Europe in the First Millennium BC. Edited by Kristian Kristiansen and Jørgen Jensen. ix plus 150 pp.. Sheffield: J.R.Collis Publications, 1994. ISBN 0 906090 48 2. £30.00.

Ivanova and Sirakova for the Palaeolithic, Todorova for the Neolithic and Copper Age, Panayotov for the Bronze Age, Bonev for the Vuchitrn treasur, and Shalganova and Gotzev for the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages. Thus the ethnographic material is there aplenty — but who will be the ethnographer? A Bulgarian with a penchant for Clifford and Geertz, or a western archaeologist with an eye for the grand narrative? The outcome is awaited with interest ... Specific information forms the core of this book. Much of it is typological and chronological — the later the period, the more true this becomes, and the less the emphasis on settlement studies and social context. But few readers will be aware of the underwater platform settlements of the Late Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age submerged beneath the Black Sea and recently explored by Draganov and his team — discoveries of European significance. And still fewer will know of the magnificent series of radiocarbon dates for every period of Bulgarian prehistory, marshalled by Boyadziev and presented in exemplary detail in a nine-page table — truly the basis for a new phase of research. Or the progress made by Kovacheva and colleagues in creating an archaeo-magnetic curve complete for eight millennia save for the Eneolithic period — a valuable complement to the radiocarbon data. Or the existence of an island off the key site of Durankulak, which Todorova claims as the site of an Eneolithic palace with major ritual facilities.