TIl-BArsib. Par F. Thureau-Dangin et Maurice Dunand avec le concours de Lucien Cavro et Georges Dossin. Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1936. pp. 166 with Album of 53 plates and 5 plans. 200 francs.

This volume is a most important contribution to the archaeology of Syria. Tell-’Ahmar, which lies on the left bank of the Euphrates, 20 kilometres below Carchemish, marks the site of the ancient city of Til-Barsib. As long ago as 1908 the late Dr Hogarth had suggested the identification of this mound with Barsib, and in 1911 Dr Campbell Thompson proved the correctness of Hogarth’s surmise by copying and translating an Assyrian inscription which lay on the mound. After making preliminary soundings in 1927 a French Expedition under the auspices of the MusCe du Louvre set to work in 1929 and the excavations, involving a total of seven months’ work in all, were concluded in 1931. This volume, lavishly illustrated, describes in detail the remarkable results.

Readers will know that Antiquity, a long term supporter of TAG, now gives this most spontaneous and peripatetic of conferences a memory by hosting the ‘TAG Archive’ on its website. In this article Bisserka Gaydarska offers a preliminary analysis of TAG trends – how the subjects of talks and the speakers who gave them have changed over the past few decades. Readers are invited to comment on her findings and share their views with us by emailing us at [email protected].

Inyanga is a district in Southern Rhodesia whose monuments were brought to the notice of readers of ANTIQUITY a short while ago. A Fund raised by private subscription mainly from Rhodesian sources has recently sponsored excavations in this district and at the conclusion of the second season's work it seems desirable to make a preliminary report. The excavations were directed by the writer who was fortunate in having the very skilful assistance of the Colony's Inspector of Monuments, Mr K. R. Robinson. Unfortunately no amateurs were able to assist us.

In the summer of 2006 author Margaret Elphinstone, embarking on a novel set in the prehistoric period (Elphinstone 2009), sought out archaeologist Caroline Wickham-Jones to discover more about Mesolithic Scotland. The resulting process proved to be more than a simple question and answer session: over three years, the two of us, novelist and archaeologist, each renegotiated the boundaries of our perceptual frameworks. This paper is intended to examine the learning process that most students of archaeology unconsciously experience, and it goes on to champion a respected role for fiction. As the status of history is reduced in the school syllabus, the number of people learning about their past from fiction will increase. Very few people learn much about the Mesolithic through formal education; indeed we are both astonished at how many well-educated people have no idea when or what the Mesolithic was. As representatives of our professions, we here demonstrate the special and timely benefits of what we term the informed novel.