The barriers to communication between scholars and between scholars and the public have been falling as the Internet has grown. Although most of the publicity goes to the web, surveys show that the email is used by more people. Since it is based on characters rather than graphics, bandwidth and modem speed are less problematic than they are for web pages. In addition, while the web is the best way to disseminate information on the internet, electronic conferences and newsgroups are still the best way to interact on the internet. Electronic conferences for archaeologists began in 1986 when Sebastian Rahtz and Kris Lockyear created the ‘Archaeological Information Exchange.’ Four years later AIE begat ARCH-L and the number of archaeologists participating has grown steadily. Today ARCH-L has about 1800 subscribers in 44 different countries; most subscribers are in the US and the UK. ARCH-L now averages about 16 messages a day; just under 3000 messages were posted in the first 6 months of 1997. In addition to ARCH-L, there now are at least 40 other electronic conferences and newsgroups covering different aspects of archaeology.

In the June number of ANTIQUITY, Mr T. D. Kendrick sketched what in another sphere of art might be called a Conversation Piece. His subject was the family of hanging-bowls, and he assembled it with skill and daring in a new setting. His method was frankly impressionistic, and was proportionately stimulating. With the aid of a partly theoretical chronology, he inferred ‘that in origin these bowls are really Romano-British; that many of them had been made and were in use before the Romans left this country; that others were made after the Romans had gone, and belong to the almost unknown archaeology of the Arthurian period’. To these conclusions it might at once be objected that, amongst the bowls, no dated example is of Romano-British period, and that they hardly occur in Arthurian Britain. But rather than press these objections, let us explore an alternative interpretation. Let us first state the problems and the relevant facts; then attempt to reconcile the latter with the former.

Three aurochs horn cores, unearthed during the construction of the city baths in Vác (Hungary), were purchased from a private collector in 1951. One of these stray finds deserves attention in light of new archaeozoological research, and the relation between mundane horn manufacturing and high-status medieval craft industries.

A conventional print publication, like ANTIQUITY has a choice in an electronic era: to remain print-only, to convert wholly to electronic format, or to find some hybrid or combination inbetween. ANTIQW has chosen to stay primarily in a print format (a conventional sewn paperback quarterly book) that is paid for by subscribers, and to develop alongside that a modest web presence that is free to anyone. Our circumstances are typical; so are both our uncertainty as to the future and the nature of our response so far. Very few publications – whether journals, magazines or newspapers – have left print to go fully electronic; many have a web presence, and those that have chosen to have none begin to appear as if they are thereby marginalizing themselves. This brief note reports why we tried, what we have done, how, and with what result.

Our understanding of the interactions between the Roman Empire and indigenous societies (or ‘barbarians’) that lay within or surrounding its borders has undergone considerable advances over the last 30 years. Stemming initially from a colonial perspective, which saw the Roman Empire as ‘civilising’ those who were subsumed into it, the study of these interactions now includes a wealth of diverse post-processual or post-colonial approaches that stress the complexity of interactions within and between these social groups. Even with these advances, the self-imposed opposition between prehistoric and Roman studies, whether in theoretical stance, approach or research frameworks, remains constant in modern scholarly debate (Hingley 2012: 629). As a consequence, and despite extensive debate to the contrary, the divide between ‘Romans’ and ‘natives’ endures in our current interpretations of the contact between pre-Roman and Roman society.

A fragment of Cassis rufa shell, in modern times a species of the Indian Ocean, was reliably reported from the deep Mousterian deposits excavated at the beginning of the century from the Grotte du Prince, Monaco. Because its known habitat is so distant and exotic, there has always been question about the specimen's authenticity. A radiocarbon determination shows it to be recent, and no evidence for long-distance movement of shell in the European Middle Palaeolithic.

This letter had its origin in an after-dinner discussion with fellow-scientists, in which the trials of working with archaeologists were ruefully compared in full and horrendous detail. Being the only one present with formal training in archaeology as well as in science, I found myself to some extent playing the role of devil’s advocate, but it still seemed to me regrettable that while the scientists were making genuine efforts to understand and illuminate archaeological problems, many archaeologists make little effort to understand the limitations and difficulties of scientific techniques.

Egyptology has been changing. At least in the way its practitioners present their findings to a broad public audience. A selection of recent publications for general-interest readership represents something of a reorientation of perspectives on the (Western-led) archaeological ‘discovery’ of Pharaonic Egyptian remains, and the opening up of a subtle counter-narrative, which is something of an anti-archaeology. Rather than attempting to reconstruct what might positively be said of ancient events, their causes and motivations, Egyptologists are increasingly owning up to what is not known or what happened in the aftermath of the ‘main event’ that conditions the nature of the evidence we have at our disposal.