Scotland in Later Prehistoric Europe publishes the proceedings of an international conference held by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 2008 on the later prehistory of Scotland from 1500 bc to ad 500. It was the third in a series of conferences that aimed to place Scotland's archaeology within its broader British and European context. However, most of the book's fifteen chapters are predominantly concerned with recent research on aspects of the Scottish Iron Age only and just three chapters (Chs 5, 7, and 9, by Kaul, Haselgrove, and Pope respectively) focus on the Bronze Age. While excellent in themselves, these fall short of achieving the laudable goal of the conference. There is insufficient attention given directly to comparisons outwith Scotland, though there are some notable exceptions, such as the papers by Cunliffe (Ch. 2) and Armit (Ch. 10). This is not to say that European material does not feature in the book: the first four papers are dedicated to it, but three of these—comprising examinations of the archaeology of France, the Low Countries, and southern Scandinavia—make no explicit comparisons with Scottish prehistory.

In Chapter 2, Cunliffe examines the nature of later Bronze Age and Iron Age relations between Britain and continental Europe by exploring cultural similarities and regional differences across time and space as indicated primarily by the distribution of similar artefacts. Milcent (Ch. 3) then examines the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age metalwork from northwestern France to better understand that region's role in a wider cultural complex, including Ireland and Iberia, which involved the shared use of objects such as bronze feasting cauldrons, flesh hooks, or horse gear. In Chapter 4, Warmenbol summarizes the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age archaeology of the Low Countries: houses, monuments, burials, and hoards. In doing so, he demonstrates that, throughout later prehistory, north Alpine and Atlantic traditions, as well as more eastern or southern European influences, converged to varying degrees in present-day Belgium. In this regard, the decoration on the pommel of a Late Bronze Age Stockstadt type sword, which was found with human remains within the Trou del Leuve cave site at Sinsin, Namur (Fig. 4.11), is particularly interesting because of its close resemblance to that on the Danish Trundholm Sun Chariot disc or the Irish gold disc from Lattoon, Co. Cavan. The Trundholm Sun Chariot disc features directly in Kaul's fascinatingly detailed account of Nordic ritual and cosmology throughout the Bronze Age (Ch. 5). Based on the presence of varying images, including ship motifs and sun symbols on various media such as rock carvings and razors from the Early Bronze Age until the end of the Bronze Age, around 500 bc, he has achieved unique insights into past people's beliefs.

In many ways, it is left to the excellent Introduction by Hunter (Ch. 1) to highlight the relevance and relatedness of the aforementioned chapters to Scottish archaeology. In admirably doing so, he brings a much-needed level of cohesion to the book. A theme uniting Chapters 2–5, which is not highlighted, is that each discusses exchange and social change exclusively through the problematic social evolutionary lens of princely elites, chiefs, and chiefdoms. An illustrative example of this is provided by Milcent (Ch. 3), who assumes that Bronze Age and Iron Age supra-regional objects were exclusively elite possessions. However, he explains that he does not include swords or spears in this because the high quantities of these in Atlantic France suggest that they were not the preserve of elites. Yet, based on this logic, the feasting cauldrons which also form part of that Late Bronze Age Atlantic cultural complex cannot be considered to have been restricted to elites in an Irish context where they too occur in exceptionally large numbers (Leonard, Reference Leonard2015). While some of the supra-regional objects featured in these papers may well have been used by elites, the assumption that all of these were restricted to a Bronze Age or Iron Age ruling class requires a critical reanalysis. As argued elsewhere, it is hard to reconcile the highly structured and standardized deposition of such objects in Atlantic France, Britain, Ireland, or elsewhere with the idea that they were individual possessions or prestige goods (e.g. Fontijn & Brück, Reference Bruck, Fontijn, Fokkens and Harding2013).

A welcome series of counterpoints to this European emphasis on chiefs is provided by Haselgrove, Armit, and Goldberg, who have produced the most compelling papers within the book. In Chapter 7, Haselgrove provides a noteworthy paper on the evidence for later prehistoric societies in central Britain from 1500 bc to ad 100 with an emphasis on settlement patterns. This stands out for its highly integrative multi-proxy approach which considers evidence for climate change, settlement activity, landscape change, subsistence practices, craft production, material culture, deposition, and funerary practices in relation to each other over a longue durée to develop ‘interpretations appropriate to the material and its context’ (p. 131). Rather than assuming the existence of hierarchical elites, Haselgrove follows Hill (Reference Hill, Moore and Armada2011) in advocating an approach that begins with ‘small scale local units and explores how these engaged in wider social networks at different scales to form “communities”’ to better characterize later prehistoric society (p. 131). This is a point that is also made in a different way by Armit (Ch. 10), who focuses on social organization in Iron Age Atlantic Scotland. He too draws upon the work of Hill, by questioning the existence of institutionalized elites which he sees as being strongly derived from classical sources. Instead, he argues for the existence of relatively egalitarian multi-household communities until the appearance of brochs and wheelhouses in the last few centuries bc. However, he considers their development to be reflective of a slightly more hierarchical society which he usefully contextualizes through comparisons with Iron Age social formations in Ireland. Like Armit, Goldberg (Ch. 12) also highlights issues with pan-European Celtic heritage in what is both a thoughtful and thought-provoking paper on a wide-ranging set of topics relating to past cosmologies, beliefs, rituals, and religions. He helpfully reminds readers of the ways in which the basis of cross-cultural analogies including historical sources are the product of a specific historical and cultural context which cannot be unproblematically projected back onto the Iron Age to achieve insights into these subjects. Instead, he rightfully advocates a practice-based contextual approach (echoing Haselgrove) that creates a richer picture of the past by attending to the ways in which acts are ritualized. This avoids the reductively false dichotomy of seeing meaningful ways of living as merely functional or cosmological.

