme (Darvill et al. 1987; the November 1987 ANTIQUITY) will depend heavily on scoring systems to assess the relative value of different monuments and areas. Here are some comments by someone else with experience of scoring sites.

The Cerne Abbas Giant, most graphic of English hill-figures, is of uncertain date - arguably Roman or pre-Roman, but absent from all documentary records of its Dorset region before the mid 18th century. Previous ANTIQUITY contributors (Grinsell 1980: Bettey 1981) have set out its known early history anti lack of history. Here the story is told ofthe survival through this century of the Giant's remarkable genitals.

The re-discovery and recognition of a snarling iron, a delightfully named metal-workers' tool, adds another aspect to knowledge of Harappan technological skills.

Issue is here taken about inference from skeletal evidence to the darker side of Dark Age life and death.

Much of the Parthenon and its sculpture is, visibly enough, no longer standing on the Acropolis. Here is notice of where some bits of it may have gone, and of where and in what form they may now be seen.

Prehistoric figurines and building models are rarely discovered in clearly defined, non-funerary contexts in the Near East and eastern Mediterranean regions. When they are found in association in a cache of over 50 objects it is a notable archaeological event. Here Dr Edgar Peltenburg, Director of the Lemba Archaeological Project, Cyprus, argues that the cache provides important new light on the evolution of cult places in the eastern Mediterranean.

A review of a major book on medieval Jerusalem is the opportunity also to look at the balance of attention that has been given to different aspects of the city's history.