have been appointed to manage that heritage and to take care of at least the excavation, if not the preservation of ancient structures.

Early in the 1980s when job opportunities in archaeology were no longer rapidly expanding, several small bureaus were set up by unemployed young archaeologists who offered specialist expertise, mainly in fieldwork-related tasks: drawing, pollen analysis, bone determination, computer-aided analysis, reconnaissance, and survey. The most successful bureau is the Regional Archeologisch Archiverings Project (Regional Archaeological Filing Project, hereafter RAAP), which is loosely affiliated with the Amsterdam Prehistoric Institute, and the RAAP has achieved a powerful position as a commercial archaeological surveying bureau in the Netherlands and in central Europe. More than any other, this agency has become the center of technical innovation in archaeology, and many graduates aspire to a position within its ranks.

In the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, Dutch archaeologists were trained in classical philology, and many were active in the classical countries of southern Europe as well as in the Netherlands. It was only after the legal recognition of archaeology as a discipline in its own right in 1921, and the consequent establishment of permanent chairs in the subject, that students were explicitly trained in archaeology. Initially, this training was after the student had earned a bachelor’s degree in classical arts, geography, geology, or ethnography, but after 1986, archaeology became a full undergraduate and postgraduate university training program.

As in other countries, prehistoric and classical archaeology have gradually separated in the Netherlands. Until 1930, all archaeology was aligned with ancient history (as at Leiden University) or art history (as at Amsterdam), and a training in classics was considered essential. Then an ecological bias came to be associated with prehistoric research, as conducted mainly at the BAI in Groningen, and historical archaeology became more text/art oriented in Amsterdam, Leiden, and Utrecht.

After World War II, the trend was reinforced by the founding of prehistoric archaeological institutes at Amsterdam and Leiden, which were led by students of Van Giffen who were more inclined toward fieldwork and ecological analysis than their historical colleagues. Like Bursch and Van Giffen, W.J. Glasbergen (Van Giffen’s successor at the Amsterdam Institute of Pre- and Proto-history from 1956 to 1979) attempted to make his institute the scientific branch of Dutch archaeology, mainly through a rapid expansion of its staff. The differences between the institutions were mutually elaborated and emphasized until 1980 when the threat of a reduction of funds and institutes made cooperation, at least in education, imperative. Today, all universities have joint basic training programs for undergraduates studying classical and prehistoric archaeology, but although a steady rapprochement is perceptible, it is not appreciated by everyone (e.g., Slofstra 1994; also Hodges 1990).

Several provincial and/or regional museums were founded in the Netherlands in the nineteenth century, generally in the wake of the establishment of local scientific salons, historical associations, or antiquarian societies. As was the case elsewhere in Europe, the nation building and nationalism of the bourgeoisie occurred hand in hand with ancestor veneration. Many of these museums are depositories of important and specialized collections. For instance, the Provincial Museum of Drenthe at Assen has an impressive set of peat corpses and bog sacrifices from the Iron Age. The top prehistoric, peri-Roman, and medieval objects, however, are in the RMO, which is the national repository for Dutch archaeology. The RMO also contains important collections of Egyptian, classical Greek, and Roman artifacts.

Attempts to regularly publish research reports have been made by the RMO. Reuvens co-operated with a well-known antiquarian in editing the journal Antiquiteiten (1819–1826), which had almost the same formula the English-language journal antiquity has today. Also between 1842 and 1846, and from 1855 to 1859, Mededeelingen were issued. A.E.J. Holwerda finally succeeded where his predecessors had failed, and from 1907 onward, the Oudheidkundige Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden has appeared yearly. This publication is primarily filled with reports on research or acquisitions