Swedish archaeology enters the new decade reeling, not so much from seasonal feasting as from lay-offs and excavation unit close-downs caused by the 2008-09 recession. Where to now? Where should we go? And, wishful thinking aside, where are we likely to end up?

Many thousands of metal objects are retrieved from arable fields every year, by casual discovery or by treasure-seekers with metal-detectors. What is the status of this material? Here a senior archaeologist and a metal-detectorist get together to demonstrate scientifically the hostile context of the ploughsoil and the accelerating damage it is inflicting on the ancient material it contains. Their work raises some important questions about the ‘archive under the plough’: is it safer to leave the objects there, or to take advantage of a widespread hobby to locate and retrieve them?

Good archaeology relies on ever more precise dates – obtainable, notably, from ice-cores and dendrochronology. These each provide year-by-year sequences, but they must be anchored at some point to real historical time, by a documented volcanic eruption, for example. But what if the dating methods don't agree? Here the author throws down the gauntlet to the ice-core researchers – their assigned dates are several years too old, probably due to the spurious addition of ‘uncertain’ layers. Leave these out and the two methods correlate exactly…

An analysis of the exchange of lithics in settlement period New Zealand (fourteenth century AD) is used to throw light on the mechanisms of colonisation more generally. The early distribution of New Zealand's Mayor Island obsidian demonstrates efficient exploration and dispersal, and the rapid establishment of long-distance exchange networks similar to that seen in early Melanesian obsidian movements. But in New Zealand the motivation is the cementing of social networks, rather than maintaining connections back to a homeland. In the sixteenth century, the distribution of a new high status material, nephrite, shows a different supply system – suggesting trade.

When did upper Palaeolithic cave art come to be thought of as religious? The author shows an origin rooted in the intellectual movements of the later nineteenth century, and in particular in the personage and thought of Salomon Reinach.

Historic Landscape Characterisation (HLC) maps landscape with particular reference to its historic character and development. Executed using sources including satellite imagery and aerial photography and presented in a Geographic Information System (GIS), this offers a powerful insight into a landscape story. Here two leading advocates of the approach apply HLC for the first time to historic landscapes in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Archaeologists specialising in twentieth-century conflict here turn their attention from the trenches of Europe to the desert landscape of the Arabian theatre. The thrust and parry between the Ottoman Army and Lawrence's Arabian forces are reflected in defence-works and the outgoing and incoming bullets found there. The Ottoman generals changed their defences from long lines to redoubts, implying that the less visible guerrillas were having a palpable effect on strategy. Here, archaeology amplifies and enhances the story told in T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

Peter Mitchell (2008) has recently suggested in this journal that the world is facing a ‘catastrophe’ due to anthropogenic climate warming. Mitchell divides his commentary into two parts, and asks two key questions: what is the role of the archaeological community and individual archaeologists in this impending catastrophe and, how will this affect our day-to-day practice? I support most points in the second part (see Rowland 2008) but offer some alternative perspectives to issues raised in the first section of Mitchell's paper. There is a multiplicity of dimensions to the debate about ‘global warming’ (also referred to as ‘enhanced greenhouse warming’, ‘human-induced climate change’ or ‘anthropogenic warming’), including the socio-political milieu, the climate science itself and resulting government policies and guidelines. Archaeologists/anthropologists have a role to play in each of these areas; in particular the longue durée of the archaeological record can provide some fresh insights, a point on which bothMitchell and I agree. Where I differ fromMitchell is that I see a need to refocus the debate toward issues of sustainability and away from the current over-emphasis on global warming.

Archaeology, like all scientific and scholarly disciplines, requires the transmission of knowledge and ideas. This commonly involves the influence of mentors and role models: figures who can at times take on the role of gurus. But adherence to mentors has its dangers. That is shown in the career of Raymond Dart, whose professional work was deeply flawed by the adherence he paid to his mentor Grafton Elliot Smith. His status has been maintained by his dedicated disciple, the great physical anthropologist Phillip Tobias, but critical assessment of the corpus of Dart’s work (Dubow 1996; Derricourt 2009) contrasts with his selective reputation.

In the first part of 1925, Dart — then a youthful professor of anatomy in Johannesburg — published in quick succession two papers in the pre-eminent British science journal Nature.One (on the discovery of Australopithecus with the announcement and interpretation of the Taung fossil cranium) would become a landmark document in the history of palaeoanthropology and prehistory (Dart 1925a). The other is a classic example of the approaches which would later be seen as belonging in the lunatic fringe of archaeology. Dart would continue publishing on both themes throughout his long and productive life (from his birth in Australia in 1893 to death in Johannesburg in 1988).

Detailed analysis of the animal bone assemblage at Gola Dhoro here throws light on the expansion of the Indus civilisation into Gujarat. A square fort, imposed on a settlement of livestock herders in the later third millennium BC, was shown to have contained people who introduced a broader diet of meat and seafood, and new ways of preparing it. These social and dietary changes were coincident with a surge in craft and trade.

