Albania is an accidental country. From Diocletian and Justinian in the ancient world, to Ali Pasha and Mehmet Ali in the nineteenth century, Albanians have often succeeded best in running other people's empires rather than building a country of their own. Albania is the unexpected child of the Balkan wars (1912–1913), when it was decided (by others) that these (predominantly Muslim) speakers of an apparently ancient language needed a country of their own. Nationalist archaeology of a kind we know from other Balkan states consequently developed late and fitfully in Albania—it was hardly evident at all under its first ruler, King Zog. Italian archaeologists during Mussolini's occupation of the country (1939–1943) concentrated on Roman sites such as Butrint (ancient Buthrotum; Aeneid 3.293). Further, nationalist archaeology concerned with linking modern Albanians to ancient Illyrians only began under Enver Hoxha. Between 1950 and 1987, as Bejko (Chapter 17) makes clear, 156 tumuli dating to the Bronze and Iron Ages from 28 separate locations were excavated by the Albanian state archaeological service—exploration that was linked explicitly to the question of Illyrian ‘ethnogenesis’. Only a few of these tumuli, some with fairly spectacular ‘warrior graves’, came to the attention of Western scholars (e.g. Hammond Reference Hammond1967). The fall of communism changed all this; Albania's doors are again open to foreign archaeologists.

These two handsome and lavishly illustrated volumes represent one of the early fruits of this post-communist boom. The authors and contributors are to be congratulated that the results of their excavation of the prehistoric tumulus, work that only began in 2004, have been made available to other (largely Anglophone) archaeologists within a space of 10 years. The project leaders have also taken very seriously that modern duty of all foreign scholars working in the Balkans and the Near East—namely, the need to be both scientific and reflexive. The largely American team have worked closely with Albanians (both senior scholars and students), demonstrated great sensitivity to local history, politics and culture, and they have expended considerable time and effort on the conservation of finds (Chapter 5), the analysis of local environment and survey (Chapter 16), a summary in Albanian, and heritage management issues (Chapter 22). (The latter involving the reconstruction of the tumulus in mud-brick in the excavation's final season.)

What then of the results and their interpretation? Well it is clear from the two opening chapters that this tumulus was in no sense spectacular, being composed entirely of earth and mud-brick, and lacking the elaborate stone architecture of some other Late Bronze and Iron Age tumuli. Chapter 3 describes the tombs and their contents in chronological order; Chapter 4 deals with relative and absolute chronology, the latter established with the aid of AMS radiocarbon dates; and Chapter 6 with bioarchaeology (i.e. human osteology). In total, prehistoric burials comprise 124 individuals from 85 separate graves (including 12 double, 13 triple and 2 quadruple burials). These graves could be grouped into five (or perhaps six) phases (I–Vb) ranging from c. 1400–800 BC, with a fairly tight fit between radiocarbon dates and typological dating criteria. Osteology revealed an under-representation of children and sub-adults, and an over-representation of older males. The cemetery cannot then have mirrored the demography of any living group. In addition to these prehistoric graves, a number of later, probably Christian, burials dating to c. AD 1800 were placed near the very top of the mound.

What kind of social unit did these graves represent? This is a question that underlies subsequent chapters. Although DNA tests were inconclusive, macroscopic osteological analysis did establish that some individuals were related to others (but to what degree remains unclear). The population was neither particularly healthy nor unhealthy. Isotope analysis (Chapter 7) proves that they did not rely primarily on animal products for their subsistence. They were not transhumant or any other kind of pastoralists—their diet is more consistent with some kind of mixed farming involving herding. But if they were not pastoralists, why did this group (whoever they were) erect a monumental and highly visible tumulus and incorporate earlier (Middle Palaeolithic to Bronze Age) lithics (Chapter 13) and (earlier or contemporary) burnt daub (Chapter 14), possibly deriving from nearby settlements? Various contributors (especially Martin-McAuliffe, Chapter 20) toy with the idea that all this was to ‘fix’ the identity of the group in a certain place, and that this ‘fixing’ was most appropriate for a more, rather than a less, mobile extended family. This idea is, however, hardly consistent with the results of the isotope analysis.

Does the picture change when we look at the grave goods? Certainly the hand-made pottery (Chapter 9), principally taking the form of drinking vessels with high-handles (hence ‘kantharoi’), finds some good parallels in cemeteries in Greek Epirus (Litavouni, Vitsa Zagoriou); and the study of the small finds (Chapters 10–12) does reveal links farther afield (the ‘Cassabile’ fibulae with Sicily and Italy; the spectacle fibulae with Greece and the Balkans). But, in general, the graves found are not rich, and the social archaeology remains enigmatic. The first and final graves seem to be of older men, over-represented throughout; but the triple grave I (the earliest) is an unlikely founders’ tomb. There is one iron spearhead, but no grave suggests a real ‘warrior’ or ‘chieftain’. The richest graves (and the graves do seem to get slightly ‘richer’ in the Iron Age) are those of very young (or adolescent) women, sometimes buried together with older men. These graves and their accompanying grave goods—the bronze hair ornaments or ‘diadems’—find parallels in some of the Vergina graves (Bräuning & Kilian-Dirlmeier Reference Bräuning and Kilian-Dirlmeier2013: 57–60).

As with any composite volume of this kind, there is some unevenness. The hand-made pottery was assigned to two younger scholars (Chapter 9) who base their typology first on fabric, then on shape, and then on decoration (painted or incised). This produces a typology where there are almost as many examples as types. Chapter 10 is guided by the surer hand of Papadopoulos, who leaves no stone unturned in his search for parallels. Similarly, Chapter 8, on the burial customs, is markedly processual in tone, contrasting with Chapter 20, which is an almost phenomenological discussion of the landscape. Other chapters pay their dues to science or reflexivity respectively.

There is also consideration of later uses of the site. Sixth-century BC Corinthian sherds from the surface (pp. 323–24) suggest visiting Greeks from the nearby settlement of Apollonia; Italian and Greek gun cartridges (pp. 384–88) attest to a skirmish during the Greek-Italian war of 1940–1941. Folk memory correctly identifies the tumulus as a burial ground, although one linked to recent, rather than prehistoric, events. Most users of this volume will, however, not be locals but scholars; and for the majority of Anglophone scholars, these volumes will remain the best point of reference for Late Bronze Age and Iron Age Albania for some decades to come.