While Vincent and Ruth Megaw (Ch. 14) provide an enjoyable and wonderfully illustrated consideration of Scottish ‘Celtic art’ and its insular character within its broader context, many of the other papers in the book are united by a very close focus upon Scottish or northern British archaeology. Tipping (Ch. 6) provides a nuanced account of climatic change in Later Bronze Age and Iron Age Scotland. He rejects the prospect of abrupt climate change between 1200–800 bc leading to the abandonment of uplands or the end of the Bronze Age. Tipping argues that large-scale landscape change was caused around 500 bc by extensive anthropogenic forest clearance in southern and central Scotland which reflects an upsurge in an economy that was focused on the production of agricultural surplus. In Chapter 11, Ralston reviews the character of the Scottish hillforts in terms of their date, form, and setting, but the absence of any illustrations detracts from this chapter. Dunwell (Ch. 8) evaluates the contribution made by developer-funded archaeology to knowledge of the Scottish Iron Age which includes the discovery of large numbers of previously unknown archaeological remains. This new information predominantly comprises settlements and burials and indicates an even greater diversity of both than previously known. Hunter (Ch. 13) synthesizes the evidence for Iron Age craft working in Scotland and, in doing so, shows the value of this for understanding material culture and its social context.

In one of the few Bronze Age contributions, Pope (Ch. 9) examines roundhouses from Scotland and Northumberland to explore some of the patterns in the development of circular dwellings over the course of this period. Regrettably, there is no discussion of whether these patterns extended outside Scotland; presumably there was not space to consider this because of the highly-empirical nature of the paper. However, much is to be gained by more geographically extensive studies of this kind which consider Bronze Age roundhouses within their wider British and Irish context. For example, some of the patterns and types which Pope identifies, such as as ‘ringditch houses’, are paralleled in Ireland, where over 680 Bronze Age roundhouses are now known (Ginn, Reference Ginn2016). This is reminiscent of Bradley's (Reference Bradley, Cooney, Becker, Coles, Ryan and Sievers2009) observation regarding the similarities between Bronze Age monuments in Scotland and Ireland, about how nomenclature can make things seem more different than they really are. In this regard, it is significant to note that the maps used in Dunwell's paper (Ch. 8) portray Scotland as an island without any other places nearby apart from the Scottish islands. This seems to act as a powerful metaphor for the insularity evident in many of the chapters in this volume. Ironically, this characteristic is itself discussed by Halliday (p. 281) in a fitting conclusion to the volume (Ch. 12), where this introversion is identified as a major hallmark of recent Scottish archaeological scholarship. Unfortunately, this is certainly something common within Irish and British archaeology.

In Halliday's discursive piece, he issues a clarion call for Scottish archaeology to beat their drum so that it is heard by those operating in other parts of the world. He provides a robust justification of the international value of research into the regional archaeology of Scotland for understanding much larger questions about European prehistory. As an archaeologist conducting research on Europe's westernmost island, I certainly appreciate his argument.

In this regard, it is worthwhile returning to some of the papers and points discussed at the start of this review. Cunliffe's chapter sets a tone followed throughout the volume. He observes that southeastern Britain remained very strongly connected to the continent after the start of the Iron Age, whereas western and northern Britain and Ireland entered a phase of apparent regional isolation until the first century bc. However, Webley (Reference Webley, Anderson-Whymark, Garrow and Sturt2015) has recently argued that connections between the islands of Ireland and Britain and continental Europe were much more constant than this, once one looks beyond the highly-decorated metalwork. Milcent's contribution to the book offers a way forward, for he convincingly demonstrates that the regional distinctiveness of Atlantic France shows that it was not a peripheral region in later prehistory, but rather a highly connected place whose communities interacted with other groups in a very particular way. The same can certainly be said for Scotland throughout later prehistory, but because of the approaches taken to the evidence, this point has not been sufficiently pronounced in this volume.

This book certainly succeeds in showing that Scotland has an astounding wealth of archaeological evidence, but more needs to be done to demonstrate its relevance to and connections with studies of later European prehistory. For example, the lack of a chapter dedicated to the evidence from Ireland or more southern parts of Britain and its relationship to Scotland seems a particularly glaring absence from this book, given that these are Scotland's closest neighbours within Europe. As Bradley (Reference Bradley, Cooney, Becker, Coles, Ryan and Sievers2009: 231) previously observed: ‘Irish archaeology and British archaeology need to be pursued in tandem if the information that they provide is to be seen in its true chronological and geographical contexts’. Regardless of how different the Iron Ages of Scotland and its neighbouring regions might have been, people in these various locations were closely connected throughout their past, so any apparent changes in the expression of their relations is of considerable significance to understandings of European prehistory. We must not allow ourselves to be limited by modern geo-political boundaries.