Too little is known about the effects of archaeology policy, which makes it difficult to evaluate and adjust the policy on the basis of rational arguments. We simply do not have enough hard evidence. As a result, policy development depends largely on subjective factors such as instinct, vision and expert judgment. A well-balanced assessment of policy – something both politicians and the public would very much like to see – is therefore impossible. To help fill the gap, targeted research is now being conducted into the effects of policy. This article outlines the findings of the report Archaeology in the Netherlands 2002: the national archaeological review and outlook, which was presented to the government of the Netherlands.

For over a century prehistorians have approached the engraved stone plaques of the Iberian late Neolithic and Copper Age (3000–2500 BC) from a monolithic and idealist perspective, viewing the plaques as representations of the Mother Goddess. Most have not addressed the plaques' variability, their method of manufacture, the organization of their production, or their biographies. This article presents new interpretations of the Iberian plaques based on the first comprehensive on-line catalogue of the plaques – the Engraved Stone Plaque Registry and Inquiry Tool (ESPRIT) (Lillios 2004) – which holds records for over 1100 plaques, each unique, from over 200 sites in Portugal and Spain. Analyses of the plaques' raw material, style, chaîne opératoire, and distribution over space suggest that different plaque types had different functions and meanings, which shifted over time. Two plaque types: the Classic plaques and the Biomorphic Simple plaques are considered in this article. In their diverse forms, the Iberian plaques appear to have been durable records of regional and local group identities and could have contributed toward legitimating and perpetuating an ideology of inherited social difference in the Iberian late Neolithic and Copper Age.

Human skeletal remains from Bell Beaker graves in southern Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Hungary were analyzed for information on human migration. Strontium isotope ratios were measured in bone and tooth enamel to determine if these individuals had changed ‘geological’ residence during their lifetimes. Strontium isotopes vary among different types of rock. They enter the body through diet and are deposited in the skeleton. Tooth enamel forms during early childhood and does not change. Bone changes continually through life. Difference in the strontium isotope ratio between bone and enamel in the same individual indicates change in residence. Results from the analysis of 81 Bell Beaker individuals indicated that 51 had moved during their lifetime. Information on the geology of south-central Europe, the application of strontium isotope analysis, and the relevant Bell Beaker sites is provided along with discussion of the results of the study.

The article presents new results of stable isotope analyses made on animal and human bones from the Mesolithic–early Neolithic sites of Lepenski Vir and Vlasac in the Danube Gorges of the Balkans. It reconstructs the food web for the region during these periods on the basis of stable isotope analyses of mammal and fish species found at Vlasac. These results are compared to measurements made on human burials from the two sites. In the light of these new results, the article also discusses interpretations provided by previous isotopic studies of this material. It concludes that great care is required in the interpretation of stable isotope results due to inherent methodological complexities of this type of analysis, and suggests that it is also necessary to integrate stable isotope results with information based on the examination of faunal remains and the archaeological context of analysed burials when making inferences about palaeodietary patterns.

What is the fate of the material from old excavations? This article aims to generate attention towards this question by discussing the fragmentation of assemblages due to long and disjointed excavation campaigns as well as the eagerness of museums to have representative objects from famous sites. The challenge emerging is the need to explore ways of reinstating objects that may be widely dispersed and entirely decontextualized into our database. The tell at Tószeg-Laposhalom, Hungary, is used as a case study with particular attention to the campaign of 1927. This case is important for several reasons. Tószeg is a key European Bronze Age site. It is also a good example of a site with numerous excavation campaigns and many different teams being involved. Moreover, the 1927 campaign, which is documented through the correspondence between the partners, was V.G. Childe's first excavation, and the data recovered played a key role in his Central European Bronze Age chronology.

This article looks at the depiction of archaeology and archaeologists in popular cinema. A number of key films are discussed to address the article's main themes of cultural appropriation and contested ground (encompassing treasure, the public, politics and gender). Archaeology in film cannot be divorced from the wider cultural contexts in which it operates and, though portrayals of archaeology and archaeologists are frequently unsatisfactory, a positive conclusion is attempted which seeks to understand the narrative drive of popular fiction and a long history of public exclusion from archaeology. Most of the films considered do not warrant labelling as great works of art, but they are part of a cultural form with perceptions to offer, able to stimulate debate within a vital framework of cultural practices by which identity – individual and social – is constructed and evolved.

Stable isotope measurements and radiocarbon dates on 54 burials from northern Scotland document trends in marine protein consumption from the late Iron Age to the end of the Middle Ages. They illuminate how local environmental and cultural contingencies interrelated with a pan-European trend towards more intensive fishing around the end of the first millennium AD. Little use was made of marine foods in late Iron Age Orkney despite its maritime setting. Significant fish consumption appeared in the Viking Age (ninth to eleventh centuries AD), first in the case of some men buried with grave-goods of Scandinavian style but soon among both sexes in ‘Christian’ burials. There was then a peak in marine protein consumption from approximately the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries AD, particularly among men, after which the importance of fish-eating returned to Viking Age levels. The causes of these developments probably entailed a complex relationship between ethnicity, gender, Christian fasting practices, population growth, long-range fish trade and environmental change.

This article focuses on one of the two big mounds at Haugar in Tønsberg, Norway, and the role they played in the constitution of the Norwegian kingdom. The monument we will discuss is dated to the ninth century AD. We argue that the stratigraphy represents the rituals performed. There are no finds of grave-goods, but the mound contains an enormous layer of charcoal. Our ambiguity towards designating all mounds as ‘graves’ seeks to open a wider range of explanations of the symbolism in these constructions commonly defined as graves. The monuments look like symbolic charcoal kilns, necessary to the smith's iron-making. Are the symbolic charcoal kilns a materialized association of a ritual transformation of the society, embedding death, monument, charcoal and iron? According to Snorri Sturlason, two of the sons of Harald Hårfagre (Finehair), the first king of Norway, were buried in these mounds in the tenth century AD. An examination of the medieval writer Snorri illuminates the political motives and the ideological use of the mounds in the 1230s among the elite in Norway.

This article considers the results of an analysis undertaken on pottery recovered mostly from multi-phase Iron Age sites in the Trans-Urals region of Russia. It focuses on a particular project involving fieldwork and the subsequent analysis of archaeological contexts and the laboratory studies of pottery morphology, ornamentation, technology, and statistics, with an attempt to apply the concept of style. This type of research project is unusual for Russian ceramic studies and the article begins with a consideration of the formal typological approach to the study of artefacts, which is a traditional aspect of Russian archaeology and is still the primary focus of many research programmes.

Some previous authors have argued for the practice of offshore, deep-water fishing in the European Mesolithic. In this article, various lines of evidence are brought to bear on this question: the kinds of fishing gear employed, the evidence relating to the use of boats and navigation, site location, ethnographic data, and fish biology and behaviour. It is concluded that the existence of deep-sea fisheries cannot be demonstrated on the basis of the available data. However, around much of Europe Mesolithic shorelines now lie below sea level and the study highlights the need for underwater archaeological investigation of submerged landscapes.

Animals from distant lands fired the imaginations of people living in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. This is attested by a considerable wealth of iconographic and written material which has been explored from many perspectives, providing valuable insights into medieval western conceptualizations of the fringes of the known world and the otherness of exotica. However, the physical remains of non-indigenous species – both those recovered from archaeological contexts and extant in private collections – have generally been examined in isolation and rarely incorporated into a broader framework exploring the reception and utility of exotica. This article offers a new perspective on the topic by focusing on the zoological identity of non-indigenous animal body parts as ‘material culture’.