This volume presents the results of the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project (PKAP), an intensive pedestrian survey of a micro-region of Cyprus. The project is ongoing, with this volume presenting the results of data gathered in the field from 2003–2010. It is a thought-provoking contribution, containing chapters on the survey methodology, experiments in testing that methodology, a catalogue of finds, artefact distribution, architectural features and a diachronic analysis of the results in the wider context of Cyprus.The three lead authors (Caraher, Moore and Pettegrew) have a long-standing and well-documented interest in survey methodology, especially as it relates to the East Mediterranean. They were all involved in the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey (EKAS) and, in one way or another, have produced publications challenging the received wisdom of intensive survey methodology and its underlying ontologies in the Greek East. This volume adds to their already impressive engagement with the practice and impact of archaeological surveying (both in print and online), and is vital for anybody interested in diachronic landscapes, the practice of archaeological survey and the presentation of archaeological data. This is easily one of the most important books on survey to have been published in the past five years.

This status is a blessing and a curse—the book is important not because it is the last word on survey and its attendant problems, but because it represents a snapshot of where survey is, its debates and controversies and its methodological baggage at the close of the first decade of the twenty-first century. For example, survey collects and records, primarily, ceramics and the vast majority of these are ‘undiagnostic’ body sherds. Only a tiny minority will be identifiable by type, function or period, and it is this minority that is most commonly used as the unit of analysis for assigning site function, or predominant period, or a whole range of human behaviours to survey units. In ‘standard’ surveys, diagnostic artefacts and a representative sample of the undiagnostic mass are collected and analysed by specialists back at base camp. The PKAP authors, however, are sworn adherents of the ChronoType system of artefact recording and collection. This method was pioneered by the Sydney Cyprus Archaeological Project (of which Moore was a member), and is essentially a method of on-site (or in-unit) assessment of artefact type, date and function by members of the field-walking team. The ChronoType system requires participants to identify ceramics in the field and to collect only a single example of each diagnostic sherd for later analysis. It removes the key role of the ceramic specialist from the process of identification, and it assumes that most field workers can be trained to identify specific artefact types quickly and accurately, and that they all count artefacts in the same way. In other words, it is not uncontroversial.

Normally, this would be the sort of methodology that would be trumpeted in a publication, with potential criticisms either ignored or minimised as the authors strive to create a concrete vision of their authority. What makes the PKAP volume so important is not their approach to ceramic collection and identification, but the genuinely open way the authors discuss the system, its assumptions, its criticisms and the unresolved issues involved in its implementation. This volume is important not just because of what it says about a micro-region in Cyprus (which is genuinely interesting, especially as it emerges in the final chapter), but because of the transparency of the authors in facing up to the challenges of survey, of documenting the range of possible options and then describing what decisions they made and why. There is much in this volume to disagree with, and it is to the authors’ credit that they themselves are largely responsible for giving the readership the tools with which to critique their own hard work.

Alongside the methodological transparency of the project is its approach to open data. All of the data from the survey are available online (http://opencontext.org/projects), and the project's website hosts reports, news, updates, multimedia and a wealth of information for understanding the logistics and pragmatic operation of a foreign-run archaeological project in the East Mediterranean. The combination of the published volume and online resources set a new standard for the publication of archaeological survey data.

But for all its methodological sophistication and self-reflection, and its laudable approach to open data, in the interpretation of the survey material itself the volume presents nothing particularly new or innovative. The consequence of this is a sense of imbalance between the methodological discussion and the interpretation of the material. There are relatively standard discussions of survey zones and period analyses, but no integration of ancient sources, epigraphy or history (broadly writ) as it relates to any historical period covered by the survey. Theories of interpretation (as opposed to theories of archaeological practice) are given short shrift, and while the authors claim to be conversant with theories of connectivity, state formation and regionalism, they themselves make few substantive forays into these areas of interpretation. This may be an unfair criticism—they clearly prioritised making the data available, and further publications on geomorphology and geology, the results of geophysical examination and targeted excavation are planned—but the interpretation is nonetheless a disappointment given the intellectual potential of these specific authors working together. Should it be a cause for concern if the brightest lights in Mediterranean survey focus their attention on collection in the now, rather than the why in the past?