The ‘JADE Project’, directed by Pierre Pétrequin between 2006 and 2010, examined the exchange of Alpine jade axes across Neolithic Europe (Pétrequin et al. Reference Pétrequin, Cassen, Errera, Klassen, Sheridan and Pétrequin2012). Following the successful conclusion of that initiative, The French National Research Agency funded the ‘JADE 2 Project’ (2013–2016). The two beautifully produced, full-colour volumes under review here are the outcome of this second phase of the JADE Project. The 32 chapters, authored by 61 researchers from across Europe, feature extended English abstracts and are illustrated by almost one-thousand colour figures, plans and plates. The volumes are completed with a detailed catalogue of contextual and provenance data for the axes and artefacts studied, and a CD of the JADE Project Volumes 1 and 2 (Pétrequin et al. Reference Pétrequin, Cassen, Errera, Klassen, Sheridan and Pétrequin2012).

Building on the theoretical and methodological framework established in the first phase of the project, JADE 2 sets out to respond to critiques of Volumes 1 and 2 by expanding the empirical basis for some of its main arguments. This is focused in particular on the lack of evidence in relation to the movement of Alpine jade to the Iberian Peninsula and Central and South-eastern Europe, and on the ‘two Europes’ hypothesis, that is, a western distribution of jade axes and an eastern distribution of copper and gold. These excellent, impressive and massive volumes therefore focus on the archaeological record of the Iberian Peninsula and Central and South-eastern Europe to provide support for previously published hypotheses, and on the characterisation of the Eastern Mediterranean jade sources. In addition, the authors also compile and analyse a corpus of ring-discs, examine engraved axe designs and evaluate the use of diffuse reflectance spectrometry (DRS) for the provenancing of nephrite.

Across the two volumes, the chapters are grouped into six thematic sections. The first, comprising Chapters 1–6, is devoted to source recognition and raw materials characterisation. One of the core aims here is to determine the origin of the jade axes found in the Balkans, mainly in Bulgaria and Romania. The authors survey, analyse and test sources of jadeite and eclogite in the Cyclades (Syros, Tinos and Sifnos), concluding that the use of Cycladic jadeite from Syros was of only secondary importance; production was negligible and not exchanged northwards. They conclude, based on DRS analysis and the negligible production using Cycladic jade, that the Balkan axes have an Alpine origin.

Source analysis, based on raw materials characterisation, is always challenging. Here, the authors compare their results from the first phase of the project (Pétrequin et al. Reference Pétrequin, Cassen, Errera, Klassen, Sheridan and Pétrequin2012) with those achieved using a newly acquired diffuse reflectance spectrometer.

Despite the success of the first phase of the JADE Project in locating and characterising jade sources in the Mont Viso and Mont Beigua areas, the sources of nephrite were not identified, an issue that attracted the attention of critics. Volumes 1 and 2 (Pétrequin et al. Reference Pétrequin, Cassen, Errera, Klassen, Sheridan and Pétrequin2012) assumed that nephrite axes originated in the Valais region (southern Switzerland), part of the Mont Viso distribution network. To support this hypothesis, for the second phase of the project, the authors surveyed the nephrite outcrops of the Alps and Pyrenees, using the same state-of-the-art methodology employed to characterise the Alpine jade sources. They conclude that, with the exceptional case of Brittany where nephrite was moved over 800km, Alpine nephrite exchange follows a down-the-line model that drops to nothing by 200km from source, while the Pyrenean nephrites were used only locally. This conclusion modifies their former statements where they have suggested that non-jade artefacts, imitations of the classic ‘Alpine jade’ axes, were transported via established networks to Carnac and other distant lands such as the British Isles or Iberia. As with the previous volumes, the extraordinary systematic fieldwork undertaken by this team on the identification and location of jade and nephrite sources is carefully documented with an inventory of quarry sites and findspots.

Section 2 (Chapters 7–14) focuses on axe production in Piedmont and the short-distance exchange of its products. In this section, the reader is guided through the recognition of Mont Viso jade sources and the small and short-lived exploitation sites such as Balma de Rosso. In this section, focusing on the heart of the jade production system, the reader will be delighted with detailed descriptions of the production sites across Piedmont including the polished axe chaîné opératoire evidenced at the Mont Viso sites, and ethnoarchaeological explanations based on the team's work in New Guinea (described in detail in this volume and in Pétrequin et al. Reference Pétrequin, Cassen, Errera, Klassen, Sheridan and Pétrequin2012). This long and sometimes heavily descriptive account concludes with a synthetic chapter on specialisation in jade axe production and exchange systems between Piedmont to central Italy.

