This paper examines differences in the nature of inter-regional relations in the Neolithic, Bronze Age, and early Iron Ages, in an attempt to define the specific characteristics of Bronze-Age world systems. It distinguishes between the slow spread of innovations and the active intervention of trade networks related to the expansion of urbanism. The former dominate in the Neolithic, and similar phenomena continue to occur in later periods. Following a suggestion by Jane Schneider, a distinction is drawn between a core area of urban consumers, a periphery that is actively altered by its role as a supplier of raw materials to the core, and an outer margin that is indirectly affected through the spread of innovations. For most of prehistory, temperate Europe acted as a margin to a Near Eastern/Mediterranean core-periphery system. The formation of long-distance routes linking northern and southern Europe (successive axial routes along the Danube and Black Sea, and from Italy to Scandinavia) was critically affected by the spread of urban-eentred trading systems along the Mediterranean. The ‘amber route’ was an important precursor of the structures underlying the later development of European polities.

This paper suggests that recent studies of the beginning of the Bronze Age and the growth of a bronze ‘industry’ have placed too much emphasis on the importance of social ranking and the control of resources by elites. Copper had been in demand for over 2000 years before the beginning of the Bronze Age. What changed at this time was the emergence of a technology that gave access to virtually unlimited copper supplies and contributed to a process of economic growth. Circulating metal took on the role of a proto-currency in certain areas and had a significant effect on local patterns of social organisation. It was not centrally controlled. Eventually, the end of the growth process led to increased competition and warfare. Studies of these processes are illuminated by looking at the circulation of metal and money in medieval Europe and by thinking of the social changes in terms of Douglas's’ grid’ and ‘group’ dimensions.

An economic approach is used to explore production and exchange in Bohemia during the Iron Age, concentrating on the production of iron, on agriculture, and on the manufacture, use, and trade of pottery and quern-stones. The relationship of oppida to unenclosed sites is particularly investigated. The rise of oppida is seen to reflect the need for distrbibution rather than production centres. Their political importance is doubted and the intensity of the economic ‘boom’ of the La Tène period is claimed to be less great than commonly assumed.

In Bronze-Age Mediterranean archaeology, lead isotope provenance studies of metals have provided otherwise unavailable information about metal mining and smelting centres and the trade of metals. There is no similar scientific information about base non-ferrous metals in Europe in the Roman period, but a considerable body of written and archaeological evidence of Roman mining and smelting exists. Less in known about the origin of metal supplies for metal smithing workshops outside the Romans empire. This paper summarises the results of the first attempt at finding the mineral sources of such metals using compositional (XRF) and lead isotope analyses.

From the settlement of Jakuszowice in southern Poland, a group of base metals dated to AD 200–400 was analysed and the results compared with lead isotope ‘fingerprints’ of ores and some Gallo-Roman bronzes published previously. The finds from Jakuszowice include numerous imported artefacts, such as Roman coins and glass beads, which indicate links with the Roman empire. However, many small decorative objects of metal were made in the smith's workshop on the site. Compositional analyses of the fragments and artefacts from the smithy show that the types of alloys are broadly similar to the metals used in the Roman empire. But only about 30% of the metal analysed shows lead isotope compositions consistent with sources within Roman Europe. The majority of metal seems to be imported from the much nearer ore deposits in the Erzgebirge, in present-day Germany and the Czech Republic.

The graphic symbolism of Pompeian caricatures is approached through a semiotically defined, oppositional framework, in which possible adjectives and connotations attached to various physical features are listed. These in turn are grouped either as those associated with power and authority or as those associated with their absence.

Although scholars have often ignored popular culture or characterised it as coarse and vulgar, the caricatures are found to have a sophisticated semiotic system that stood in opposition to erudite upper class painting and served to criticise people in power. Nevertheless, caricatures of slavery as an institution reveals that ordinary people's ethos was affected by social contradictions and thus social bonds were unconsciously reinforced.

This paper takes a close look at the relationship of an archaeological team engaged on a regional survey for the Greek Archaeological Service to the local population, and at the practices and scholastic assumptions of the archaeologists. Regional survey, with its emphasis on populations and resources is found to resemble the work of census takers and bureaucrats (and not surprisingly many locals see the archaeologists as representatives of the state). Prehistoric farmers are treated as ‘sensible’ and apolitical, and archaeology is seen to adopt refined tactics that domesticate the unfamiliar and banish the difficult and contradictory from concern. The intellectual safety of demographic approaches becomes clearer when the multiplicity of relations between the team and the locals is considered – precisely the variety missing from the texts written about the past – and when the archaeologists attempt to banish local life and politics from their narratives.

The last fifteen years have seen in France a rapid increase of Iron-Age archaeological studies, both as part of the development of ‘National Archaeology’ and of political changes. This neo-structural analysis aims to make Iron-Age archaeological studies objective. It underlines how the need for a national identity influences Iron-Age archaeological constructions and strategies. After describing the ‘total’ context of French archaeology, the analysis unveils the symbols underlying Iron-Age studies in France which fit familiar archetypes – including a common ancestor – contained in the collective memory, and enables one to apprehend how the permanence of archetypes may contaminate archaeological constructions, thereby reinforcing the original ideological/archaeological strategy.

This paper examines the politics of archaeology in Transcaucasia, an area of exceptional ethnic and linguistic diversity, and recently scene of numerous and often bloody territorial disputes. Political activity extends to the destruction of cultural monuments, such as Armenian churches and crosses More commonly archaeological interpretations simply mirror political claims. Claims of artefactual and cultural origins or ethnic affiliations of archaeological phenomena produce hyperbole that makes detailed synthesis of Caucasian prehistory from the literature impossible for outsiders. The author concludes that there are serious obligations for archaeologists working in politically charged situations, obligations that are best met by the establishment of criteria for acceptable ‘readings’ of one's prehistoric past that are not chauvinistic or nationalistic.

Changes in the interpretation of the past have followed the collapse of the rule of the communist parties in Eastern Europe. The paper particularly charts the rise of nationalism in south-eastern Europe and its academic use by different political groups, and concludes that post-modernists’ advocation of a critical socia-political role for archaeology and their hopes for them are unrealistic when faced with powerful, aggressive political forces.