Editorial.

Stoddart, Simon ; Malone, Caroline

At the risk of developing an archaeological hagiography, we dwell in this our last editorial, at least in part, on the founder and first editor, whose decision to found the journal took place some 77 years ago (in 1925). Three editorial teams have followed--those of GLYN DANIEL, CHRIS CHIPPINDALE and the current editors--and in December we hand over to the fourth editorial team, that of MARTIN CARVER. Within these editorial terms, Chris Chippindale engaged HENRY CLEERE for one year while he was on sabbatical, and the two current editors swapped roles after three years. In this issue, we make some considerable space to publish the papers delivered this year at the Society of Antiquaries, London and at the Society for American Archaeology in Denver, Colorado, With the aim of celebrating the 75 years of publication since 1927, which were completed last year.

One can learn much of the founder from his autobiography (Crawford 1955). However, this is in many ways the official version, written and published by CRAWFORD during his lifetime. A complementary version of events can be gleaned from the Crawford papers in the Bodleian of Oxford. The editor selected 6 September of the year 2002 as a day of pilgrimage to visit these papers in the Bodleian Library of Oxford. He rose early to take the 6.30 bus so as to arrive in good time to follow the rite of passage of entry into the Library. Stagecoach, the unfortunately named bus company, which runs many routes in the United Kingdom, failed to deliver their timetable, and it was on the 7.35 that he eventually left Cambridge for a three-and-a-half-hour journey to the centre of Oxford.

Once on the bus, the editor, an inexperienced bus traveller, made the mistake of turning the spacious back seat into his office. Any physicist could have told the editor that the centrifugal force produced by the roundabouts of Milton Keynes would have produced an uncomfortable journey. The editor arrived in Oxford after an appropriate period of suffering for any pilgrimage. Thereafter, matters greatly improved.

The Admissions office of the Bodleian welcomed the pilgrim with good humour, and he discovered that he had some useful indulgences stored up from a previous visit to Oxford. As a visiting fellow to an Oxford college in the previous century, he had converted his Cambridge MA into an Oxford MA. The discovery of the proof of his Oxford MA in an extensive paper archive, and evidence that he had already sworn not to burn books, led to immediate issue of a photographic card, entry and welcome to the manuscripts room. After seven continuous hours of research without break, he was pleased to retire to an Italian restaurant to recover. The next day followed with a further indulgence, a fascinating conference on Orientalization, one driving force of political change in the Mediterranean, otherwise known as the Phoenicians, organized by Corinna Riva and Nicholas Vella.

In various parts of this issue, we draw on these seven hours of research and would like to thank the Bodleian Library for allowing us to reproduce parts of the archive. Our research has allowed us to dwell on the formation processes of this archaeo-archival record. Like any archaeological deposit, the archive is one not immune from taphonomic effects. The archive is a record of correspondence received and retained, and we have to reconstruct by inference many of the letters that Crawford himself sent. Certain phases of Crawford's professional life were truncated or erased by war damage to the Ordnance Survey records in Southampton. Like many an archaeological deposit, the early formative phases were preserved in well-defined, distinct structured deposits, that were not obliterated by the sorting of later life; there are some ancestral archives; there is much evidence in the form of bundles of personal letters to friends and family; there are the schoolbooks of himself and his father from Marlborough. Of Marlborough, he sadly writes in his autobiography, it may have been partly my fault that they were years of misery' (Crawford 1955: 24-5). We did not have time to search the early letters for signs of the influence of the local prehistoric monuments of Wessex (recalled by Glyn Daniel (1971)) on the archaeological development of the young Crawford mind.

