to those included in the first two volumes of the project, and histories of significant sites, debates, techniques, methods and issues that are central to the global practice of the discipline. Notwithstanding the perception of commonalities, the impression of diversity is also very strong indeed, and the notion of there being different regional traditions in archaeology is strongly exemplified. The same is true for the practice of particular kinds of archaeology, be it of simple or complex societies, or of particular technologies or site types. For example, the pattern of research into the prehistoric and historical archaeology of settler societies such as Canada, the United Sstates of America, Australia, and New Zealand is different from that in other postcolonial societies.

Yet at the same time one is struck by the things archaeologists share—a concern with locating, recovering, and making sense of evidence of past human lives and an understanding that making the human past intelligible is a significant cultural function, no matter what society archaeological research is being conducted in. Certainly the histories that comprise these volumes make it very clear that since the nineteenth century archaeology has played a significant role in the cultural lives of nations, and that in doing so it has been frequently put to use to serve nationalist agendas—whether these are in China, Russia, Australia or the countries of Europe, the Americas, or Africa.

Thus while archaeologists might share a commitment to revealing the importance of the human past they have frequently done so in different ways and to meet different cultural and political ends. Many of the histories presented here explore the interplay between the work of archaeologists as “objective” scientists and the social and cultural contexts within which they work. In doing so they reveal theoretical and methodological connections between archaeologists that have also played a fundamental role in the creation of archaeology. The tensions between local and global archaeologies revealed by the entries in these volumes seem to me to be a true reflection of the experience of many contemporary archaeologists, and they pose a strong challenge to the discipline in future decades.