Should a public archaeology exhibition focus on objects as objects, or should it also explain something of where they come from and processes of interpreting them? If background is necessary, then how much is needed to make sense of the exhibits? Two recent exhibitions offered different answers. The first was largely descriptive, the second theoretical, and specifically, ‘post-processualist’. Both featured prehistoric anthropomorphic figurines of fired clay. Whether or not because ‘themore human, the less intelligible’ (Hawkes 1954: 162), figurines are among the most intriguing and enigmatic finds. What were they for, and what did they mean? Why do they captivate us today; and how should archaeologists cater for that interest?

Archaeology, consistently warned off religion by wise old heads, here rushes deeper into the thicket to tackle the thorny topic of ancient witchcraft. The occasion was a seminar at Harvard organised by Stephen Mitchell and Neil Price to mark the twentieth anniversary of Carlo Ginzburg's influential book on the connections between witches and shamanism – and by implication the possible connections with prehistoric ritual and belief. Archaeology was by no means the only voice at the meeting, which was attended by scholars active in history, literature, divinity and anthropology. The discussions revealed much that was entangled in the modern psyche: ‘don't let's tame strangeness’ was one leitmotiv of this stimulating colloquium. A romantic attachment to the irrational is a feature of our time, especially among academics. But maybe taming strangeness is an archaeologist's real job…

Diffusion of Mediterranean traits to central and north-western Europe during the middle Iron Age is a topic well rehearsed now by three generations of archaeologists. The stimulating recent exhibition Golasecca at the Musée d’Archéologie nationale in France, showed that – funds permitting – plenty of scope remains for research.

Elaborately made imports, at for instance the Heuneburg, Vix or Hochdorf, have been interpreted as evidence for how aristocrats adopted Greek and Etruscan styles to reinforce their status and regional power between about 600 and 400 BC. Art historians revealed how their bronzesmiths responded selectively to templates from not only states to the south but also eastern nomads. Archaeologists worked out how goods were brought up the Rhône valley by the enterprising Greeks of Marseille or by the northerners themselves exploiting that colony. The ‘trade’ is thought to have encouraged development of social complexity. More recently, to demonstrate the recipients’ ‘agency’, attention has focused on potters’ responses, adoption of coinage and writing and ‘feasts’ for chiefs to show off ‘prestigious’ exotica to rivals, clients or tributaries. Similar models of trade, ‘appropriation’ and sociopolitical development have been developed for the Late Pre-Roman Iron Age and the Roman Iron Age.

This article presents a new initiative in combating looting from the air, building on previous work in Iraq and Jordan. Looted sites in the Virú Valley, Peru, are visible as pit clusters on dated versions of Google Earth. Compare these with earlier air photographs and Gordon Willey's famous survey of the 1940s, and we have a dated chronicle of looting events. This makes it possible to demonstrate that modern looting is certainly taking place and linked to an upsurge in the antiquities trade. As well as being a new instrument for managing heritage, the author shows that the looting survey offers an important research dividend: the location of cemeteries not previously systematically documented, with potential for more thorough investigation even of already looted areas.

Moctezuma, Aztec ruler was the last of four big temporary exhibitions about ‘world rulers’ that the British Museum has put on in the past three years. Moctezuma was the king who received Cortés and the Conquistadores in 1519 and was killed the next year in their custody. The previous three exhibitions were on the First Emperor of China, the Roman Emperor, Hadrian, and Shah ‘Abbas, respectively. Hadrian and The First Emperor were archaeological (James 2008a, 2008c). So was Moctezuma. It ran from September 2009 to January 2010.

Kingship is evidently in vogue among London’s galleries. During The First Emperor’s showing, Tutankhamun entertained on the other side of the river (James 2008b); and the Victoria & Albert Museum mounted Maharaja during Moctezuma’s run. There are good reasons for thinking about kings in any society, regardless of political constitution, because, in their coronations, their deeds and their deaths or funerals, they are ‘collective representations’. Whether as heroes or as scapegoats, democracies tend to promote ‘celebrities’ by the same token and, as well as governing, perhaps monarchs, ancient or contemporary, served and serve that function too. Historians, sociologists and anthropologists have tackled these themes through comparison and so have archaeologists, with epigraphy, iconography and the excavation of palaces and tombs (Blanton et al. 1996; Quigley 2005).

Thirty years after Childe's death we reviewed his persisting relevance (Gathercole 1987). Twenty-two more years have since passed, and we are pleased to see that his achievements have been reviewed again – in a special monograph (Saville 2009). Here Peter Gathercole admires the continuing modernity and ethical strength of his mentor's ideas, seasoning his reflections with some personal memories. Readers are invited to send us their own memories and tributes of Peter himself, who died on 11 October 2010 and will be much missed.