We have invited an active prehistorian from Sicily to set two important events in context: the first conference on Sicilian prehistory held at Corleone and the important exhibition held in Palermo over the last year. Sicily is one of the richest regions of the world for archaeological remains and yet has not received the attention it deserves. This is especially true for prehistory, which has suffered from devaluation by ancient historians such as Moses Finley (1979: 13) — ‘… the Greek settlers found wives among the natives, and also a labour force. Other than that, however, the lasting effects of the pre-Greek populations would not seem to have been very significant’—and where it has often been assumed that everything of worth came from outside. Enrico Giannitrapani presents the emerging consciousness of Sicilians that their island was not founded by the Greeks.

The north Italian Bronze Age culture–the terramare–has recently been celebrated in a splendid exhibition at Modena, and new catalogues, research and the re-opening of old excavations. Mark Pearce discusses the relevance of the old ideas in the light of new data.

‘Ruffled feathers’ seem to be part of the World Archaeological Congress. Here we present two different assessments of the forthcoming World Archaelogical Congress in Cape Town in January–one from an observer, Willy Kitchen, and one from the WAC Secretary, Julian Thomas, which set out some of the ideals and current realities of this highly political enterprise.

Classical archaeologists gathered in Amsterdam at their quinquennial congress this summer. Some of the key papers contributed to the on-going theoretical and methodological debate between traditionalists and relativists, while other speakers presented new computer techniques and interesting findings.

Paviland is the richest Early Upper Palaeolithic site in the British Isles and has produced Britain's only ceremonial burial (the ‘Red Lady’) of that age. Excavations in the 19th and early 20th centuries, combined with the action of the sea, have removed virtually all of the cave's sedimentary sequence. A new, definitive study of the site and its finds, together with over 40 radiocarbon dates, shows that Paviland currently holds the key to our understanding of the chronology of human activity and settlement from c. 30,000 to 21,000 years ago. The age of the ‘Red Lady’ is also finally resolved at c. 26,000 b.p.

To what extent was gender an important factor in plant domestication? How much of the domestication process can be considered as cultural rather than biological? Christine Hastorf considers these and many associated questions in this topical essay about plants and people.

In the Near East, the inherent dualism of clay as both symbol and instrument was a feature of its use from the inception of farming villages to the formation of cities, and the extensive record of its ‘changing face’ allows us to trace the continuous history of development between them.

Lithic studies all too often ignore the material of later prehistory. Here an exploration of ideas of curation and expediency offers a new insight into material from Bronze Age Cyprus.

Oakbank is one of 18 crannogs in Loch Tay, and the first in Britain to have been excavated underwater. The abundant and well-preserved plant remains indicate a prosperous society with a well-founded arable and pastoral agriculture. Opium poppy and spelt wheat remains imply trade and suggest high status. Cloudberry pips highlight long-range gathering, possibly during transhumance.

Various methods have been employed in the attempt to date rock-art. Here Robert Bednarik offers a critique of the cosmogenic radiation nuclides method, and its application to the Côa petroglyphs.

With changes in political structures, a pan-European dimension is increasing in importance for many archaeologists, because of cultural policy and funding from the Council of Europe and, especially, the European Union. Although nationalist frameworks are currently more important, archaeologists should keep a critical eye on European developments.

In March, we discussed the founding of the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre (IARC) at the McDonald Institute in Cambridge (ANTIQUITY 72: 4–5). Here we publish a contribution towards the debate on the theft of antiquities from Turkey and their acquisition by museums in the USA. Turkey has long had an active policy in fighting cases for restitution of its heritage, and Janet Blake describes their success.

The 1998 excavations at the Maya city of La Milpa have revealed important structures of the ruling élite, including several throne rooms, but also evidence for a sudden cessation of élite activity when the occupation was at its height. Extensive mapping suggests a population of some 46,000 over a short period in the 8th and 9th centuries AD.

The Shapwick Project has pioneered and tested a variety of new methods in field survey. Here heavy metal soil analysis is tested in the search for aceramic sites.

In June ANTIQUITY published a novel contribution by Mike Parker Pearson and his Madagascan colleague Ramilisonina, which addressed the question of the significance of stone at Stonehenge(ANTIQUITY 72: 308–76). They argued that stone symbolized death and the dead, and provided examples from ethnographic studies to support this notion. The paper has stimulated two replies–from John Barrett & Kathryn Fewster, and from Alasdair Whittle. We are pleased to publish these here, as part of the continuing debate on analogy in archaeology, and on Stonehenge.

The richly textured paper on Stonehenge by Mike Parker Pearson & Ramilisonina (1998) develops exciting new ways of looking at Stonehenge and other stone monuments, drawing on analogies from Madagascar and elsewhere to elaborate the importance of ancestors in kinship-based societies. The presentation of practices and beliefs related to ancestors in parts of Madagascar is particularly powerful. Their Neolithic model gains extra credence by being applied not only to Stonehenge but also to the Avebury complex. In the latter case, I find their suggestion of a parallelism in layout between Avebury and the West Kennet Avenue on the one hand and West Kennet palisade enclosure 2 and Outer Radial Ditch 1 plus Structure 4 on the other, very convincing. That relationship may just have been reinforced by the recognition this year by RCHME on aerial photographs (Bob Bewley pers. comm.) of another outer radial ditch leading from Palisade Enclosure 2 to another circular external structure, on more or less the same alignment as the first set. The recognition of a social setting for these monument complexes and traditions different to that envisaged in chiefdom models is also very welcome.

We have identified a structuring principle of hardening in the passage from life to ancestorhood which can be found in contemporary Madagascar, Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain and, for that matter, contemporary Britain. The use of analogy that we have preferred is not the formal ethnographic parallel, nor is it crosscultural generalization, but a relational analogy; we did not intend to apply it as a ‘universal’ but as a ‘What if … 7’ scenario — unfortunately we inadvertently gave Barrett & Fewster, and perhaps other readers, the wrong end of the stick. What is important is not the analogy per se — it ultimately tells us only that such things are possible rather than universal — but whether the archaeological evidence in question can be adequately explained in this way through detailed contextual study. The analogy merely provides the comparison; its suitability is decided by the degree of corroboration and goodness of fit with the evidence of the archaeological case-study.