Another important section in the archive is consciously devoted to posterity. There is the foundation document of ANTIQUITY (of which more in our introduction to the essays of celebration). There is a sealed envelope containing a document in Crawford's hand, relating his opinion of a certain R.L. Thompson, with instructions to open in the year 2000. Other material is more routine: in particular the received correspondence of ANTIQUITY (largely from Austin, his co-worker at ANTIQUITY), old manuscripts and accounts. This gives a picture of routine letters exchanged as rapidly as e-mails. These ensured the regular appearance of ANTIQUITY. Perhaps more revealing are the reams of his poems written in pencil in a clear hand. We reproduce two here. The first is an amusing commentary on the letters that many still delight in placing after their name. The context for his preference of FBA to FSA is provided by his resignation in 1949 from the Society of Antiquaries over the April elections of that year. Mortimer Wheeler was passed over as President of the Society of Antiquaries and both Crawford and Childe resigned from the Society in protest (Hawkes 1982: 265-6). ADRIAN JAMES of the Society of Antiquaries has kindly provided us with an excerpt from the letter of 30 April 1949 to the Assistant Secretary, Philip Corder, confirming his resignation:

I shall not withdraw my resignation which was the result of careful consideration. The immediate cause was the voting last Thursday, and my decision was influenced also by previous ballots. I do not like belonging to a society which persistently blackballs good archaeologists.

ADRIAN JAMES comments:

The `voting' that Crawford alludes to was presumably that for the President, officers and Council at the Anniversary meeting of 28 April 1949, at which Wheeler was elected to the Council, and also to the office of Director for a second period; his first stint in this post was between 1940 and 1944. Incidentally, the results of the ballots for the election of Fellows in the immediate post-war period would appear to lend little or no support to Crawford's complaint about the blackballing of `good archaeologists'.

A further search by the present General Secretary, DAI MORGAN EVANS, has failed to find the data to support Crawford's remark about black-bailing. On the contrary, Grinsell and O'Kelly were two well-known archaeologists elected during the immediately preceding period.

My learned friends

 There are endless varieties
 of learned societies--
 The Antiqs
 for romantics
 and the pucka
 sucker,
 where the quack falls
 beneath a hail of black balls
 (but remember
 it's closed from July to November):
 societies which are `surely' local
 are often quite vocal
 nevertheless
 in the Press.
 If you are rich and have got land
 in Scotland,
 And sometimes if you are not,
 You can become an F.S.A. Scot.
 Which the chiels of Strathpeffer say
 Is as good as an FSA.
 It is even better
 If the middle letter
 Be
 B,
 Once in a fit of inebriety
 I founded a society:
 You would, I am sure, be enthralled
 To know what it was called;
 Well its name was `the Friends'
 Here for lack of a rhyme the poem ends.

A fascinating section of the Crawford papers reveals direct glimpses into the network of archaeological knowledge in which Crawford (and consequently ANTIQUITY) were a formative part. Letters from Bersu (the great German fieldworker), Grahame Clark and Gordon Childe cast interesting light on contemporary opinion, which is revealed as particularly poignant through the documentation for the energetic support of Bersu during his period of internment. At that time, a circle of friends worked hard to improve his conditions, sent him money, food, reunited him with his wife, and financed his highly influential excavations (for a German perspective see Kraimer 2002). It is highly appropriate that Susanne Sievers should publish in this issue an update of the latest work at Manching, another major achievement of the Romisch Germanische Kommission, first reported in ANTIQUITY in the 1960s (Kramer 1960)

Crawford could not have known who was to be his successor as editor of ANTIQUITY, but he had a clear opinion of who would be good at the task, and an equally clear opinion of Glyn Daniel, who was later to take over that role. In a confidential letter of 27 August 1951 to Edwards and Olive (his then ANTIQUITY partners), he reveals how much he would have supported the candidature of Jacquetta Hawkes for succession as editor to ANTIQUITY:

Just a line as things come to mind. Jacquetta has produced a super guide book (Preh. and Roman monuments in England and Wales). She is the obvious person to edit ANTIQUITY one day (I wish it could be now) as she is not only completely sound and learned archaeologically, but also has the journalistic flair in full measure. She is also devastatingly beautiful!

