Archaeology and Language III interprets results from archaeological data in terms of language distribution and change, providing the tools for a radical rewriting of the conventional discourse of prehistory. Individual chapters present case studies of artefacts and fragmentary textual materials, concerned with the reconstruction of houses, maritime technology, pottery and grave goods.

Roger Blench, Overseas Development Institute, London. Matthew Spriggs, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Faculty of Arts, AD Hope Building, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Preface, General introduction, Introducing the papers Part I Linguistic Models in reconstructing Material culture 1 Early Oceanic architectural forms and settlement patterns: linguistic, archaeological and ethnological perspectives 2 From pots to people: fine-tuning the prehistory of Mailu Island and neighbouring coast, south-east Papua New Guinea 3 Language, culture and archaeology In Vanuatu 4 Linguistics versus archaeology: early Austronesian terms for metals 5 The dispersal of Austronesian boat forms in the Indian Ocean 6 The formation if the Aryan branch if Indo-European Part II Interpreting text 7 The language if death in a bilingual community: nineteenth-century memorials in Newport, Pembrokeshire 8 The pre-Classical circum-Mediterranean world: who spoke which languages? 9 From artifacts to peoples: Pelasgoi, Indo-Europeans and the arrival of the Greeks 10 On the identity and chronology of the Rgvedic river Sarasvatt 11 The archaeology of knowledge: Austronesian influences in the western Indian Ocean 12 Digging up the linguistic past: the lost language(s) of Aneityum, Vanuatu