assemblage has always been the work of many individuals. Those involved in getting this second issue off the ground this time around include:

One-time Information Editor Kenny Aitchison now has a completely different role at assemblage as the co-ordinating editor of assemblage-info. Kenny is 'studying' towards an MA in Landscape Archaeology, and must acknowledge the financial support he has been receiving from the Benefits Agency. Within archaeology, he has worked in several countries abroad and has an excellent stock of boring near eastern archaeology stories (did I tell you about the time when I was soooo sick etc. etc.), but now concentrates on work on the French later Iron Age. Away from the trowels, Kenny is very jealous of Jon's Landrover, is a keen floodlight spotter and believes fervently in immediate action on the European Lager Lake. He has an electronic cat named Tattie.

Kenny is also honorary assistant editor of Scottish Archaeological News.

Jonathan Bateman has found that despite his best intentions he is still working on assemblage, with no particular job really (which to be honest seems to translate into doing everything!). So, despite pleading total ignorance of all things electronic he has organised and webbed much of this issue, all under the caring direction of his soon to be wedded partner Judith. His current excuse for extending his stay in Sheffield is a PhD concerning the production and use of images in archaeology (second year), which he insists allows him to do things like hang around at Gardoms Edge in the summer taking photographs instead of doing any proper work. He spends a lot of time peering under his Land-Rover counting the oil leaks and worrying that his arms are too weak for climbing and his legs too weak for mountain biking.

Jennifer Blank is one of the new kids on the block, who decided it might be nice to try and cram as much as she could into her spare time (which isn't much in a one year MSc. program!). Jennifer was lured into working on the fun pages by the prospects of the pub page! Okay, she actually thought she might have to try all the pubs out before she wrote about them! Oh well! She has only been in Sheffield since September when she came over from Canada. She is currently working on her MSc. in Environmental Archaeology and Palaeoeconomy. Jennifer has decided that looking at grotty little bits of carbonised seeds might be nice for a dissertation topic. Okay the real reason is that she has to go to Caesarea, Israel first to get the material! Hmm...sun, sand, surf...a nice change from the cloudy damp climate here! Her time is taken up by watching her boyfriend Chris cook those ancient recipes for her, waitressing at a posh French restaurant and thinking that Emma Wager's Jedi mind tricks would be beneficial to learn. However there is nothing like a good blaster at your side!

Garry Booth It's funny how one day you can innocently go for a drink, and the next wake up to find you're drafted. I am currently assemblage's Electronics Editor and manage to spend all day playing with educational software (honest). When not fretting about the fact that my PhD in Inter-tidal Taphonomy has reached its final year without my knowledge or consent, I occasionally find time for a swift half of lemonade. If I win this competition, I would like to help children, travel and save the whales.

Fiona Caird is another of the MA Landscape archaeologists, which seemed the ideal thing to follow her Sheffield BA in Archaeology with, as she really likes sitting on top of hills, preferably in the Peak District. Her main archaeological interests are nice and abstract but mostly involve the public perception of archaeology and what archaeologists do. She does PR for assemblage and gathers information and webs for assemblage-info. When not being an archaeologist she also works as a facilitator with the Early Outreach project run by the University of Sheffield's Schools and Colleges Liaison Office. This project aims to inform 13 and 14 year old school pupils of the benefits of going into Higher Education. She is also voluntarily helpful to prospective students at Sheffield as a member of the "Student Reception" working committee of the Student's Union who show visitors around – which is a lot more fun that it sounds (honest). In her time off, she particularly enjoys going to see bands, and will listen to almost all types of music. However, being a folkie at heart she loves to go to Ceilidhs and plays the bodhrán (Frame Drum).

Vicky Cooper is a newcomer of sorts to the assemblage family, having been teetering on the edge of editorial fame for some time, she fell over it whilst not looking and now finds herself in charge of all things televisual. She is mainly involved with terrestrial TV and the way it deals with archaeology, which of course necessitates much watching of Tony Robinson, Horizon, and Burt Reynolds (!). Her responsibilities involve sitting in front of the box with pen, paper and four pack, and occasionally the odd bit of typing. She spends her non-assemblage time juggling between salad preparer in trendy vegetarian cafe and Ph.D., which at present is vaguely along the lines of Bavaria, Neolithic and material culture. She lives in Sheffield, sharing a house with fellow assemblage members Heidi and Kenny and a very dead Venus fly trap.

In her precious spare time Vicky enjoys collecting obscure football memorabilia, going to cheer on Sheffield Wednesday, and being manager of Rochdale F.C. in an alternative computing reality. As well as these wide and varied interests, she manages the odd bit of work for assemblage.