His relationship to Glyn Daniel, his actual successor, was more awkward, as revealed by two letters in the Crawford archive. In a letter of 12 November 1957, Crawford writes:

Glyn Daniel says I shan't like his review of the EG [The Eye Goddess, Crawford 1957] in the Sunday Times. Perhaps not, but one must just accept these things if one writes a book and I told him so. Anyway he has got back to me at last (in a friendly way I hope) for saying years ago that he ought to have more mud on his boots.

The already diverging branches of archaeology, in this period of increasing professionalization, are revealed by a letter earlier in the year written by Grahame Clark to Crawford dated 20 March 1957:

Yr. Review of the 100 years [of Archaeology, Daniel 1950] struck me as a very fair and wise one. I think you made it clear that the book deserved well of archaeologists, but that it would have been even better if written by a practising archaeologist. It is the kind of book that might be written say of Chemistry by an intelligent and industrious writer who had spent very little time in the lab. I've got to do the book myself but am saving up the review to find some good things to say. Until Glyn [Daniel] will get down to it--I don't think he ever will--we shall never get stuff written with real insight. But he is an able and also an amiable chap & he has leisure to get a gooddeal [sic] done in the way of `selling' archaeology, & I think there is room for him in archaeology. After all, older subjects are full of such. I suppose it is a sign of growing maturity that archaeology can support him (& others). The days when all were `workers', & little rewarded at that, are passing.

As fieldworkers we have sympathy with the view that the Real Archaeologist must get mud on his or her boots, but we also sympathize with a critique of some of the speculation contained in The Eye Goddess, perhaps not one of Crawford's most enduring works.

In the same archive there is also interesting evidence of the views and mind of Childe. In one of the last letters Childe wrote, in this case to Crawford, dated 31 October 1957 (although he died according to Daniel (1986: 417) on 19 October) from the The Carrington, Katoomba Blue Mountains, NSW, he revealed strong views of this own. country's archaeology.

Dear OGSC, Well I'm relieved you didn't mind my article: I thought it quite good and useful myself but hardly thought it was quite relevant to the occasion and therefore what you wanted. Don't bother to send me proofs. Posts are slow here and I keep moving about. Anyhow don't wait for their return. Australian archaeology has possibilities though I could not possibly get interested. There are varieties of stone implement types--all horrible, boring unless you're a flint [illegible]--some stratified sites, rock drawings and paintings of uncertain age and dubious merit but no less interesting than the S. African.... You really ought to come out and look at Australia. You might dislike it less than I do (the scenery I love but not the mess my countryman [writing illegible] ...

An ANTIQUITY edited by Childe would have been very different from an ANTIQUITY edited by Craw ford.

Later in this issue, Tam Dalyell MP recalls his pleasure in meeting Childe and describes him as a `bushy faced hairy man, in a huge sombrero hat, who, in his Australian twang, was the most enthralling story-teller'. Crawford for his part reveals his reaction to the death of his friend, Childe, in a letter to Edwards and Olive, dated 29 October 1957:

Dear E and O.

I enclose some cuttings ... about Childe's death.... I had a sort of inkling (no more) that he felt he had reached a kind of end: it is hard to express it; I suppose I was thinking of the crisis that retirement always means for people like him ... the last communications we had were over the proofs of his article. He was rather dissatisfied with it, and said he was not now able to write essays, journalist style, on given subjects to order; but he did so, and told him it was perfectly acceptable, which it was--though not perhaps quite up to his usual level ... We all of us agree I'm sure that everyone has a right to end their lives ... I think Childe may have so decided, and done so in such a way as not to cause scandal or embarrassment to his friends.... I feel his death pretty badly ...

We the editors remember Glyn Daniel's shock when he read in an early morning lecture the letter from Grimes, and the accompanying statement from Childe sent from The Carrington, Katoomba, Blue Mountains, NSW, that he was to publish in ANTIQUITY in 1980: that Childe went to Australia to commit suicide (Daniel 1980; 1986: 415-21).

