In 1929, commenting on southern Africa’s rock art, Leo Frobenius remarked: ‘… oddities occur which are completely outside our understanding. There are large forms, shaped like galls or livers, into which human figures are painted …’ (1929: 333). He coined the term‘formling’ to ‘denote this composite type of forms and yet not easily explained’ (Goodall 1959: 62, my emphasis). These motifs (FIGURE 1) still remain poorly understood. In 1998, I began research into their form and meaning. In this note I set out the history of the formling debate and introduce some of my new findings.

This paper reviews the architectural and human skeletal remains from Umm an-Nar period tombs (c. 2500–2000 BC), found across the Oman Peninsula. Possible meanings for the regional dispersal of the tombs across the region are considered. Tomb Unar 2 may provide possible interpretations of 3rd-millennium BC burial practices.

The emergence of the Moche Civilization into an expansionist state is still a matter of debate. Burial data and stratigraphic and radiometric data are used to shed light on the Moche III phase at the Huacas of Moche site. The implications of this new set of data will enhance our understanding of the early history of the site.

New research fields and areas of scientific specialization often bring division and disciplinary divides. Here Brown & Pluciennik discuss the impact of genetic research on archaeology.

This paper addresses how the rulers of the Classic Maya sought to promote polity cohesion and to maintain power. New information is presented on scribe capture and its importance in reinforcing the power and importance of the king.

A study of the Middle Palaeolithic stone tool technology from assemblages in South India reveals diverse reduction strategies, including preferences exercised in the choice of row material and blanks for tool manufacture. Various behaviour patterns are identified which have significant implications for the relatively little known Indian Middle Palaeolithic

Understanding how differential wealth develops between households in villages is one key to understanding how socioeconomic inequalities develop; a key theoretical issue for archaeologists. An ethnoarchaeological perspective in Southeast Asia gains major insights into how socioeconomic inequalities emerged and were maintained, with numerous implications for other cereal and stock based prehistoric cultures, such as those of Neolithic Europe.

The appearance of Oldowan sites c. 2.5 million years ago signals one of the most important adaptive shifts in human evolution. Large mammal u butchery, stone artefact manufacture and novel transport and discard behaviours led to the accumulation of the first recognized archaeological debris. Although the earliest instances of these behaviours are 2.5 million years ago, most of what we know about Oldowan palaeoecology and behaviour is derived from localities more than half a million years younger, particularly c. 1.8 million-year-old sites from Bed I Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania (Potts 1988). Sites from Kanjera South, Homa Peninsula, southwestern Kenya, yield dense concentrations of artefacts in association with the oldest (c. 2.2 million years) substantial sample of archaeological fauna known thus far from Africa. This study is the first to use a wide range of traditional and innovative techniques to investigate Oldowan hominin behaviour and site formation processes before 2 million years ago.

The Buganda state, which flourished on the northern shores of Lake Victoria from the 17th to the 19th centuries AD, is widely regarded as one of the most significant socio-political developments of the African continent, most notably having featured prominently in Frazer’s The Golden Bough. In bananas, Buganda had a unique subsistence base, and its later history suggests an unusual urban trend of large capitals occupied over short periods of time. Given these prominent characteristics it is incredible, therefore, that there has been no concerted archaeological research programme in Buganda.

A set of gunflints and other artefacts produced by Fred Snare at Brandon is an example of ways in which craftsmen in a declining trade attempted to create new markets by introducing new techniques and forms, and finding new ways to sell traditional skills. Sample sets and artefacts made for collectors reflect how some gunflint knappers, drawing on romantic conceptions of their craft as ‘heritage’, assigned new meanings to the flint industry as part of a survival strategy for an obsolescent trade.

This paper presents archaeological and palynological evidence for long continuation of the Mesolithic way of life in east-central Europe irrespective of the presence of early Neolithic farmers. The complete Neolithization of the area took place only about 3500 BC, as a consequence of long-term interactions between indigenous foragers and exotic farmers.

Pottery was found in situ in the Mesolithic layers of the site Lepenski Vir in the Iron Gates gorges of the Danube. This discovery raises issues about Meso-Neolithic contact in the second half of the 7th millennium cal BC. Here discussion of the evidence from Lepenski Vir and Padina explores the Neolithic groups which made contact, opening the debate on the process of neolithization in the Balkans and southeast Europe in general.

