Darwin, Here We Come! Looking Forward to WAC-10

Darwin, Here We Come! Looking Forward to WAC-10 John Carman, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK E-mail: EDITORIAL Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress (Ó 2024) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-024-09509-5 Kathryn Weedman Arthur, University of South Florida, Saint Petersburg, USA E-mail: Accepted: 25 June 2024 / Published online: 10 July 2024 Readers of the journal will know we have been awaiting news of the next World Archaeological Congress and you will see from the back of the journal that firm announcements about it have now been made. WAC is the largest global association of archaeologists and has been in existence since 1986. It has a policy of taking its four-yearly meetings to a different country on each occasion, and especially to those parts of the globe less visited by major conferences. Previous Congresses have been held in the UK, Venezuela, India, South Africa, the USA, Jordan, Ireland, Japan, and Czechia, covering all the inhabited continents except Australasia and Antarctica. The 10th Congress—marking 40 years of WAC—will be held from 22nd to 27th June 2025 in a hybrid format in Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia, hosted by Flinders University in collaboration with the Northern Institute Charles Darwin University. This is the first occasion WAC has gone to Australia and only the second time south of the equator. It will be held on the traditional and unceded lands of the Larrakia people. As the official journal of WAC, we acknowledge Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and globally and recognise their continuing connections to lands, waters, and skies. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, and to Elders past and present. Although primarily a chance to meet colleagues and engage in formal discussions about all aspects of archaeology, there will also be a cultural program run in parallel to the academic program to showcase the diversity and richness of Indigenous Australian cultures, providing an opportunity to learn directly from Aboriginal teachers. There will also be opportunities for those attending in person to visit the amazing landscapes of Australia’s Northern Territory. There will also be the usual round of social events too! Readers are directed to the full details, including online submission and Ó 2024 World Archaeological Congress ARCHAEOLOGIES Volume 20 Number 2 August 2024 News on WAC-10 379 380 J. CARMAN AND K.W. ARTHUR registration pages, at the WAC-10 website at https://world archaeologicalcongress.com/wac10/. We look forward to seeing you there! For those of you unfamiliar with the conduct of archaeology in Australia, you can do much worse than to look at Claire Smith’s and Heather Burke’s Digging it Up Down Under (World Archaeological Congress Cultural Heritage Manual Series, Springer, 2007, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0387-35263-3) which contains much valuable advice (and we make no apologies for the blatant plug of a sister publication!). In Other News Members of WAC and other readers of this journal will be aware of the WAC responses to two current crises—the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. As the world’s leading membership body for archaeology, WAC and we as Editors of its journal have concern for the cultures of regions under threat from military action—including parts of South America, Africa, and Asia as well as those mentioned—and for our colleagues and friends affected by conflict, however they find themselves to be involved. We are especially concerned for those of our colleagues who are active in protesting the excesses of military activity and the political doctrines that drive them. We wish all our colleagues in regions of the world where there is ongoing conflict to be well and offer them our unstinting support. The current year is one in which a large proportion of the world’s population will be asked to cast votes for those who will form their governments—and indeed some such votes have already taken place, including in the world’s largest democracy, India, and across the European continent for the European Parliament where we note the rise of alt-Right parties with trepidation. We also note with resignation the number of elections across the world with foregone outcomes while looking forward with concern to the outcomes of votes in some countries where things are less certain. In others, we hope whoever forms the government will take due note of the needs of culture and heritage in its broadest sense and of archaeology in particular: the pressures on our discipline to justify itself in narrow economic terms are ongoing in many places, while the political rhetoric against ‘useless’ fields of activity and learning provides validation for the closure of educational and research programmes. We hope that by the time of WAC-10 the global condition of archaeology will have improved. It is of note that—as on previous occasions—our sister organisation the European Association of Archaeologists has issued a set of ‘benchmarks’ highlighting issues of direct concern to archaeologists working in countries of the European Union, setting out clear questions candidates should Darwin, Here We Come 381 answer on those issues. The topics covered by the benchmarks are as follows: I. Addressing Climate Change Challenges for Cultural Heritage II. Protecting Historic Landscapes in Planning and Development Processes III. Stopping the Illegal Trade in Antiquities IV. Regulating the Use of Metal Detectors and preventing the looting of sites V. Facilitating Transnational Mobility VI. No Royalties to be paid on Images of Public Cultural Property All are topics of relevance to archaeologists everywhere and although the specific approach to them will vary from region to region and country to country, they are all worthy of debate at WAC-10 and in the pages of this journal. In this Issue Delve into the pages of Archaeologies to learn about the lives of enslaved Pre-Columbian Maya women and how ancient monuments in Bohemia, Algeria, and India were revealed, conserved, and built. Halperin demonstrates how to bring to life the Maya enslaved women who elude us in Pre-Columbian texts and material culture. Discover how Petr Krištuf and co-authors revealed the presence of Funnel Beaker Culture long-barrows in Bohemia that were obscured by centuries of agricultural ploughing. Singh explores how in India the Indigenous Maram Nagas mobilise community members to construct megaliths, as a model for past practices. Lastly, do not miss architectural conservators Zaghez, Attoui, and Saou-Dufrêne’s suggestions for an eco-friendly approach to restoring the earthen architecture at Algeria’s fortified settlement Ksar Khanguet Sidi Nadji that benefits local residents. We have previously remarked on our need for good submissions to fill our pages, and because of this have had to publish shorter issues than we would like. Our pleas to subscribers, members o (...truncated)