The Crawford archive also reveals the last letters written by Crawford. His last postcard to Edwards was a picture of two cats. His last letter to Edwards and Olive, dated 22 November 1957 which arrived on the day of his death, ended with the words: `When shall we 3 meet again?'

We leave some final words on role of the staff and editor of ANTIQUITY to Crawford himself:

An exchange of views.

 The staff of this Journal (Antiquity)
 Are accused of all kinds of iniquity,
 But they hereby declare
 That the Editor's chair
 Is the seat of all moral obliquity

 The Editor wishes to state
 That he cannot take part in debate
 And that sallies of wit
 Merely cause him to shit
 Or perhaps he should say defecate.

A measure of how much the profession of archaeology changed during the first 25 years of the 20th century, the very years leading up to the foundation of ANTIQUITY, is revealed by the 1901 census, now released by the Public Record Office web site <http://www.census.pro.gov.uk/>. Archaeologists proved remarkably elusive when, in an idle moment, we searched the records. Crawford could not be found, although he was probably in a school in Reading on the night of the census return. The only probable hits that we scored after many attempts were: Arthur Bulleid (of Glastonbury Lake Village fame), who was aged 38, born in Glastonbury, Somerset, and recorded his profession, correctly, as Physician and Surgeon; and Cyril Fox who was aged 18, born in Chippenham in Wiltshire and recorded his profession, correctly, as a pupil in horticulture. Perhaps readers might like to spend a few idle moments seeing if they can improve on this poor rate of success.

As a more certain aid to the identity of archaeologists, PAMELA SMITH writes that the transcripts of her interviews of scholars from many continents, as diverse as John Evans, John Mulvaney and Desmond Clark, are archived in the Society of Antiquaries, where they can be consulted.

As we celebrate 75 years of ANTIQUITY, we are tempted to dwell on what the next 75 years will bring. It would be well for the leaders of the Western world to read some archaeology to give them that longer-term perspective, on issues as diverse as cultural values and world climate.

An archaeological disaster which may be related to changing world climate or more immediately to the deforestation of large parts of the European landscape is the flood in Prague. We remember the Florence flood of 1966 which not only destroyed works of art, archives and libraries, but put the ground floor of the archaeological museum out of action for decades. In Prague, as has been extensively reported, the largest archaeological library in the Czech Republic has been virtually destroyed and ANTIQUITY will be making available as many back numbers of the journal as is currently possible. NATALIE VENCLOVA and colleagues write:

`On 14 August 2002, the Vltava river flooded the Institute of Archaeology in Prague up to 3 metres deep. The Institute's library, representing with its 70,000 volumes the largest archaeological library in the Czech Republic, was practically destroyed. Seriously damaged were the photographic and geodetic archives, laboratories and store rooms. Facing this disaster, we are forced to seek support and help concerning the salvage and restoration of the damaged funds, so important for the whole archaeological community in the Czech Republic and beyond. Thanks to substantial help of our colleagues, students and friends we managed to deep-freeze some of the books and plans. We shall be most grateful for any help with creating a new library of the Institute: donation of books, periodicals, dictionaries etc. would be most welcome. Our address: [email protected]

Tel. no. +420 257530922 or +420 257533369 Bank account of the Institute of Archaeology, CZ-11801 Praha 1, Letenska 4, Czech Republic: Ceska Narodni Banka Praha SWIFT: CEKOCZPP Account no. 17537031/0710.'

