A decade of debate

Extract

The present issue marks the tenth birthday of Archaeological dialogues as an international academic journal. What once began as an English-language periodical established by a small group of Dutch graduate students has now evolved into a leading international journal for debating interpretative, theoretical, methodological, historical and political issues in archaeology. This development has taken us as much by surprise as it has far exceeded original intentions and expectations. When the journal was set up in Leiden in the early 1990s, the key aim of Archaeological dialogues was to promote and, indeed, provoke theoretical discussion in Dutch archaeology. Inspired by the fascinating theoretical developments in Anglo-American archaeology and anthropology of that time, the editors sought to reconcile these exciting new ideas with the long-standing empirical traditions of continental European archaeology. This ambition was readily evident from the subtitle that was carried on the cover for the first four years: ‘Dutch perspectives on current issues in archaeology’.