The fourth issue of Archaeology International

David R. Harris

doi:10.5334/ai.0401

Abstract

With the appearance of this issue, Archaeology International (AI) reaches its fifth birthday. Since it was launched, as a successor to the former Bulletin and Annual Reports of the Institute, my aim each year has been to feature short articles on current research by Institute staff and research students, and to supplement them with summary information about other research-related matters.

Highlights

We include each year, as a matter of record, reports from the Director and the coordinators of the primary research groups, a world map of current field projects, and updated lists of academic staff, honorary members, registered research stu dents and PhDs completed during the past year
I am in the happy editorial position of enjoying an embarrassment of riches from which to select the subjects for each year's AI, so varied and interesting is the research undertaken by the Institute's large community of staff and students. The articles in this year's AI reflect, as did those in the previous three issues, "the quality and breadth of [the Institute's] multidisciplinary and thematic approach to the study of the human past" and its aim of ensuring that "the social, political and economic contexts of ... archaeology are ... appreciated". The articles in this issue demonstrate a geographically, chronologically and thematically wide-ranging involvement in the study of the human past, and the relevance of the research they report to present-day social, eco nomic and political concerns.This is apparent, for example, in the articles in which Elizabeth Graham describes her participation in an initiative to develop local crafts and educational programmes in Belize and Andrew Reid explains how the colonial creation of ethnic stereotypes fuelled the genocide that ravaged Rwanda in 1994
Grace Simp son, who came to the Institute in 1 945, recalls those days and in particular how she was influenced by the teaching ofFrederick Zeuner, the Institute's first professor of environmental archaeology

Summary

The fourth issue of Archaeology International

I am in the happy editorial position of enjoying an embarrassment of riches from which to select the subjects for each year's AI, so varied and interesting is the research undertaken by the Institute's large community of staff and students The articles in this year's AI reflect, as did those in the previous three issues, "the quality and breadth of [the Institute's] multidisciplinary and thematic approach to the study of the human past" and its aim of ensuring that "the social, political and economic contexts of ... The information summarized in the pages that precede and follow the fourteen articles in this issue show how the Institute is successfully fulfill ing its role as a leading international centre of archaeological research It has 80 academic staff and over a hundred registered research students It has 80 academic staff and over a hundred registered research students (see pp. 60-64); the number of current field projects exceeds 50 (see p.8); and in the calendar year 2000 more PhDs were awarded than in any previ ous year.I hope that this issue will succeed in conveying at least some of the vigour and variety of this research activity, and I thank all the contrib utors who have taken time to write for Aithis year and who have submitted without complaint to my sometimes heavy editorial hand

Mission statement

Citation of radiocarbon and calendric dates