More details can be found on their website <www.arup.cas.cz>

The disaster in Prague prevented Natalie Venclova from presenting her review of the outstanding exhibition in Frankfurt, where, in one room, the major large-scale figurative sculptures of Iron Age Europe were assembled. Fortunately for those who did not see the exhibition, the excellent catalogue is still available (Baitinger & Pinsker 2002). In the same city, we came across the stimulating Museum of Architecture. While younger members of the family were spontaneously engaged in creating a Mies Van der Rohe skyscraper from Lego in the central Atrium, we quickly moved past a temporary exhibition glorifying Frankfurt airport, towards a highly recommended permanent display on the history of architecture. This original sequence of dioramas moves from the `primordial hut' of Nice in the Palaeolithic, through Gatal Huyuk, Sumer and Mycenae towards a substantial Frankfurt skyscraper that had previously escaped our parochial interest. British sites were well represented in the later sequence--Bath and the Crystal Palace--including the only archaeological site (Ironbridge), but we did consider the deliberate juxtaposition of the 19th-century London slum and Modern Low Income Housing from 1920s Frankfurt a trifle unfortunate.

What of the future of ANTIQUITY? As has been reported elsewhere, we the current editors, now both in demanding full-time employment, decided against re-applying for a second five-year term of office, to ensure ANTIQUITY's continuing energy and success. As best we can, we have published every article that we have accepted, passing on to the new editor the reviewers' comments on new articles, so that he can make his mark from the first issue. We warmly welcome the new editor, MARTIN CARVER, and are delighted to offer him space to introduce a first outline of his vision for the first of the next steps in the coming decades. He writes:

`I want first of all to sustain the excellent academic reputation and broad range that you and Caroline have achieved. ANTIQUITY will remain a primary vehicle for ambitious archaeological papers of international interest, and the chief purpose of the journal will be to present these papers. Although I shall keep the 6000-word limit, I plan to scrap the distinction between "article" and "note" and let papers find their appropriate length within the limit. The papers will appear in two sections: "Research Reports" (which advance our ideas about the past) and "Methodology" (which advances the way we investigate it). While I have no intention of dumbing down in any sense, I shall do my best to make all the papers comprehensible to all the members of the broader archaeological family; this is what most of my dialogue with authors is likely to be about. I would also like to encourage authors to send in plenty of illustrations and will offer them colour whenever we can. I hope to attract papers from across the world and across our subject, including the archaeology relating to the last two millennia and major investigations in the commercial sector. (To this end I have recruited a number of "Correspondents" which will replace the present team of Advisory Editors. The Correspondents' job will be to seek out new material proactively, and in some cases help the authors to produce it in a language and form suitable for ANTIQUITY. Following the papers there will be a "Debates and Issues" section, where matters bearing on our particular era can be aired, and then plenty of reviews (including "Among the New Books"), and obituaries, notices etc. at the end). I also want to develop the web-site to give an even fuller service to our readers and would-be readers. Un-refereed short announcements about new or on-going projects and new discoveries, which at present appear in the "Colour Section", will be offered space in a "Project Gallery" on the web-site in stead, where they will still look like a page from ANTIQUITY, but can also carry the clickable URL of the project concerned. (I hope to be able to increase the range of web functions in line with modern thinking--to include for example responses to "Debates and Issues" and, eventually, all the back numbers in searchable form. The web will also probably play the role of the present "Supplement". I am sure I shall find some things are hard to do in practice, and others would be easy, but I have not thought of them. So I would be very glad to hear from all subscribers how they view these ideas, plus any of their own.) In brief, the new ANTIQUITY will dress in the clothes of its own day, but beneath them will beat the heart of the journal founded by O.G.S. Crawford.'

We heartily wish Martin and his team every success.

References

BAITINGER, H. & B. PINSKER. (ed.). 2002. Das Ratsel der Kelten. Vom Glauberg. Stuttgart: Theiss.

CRAWFORD, O.G.S. 1936. Editorial Notes, Antiquity 10: 385-90. 1955. Said and Done. London: Phoenix House.

DANIEL, G. 1971. OGS Crawford, in E.T. Williams & K.M. Palmer (ed.), Dictionary of National Biography 195-1970: 268-70. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

HAWKES, J. 1982. Mortimer Wheeler. Adventurer in archaeology. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

KRAMER, W. 1960. The Oppidum at Manching, Antiquity 34: 191-200.

