Evidence from Britain and Ireland between 3500-2000 BC (the late Neolithic and Chalcolithic) makes this one of the most important periods in prehistory. During this time, we see spectacular Grooved Ware and Beaker pottery, metallurgy, carved mace heads, and use of some of Europe's most iconic sites such as Newgrange and Stonehenge. Recent ancient DNA data (suggesting almost complete population replacement at the end of the period) and dietary stable isotopes (indicating movement of people and animals over previously unsuspected distances) suggest that there is still much to learn. These new data challenge and reinvigorate older debates in terms of growing social hierarchies, ethnicity, religious organisation, and identity. However, these data have not been matched by developments in our chronologies; such fine-grained evidence requires equally sophisticated and specific chronologies in order to understand these changes. While previously prehistorians had to rely for their chronological structure on typologies of sites and things, we now have the ability to produce very precise, probabilistic, independent chronologies using Bayesian statistical analyses (e.g. Bronk Ramsey 2009; Bayliss 2009). Bayesian analysis has provided precise chronologies for individual sites (e.g. Whittle 2018) or activity at types of site (e.g 'Neolithic burials'; Whitehouse et al. 2014), which were previously understood at the scale of several centuries. It allows a coherent way to compare scientific chronologies, and applications to earlier Neolithic sites (e.g. Whittle et al. 2011) have had international significance in the ways archaeologists approach scientific dating as a whole. While we have had excellent examples of scientific chronologies for individual late Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites or things (see below), no attempt has been made to write a synthetic history of the dramatic changes of late 4th and 3rd millennia Ireland and Britain using accurate and detailed chronology. Moreover, 'simply' increasing chronological precision on its own is not enough. To fully achieve the potential of the Bayesian 'revolution' (cf. Bayliss 2009; Bronk Ramsey 2009; Griffiths 2017), we need both an independent chronological framework, and an approach to 'prehistory' that moves beyond ever more precise chronologies for sites or sequences. We need narratives that can synthesise and interpret evidence from across 'packages' that archaeologists recognise as significant - such as the late Neolithic and Chalcolithic - and use precisely defined time-scales as the basis for discussing changes in practices, things and places produced by people in historically-specific times. Chapman (2018) has recently called this the 'central challenge' in order to write 'a new kind of archaeology', while Whittle (2018, 248) argues that the 'pre- must come out of prehistory'. This project will do just that. We will build on previous approaches, producing site-specific chronological models for all evidence from Britain and Ireland from 3500-2000 BC, while generating a significant legacy of new data, in order to use time - expressed in centuries and decades - as the basis for our new narrative structure. We will make all data, analytical programs and outputs open access, meaning it will be possible to adapt and revise our chronologies in future research. This project's significance will therefore lie not just in our methods, or our routine chronological precision for 1500 years of Irish and British history, or our commitment to open access, but also in our new approaches to writing narratives of 'prehistory' in the future.

Many members of the public who visit the ever-popular displays of ancient Egyptian and Sudanese objects in UK museums are unaware of how they came to be in these collections. Some assume that they were all obtained through scientific excavations, while others believe that their presence is the result of looting. The role of the antiquities market is rarely considered. This route was complex and encompassed both sanctioned excavations and illicit activities, opportunistic sellers and licensed vendors. A past focus on heroic narratives of archaeologists has obscured the reality that many of them were openly active in the antiquities market, buying, and selling objects for potential profit. This business-like side of their work may have helped to support them, and their excavations financially, but also led to many less well-provenanced objects entering museums across the UK, Europe and North America. This project focuses on several individuals who intersected the roles of excavator and dealer, who were active in British-led excavations in Egypt and Sudan 1880-1939. This project will assess how expansive their activities were, how and why they purchased objects in the field, how they viewed these transactions ethically, and will explore the impact of their activities on museum collections today. Egyptological work in this area has often focused on excavations, or discrete elements of collecting such as individual auctions or collectors. Although there is a growing body of work that recognizes the complex historic realities of collecting, the entanglement of archaeology and the antiquities market in Egypt and Sudan has not been fully investigated. This is the first project which makes explicit the connection between excavation, the antiquities market and museum collections. This project will transform our understanding of the provenance of many collections of Egyptian and Sudanese held in British museums and offer a methodology for future research. By focusing on individuals and their activities as case studies, it will provide a fuller and more transparent narrative of diverse colonial collecting practices. The project combines detailed object provenance research primarily based at National Museums Scotland with additional collections and archival research conducted in Edinburgh, London, Oxford, Liverpool, and Manchester, as well as UK-related archives in Toronto. The project focuses on selected individuals whose acquisitions entered the Scottish national collection, as a lens to examine the broader phenomenon. It will focus on curator Edwin Ward, collector-for-hire Charles Trick Currelly, and archaeologists/academics John Garstang and William Matthew Flinders Petrie. Their purchases, sales and brokering activities will be examined, and considered in relation to each subject's socio-economic status and ethical views. 1880-1939 saw the zenith of archaeological activity in Egypt and Sudan, the formation of many museum collections and varying degrees of imperial/colonial control, and alterations to export rules. This period provides the best opportunity to contextualize individual actions in relation to colonial history and museum collecting narratives. The project will share information and insights with archive holders, museums and universities, during research visits, and online through the NMS research repository, providing rapid dissemination of the project's aims, themes and insights to researchers and students. The project is partnered with the Egypt Exploration Society, World Museum (Liverpool), and the Petrie Museum and the project's findings will be integrated into the knowledge databases of these institutions. The project includes several public events and an academic symposium to focus attention on the subject, opening greater discussion on historic collecting practices in Egypt and Sudan and how these collections are dealt with in museum practice today.

