Archaeology has been traditionally looked at as a science which reconstructs human history and evolution through the study of material objects. This contribution revisits archaeology as a discipline which revives national pasts, and thus partakes in generating myths of roots and identity. In the world ‘after Thor Heyerdahl' – plunged in environmental crisis and haunted by economic collapse of many communities – the hunger for these myths is bound to intensify. I argue that today, especially, there is a need for archaeology in ‘Thor Heyerdahls' ’ sense: one which would illuminate the unity of mankind and emphasize the imperative of reclaiming nature as human habitat.

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.

Coin finds are used to inform discussion about coins in circulation and, hence, economic activity. This discussion often rests on the assumption that patterns in finds of accidentally lost coins mirror to a useful extent those of the coins in circulation at the time. Whenever possible, such assumptions should be tested. This study does this empirically with data from a known coinage. Conditional support was found for the assumption. There is also some evidence that coin size and denomination can affect the coin record but these variables did not add significantly to predictions about coins in circulation based only on the numbers of coins found. Some conditions and precautions are suggested when using the assumption and some uses of data based on accidentally lost coins are discussed.

Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition famously did not succeed in traversing the Antarctic continent from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. It was, nevertheless, an enterprise that engaged the interest of New Zealanders and the rest of the British Empire even as World War I was being fought. When one of the expedition ships, Aurora, broke from her moorings soon after arrival in McMurdo Sound and drifted trapped in pack ice for months, the construction of a temporary jury rudder while still at sea enabled her crew to make their way to Port Chalmers, Dunedin for more extensive repairs in 1916. This paper discusses interactions between the Otago Museum staff and the crew of Aurora while she was in port, the offer of the replaced jury rudder to the museum, and reflects on the concerns and interests that might have contributed to the offer and its rejection.

This article analyses how the Fountain of the Innocents appeared and also how it was used and perceived as part of the Paris cityscape. In the 1780s, the plan to transform the Holy Innocents’ Cemetery into a market cast doubt on the Fountain's future; earlier perceptions now shaped discussions over reusing it as part of the transformed quarter. The article documents how the Fountain was dismantled in 1787 and re-created the following year according to a new design, explaining why it was created in this form. Finally, the article considers what contemporary reactions to the remade Fountain reveal about attitudes toward the authenticity of urban monuments before the establishment of heritage institutions and societies.