2002. Gerhard Bersu ein deutscher Prahistoriker 1889-1964, Bericht der Romisch-Germanisch Kommission 82: 8-105.

The AHRB (Arts & Humanities Research Board) have kindly given us the data which show the pressure on the funding of archaeology post-graduate studentships this year. Applications were up some 17% to a total of 314 for all types of archaeology-related courses and the success rate fell from 32-37% to 22-26%. We can only join the appeal to the government to provide more support, since very good students remain unfunded.

In our account of the pleasures of editing ANTIQUITY in the last editorial, we mentioned travel and noted our regret at not visiting some parts of the world, commensurate with a world journal. We mentioned specifically Oceania and, with light-hearted intention, suggested that the previous editor would be disgusted with us for not achieving this goal. Chris Chippindale has written to us to say that we were wrong to make this suggestion and we agree.

DAVID PHILLIPSON, Professor of African Archaeology and Director of the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology at Cambridge, has kindly given us this peroration from his inaugural lecture, entitled `Archaeology in Africa, and in museums', which he delivered in Cambridge on 22 October, for publication. We invite comment.

`Museums have responsibility for the care and presentation of objects, not only those relating to archaeology and other human sciences, but those of many other disciplines including geology, botany and zoology. The questions immediately arise: care of what, presentation to whom, for what reasons? There are no simple answers.

`Developing countries in Africa and elsewhere have museum collections relating primarily to their own territories. While often catering for researchers, they have adopted various policies with regard to gallery audiences, some focussing primarily on local people, others on tourists and visitors from elsewhere. It is not easy to create a single museum display which caters to both groups: background interests and knowledge are too diverse, even if the basic problem of language can be overcome.

`In Britain and other developed countries the problems are even greater. For historical reasons, collections may come from many parts of the world. I have no time now to discuss the questions of ultimate ownership and location to which this situation gives rise although, if challenged, I could, do so at considerable length. The sheer volume of collections presents very great problems which, I regret to say, government and other national agencies completely fail to appreciate. Museums in Britain today are extremely diverse: this is a strength on which to build, not a weakness to be eliminated through ill-considered pressures for uniformity of purpose.

`This diversity takes several forms. Museums are owned and run by central government (usually through appointed trustees), by local government at various levels, societies, trusts, private individuals and, of course, universities. They can cater for tourists, local residents, schoolchildren, amateur enthusiasts or academic specialists, in any combination. All these audiences are unpredictably fickle, academic specialists not excepted. Nevertheless, the prime concern of museums with major collections must be to care for those collections in the very long term, irrespective of contemporary fashion, prejudice or fluctuating interest. For more than two decades the Cambridge Department of Social Anthropology took virtually no interest in the University's outstanding collection of ethnographic artefacts; the pendulum has now swung and the collection is again intensively used for both teaching and research. In Botany and Zoology, classificatory studies are not currently in fashion, yet the relevant collections still require maintenance. A popular and harmful misconception is that an item can only justify its place in a museum if it is on public display. It is incomprehensible to me how this view can be so widespread. A parallel point would never be made about the contents of a library. I myself have had to ask that the pages be cut of a book that had already been in the Cambridge University Library for two hundred years. The fact that the book was there, albeit unread, is surely a strength of the Library, not a weakness, and the same view should be taken of museum collections.

