Editorial: Endings (But not the End)

Editorial: Endings (But not the End) Kathryn Weedman Arthur, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA E-mail: EDITORIAL Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress ( 2025) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-025-09525-z John Carman, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK E-mail: Accepted: 12 March 2025 / Published online: 20 March 2025 This issue looks forward to a number of impending changes—each of them an ending of some kind—but none of them final. The journal and its host organisation the World Archaeological Congress will continue into the future and we look forward to seeing both thrive. This is the last issue of the journal before the 10th World Archaeological Congress to be held in Darwin, Australia from 22nd to 28th June (see http s://worldarchaeologicalcongress.com/wac10/). As readers will know, WAC is the largest global organisation of archaeologists, founded in Southampton, UK in 1986 as a break-away organisation from the International Union of Pre- and Proto-Historical Societies over a dispute concerning academic representation from apartheid South Africa. WAC comes together for a full Congress every four years or so, moving around the world and aiming to be held in places where major academic conferences do not go: and so far, a WAC has been held in every inhabited continent except Australasia and Antarctica. This year in Darwin, one of those omissions will be addressed, although it may be some time before Antarctica is hospitable enough for a conference to held there. Depending on how you measure anniversaries, this WAC marks the organisations 10th or 40th: either is a significant achievement for its founder Peter Ucko, his associates and the officers of WAC that succeeded him; and that achievement is to be celebrated. We have advertised the Congress in earlier issues and do so again here: each Congress is a significant and enjoyable gathering of the world’s archaeologists and the meeting in Darwin will be no different. As usual topics are wide-ranging, covering all aspects of archaeology in all parts of the globe and the ways in which we engage with each other, collaborators, the communities whose pasts we  2025 World Archaeological Congress ARCHAEOLOGIES Volume 21 Number 1 April 2025 WAC is 10 or 40—However You Look At It! 1 2 K. W. ARTHUR, J. CARMAN study, and the implications of what we do and the knowledge we produce. We look forward to seeing you there, if not in person then virtually, since the Congress will be held in hybrid format. As usual, the Congress will see changes in the management of WAC as an organisation, including personnel changes in the WAC Executive and Council. The contribution of all are to be commended, a number of whom saw the organisation through the difficult times of Covid and the growing threat and actuality of major conflicts across the globe, as well as ongoing pressures on archaeologists as on other workers in the humanities as governments and others seek to reduce our work to mere utilitarian values. Organisations such as WAC and the meetings they organise are at once a proof to the world of the great value of our work and a chance for us to recharge our professional batteries. While WAC Congresses are also great fun, and not to be missed, they are also serious places of work. Outcomes can include individual papers and collections of publishable quality and we look forward to approaches by their authors and editors for inclusion in our pages. Changings of the Guard We are soon to see Kathy Arthur stand down as an Editor of the journal. She has been with us since 2019 and preparations for WAC-9 in Prague, her predecessor Jan Turek having left the journal to manage WAC-9. Over her time with us she has not only overseen contributions to the journal, including more than one Special Issue (one of which was also edited by her) and the development of our Collections on a range of topics—full details of which are available on the journal web page—but has engaged fully with our Springer Editor Mary Sue Daoud and members of our Editorial Board to develop policy and the progress of the journal. We were highly delighted to see her book The Lives of Stone Tools: Crafting the status, skill and identity of flintknappers awarded the first Joan Gero Book Award in Prague, and those of us attached the journal basked in reflected glory from that. Kathy will continue in place until her successor is announced by the WAC Executive, and John and Mary Sue look forward to working with that successor. Later in the year, John Carman too plans to step down. John has been with the journal since 2016 and WAC-8 in Kyoto. He too will stay on until his successor is firmly in place. We both of course will be only too happy to provide assistance and advice to our successors if needed. WAC-9 Further Deferred… But Something to Keep US Going! 3 Endings to be Desired As this is written, conflicts affecting archaeological sites, museum collections, our colleagues and the communities with whom we work, rage across the globe. Some kind of precarious peace lies over Gaza, although in the nature of a cease-fire rather than a full settlement of issues, and Hamas-held hostages remain to be returned. Negotiations for a second phase of the ceasefire are ongoing. Gaza itself lies almost totally in ruins and the deaths of nearly 50,000 people (a high proportion of them children) hang over the memories of those remaining. The two-state solution offered decades ago is as distant a possibility as ever. The conflict in Ukraine continues despite the rather dubious efforts at peace-making offered by US President Trump. As well as military losses on both sides, Russian drone and missile assaults on Ukraine’s cities are killing civilians. Meanwhile in response to the threat posed by Russia, European countries prepare to rearm and reorganise to repel any actual attack. The rhetoric—especially that coming from the White House—represents a major change, and indeed challenge, to the world order imposed after World War 2: the sovereignty of states is up for grabs (Trump is laying claim to Greenland and Canada as well as the Panama Canal and declaring no interest in protecting either Europe or Taiwan), and a ‘coalition of autocrats’ is built around connections between narrowly self-interested rulers. The situation, according to diplomatic experts and a number of historians, is as dangerous as that in 1939 on the eve of global war. Parts of the pattern seen in Ukraine are repeated elsewhere. Running out of force, Russia is drawing upon North Korea for soldiers in its war (no longer a ‘special military operation’) in Ukraine and the Indigenous Yupik peoples are being sent for slaughter in the front line as cannon-fodder. Civilian casualties (this term too means slaughter, murder, and rape) continue especially in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and troops from neighbouring countries are being drawn in to both conflicts. As this is writt (...truncated)