This paper examines the pivotal role of the École française d’Extrême-Oriente in the excavation, delineation, and interpretation of Champa sites in Vietnam. It further suggests the significance of this work in laying the groundwork for further archaeological efforts by the EFEO in Cambodia, Laos, and Northeast Thailand. The paper examines in detail the range of Champa sites, their relation to French scholarship of the early 20th century and their importance as training for later interventions.

In 1917 the romantic novelist Jeffery Farnol interviewed an anonymous Major in Ypres who was passionate about archaeology. This interview is reprinted with an introduction in which it is argued that the anonymous Major may very well be Mortimer Wheeler.

This article examines the American tour of the Egyptologist, novelist and travel writer Amelia Edwards in 1889–1890. Edwards’s lecture tour was a critical and largely overlooked event in the evolution of modern archaeology. Edwards rejected the dominant male-centric culture of ‘heroic archaeology’ along with its trophies and myths. She told the story of Egypt with an emphasis on everyday life, including the lives of women. She did not present simplified or ‘dumbed-down’ versions of existing histories in order to make them suitable for women, as the male scholars of the time, who opposed her, charged. Nor did she sensationalize the past to dazzle or ‘hook’ her audience as previous adventurers and showmen had done. A gifted novelist, Edwards told a big story made of many small things. Despite fierce opposition, Edwards’ approach to Egyptology did more than just popularize the subject; it shaped the methodology of modern archaeology.

'Artefacts of History. Archaeology, Historiography and Indian Pasts', by Sudeshna Guha. Sage: New Delhi, 2014. £47.50 (hard cover). ISBN: 9789351501640 'Greece and Rome at the Crystal Palace. Classical Sculpture and Modern Britain', 1854–1936, by Kate Nicholls. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2014. £70.00(hard cover). ISBN: 9780199596461 'Carl W. Blegen. Personal and Archaeological Narratives', edited by Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan, Jack L. Davis and Vasiliki Florou. Lockwood Press: Atlanta, GA, 2015. $34.95 (hard cover). ISBN: 9781937040239

Histories of archaeology traditionally traced the progress of the modern discipline as the triumph of secular disenchanted science over pre-modern, enchanted, world-views. In this article I complicate and qualify the themes of disenchantment and enchantment in archaeological histories, presenting an analysis of how both contributed to the development of scientific theory and method in the earliest decades of the twentieth century. I examine the interlinked biographies of a group who created a joke religion called “The Cult of Kata”. The self-described “Kataric Circle” included notable archaeologists Harold Peake, O.G.S. Crawford and Richard Lowe Thompson, alongside classicists, musicians, writers and performing artists. The cult highlights the connections between archaeology, theories of performance and the performing arts – in particular theatre, music, folk dance and song. “Wild worship” was linked to the consolidation of collectivities facilitating a wide variety of scientific and artistic projects whose objectives were all connected to dreams of a future utopia. The cult parodied archaeological ideas and methodologies, but also supported and expanded the development of field survey, mapping and the interpretation of archaeological distribution maps. The history of the Cult of Kata shows how taking account of the unorthodox and the interdisciplinary, the humorous and the recreational, is important within generously framed approaches to histories of the archaeological imagination. The work of the Kataric Circle is not best understood as the relentless progress of disenchanted modern science. It suggests a more complicated picture in which dynamics of enchantment and disenchantment stimulate and discipline the imagination simultaneously. I conclude with a reexamination of the politics of an emphasis on playfulness and enchantment.

The paper introduces a recently commenced five-year research project on the history of Pacific archaeology, the Collective Biography of Archaeology in the Pacific (CBAP) Project. The justification for the project, the background to it, its aims and some discussion of its initial stages and anticipated outcomes are given. At time of writing CBAP has been going for barely a year and so only a brief mention will be made of the research carried out so far during the initial establishment period.

This paper is on international scholarly discussion on the Bronze Age of Russia from 1908 until 1939, and in particular on the related role of the internationally renowned Finnish archaeologist Aarne Michael Tallgren (1885–1945). How did a social network of researchers produce new interpretations and what were the key factors that distinguished the participants in the discussion? Was it a continuous process or a series of sudden changes? How did different ideological backgrounds influence the interpretations? In Western Europe, Tallgren’s most important interlocutors were Gero von Merhart, V Gordon Childe and Ellis H Minns, and in Russia V A Gorodcov and A A Spicyn. The paper is mainly based on correspondence between Tallgren and his colleagues.

Margarete Gutschow is not well-known in the history of archaeology, but she should be included among the first women who played a prominent role in the development of the discipline. Gutschow’s life story, found partly within her correspondence, has allowed us to understand the personality and the role of this scholar as part of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, where she worked for many years, most notably as an assistant of Gerhart Rodenwaldt. Gutschow’s case is quite unique for her time, she was born in 1871 and she could only enter university at a more mature age than men in her field. The social situation in Germany, her family expectations, and her late education, are very interesting angles by which we can investigate Gutschow’s choices, which led her to look for a position in a predominantly-male scientific field. She led a successful career, and had received the title “Ordinary Member of German Archaeological Institute” by 1935.

Gary Stockton Vescelius (1930–1982) was an extremely active archaeologist who conducted extensive surveys and numerous excavations in North America, the Caribbean, and Peru. Although he was influential while alive, his almost complete failure to publish the results of his work has caused him to fade into obscurity. The interventions that he made at many important sites have been largely forgotten. However, collections that he amassed have been preserved at Yale University, at the American Museum of Natural History, and in Peru. This paper presents a short biography of Vescelius and evaluates his work.

The Swedish geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson, well known for discovering the first Stone Age culture in China, was for a long time criticized for trying to establish a ‘Western origin’ for his Yangshao finds. Not much has been written on how he went about to prove this theory and no composite account exists on what role other, mainly Swedish, scholars played in his project. This article aims to address this lacuna, outlining how geographer Sven Hedin, collector Orvar Karlbeck, as well as archaeologists Olov Janse and Ture J. Arne came to be engaged in the search for a Neolithic ‘Eurasian Highway’. Relying on Swedish archives the article will also shed light on the lead up to the Yangshao discovery and the aura of secrecy Andersson shrouded his later activities in China in.