`Many museums are under considerable pressure to maximise visitor numbers. In the case of museums which charge a fee for admission, the reason is obvious. Local authorities may also feel better justified in supporting those museums which cater directly for a large number of taxpayers. The result is often pressure to attract mass audiences through the activity known as "dumbing down" for which I can offer no politically correct euphemism. This is not only an insult to the intelligence of the museum visitor; it can also alienate as many people as it attracts. It is thus particularly sad that it appears to have been embraced by bodies such as the Department of Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS), the Council for Museums, Archives & Libraries, and the Trustees of the British Museum, all of whom should know better. A second basis for this idea derives from the pervasive view that the benefit of the individual is paramount. This philosophy is at the root of much current governmental thinking about higher education. How else can one understand the view that the sole significant beneficiary of a university education is the individual graduate who should thus be burdened with accumulated debt to be offset against notional future earnings? Can the view be seriously taken that a cadre of well educated specialists is of no benefit to our national community as a whole? No African government with which I have had contact would take such a myopic view.

`The relationship between DCMS and the Museums, Archives & Libraries Council is particularly worrying. The Council was set up partly to succeed the old Museums & Galleries Commission, one of whose functions was "to advise Government" on all aspects of policy relating to museums. Now, however, the Council sees itself as an implementer of DCMS policy. Where, one must ask, is policy made, and on whose advice?

`Both bodies are very properly concerned that as many people as possible should have access to museums, whose potential contributions to life-long learning and to the tourist trade are rightly stressed. Neither contribution, however, will be realised unless museum collections are properly researched, interpreted and understood. This requires specialist academic input.

`The problems of the British Museum are partly, but not entirely, traceable to the same sources. There is an alarmingly widespread, but nonetheless deplorable, lack of appreciation of the value of the British Museum as an academic institution. Its collections are a superb resource, to be exploited not only through the creation of public exhibitions, but in the furtherance of international scholarship. The new Great Court is a triumph on all scores other than economic ones. Yet the Museum has felt it necessary (or appropriate) to present two recent exhibitions on western Asian archaeology under the respective umbrellas of Agatha Christie and the Queen of Sheba, two wholly admirable ladies, but surely distractions from the main subjects of the exhibitions. This not only misleads or insults the visitor, but also belittles the academic standing of the Museum, which in turn exacerbates governmental misunderstanding. Meanwhile, the Audit Commission worries because a proportion of the Museum's holdings are not on display. Why should they be, so long as they are available for study and as a basis for the scholarship which underpins public exhibitions? No-one complains because books in the British Library remain on their shelves until someone wishes to read them. Why should the British Museum's coins or cuneiform tablets be regarded differently?

`In this sorry state of affairs, university museums have a particularly important role. In Cambridge and elsewhere, their collections are in the same class as those in the national museums, yet they operate in close collaboration with the academic faculties and departments of which they are, in many cases, integral parts. They have a responsibility to preserve their collections through the vagaries of changing academic fashion. As custodians of significant parts of the international cultural heritage, they and their parent universities have a moral duty to make these materials available to the widest possible audience, so long as this does not prejudice the over-riding need to preserve. It is in the universities' own interests that this should be so: their museums provide an ideal means of explaining and displaying their work and possessions to a wider public, including the taxpayers who ultimately provide much of their support. This does not mean that university museums should pretend that they are just like other museums but happen to belong to universities. On the contrary, they are unique and valuable institutions in their own right: they should emphasise that uniqueness and the fact that, in the unfortunate circumstances which I have described, they are almost alone in maintaining the traditional link between material collections and academic research. They are an essential base for the two prime functions of a university--teaching and research, yet their value also extends far beyond the universities of which they are parts. They play a growing role in preserving the heritage for the future as well as for the present. In today's political climate of short-term opportunism and focus on the individual, that is a vital investment.'

SIMON KANER has kindly contributed this obituary of Professor SAHARA MAKOTO, an avid reader of ANTIQUITY, whom the Editor had the pleasure to meet in Japan.

Sahara Makoto

1932-2002

Sahara Makoto, former Director of the National Museum of Japanese History, died on 10 July 2002. Born in 1932 in Osaka, his interest in archaeology was awakened by discovering pottery stoneware sherds from a kiln in Toyonaka City while still at nursery school and by the age of 10 he was already reading about archaeology and museums. In his last published book, typical of a man whose being was interwoven with Japanese archaeology, he divided his life into six sections mirroring the six subdivisions of the long forager Jomon period: Incipient, Initial, Early, Middle, Late and Final.

