The role that Anatolia played in the formation of Neolithic cultures has generally been overlooked. However, recent work indicates the presence of a new formation zone in Central Anatolia, distinct in all elements of culture from the traditional Levantine–Mesopotamian zone which also includes Southeastern Turkey. A conspectus of the recent evidence indicates that, even in areas where cultural elements are similar, there is considerable diversity in subsistence patterns. Thus, it is evident that subsistence patterns were not as significant as previously envisaged in defining the status of Neolithic communities or in stimulating their appearance. Moreover, the range of available resources in the broad-ranging habitats of Central and Western Anatolia seem to have been a potent factor both in the initial Neolithic and its later developments. The Neolithic cultures of Anatolia were much less dependent upon domesticates, with sedentary life strongly supported by hunting and gathering.

The pre-pottery Neolithic of the Near East provides a model based upon extremely complex and sophisticated socio-cultural developments, with indications of a ruling elite in control of the economy and ritual life. The collapse of this system by the end of the PPNB seemingly reflected social upheavals which provoked a massive migration to other regions. Apart from this factor, the rich environmental potential of the Aegean or the Balkans would have been sufficient to support the spread of the whole Neolithic population from Anatolia.

The main questions addressed in this paper are these: How can we conceptualise power? How can we identify power relations in the archaeological record? How can we explain the emergence of asymmetrical power relations?

These questions will be approached by discussing the creation of value and prestige in primitive societies, with particular emphasis on the practice of conspicuous consumption. I shall argue that an object's value is created not only through labour at the moment of production, but also during its circulation within gift exchange networks, and through its consumption (destruction, deposition) in ostentatious ceremonies. While both gift exchange and conspicuous consumption are central strategies for the creation of value and prestige, I suggest that there is a crucial difference between them: conspicuous consumption brings about the abolition of the reciprocal relationship on which gift exchange is based. The initiation (and indeed the institutionalisation) of conspicuous consumption is therefore an important strategy in creating, rather than simply expressing or legitimating asymmetrical relationships.

The theoretical discussion will be applied to a specific historical problem: the transformation of the largely egalitarian kin-based Middle Bronze Age societies of the southern Greek mainland into the hierarchical Mycenaean (i.e. Late Bronze Age) palatial system. I shall argue that conspicuous consumption in the mortuary sphere was not simply a symptom, but a crucial element of the deep structural transformation that swept the southern mainland at the transition to the Late Bronze Age.

According to a model of local cultural development, human adaptation to the specific conditions of the habitat in the third–late second millennium BC led to the appearance of a culture of the ‘mobile herders’ in the Eurasian steppe. Recent major studies of the key role of the horse and an increased mobility of these people provide the background for the origin and development of a new system of armament. The bow and arrow were at the centre of this new nomadic military equipment, A three-stage model for the evolution of the Bronze Age nomadic bow shows the existence of two types of bow in the Eurasian steppe during the Bronze Age: a traditional long bow of a simple type and a short composite bow. A new type of bow appeared in the first half of the second millennium BC, short enough to be used on horseback, and composite for extra power. The earliest evidence for such bows is clearly localised on the western part of the Eurasian steppe, but the technical innovation quickly spread throughout the steppe to the East.

This article will investigate the phenomenon of urban decay and collapse, primarily using examples from the ancient Mediterranean world, but also through comparison with David Byrne's recent investigation of contemporary urban breakdown phenomena in northern England. The analytical approach I wish to introduce to shed new light on this phenomenon is Chaos–Complexity Theory, which has a growing attraction for many social scientists in its potential for resolving the oppositional stances of Modernism and Postmodernism.

Until recently, aerial reconnaissance in Europe was performed almost exclusively by British, German and French specialists. Under the influence of traditional paradigms in archaeology, this discipline was considered in almost all countries as a means of detecting new sites rather than an instrument for the study of spatial relations between past prehistoric communities and their areas, on the one hand, and between people and their natural environment on the other. At the same time, national campaigns in aerial reconnaissance have not been completed by systematic applications of other non-destructive field methods which help to evaluate the potential of air survey and which can bring its results closer to the solution of the principal theoretical problems of settlement archaeology. Since landscape archaeology has changed the archaeological paradigm during the last 25 years, data from aerial photographs have been increasingly evaluated. Since the beginning of this decade, countries of Central and Eastern Europe have started up aerial archaeological projects. A close cooperation between archaeologists from once-divided Europe in the field of aerial archaeology has stressed the feeling of common European roots among archaeologists of all periods.

The historical constitution of the region's past is considered through the study of folklore, miscellaneous ‘lay’ sources, commercial histories and antiquarian accounts – all variously socially and economically sympathetic. Of broad relevance is the changing nature of reference/authority, the conceptualisation of landscape as waste/frontier and the role of ‘natives’. In this case of internal colonialism, parallels are drawn concerning the status of land and archaeological practice within the developing world today.

The paper deals with classical archaeology and art history in Brazil and its scholarly revolutionary role. Brazilian society is characterised as grounded on patronage and the recent history of archaeology in the country is related to the Cold War period, when there was a military dictatorship in Brazil supported by the United States. Archaeology suffered particularly, but classical archaeology was a way of avoiding direct persecution and also of being in touch with up-to-date social theory. Classical archaeology and art history developed a scholarly approach to science which ran counter to the prevailing mediocrity resulting from patronage. Scholarship itself is revolutionary and both disciplines, thanks mostly to their European roots, have been active in challenging clientship schemes.

This paper argues that, if we are to understand the intrinsic nature of archaeology as a social practice, we have to situate the way in which we are conducting archaeological practices in both local and global contexts for considering a way forward. This contention is supported by a critical account of the current crisis situation in which Japanese archaeology operates. It is argued that this crisis situation has resulted from changes which have been taking place in both macro- and microlevels of Japanese social reality. A Marxist tradition, which had kept theory and practice of Japanese archaeology integrated with a certain sense of reality, collapsed from changes which took place in the international political climate and in domestic social conditions. Those changes had significant effects not only upon the discursive level of the consciousness of the archaeologist but also upon the non-discursive level of the consciousness of the archaeologist. The current condition of the non-discursive consciousness of the archaeologist makes it almost impossible to grasp the causes of the crisis and to consider a possible way out.

It is argued that the creation of a critical ontology, enabling us discursively to grasp the causes of the crisis, is badly needed to improve the situation. It is proposed that such a critical ontology should enable us to grasp the mechanism of the formation of non-discursive/practical consciousness of ourselves which, together with the experience of the material conditions, constitutes the subjective conditions under which we conduct our archaeological practice.