Destiny is not forged in bronze

This very handsome and lavishly produced catalogue accompanied a major exhibition of the same name showing "more than 250 of the finest objects from sites in 23 European countries" seen during 1999, in some of the main cities of Europe (but not London). The volume consists of two parts: a collection of 50 papers by prominent Bronze Age scholars and then the usual catalogue entries with black-and-white photographs. There is also an extensive bibliography. The exhibition was the final activity of the Council of Europe's comprehensive programme "The Year of the Bronze Age", initiated in 1994, which aimed to "stimulate the feeling that our legacy is as shared as our destiny".

The "idea of Europe" desires a past: a sense of roots and a common origin.Archaeology, which partly developed in response to such needs, has often and readily provided the material focus for such discourses on identity. The Bronze Age, in particular, has repeatedly been offered as the beginning of us, of a distinct European spirit. Thus, Gods and Heroes of the European Bronze Age , based on the view that "it was at that time that Europe can first be distinguished as an emerging entity", has clear ancestry within archaeology. But the secretary general of the Council of Europe goes further than this in his foreword. He writes: "It is both moving and apposite in these times of strife and fratricidal wars to remind ourselves of this indubitable fact of a common origin. Recognition of this and the body of values which have been gradually becoming our jointly held heritage are the very foundations on which the work of the Council of Europe is built and from which it constantly draws its inspiration."

These sentiments are indeed moving; but it does not hold true that our common origin is an indisputable fact, and, even more seriously, that it should be so uncritically accepted that the discipline is used to service such claims and to fashion its knowledge accordingly. V. Gordon Childe's Marxist-inspired idea of a united Europe, his causal linkage of civilisation with technological progress, and his association between prowess and distinct archaeological projectories are arguments that were intellectually and socially possible for earlier generations of archaeologists. Now, however, our task also includes defending the past against the most brutal or thoughtless appropriations in the present. These, and related reflections on sociopolitical issues, should be our response to the volume: we should problematise its claims about common ancestries rather than allowing them to become the orthodoxy about a past that was different from any and all of us. This, however, would be a reading that goes against the book rather than following its direction.

In the spirit of the programme of the Council of Europe, the almost-unspoken emphasis of the volume is the glorification of Europe on the basis of, for instance, artistic expression and crafts. This overall ethos, at one level, is arrived at through the large format and the beautiful colour photographs of exotic and striking objects. At another level, the message emerges from the points emphasised on the dust-jacket, the foreword, preface and introduction, and most of all though the title and subtitles, where words such as artisans, heroes, palaces and gods leave little room for any notion of "barbarism" or everyday lives. The striving towards creating a coherent and distinct sense of Europe/Europeanness makes these emphases very laboured. And if taken seriously, its effect is to suggest that our understanding of change and transformation within Europe (as a geographical region rather than as a cultural entity) during the Bronze Age in its substance has progressed little since the earliest discussions of the European Bronze Age. Ignoring recent critical discussions of, for example, the transference of cultural knowledge, processes of acculturation, gender politics, and the construction of social identities, we are left with a curiously outdated impression of the emergence of Europe focused on leaders, warriors and men.

Many of the individual papers subsumed under these overarching and rather portentous headings are much more diverse in their arguments, and they confirm to us that the volume can be read "against" its own intentions. Considered at this level, it is as good and as unsatisfactory as the average conference proceeding. Some of the papers are very good, others less well thought through and for yet others their brevity gives them an uneasy position between a note and an article, leaving their role in the volume rather undecided. The focus and views of the individual papers (in contrast to the mega-narrative emerging from the introductions to the individual sections) are too disparate to congeal into a coherent, augmented understanding of particular issues or themes. Quite simply, the papers do not properly relate to one another, nor do they arise from or in response to a well-defined set of questions.

Thus one cannot turn to the volume for new interpretations or substantial discussion, but any reader interested in the period can with pleasure dip in and enjoy its marvellous photographs, reflect upon the points made by the best articles and find interesting sound-bites of information. To be neither merely a catalogue nor a synthesis, or a properly edited volume, is probably often the fate of multi-authored exhibition volumes in order that they sell after the date of dismantling of the exhibition. In this case, the result is ironically that Europe appears as a collage rather than as a synthesis.

Marie Louise Stig Sorensen is lecturer in archaeology, University of Cambridge.