by  Daniel García Raso ,  Independent Researcher The past has always been a great source of inspiration for different cultural and artistic genres such as cinema, literature, television and, of course, video games. We can always find mistakes or inaccuracies from a strictly heuristic point of view (after all, the number of works that accurately reflect the past can be counted on the fingers of one hand). In video games, Prehistory and History have been the starting point for numerous titles and, unlike other games in which the past has been used as context, it has occasionally been represented in a more than acceptable way (for example, in the Age of Empires series or in the saga Assasin's Creed ). However, most titles present a stereotypical portrayal of Prehistory where, to begin with, even dinosaurs appear! A work like Far Cry Primal , by the French producer Ubisoft, was necessary. The game puts us in the skin of Takkar, a member of the Wenja tribe, who i...

We are very happy to announce the publication of AP: Online Journal in Public Archaeology  Volume 6 !  Migration to   Open Journal Systems  took some extra work and time but  w e hope you will like the new platform and enjoy the new volume! Yours, The editorial team Editors Jaime Almansa Sánchez , JAS Arqueología S.L.U., Spain Elena Papagiannopoulou , Independent Researcher, Greece Assistant Editors Amanda Harvey , NASA, United States Kaitlyn T. Goss , Americorps, United States Reviews Editor Alexandra Ion , McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge and Institute of Anthropology "Francisc I. Rainer" of the Romanian Academy, United Kingdom Assistant Production Editor Alejandra Galmés , Universitat de les Illes Balears, Spain

I did not expect such a good weather in Berlin. With a full program from Thursday to Sunday, I had limited time to see Berlin, so right after checking in at the hotel I run out for a walk. I usually see politics everywhere, but Berlin was overwhelming; the struggle between Communism and Capitalism is still more than evident anywhere you look. Curry at the Wall, Berlin I wanted to open the post with this photo, because it is, in a way, a perfect introduction to my thoughts on the conference. You can only see the sausage and a bit of a balloon right where the wall was, not that long ago. Of course, Coca Cola is there and the bear holds victoriously his sausage as a trophy. Communism is over and we are all so happy about it that the new planning of the city embraced Capitalism in a way few cities have done.  Meanwhile, in Checkpoint Charlie, a couple of guys in army uniforms  take photos  with happy tourists that just entered the USA quarter. I cannot pay my publ...

As we are about to bid farewell to 2015, we must admit that this past year has been interesting regarding the academic publishing sector. In September 2014 we presented a poster at the EAA Meeting in Istanbul to celebrate our journal’s first five years. One of the points highlighted in our poster was our commitment to provide a completely free service to both authors and readers. This academic publishing model is by no means innovative. It has been established in Spanish archaeology since 1998 with ArqueoWeb and, during the past few years, most institutional journals have been uploaded under the OJS (Open Journal Systems) platform. In the case of public institutions, Open Access is understood as part of their academic responsibilities and its standard costs are incorporated in the general budget for publications. In our case, JAS Arqueología S.L.U. supports the small material costs of the journal, while our team works voluntarily for the project. Then, is AP Journal a loss-mak...

By Chiara Zuanni (University of Manchester) Last month I had the opportunity to participate in the annual conference of the DGUF (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ur- und Frühgeschichte e.V. – German Association for Pre- and Protohistory). This year’s theme focused on public archaeology and aimed to explore the possibilities and consequences of public involvement with the past. During the two days which comprised the academic programme, many different aspects of community archaeology, citizen science, and archaeological communication projects were explored. On Friday, Sylvia Crumbach unpacked the relationship between re-enactment groups and textile archaeologists: she argued that while both develop a great expertise in ancient clothing, it remains to be understood how museum reconstruction and images affect re-enactment costumes, and vice versa. The controversies raised by public approaches to archaeological work were highlighted in the afternoon, by two papers discussing metal detec...

To celebrate 1 year since publishing our first Special Volume, we will draw one lucky winner who will receive paper versions of Vol. 4 and Special Volume 1.  Wherever you live in the world, participate by simply liking and sharing the post on our Facebook page until Sunday, 14 June!  Good luck!

Within the framework of a workshop for the “ Heritage Values ” project, the GAPP (Heritage and PublicArchaeology Group) at University of Barcelona organized an intense seminar about public interaction in archaeology. Intense, because we had the opportunity to share and debate projects and ideas with nearly 20 colleagues in one day, which started for me at 5 am to take the train from Madrid to Barcelona. The seminar consisted of three parts: sustainability and participation in heritage policy; cultural tourism and new technologies; and the role of public archaeology as a participation tool. The outcomes of the seminar will be published soon, so I will not make a traditional review of the different papers presented, but rather a general comment on the topics debated and will share some thoughts about them. Image: Seminar poster and programme (source: Universitat de Barcelona ) How do we interact with the public as professionals? How does the public interact with arc...

EDITORIAL Growing Jaime ALMANSA SÁNCHEZ, Editor Elena PAPAGIANNOPOULOU, Editor As the journal is steadily growing, so are we along with it, not only in terms of age or experience but also in terms of people. For quite a few months we wanted to expand our editorial team and the right time finally came after publishing Volume 3, which has been rather successful in terms of submissions and readership. Since last winter, the team has grown from just two to seven. Thus, before anything else, we would like to express our warmest thanks to the new team members who have been working with us for the last nine months, helping us cope with the increasing workload more efficiently and making us confident that the journal is taken to the next level : Dom, Amanda, Kaitlyn, Alexandra, and Alejandra, there are no words to describe our gratitude for your work and commitment. We consider ourselves fortunate to have been joined by such a skilled and professional group of people. Si...

The final countdown has started...  Volume 4 is only a matter of days, so make room in your calendars! Meanwhile, why don't you visit our  website  and check out our previous Volumes or our first Special Volume ? Edited by Kerry Massheder-Rigby and Dominic Walker, SV1 is entitled "Emerging Approaches to Public Archaeology" and was published last May.  If you have not done so yet, register for free and read any paper you want. It has been an amazing journey so far. Thank you all for your support!

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) hosted on 26-27 June 2014 an International Conference on Philanthropy in collaboration with the European Foundation Centre , with vivid discussions as to how the crippling unemployment rates among young people can be remedied by creating new opportunities (please see programme here ). I watched the session on Cultural Tourism because I was interested to see what suggestions the speakers would offer, since this was under the general theme of “Recharging the Youth: Youth Unemployment and Initiatives to Create New Opportunities for the Young”. Given the fact that the Ministry of Tourism as well as the general press have been presenting Cultural Tourism as a panacea for the current economic crisis because of its enormous undeveloped potential, any views offered on this are of great interest. But what one can hear and see in the short presentations is actually the concerned voices of a panel of archaeologists as experts on - why not? - cul...