Continuing our focus on the Hebridean Mesolithic, this paper describes new dating on the human bone from Oronsay, showing that late Mesolithic occupation may coincide with the coming of the Neolithic.

Interpretation of archaeological landscapes has developed within two main disciplines. Social theory has provided a foundation for understanding cultural landscapes, and palaeoecology has provided techniques for understanding physical landscapes. Despite their potentially complementary nature, the two approaches remain polarized, and as described here, result in the incomplete studies of past landscapes.

Work by the South Cadbury Environs Project shows that analysing the alignment and morphology of large-scale geophysical data plots can greatly enhance diachronic and synchronic interpretation of a landscape. A pilot study demonstrates that discontinuity of boundary systems features as strongly as continuity in succeeding landscapes.

Research at Mosu I. northern Botswana, has discovered a 10th-century AD ivory cache. Although small, this is one of the largest single concentrations of ivory recovered from southern Africa. Consideration of other occurrences suggests that ivory was prepared throughout the area and traded as finished bangles.

Archaeologists and anthropologists work alongside, but outside, conventional science, Quite often, as here, misunderstandings and misreadings of archaeological data and interpretation can distort the reading of our discipline!

After years of discussion and argument, the fate of Stonehenge and its landscape has been decided. As Professor Geoffrey Wainwright (former Head of Archaeology at English Heritage) describes, there is at last political will to ensure a better future for the monument.

We have invited the Director of Programmes of the AHRB and three leading archaeologists to respond to our editorial of September 1999 in the light of the consequent crisis of the funding archaeological fieldwork based in British universities.

Archaeological, palynological and palaeolimnological evidence is combined with new AMS radiocarbon dates to shed new light on a long-known, yet only partially understood, Upper Palaeolithic occupation in southeast Europe.

Results of recent excavations and radiocarbon dating show that several places in Siberia and the Russian Far East, such as the Lower Amur River basin and the Transbaikal, represent independent centres of pottery invention, and all pre-date 10,000 BP. These two areas should be considered among the earliest centres of pottery origins in East Asia and the Old World. The rest of Siberia is characterized by significantly later appearance of Neolithic cultures, between c. 8000 BP and c. 4600–2600 BP.

The relationship between economic power and political centralization during the First and Second Palace Periods of Bronze Age Crete is a topical theme in Aegean studies. Here, two scholars argue the case for continuity in the economic base of palatial political authority.

Research in Dadong Cave, southern China, has revealed evidence suggesting that nonlithic materials were used in the tool kits of the Chinese Lower Palaeolithic.

Scanning electron microscopy provides an insight into the lapidary techniques of the ancient Near East. Engraved features on quartz cylinder seals have been compared to those produced experimentally, leading to a radical reassessment of the date for the introduction of the engraving wheel.

Herodotus' 5th-century BC Histories provide us with one of the earliest written accounts for the practice of cannibalism. This paper examines the references concerning cannibalism contained in Herodotus, reviews the theories proposed to account for these references, and suggests a new explanation for this cultural motif.

In 1997 a new collaborative research project was initiated by the British School at Rome. This project draws on a variety of sources of archaeological information to explore the regional impact of the City of Rome throughout the period from 1000 BC to AD 1300. The project provides a common collaborative research framework which brings together a range of archaeologists and historians working in various institutions. In this paper those involved in different aspects of this new project outline their work and its overall objectives.

The locations of the medieval castles of the Japanese island of Okinawa have been analysed through a variety of environmental and statistical methods, showing the development of different polities in the Gusuku period.

Research into the iconography and symbolism of early modern funerary monuments provides an important new approach to this unexploited source. Here the remarkable monuments to Sir Henry Savile are explored.

We are grateful for the opportunity to respondto Erickson's (1999) critique of our articles onhuman-environment interactions in the LakeTiticaca basin of Bolivia (Ortloff & Kolata 1993;Abbott et al. 1997; Binford et al. 1997). Hisdecision to publish this critique in ANTIQUITY,rather than in the journals in which our articlesappeared, permits us to reach a broaderaudience. Erickson labels our interpretationsa form of 'neo-environmental determinism', buthis rejection of our conclusions stems fromserious misunderstandings and is misleadingto readers who have not examined our originaldata. He (p. 634) claims:1 our research represents 'simplistic reductionistthinking' that treats humans as 'passivepawns' of environmental change;2 our dating of the chronic drought in the Andeanaltiplano after AD 1150 is impreciseand not correlated with the 12th-centurydisintegration of the Tiwanaku state; and3 the drought did not affect intensive agriculturalproduction.

In their reply to our recent paper (Blockley et al.2000), Housley et ~ l(2.0 00) make four substantialpoints. Firstly, they assert that our critique oftheir two-stage re-colonization model rests solelyupon radiocarbon calibration. Secondly, and consequently,they point to problems with Late Glacialcalibration curves. Thirdly, they argue thatradiocarbon calibration should be advanced onlyfor sound archaeological reasons. Finally, theystate that our approach is environmentally deterministicand that we have demonstrated onlya weak correlation between human demographicchange and rapid climatic amelioration.Housley et al. (2000) argue against the use ofLate Glacial calibration curves, and in particularstate that 'it is because the calibration data are soheavily smoothed that Blockley et al. dispute ournotion of a northward movement of people'