Ploughing is probably the greatest agent of attrition to archaeological sites world-wide. In every country, every year, a bit more is shaved off buried strata and a bit more of the past becomes unreadable. On the other hand, people must eat and crops must be planted. How can the fields be best managed to get the best of both worlds? Perhaps the most pressing need for resource managers is to know how quickly a particular field is eroding: negotiation and protection is then possible. Up to now that has been difficult to measure.

The new procedure presented here, which draws on the unexpected benefits of nuclear weapons testing, shows how variation in the concentration of the radioisotope 137Cs can be used to monitor soil movements over the last 40 years. The measurements allow a site's ‘life expectancy’ to be calculated, and there are some promising dividends for tracking site formation processes.

‘Pete Marsh’, the bog body from Lindow Moss in Cheshire that is properly called ‘Lindow 2’, has given remarkable research opportunities. One of these-perhaps less expected-has been the study of the considerable discrepancies in the suites of dates for the body obtained by two radiocarbon laboratories. The laboratories think this is a specific anomaly which has no implications for any other dates, but one may wonder how many other anomalies would declare themselves if more sites had so many determinations that should relate to the same event.

The interest of the State in the ancient monuments and civilizations of Britain is recent in origin and limited in extent. It is the purpose of this paper to trace in outline the growth of State interest, the limits of State control at the present time, and the main lacunae which appear to exist in the mechanism for the preservation of our national antiquities. Before embarking on this topic it might be well to point out the two chief reasons why, before 1882, the State undertook little or no responsibility within a sphere now generally recognized as the proper concern of any civilized state. In the first place the study of British Archaeology has only within the last fifty years reached a degree of accuracy and discipline worthy of the expenditure of public funds; it is of the utmost significance in this connexion that the first scientific British archaeologist, General Pitt-Rivers, was appointed as first Inspector of Ancient Monuments under the Act of 1882.

In this penultimate contribution to our series in which archaeologists look back at archaeology in their time, John Mulvaney, formerly Professor of Prehistory and head of the Department of Prehistory and Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts, Australian National University, Canberra, speaks of his work as a teacher, writer, researcher and archaeological politician. More than anyone he has taught the world about Australian prehistory and the Australians about their own past—and the need to preserve it, culminating in the triumphal campaign to save the Franklin River region of SW Tasmania. He resigned from professional commitment to Australian archaeology at the early age of sixty. His retirement will allow him more time for writing, reading and, perhaps, recreation (the Production Editor treasures the gift of his book, ‘Cricket Walkabout’, in 1967: an account of the Aboriginal Cricket Tour of England, 1867–8).

Bororo and cultural continuity

Cultural continuity and discontinuity is a fascinating issue in archaeological investigation, especially in regions where native populations are still present, as in the case of southeastern Mato Grosso. Since there is no necessary correlation between archaeological cultures and self-conscious ethnic groups (Hodder 1978; 1982; Jones 1997), research in areas where a link between ethnographically andlor ethnohistorically known groups and the archaeological record can be established presents a significant challenge for the study of processes involved in cultural continuities, ruptures, and the maintenance or abandonment of stylistic boundaries. This is especially true in a context of colonial impact on native populations, as in the case of the Bororo society.

Flint quarries in the Rohri hills supplied stone to the city of Mohenjo-Daro, out on the silty river-plain and lacking local supply. A new survey has identified workshop sites and an extraordinary scale of production.

Sauer (1925) saw the terrestrial scene as more than a natural arena for human action. He recognized the repeated human impact on a living earth which created an ever-changing stage of landscape. Geographical conceptions of landscape have changed in the intervening 75 years. Today, geographers acknowledge the historically contingent qualities of nature and society and their inter-relationships (Zimmerer 1994).

The Sutton Hoo Project took up work again at that most famous of British early medieval sites two generations after the excavation of its ship-burial in the summer of 1939. As befits a field project of two generations later, much of its emphasis has been on the context of the site, as well as the barrow-field itself. Here is published a surface find from that wider context.

The relationship between archaeology and history is not just an abstract theoretical question: it is one which determines the practical organization of archaeological activity and the publication of its results. It is a general problem of archaeology in Europe, where the subject has had to differentiate itself from the historical study of a long series of literate cultures; and it is especially acute in the former Soviet bloc, where a Marxist orthodoxy of historical science formerly prevailed. Leo Klejn is Russaian archaeology's most distinguished theoretician. Here he discusses in his own words both the academic sociology of the historical sciences and the role which he sees for archaeology within them.

More than a century ago the publications of Gdouard Lartet laid the foundations for the nomenclature and stratigraphy of the French Upper Palaeolithic. Academic debate arising from Lartet's work continued until the 1930s by which time the framework and classification of the period were fixed. They have remained fairly static ever since. Indeed, the French system appeared unimpeachable, so that scholars strove to apply it, unchanged, to widely differing areas. Since the 1930s most work on the French sequence has been designed to confirm the results of old and 'untrustworthy' excavations, and to shore up an original framework with additional information. The situation is much the same for the way of life of palaeolithic man: the standard textbook description of savage hunters eking a living from a harsh environment was in vogue for a very long time, and one might be forgiven for believing that this hypothesis had always been dominant; this is not the case. It is little-known fact in this country that during the latter part of the nineteenth century there were major arguments in academic circles concerning the way of life in the Palaeolithic, and in particular the question of domestication during that period. Were it not for the demise of Piette and the subsequent dominance of Breuil, it is possible that the present orthodox account of the Upper Palaeolithic might be very different

Where is rock-art study heading? The author analyses the current trends and proposes a landscape-based, gender-sensitive approach for future work.