The article by Bahn and Pettitt (above) carries the suggestion that the diverse dates obtained for Candamo in some way throw doubt on those for Chauvet and by implication on the performance of the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE) at Yvette-sur-Gif (Gif). The authors respond. Readers might also like to note the article by Marian Scott and colleagues which follows.

The British Museum marked the 250th anniversary of its foundation this year, with an exhibition, The Museum of the Mind: art and memory in world cultures. We asked four archaeologists to review the show: Barry Cunliffe, professor at Oxford University and a trustee of the Museum; Colin Renfrew, professor at Cambridge University and former trustee; Chris Godsen, curator at the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford University and Helen Geake, formerly at Norwich Castle Museum and now working on the British government's portable Antiquities scheme for England and Wales. Here is what they say.

Phenomenology is the modern theoretical archaeologist's word for the appreciation of how a prehistoric monument relates to its landscape. The author shows how the one of the earliest antiquaries, William Stukeley, pre-echoed some of its principles methods and thinking.

Radiocarbon laboratories undertake rigorous programmes of internal quality control (QC) and overall quality assurance (QA). In a laboratory “inter-comparison” samples of the same age are dated at different laboratories using a range of techniques and the results are then compared. The authors summarise the results of the fourth of these scientific audits.

The authors demonstrate the potential for dating structures in Near Eastern archaeology by applying AMS radiocarbon to organic inclusions found in mortar and plaster. The method was successfully applied to date and sequence excavated walls and floors, and to spot-date structures exposed in surveys.

Is the term shamanism being applied uncritically and subjectively to rock art? J D Lewis - Williams responds to criticism from Alice B Kehoe and Mairi Ross featured in earlier numbers of Antiquity.

How should archaeological theory in eastern Europe respond to its new theorectical circumstances? Dragos Gheorghiu advises us to be even-handed.