The third section (Chapters 15–21) deals with the controversial topic of the distributions of prestige items. Here the authors pick up the much-criticised ‘two Europes’ hypothesis where they left it in Volumes 1 and 2 (Pétrequin et al. Reference Pétrequin, Cassen, Errera, Klassen, Sheridan and Pétrequin2012), and go deeper into the archaeological evidence of the peripheral areas of ‘Jade Europe’—central and southern Italy, Malta, the Iberian Peninsula, Central Europe, the western coast of the Black Sea, Greece and Turkey—to bolster the hypothesis and to defend it from its critics. The last chapter of Section 3 pulls together the evidence, both from this section and from Pétrequin et al. (Reference Pétrequin, Cassen, Errera, Klassen, Sheridan and Pétrequin2012), to analyse polished jade axe production, distribution and consumption patterns. The authors envisage axes as ‘objets-signes’, charged with their own myths and biographies, and part of the realm of the sacred, suggesting that they were the means for the spread of mythological and cultural traits from Morbihan—the centre of this phenomenon—across ‘Jade Europe’. Beyond this area, however, the authors recognise that these axes would not have carried the same (or complete) mythological and ritual meanings.

Section 4 (Chapters 22–26) represents an addition to the central theme of the book, a sort of ‘side project’ focused specifically on stone ring-discs. The research follows the same basic approach and methodologies as used for the study of the axes: techno-typological and raw materials analysis and the study of patterns of use and exchange. Instead of France, the team proposes an alternative north Italian origin for jade ring-discs, and they add another rock category to the jade definition (as if there were already too few!): serpentines. The DRS work by Errera is now established as the standard method by which to identify the origins of jade axes; the pioneering use of this method here to characterise and locate the origins of other stone artefacts, such as nephrite axes and paragonite beads and ring-discs, is promising. The technique, however, requires broader testing in relation to these other rock types, which naturally occur more frequently than does jade. This section—a ‘book-within-a-book’—concludes with a simplistic and unfounded hypothesis: the authors suggest that ring-discs were to women what axes were to men on the logic that ring-discs were made of ‘noble’ rocks and therefore a marker of female status. Unwarranted assumptions about gender aside, this hypothesis is especially problematic when it is recalled that almost all the artefacts lack archaeological context and absolute dating.

In Section 5 (Chapters 27–29), the authors revisit previous discussions about the distribution of Alpine jade axe and ring-disc designs carved or engraved on monuments across France, from the Alps to Brittany, with special emphasis on the Beauce, Gâtinais and Bourgogne regions. They demonstrate how images of Alpine axes connected production sites with ritual centres and, as symbols of masculinity and authority, were associated with powerful men.

Section 6 (Chapters 30–32) attempts to demonstrate the idea of the substitution of prestige items, such as metal for stone axes. Despite ongoing debate about substitution, the authors bravely embrace the idea on the basis of the spread of Balkan copper axes into south-east France during the fifth and fourth millennia BC. There is, however, very little evidence for the provenance of these copper axes, even though the map provided on page 945 seems to support the authors’ hypothesis.

The volumes conclude with French and English abstracts, an appendix with contextual information on the studied materials, ordered by country, and line drawings of the artefacts studied. As bibliophiles, we greatly appreciated the care that has been taken to elevate this work into a masterpiece. It is, however, incomprehensible that in the internet era, where EU digital policy is well established, that the authors have chosen to publish this work exclusively on paper and have not made the database available through a spatial data infrastructure.

If we had any regrets after reading this magnificent work, it would be the lack of archaeological context and absolute dating for many of the artefacts compiled here; for some readers, this could undermine the value of the work. In our opinion, the authors sometimes advance statements based on these data, as is the case for central and western Iberia, which do not hold up when analysing the wider exchange networks of the Iberian Peninsula. The lack of positive evidence to confirm the movement of Iberian variscite to Morbihan, and the difficulties of fitting the mid third-millennium BC chronologies of Aliste variscite bead production centres with that of Carneciennes jade axes, also weakens archaeological support for a 1000km exchange network between north-western Iberia and Morbihan (for a detailed critique of this point, see Villalobos García & Odriozola Reference Villalobos García and Odriozola2017).

Despite these minor issues, the titanic efforts of the JADE Project team to compile and analyse this massive dataset provides the scientific community with an invaluable research tool. Their pioneering application of state-of-the-art technology for provenance analysis sets the agenda for years to come and—combined with exquisite production values—these volumes are a must on any archaeologist's bookshelves.