There can be no doubt that isotopic studies have made a huge contribution to archaeology in recent years, so much so that isotope archaeology is now seen as an essential subdiscipline of archaeology in much the same way as isotope geochemistry is a key subdiscipline of geochemistry. Ignoring for current purposes the contribution made by the measurement of a particular radioactive isotope of carbon (14C) since 1950, we can date the beginnings of isotope archaeology to the mid 1960s with the first measurements of lead isotopes in archaeological metals and slags by Brill and Wampler (1965, 1967). This was followed by carbon stable isotopes in human bone collagen in the late 1970s, building on previous work measuring σ13C in archaeological bone for radiocarbon determinations (Vogel & Van der Merwe 1977; Van der Merwe & Vogel 1978). Other isotopes followed rapidly, such as nitrogen, oxygen, sulphur and hydrogen for archaeological, palaeoecological or palaeoclimatological purposes and, more recently, the heavier radiogenic isotopes of strontium and neodymium for determining the provenance of organic and inorganic materials (Pollard & Heron 2008).

When David Clark asked me in 1970 to contribute a chapter on Southeast Asia for hisnew book, Models in archaeology, I faced a dilemma. What could one say about an areathe size of Western Europe of which virtually nothing was known? So I entitled mychapter 'Initial model formulation in terraincognita' and speculated on the basis ofthe handful of sites that had been excavated (Higham 1972). Nor was the prognosisfor the area at all promising. The war inVietnam was spilling over into Laos andCambodia. China remained a looming voidto the north, Burma was not receptiveand Malaysia did not welcome foreignarchaeologists. Only Thailand shone likea welcoming beacon.

What should professional archaeologists do about objects discovered by amateurs? The best known cases involve metal-detectorists who, under the English 'Treasure Act (1996), are permitted to make agreements with land-owners to search for antiquities and keep them, although the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS; set up to complement the Act's provisions) encourages them to have their finds registered by an archaeologist. There is no doubt that this has greatly increased knowledge of artefacts discovered in England where, in the past decade, the annual number of 'portable antiquities formally reported has risen steeply (Bland 2008: 71). The British Museum is now promoting a code of practice (Bland 2008: 81–2); and, at pains to avoid counterposing professional archaeologists and amateurs, it is encouraging the opportunities for outreach and 'community archaeology' (British Museum n.d.: 16–18). Thus Bland (2008: 80) welcomes collective knowledge . . . founded on public . . . participation' rather than . . . research . . . conceived and executed by professionals'. Yet there are now fresh anxieties about preservation at detectorists' sites (Pestell & Ulmschneider 2003: 9–10; Wilson 2009; Plouviez 2010).

The survival of organicmaterials in the waterless fringes of the Takla Makan and Lop Deserts in the Tarim basin in Xinjiang (north-western China) has fascinated us for a century, since Sven Hedin, Aurel Stein and Albert von Le Coq found the remains of settlements and cemeteries at the Great Wall's lonely outposts and along the routes between China and Central Asia known as the Silk Road. The finds date from the Bronze Age to the later firstmillennium AD. In the 1980s and '90s, it was shown that the most striking of them, the Tarim 'mummies', belong to both Mongoloid and Caucasoid peoples (Mallory&Mair 2000). The archaeology here of public and domestic life is full of the kinds of surprises and contradictions that we are learning to expect—if not accept—with 'globalisation'. Development in the region is now prompting new discoveries but also looters, so the research is urgent.

We acknowledge the observations of Doppler et al. on our paper and we are grateful to Antiquity s editor for this opportunity to reply to their objections. Firstly it should be noted that we have not claimed that the Chiemsee once included the Tuttensee. We agree that the region in which both lakes lie was glacially formed. But while Lake Chiemsee is the result of the last Ice Age, the Tuttensee basin originates from a much later Holocene meteorite impact. We do not use the myth of Phaeton to date this event that is known as the Chiemgau impact. On the contrary, we estimate from archaeological evidence and OSL dating that the event occurred between 2200 and 800 BC i.e. the Bronze Age (Rappengluck et al. 2010: 436).We go on to discuss parallels between the independent dating of the Chiemgau impact and the possible time frame of the myth (Rappengluck et al. 2010: 435–37).