In this stimulating piece Kristiansen provides a trenchant critique of the provincialism of much European archaeology (though he tends to concentrate his argument on prehistory), but he does not really engage with the question of whether we need an archaeology of Europe until his closing paragraphs. Here his answer is that ‘Europe and its regions [are] a far better and less exclusive frame of reference than the dominant local and national framework’ (p. NN) – i.e. we need an archaeology of Europe not to exclude others but in order to transcend narrow provincialism. Like Kristiansen, I too would like to put off engaging with the question, and start by examining his argument.

Firstly, Kristiansen's argument is almost entirely concerned with prehistory; although this may be excusable from a Scandinavian perspective, it seems wilful in a discussion of the need for a European archaeology, not least as both the classical Greek world and the Roman Empire transcended the boundaries of Europe. It also omits the historic period when concepts of Europe, often defined as Western Christendom in opposition first to Byzantium and then to the Islamic world, tentatively began to emerge (Balzaretti 1992).

A key point that Kristiansen makes is that the pendulum of archaeological thought swings between romanticism (which he sees as bad) and rationalism (which he sees as good), and that phases of romanticism tend to be particularist whilst the periods of rationalism see more wide-ranging generalization. Although this model is attractive, it is not entirely convincing as an explanation for the phenomena which he outlines, and we may want to look at other explanations for cycles of largely local and national studies followed by phases of wider generalization. One of the striking things about the beginning of prehistoric archaeology (which, as we have seen, is the focus of Kristiansen's polemic) in the mid-19th century was that its practitioners corresponded widely and read each other's publications. Notwithstanding the issues of linguistic ignorance in our generation, which Kristiansen rightly berates, this was facilitated by the relatively low volume of work published – and it was easier for the early prehistorians to know each other personally as they were relatively few in number. Moreover, many of them possessed the financial means to have the leisure to read and sometimes also to travel (though this was in relative terms much more expensive in the 19th century than it is now). It could be argued that the crisis at the end of the 19th century is not just a result of a more idealistic (romantic) theoretical standpoint, but the product of the increased volume of knowledge. Until this knowledge was organized, first as chronology (e.g. by Oscar Montelius 1885; 1895) and then as historical narrative, by Vere Gordon Childe, it was impossible to generalize. Indeed, Childe's great works of trans-European synthesis, such as The Danube in prehistory (1925a), or The Bronze Age in Europe (1930) fit squarely into the cultural–historical period which Kristiansen berates, which rather weakens his argument. Again, it might be argued that the present admittedly provincial phase is again the result of a glut of archaeological data and publication due to the enormous rise in the number of archaeological excavations and survey projects since the Second World War, and that the lack of synthesis and generalization is the result of the inability of many archaeologists to see the big picture. If we accept this view, generalization will only become possible again when this vast body of data has been organized.

It is interesting to note that the idea that ‘European civilization as a peculiar and individual manifestation of the human spirit’ emerged during the Bronze Age was first proposed by Childe (1925b, p. xiii). Christopher Hawkes, whose famous and rather conservative ‘ladder of inference’ is used to argue against generalization in prehistory (1954), also suggested that a specific European identity emerged in the Bronze Age (1940), and the theme was taken up again by Childe in his posthumous work The prehistory of European society (1958). This idea, which lay behind the Council of Europe's 1993 Year of the Bronze Age, is thus firmly situated in those periods characterized by what Kristiansen terms ‘romanticism’.

Unlike Kristiansen I have no problem with heritage as a concept; it simply denotes that which we have inherited and I see no need for sinister nationalistic or racial overtones. Likewise the concept of a World Heritage Site, ‘the world heritage of mankind as a whole’ in the words of the 1972 UNESCO Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (available at http://whc.unesco.org/archive/convention-en.pdf) seems clear enough. It should be noted that this 1972 use of the word ‘heritage’ suggests that Kristiansen's historical analysis is wrong, and that the term ‘heritage’ is not simply the product of Kristiansen's ‘new generation without historical memory . . . during the early 1980s under the Thatcher regime’.

Like Kristiansen, I approach the central question of his piece as an inhabitant of the outer edge of Europe, but in my case of islands whose self-identity is to a certain extent based on denying our European identity, whilst my research is centred on the Mediterranean. Kristiansen is of course right that we cannot understand the complex prehistories (and archaeologies) of the countries that make up Europe in isolation, and that a larger, often continental, perspective is necessary. Moreover, the counterargument that Europe as a concept did not exist for much of human history is specious – neither did most states, regions and provinces, and yet archaeologists regularly use such geographical frames of analysis for their research. He is also right to emphasize the role of the European Association of Archaeologists, born out of the collapse of the old order, which is, however, also finding a voice representing archaeology to the institutions of the European Union. It is very difficult to describe the feeling of anticipation at the Inaugural Meeting of the EAA in Ljubljana in 1994 when proceedings began (Pearce 2002, 5). This was not just about the end of the old blocs, it was also about ‘a new idea of Europe’ (Journal of European archaeology Editorial Board 1993, 1). Is it hopelessly idealistic to believe in such a project, where the excesses of nationalism (the worst of the Balkan wars of the 1990s were still to come) have no place?