Britain was one of the most significant sources of missionaries to Africa and the Pacific during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While histories of missionary activity are matters of ongoing importance in these now strongly Christian parts of the world, attitudes to Christianity in Britain, and its history of missionary activity are increasingly ambivalent. However, a great deal of material heritage associated with early missionary encounters remains in Britain, where it is widely neglected. This material includes: * items collected as evidence of pre-Christian religious practices, many of which are now regarded as rare and major works of art * gifts received by missionaries from local people * the personal possessions and portraits of famous missionaries * relics of the ships used by missionaries to reach their destinations * material, such as collecting boxes, that were used to appeal to supporters in Britain This project aims to create a conversation between academics, museum curators and representatives of missionary societies, as well as heritage organizations in Africa and the Pacific to establish who cares about this heritage in the present, and who should care for it in the future. Three workshops will be held during 2012 at the National Museum of Scotland, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich. The project is a partnership between researchers at these three organizations, as well as the Museum Ethnographers Group, a charity that exists to 'Make connections through world collections'. As a recognized 'Subject-Specialist Network' in the museum's sector, the Museum Ethnographers Group will use its connections to influence museum practice in relation to the cataloging, conservation and exhibition of collections of missionary material. Each of the workshops will include a presentation by an international academic researcher, as well as by knowledgeable museum curators and missionary organisations about their experiences of working with missionary material. These presentations will be the starting points for a series of structured conversations about the future of collections of missionary material in Britain, and the best ways of making them available for study by international researchers, as well as those in Britain and overseas for whom they have a significant value as items of heritage. The National Museum of Scotland will be opening an exhibition on the life and legacy of the famous missionary David Livingstone towards the end of this project, organized in collaboration with colleagues from Museums of Malawi in Africa. We expect the opening of this exhibition to be an important moment when the conversations that begin during these workshops can receive a more public airing in the media.

The ARHC-funded Artefacts of Excavation project revealed the expansive legacy of British fieldwork in Egypt and its distribution of archaeological finds to around 350 museums, in 27 countries, across 5 continents. No other area of world archaeology has a material legacy on this scale and 'ancient Egypt' remains one of the most popular types of museum exhibit worldwide. Yet that colonial history of dispersal is little known in Egypt itself and Egyptians have largely been disenfranchised from it. In Western museums, Egypt is rarely a specific modern country. If it is, it is generally seen as a place from where objects are taken, rather than a place populated with living communities also engaged and interested in these finds. Little attention has been given to the impact of these colonial legacies on modern Egyptian communities and how they feel about this history today. The removal and export of ancient Egyptian objects from Egypt by foreign archaeological missions, and the continued disenfranchisement of local communities from the production of the country's ancient history, has led to negative perceptions of archaeology and museums hosting Egyptian collections. There is, however, a demonstrable interest and demand in Egypt for better information about how artefacts excavated by foreign countries were exported and where they are now. This impact project is to ensure that Egyptians benefit from our UK-based findings on the dispersal of their heritage, to foster and increase capacity for international dialogue and knowledge exchange about these collections and histories, and to transform and empower Egyptian narratives around them. At the same time we wish to transform awareness in the UK of modern Egyptian interest in its heritage. Our programme of dissemination, cultural events, artistic responses and museum exhibitions - co-developed with community partners - will increase understanding in Egypt about the conditions of export and what happened to artefacts once they had left the country. To achieve this we will translate and make accessible our key findings into Egyptian Arabic and tailor it for specific audiences. These audiences include the Ministry of Antiquities and Ministry of Tourism officials, museum curators, university staff and students, as well as school children, families, the general public and lower economic status communities. Moreover, these activities will provide a more participatory platform for Egyptians themselves to articulate their own thoughts and responses to this history. This will include a professional museum manual published by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) Egypt, press briefings for journalists and specially commissioned education packs for Egyptian schools (through Egyptian charity EducateMe). It will encompass social media activity, through Q&A live sessions, blogs and online comic narratives. Partnerships with Egyptian cultural NGOs, including El Sawy Culture Wheel, Mahatat for Contemporary Art and Tawasol, will allow us co-develop innovative creative responses to reach and enfranchise those audiences that might not traditionally visit museums. These cultural events, in turn, will help to inspire independent Egyptian artists who we will commission to produce small artistic works that can accompany a mobile temporary exhibition that will be designed for easy installation and transport in Egypt and the UK. The latter will challenge assumptions regarding modern Egypt by partnering these Egyptian artists with UK Museums (the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, National Museums Scotland and Liverpool World Museum), which will provide them with the opportunity to travel to the UK to exhibit and share their works.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.