This edited book comprises thirteen papers with an introduction by the editors and an afterword by Matthew Spriggs. The papers are divided into three sections, which explore colonisation, maritime interaction, and cultural integration. These provide structure to a reconsideration of the centrality of movement to our understanding of past societies. The authors see it as a reestablishment of a traditional archaeological concern with movement that temporarily disappeared in the post-war period, when the stability of nation states suggested that the evolution of stable societies was the norm. This change is placed in the context of the recent influx of refugees which is clearly a significant European crisis with major cultural repercussions. A contemporary scientific revolution which is perhaps of greater disciplinary significance is the development of isotopic and ancient DNA analyses, which are beginning to provide us with data that we can use to explore past movements. It might be pushing it to say we can use these data to explore movement in the past ‘objectively’, but these analyses are providing data that foregrounds questions of origins, movements, and relationships which are directly relevant to the themes explored here. Unfortunately, this volume appears to have come a bit too early for the most significant studies and none of the papers is focussed on this evidence. Some papers incorporate interpretations based on the science, such as the genetic origin and spread northwards of Iberian people in the Beaker period (Ch. 10, by Melheim & Prescott) and the regular contact between Britain and Scandinavia in the later Bronze Age (Ch. 12, by Rowlands & Ling), which would have benefited from greater critical attention than is presented here.

Part One on ‘Colonisation’ is perhaps the least coherent as it covers a range of periods and regions which superficially have very little similarity. Furthermore, the approaches taken are variable and provide very different datasets and interpretations, some of which appear to have little general significance. It begins with a paper by Kriiska et al. (Ch. 1) on the early Mesolithic of the eastern Baltic region that is essentially an analysis of the lithic industries of two recently excavated sites at Saarenoja and Helvetinhaudanpuro in Finland. The authors deduce the landscape was colonised fairly quickly around 8700 cal bc. Initially the colonists maintained connections to their homelands in the adjacent areas of Russia by establishing long distance exchange networks for the movement of good quality flint. These long distance links were eventually abandoned when population levels rose and small scale social networks were established that exploited local raw materials, such as quartz. The relative isolation of this paper, the only paper on early prehistory in the book, is mitigated by a detailed discussion of the Lapita colonisation of the Pacific in the Afterword by Spriggs (Ch. 14) which discusses another period of primary colonisation and which gives a wider context to the colonisation of Finland.

This is followed by a similar site-based descriptive paper by Chowaniec (Ch. 2) that examines the very different Greek colony at Akrai in Sicily. It considers the various changes that the city was exposed to after the Punic Wars, as it was integrated into the Roman Empire. Most of the story is based on general historical and architectural evidence and, whilst the archaeological evidence is undoubtedly present and new excavations are beginning to recover important material particularly of mid-first millennium ad date, it is limited and this paper is perhaps a bit presumptive. It is followed by a paper by Nervi (Ch. 3) on the Roman takeover of Sardinia which takes a broad holistic approach dividing the island into three regions based on the important Punic cities that dominated these regions: Olbia in the north east, Cornus in the west, and Nora in the south. This provides an excellent case study of the complexities of the colonisation process that highlights the strategies of rebellion, resistance, compromise, and collaboration that were adopted by the inhabitants to reach an accommodation with the dominant power in the region.

The final paper in this section, by Grøn (Ch. 4), is an ethnographic consideration of the settlement of North East Russia by food producing Yakut settlers. While this paper superficially contrasts significantly with the previous paper there are remarkable similarities which highlight the advantages of the thematic structure. The contingent nature of the colonisation process is demonstrated and the varied and opportunistic response of the indigenous hunter gatherers is emphasised. Many groups take advantage of the available food producing strategies when they can be made to fit their particular circumstances but they will be dropped quickly if these circumstances change. Nevertheless, the violence of the colonisation process is not ignored and significant massacres are noted.

Part Two on ‘Maritime Interactions’ is more focussed and comprises five papers concerned with Scandinavia and the Baltic in the Bronze Age and Viking periods. An important thematic unity is the belief that the voyage is a transgressive act that challenges cultural unity and creates a particular type of rapidly changing, materially focussed, unstable hierarchical society that is exemplified by the societies of the Bronze Age and the Viking period. Kristiansen's paper (Ch. 9) is particularly relevant to the themes of the book. He directly compares the Bronze Age and Viking periods and finds a lot of similarity, which he explains as due to the surplus of young adult males that can be organised into war bands and sent off on overseas adventures to die, or return with wealth. This seems a plausible interpretation when related to these periods but becomes more problematic when one considers the broad sweep of history; what happens to the supply of surplus males in other periods that were not expansive, such as the Iron Age? Kristiansen's paper links with the paper by Glørstad and Melheim (Ch. 5) that develops Marshall Sahlins’ consideration of Thucydides analysis of the Peloponnesian War. This paper, whilst initially focussing on the similarities in Viking and Bronze Age Scandinavian societies, discusses the significant social differences in the role of authority and the nature of power relations that explain some of the fundamental distinctions between the two periods. The paper by Horn (Ch. 6) also considers the importance of warfare and develops the wear analysis of Early Bronze Age swords and their distribution to suggest that the relevance of seaborne warfare in the Baltic should be extended back into the Early Bronze Age.