Sahara Makoto was interested in the big questions of Japanese archaeology and was very concerned to bring the Japanese past to a wider audience, as demonstrated by his book Nihonjin no Tanjo [The Birth of Japanese people] (1987, published by Shogakkan). This was an engaging blend of archaeology, ethnography and Sahara's own take on the role of archaeology in modern Japan, in particular using archaeology to create a prehistoric identity for the Japanese, linking modern Japanese populations to the prehistoric inhabitants of the archipelago. This interest in outreach led him to publish in 1991 a manga Japanese comic-book style account of early Japanese history from Jomon times to the Heian period. Sahara had an exceptional ability to convey the message of archaeology to ordinary Japanese--always ensuring that he used language that was easy to follow and setting his interpretations in idiom that was familiar to his audience, and making linkages between the past and the present. He was very aware of the political significance of the field, in a country where no versions of the past were allowed prior to 1945 which contradicted the government-authorized accounts based on imperial mythology. His career spanned the great discoveries of Japanese prehistory, and it is with some pride that he noted that recently even the construction of, the new Prime Minister's residency in Tokyo had to be preceded by an archaeological investigation. Sahara and the archaeologists of his generation have been very successful at placing archaeology and an informed interest in the past at the heart of the Japanese cultural agenda. He considered that archaeology had an ever-increasing significance, and at the opening of the third millennium saw the potential the discipline had for fostering peace, equality and freedom. With his finger ever on the pulse of cultural trends, he also noted the current increase in women archaeological researchers in Japan and endorsed the emergence of gender archaeology, at a time when the Japanese government is making moves towards promoting equality between the sexes. His passion for the preservation of important archaeological remains was perhaps best illustrated by his intervention in the site of Yoshinogari, a major Yayoi settlement in Kyushu in the late 1980s, using his considerable influence with the media to stir up a storm of protest over the planned destruction of this site of national importance.

His main focus was the archaeology of the Jomon and Yayoi periods, which he studied under the two great figures of mid 20th-century Japanese archaeology, Yamanouchi Sugao and Kobayashi Yukio. During his tenure at the National Museum of Japanese History (1993-2001) he also developed his interest in the origins of war. This interest culminated in a controversial exhibition exploring the origins and experiences of war at the National Museum of Japanese History, a topic which for long bordered on the taboo in this country whose constitution renounces war. Another theme which was of particular interest to Sahara was that of early Japanese art, and he brought a cognitive and psychological approach to the scenes on the bronze bells of the Yayoi period and the occasional examples of representational art found on Jomon pottery.

Sahara was a great friend and supporter of foreign archaeologists working in the world of Japanese cultural heritage, which from the outside can sometimes seem puzzlingly opaque. He was keenly aware of the importance of the international context of Japanese archaeology, which he traced back to the American zoologist Edward S. Morse (the excavator of the shell mounds at Omori), who brought scientific archaeology to Japan in the 1870s, and in whose work he had a long-standing interest, and promoted the internationalization of the field. Like many of his contemporaries in Japanese archaeology, he was greatly influenced by the writings of V. Gordon Childe, an inspiration which continued into his retirement from the National Museum in 2001. He studied German at Osaka University of Foreign Languages from 1953 to 1957 and spent time as a visiting scholar in Germany; he had a repertoire of Lieder with which he would entertain many an audience. He was a generous facilitator, both at the Nara National Archaeological Research Institute and at the National Museum of Japanese History, always prepared to find time to show a visitor how to make cords for cord-marking Jomon pottery, or to pull out obscure references from his famous midden of books to aid a piece of research. Japanese archaeology has lost one of its diagnostic features.

Simon Stoddart And Caroline Malone *