This paper presents a revised chronology for the Linearbandkeramik and strontium isotope measurements of human skeletal material from two cemeteries which indicate a high incidence of migration. It appears that LBK farmers were highly migratory and interacted with surrounding communities.

Recent archaeological and pedological research on South Scandinavian Bronze Age barrows reveals that the remarkable conditions of preservation in a number of mounds are the result of particular construction techniques or special activities during construction. Augerings indicate that the phenomenon is concentrated within specific groups of barrows with central positions in a hypothetical Bronze Age communication system.

International exhibitions in the 19th century were used as showcases for scientific and technological advances, but also often included exhibits of objects from the past, including prehistoric times. Three Expositions Universelles held in Paris in 1867, 1878 and 1889 are examined to see how archaeological artefacts were presented to the public and how they influenced the development of the subject of prehistoric archaeology at that period.

The Kintampo Archaeological Research Project is the first venture conducted under the auspices of the academic collaboration established between the Department of Archaeology, University of Ghana (UG) and the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL). KARP is a field-based project designed around two separate areas of research, encon~passingth e Late Stone Age (LSA) Punpun (hunter–gatherers) and Kintampo Cultures (agropastoralists) and development and change within iron metallurgical technology in the region. These studies aim to elucidate the social, economic and technological dynamics of prehistoric Ghana and to generate material that will be made available to researchers from both Universities. The direct responsibility for supervision of the project on the British side is Dr Kevin MacDonald (UCL), Dr Yaw Bredwa-Mensah (UG) supervises and co-ordinates the research collaboration, and overall responsibility for the project lies with Professor Peter Ucko (UCL). To date the project has undertaken three field seasons: an initial survey of the study area, followed by the excavation of several suitable sites during the second season and this year. An additional season will be conducted during summer 2002, completing the first phase of KARP. However, continuing joint collaborations are envisaged.

Past research in the Acacus mountains has been mostly concerned with studies of rock art (Mori 1965) and site-oriented investigations, particularly rock-shelters in the central and northern Acacus (Uan Muhuggiag: Mori 1965; Barich 1987; Ti-n-Torha North: Barich 1974; 1987; Wadi Athal: Barich & Mori 1970). This important research disclosed the astonishing archaeological richness of the area. Particular emphasis was given to data suggesting the existence of early forms of pastoral economy in the region (Mori 1961; 1965; Barich 1987). This led to the hypothesis, differently and repeatedly formulated, of a Saharan focus for the emergence of food-producing activity, based on cattle herding, independent from the Nile Valley and the Near East (Mori 1961; Barich 1987). This is not the place to discuss in detail this interesting, but now largely discarded, hypothesis; what is important to underline, however, is the limited database used in its formulation. The results of only three excavations, all located in the mountain ranges, provided the basis of the evidence presented without any attempt to place these sites in a broader regional framework.

Whilst digital cameras and computer graphics are starting to be used in archaeological recording, stereoscopic photography tends to be overlooked. This technique has been used successfully in three recent projects and could be beneficial as a means of 3D photographic recording.

Wheel-thrown pottery was widely produced in ancient Palestine during the Middle Bronze Age. However, evidence from two sites in Jordan has led to recent suggestions that this technique went out of use throughout the region during the Late Bronze Age. Investigation by xeroradiography of the pottery-forming techniques used in a Late Bronze Age potter's workshop at Lachish, Israel, suggests that the situation may be more complex and that further research is needed before generalized conclusions can be drawn.

In December 2000 we published ‘Time Please’, a retrospective of archaeological transformation in England, by Geoffrey Wainwright, the former Chief Archaeologist of English Heritage. He reviewed the enormous changes over the last 30–40 years from his perspective at the heart of the ‘Heritage’ establishment.

We have received three comments from fellow professionals which offer some alternative recollections of events, priorities and changes. Philip Rahtz, Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at York and a founder of Rescue, comments on that area, and the emergence of state archaeology in the early years. Peter Fowler, formerly Secretary to the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England) and Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at Newcastle, comments too on Rescue, and particularly on the role of academic archaeology, including that of Extra-Mural, as one of the principal promoters of public interest and action in archaeology. David Baker (formerly County Archaeologist for Bedfordshire and Chair of ACAO) & Richard Morris (formerly Chair of the Council for British Archaeology) add their views to the debate with a candid discussion of PPG-16 and the business of planning and archaeology. Predictably, there are many perspectives on the route that archaeology, as a means to mitigate damage to the heritage, and to provide a record of the past, has taken over its years of increasingly high-profile professional and business activity.