Review Reviews a slightly different view, identifying the current barriers to data distribution in palaeoanthropology as sociological, logistical and due to lack of standards (p. 111). The Open Research Scan Archive (ORSA) project (Monge & Schoenemann) actually encourages data sharing by requiring anyone using their data to ‘agree’ to deposit data of their own when (or if) they create any. While this is impossible to enforce, it is the kind of requirement that can influence and ultimately change deep-seated attitudes towards data sharing. Webber and Bookstein on the other hand take issue with partially open schemes like the you-show-me- yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine arrangements ORSA offers (p. 106). Unfortunately this volume suffers from some unusual choices of articles in a collection about databases. The pedants amongst us would argue that in many articles the term ‘database’ often describes a larger system which includes a database, or the term was simply misused. In the ORSA paper the terms database and archive are used interchangeably with no clarification, and archiving standards or long-term preservation go completely unmentioned. The choice of some proprietary formats (e.g. ESRI shapefiles and MS Word documents) to store data (M¨ arker et al.), or of Gilbert & Carlson’s choice of proprietary database software (e.g. FileMaker) also causes concern for the long-term usability of some of the data. These rather minor criticisms aside, there were some excellent examples of database systems in this volume. The Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) database was comprehensive, and interoperability taken so far as to make the data of the AHOB database compatible with the nascent PaleoAnth Portal [http://www.paleoanthportal.org/]. The web interface provides basic interrogation capabilities and the ability to drill downwards and upwards within the data. For example, one could search for a site, select a specific species and retrieve its detailed information, then drill back up into other sites containing that species. This functionality will be most welcome by users. It was also possible to export data from some of these systems. The AHOB system enables users to download data in spreadsheet form, and export the spatial data for inclusion in Google Earth. This was also a capability of the Out of Africa database (ROAD, see http://www.roceeh.net/roceeh/), which allows users to navigate and interact with the data locally on their own PC. As many will know, performing high-level analysis of data through a web GIS can be tedious and frustrating. In addition, the ROAD system is capable of importing data, allowing users to create PDF maps that include user-provided data, something that few systems can accomplish. It was also nice to see reuse cases among the papers: the AHOB database used to study the implications of mammalian palaeofaunas for climate interpretation; the ROAD data used to describe the spatial distribution of Neanderthals; and ORSA listed other good examples of successful reuse. Data reuse should be seen as the ultimate goal of anyone creating databases like these. Data publication and citation were also im- portant topics mentioned by some, such as Pastoors and Weniger, Weber and Bookstein and the ORSA project. Services like the Journal of Open Archaeological Data (JOAD; http://openarchaeologydata.metajnl.com/), which is trying to establish a viable data publication model, and data citation from DataCite (http://datacite.org/) are being developed. The ambitious BEFORE project (presented by Coppa) is also worth mentioning: it is an attempt to create a pan-European strategy for the long-term management of Europe’s cultural and biological heritage, specifically of prehistoric and historic human skeletons. Another interesting paper, by Montet-White, discusses the difficulties of archiving digital data from projects between 1967 and 1998, which covers the beginning of the significant transition from the pre-digital to the digital era. There was plenty of material for the Pleistocene and palaeoarchaeologists amongst us, including some good examples and arguments for the 3-D recording of palaeo-archaeobiological material (Pastoors & Weniger, Brown et al., Bayle et al.) but anyone looking for an exhaustive discussion of databases in those fields (probably a very select few) will be left wanting. Many conversations in this volume have taken place for years at Computer Applications in Archaeology (CAA) conferences and other IT-specific gatherings. However, the likely benefit of a volume like this is to take the conversation to the archaeologists and data creators, something that more IT-oriented practitioners have unfortunately been less successful at achieving. MICHAEL CHARNO Archaeology Data Service, UK (Email: michael.charno@york.ac.uk) MARIUS ALEXIANU,OLIVIER WELLER &ROXANA- GABRIELA CURC˘ A (ed.). Archaeology and anthropology C  Antiquity Publications Ltd. 935