The paper by Price (Ch. 8) provides a detailed consideration of the Vikings as pirates and develops an interesting twist on the typical interpretation of these Nordic warriors. From the British perspective the Vikings tend to be seen as aggressive invaders from across the sea, but by exploring the pirate perspective we bring a Hollywood baggage of romanticism and camaraderie which challenges the negativity of this normal view. Price negotiates the different perspectives carefully and cleverly and clearly has identified a source that will provide an alternative perspective of some considerable depth. A contrast in period and approach is provided by Naum's paper (Ch. 7), which explores medieval population movements in the Baltic. The focus is the development and maintenance of the German diaspora in the Hanseatic towns of Kalmar in Sweden and Tallinn in Estonia, who used material culture and architecture to maintain links with their homelands and differentiate themselves from the local population. Both historic sources and archaeological evidence are combined in this paper to provide a complex perspective on these relationships. This paper is more thematically linked to Part Three on ‘Cultural Integration’.

This section on cultural integration contains four papers; three on the Bronze Age and one on the Viking Age. Melheim and Prescott (Ch. 10) present an important discussion of the beginning of the Early Bronze Age and the introduction of the bell beakers and associated artefacts in Norway. They interpret this as closely related to Bell Beaker prospectors exploring the region for exploitable metal sources. This paper provides a very interesting consideration of how a prospector might move through the landscape, whilst seeking to maintain their cultural identity and links with their parent community and closely interact with the local community who have the intimate topographic knowledge to guide them to their goal. This is worked through in relation to two locations in south west Norway where copper sources are available. At one location, a Bell Beaker settlement has been located, though there is no close relationship with the ores. The emphasis throughout the paper is that prospection and exploitation of the ores are two quite separate processes. Often prospection fails to identify useable ores but people have to move through a landscape to know there are no ores and such movements will inevitably lead to some associated settlement and cultural interactions.

The paper by Kneisel (Ch. 11) considers the distribution of face urns; a distinctive form of ceramic container that starts in Halstatt B in the Limfiord area of Denmark and spreads in Halstatt C into the rest of Scandinavia, north Germany, and Poland. There is a major concentration around Gdansk in Halstatt D, when they spread further afield into Italy. In both Italy and Germany the tradition continues well into the Iron Age. The characteristics of the face on the urn vary significantly across the region with a considerable degree of complexity in Poland and distinctively naturalistic faces in Italy amongst the traits observed. Nevertheless, the author argues convincingly that this is a single tradition which indicates contact across the region, related to the exchange of commodities such as amber and staples such as salt. The diversity of these demonstrate that such continental networks occur between regional groups who preserve, and indeed desire to express, their cultural differences in a manner that can be comprehended by outsiders. That these urns are used for burials is implicit in the paper but it would have been useful to have a more explicit statement of their use and also a speculative consideration of the symbolic significance of the face in this context; does it allude to the individuality of the deceased or are we looking at an anonymous communal spirit of the dead?

Rowlands and Ling (Ch. 12) take a much more expansive view of the inter-relationship of the Bronze Age world. They argue strongly in their paper that the introduction of a distinct cosmology and a desire for metals that is identified by the Beaker phenomenon stimulates the development of seafaring technology and the creation of a maritime society in Scandinavia that may have led to expansive sea voyages that took Scandinavians from the North Sea to the Mediterranean and down the rivers of central Europe, and again direct comparisons are made with the Viking period. It would perhaps have been better placed in the previous section on ‘Maritime Interactions’. As a British archaeologist I am not sure that the evidence for Scandinavian interrelationships with the British Isles is anything like strong enough to support such sweeping statements and it would have been useful to see this evidence explored in a bit more depth than it is here. The distinctive cosmology and symbolism of Scandinavia is not present in Britain and this would suggest a very different structure to social relations in the region.

The role that children played in the Norse migration process is discussed by Hadley (Ch. 13). The author considers this a relatively unexplored aspect of the Norse period and suggests it needs to be taken more seriously as scientific analysis of the isotopic history of several Norse individuals have revealed they had complicated geographical histories which confirm the historical evidence that individuals were making significant geographical movements from an early age. There are also important burials such as that from Balnakeil in Sutherland (Scotland) where a ten-year old child was found in a richly equipped grave that included a distinctively Irish brooch. This paper alludes to the role that children might have had in the colonisation process, as anthropology and sociology suggest they often acquire language skills and make contact with indigenous communities with relative ease. Unfortunately, these issues are not explored in much detail; instead the author focuses on the archaeological record for toys and the possible use of children in pottery production, which is a pity as this would have been very relevant to the theme of this section.

This book is certainly a success in confirming the importance of the movement of peoples, and I am sure many of the papers will be referenced repeatedly in the future. There are considerable insights into the complex processes of colonisation, invasion, and integration that will stimulate debate, and the likelihood is that these debates will become increasingly more and more important as the scientific evidence for movement becomes more comprehensive and nuanced. The re-emphasis on the maritime sphere of interaction is clearly long overdue but I wonder if the pendulum has in some cases swung too far. It is clear that many societies feel at home on the sea and can exploit it to their considerable advantage, but some societies are afraid of the sea, with good reason, and avoid it. Those societies need to be considered and understood as well.