Kathryn Denning is touched that Judith thanked her so nicely below, and would like to return the favour with a big laugh at Judith for so readily taking over the helm of this beast! (No, really, thanks JuJu!) Kathryn has particularly enjoyed her involvement with Issue 2 of assemblage, since this time around, as a floating editor-at-will instead of GE, she has had the luxury of working on things she particularly wanted to do -- soliciting some really great material, working with authors on some especially nice pieces, and handling some of the refereeing -- and doesn't have to make "To Do" lists any more. When not smiling to herself while watching the new assemblage and assemblage-info teams be diligent, inspired, impressive, hilarious, and occasionally frantic, she writes PhD-type stuff about the apocalypse, aliens, Atlantis, and alternative traditions of archaeological knowledge, and assists the other editors and graduate students in our group effort of subsidising the local pub economy.

Jan Fuller is another of the 'new blood' who went to an open meeting and found herself volunteering. As well as trying to develop the rules for 'lecture cricket', she worked with Fiona Caird in the wide realm of 'Public Relations' in sorting out posters, flyers, surfing and anything else the team sees as PR. Spare time sees her working within the Guiding Association as a Guider. Jan is also the treasurer of the Sheffield Links section of the St. John Ambulance Association (but hardly sees any money!!). Jan watches ice hockey as often as she can and is a member of Stormforce, the Manchester Storm supporters club, but has spent most of this last season watching the Sheffield Steelers. In the lowers leagues, she supports Altrincham Aces. She is also involved with a small role playing group, but her character almost drowned recently! Academically, she is working towards an MA in Archaeology and Prehistory, her main interests being 'anything medieval' and geophysics, well she did do joint honours in geology and history at Keele!

Mel Giles is Assistant General Editor, seldom seen without tea to hand, who is supposed to help with articles and organisations and generally 'being there' for those crises moments. Somewhat a novice at both editing and all things technical, she is greatly indebted to both Kathryn and Judith for all of their help and advice! Having just started a PhD on the 'Inhabited Later Prehistoric Landscape of East Yorkshire', she is fascinated in all things arable, a character flaw probably deriving from a mis-spent Dorset childhood. (Some women of my age buy Cosmo, but my choice is 'Tools and Tillage'!). Social identity is way up there on her 'interests list', probably as a result of frequently being mistaken for her identical twin in York (a Medieval buildings archaeologist). Consumption studies are also dear to heart, especially where this involves putting theory into practice (an irksome but necessary task of the assemblage editorial team). Loving teaching, especially where it is possible to ramble on about landscape, labour and people, she would like to make it clear that if anyone is considering repeating the 'Living In the Past' experiment, she'd happily volunteer !!

Jennie Hawcroft has been involved with assemblage almost as long as Judith! She has been half of the book reviews team all that time, sharing the yoke first with Becky Harrison and now with the lovely Emma Wager. The most grafting was done at the outset when a list of addresses for all the academic publishing houses to infinity and beyond needed to be found. This is harder than it sounds, but nevertheless this hurdle was overcome, and since then Jennie has thoroughly enjoyed being told she can have as many free books as she can handle reviews of, and having brown paper packages tied up with string land on her desk regularly (no bright copper kettles as yet though). She has also been working hard at generating reviews of the books by suitable people, fielding requests for review copies and editing reviews.

If Jennie gets any spare time she likes to look at the bones and stones which might help her do her Ph.D. (which is about Neanderthals, she thinks), and playing pool. She loves being part of assemblage's big happy family, especially the bits which take place in the pub.

Danny Hind is a Ph.D. student alledgedly specializing in landscape perspectives on prehistoric technologies. His study area is the Peak District National Park where he goes out on a regular basis picking up stone tools from ploughed fields with an excellent bunch of enthusiastic amateurs called Artemis. His thesis is about the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition but it's going pretty slowly at the moment because he spends too much time doing the following things: 1. Tweaking knobs on analogue keyboards and samplers; 2. contracts for ARCUS (Archaeological Research and Consultancy at the University of Sheffield) – don't tell the Student Loans Company; 3. Pulling pints in Sheffield's premier rock'n'roll pub, The Washington (co-owned by Pulp's drummer); 4. Working on this damn electronic journal, although he's about to defect to assemblage-info full-time. He's lost his dreadlocks and had a wash since the last issue. He no longer lives below the chemist, but is still giving up smoking on a weekly basis, and still loves his mum and dad.

Matt LemkeThe written word at times like these, is tedious indeed and stop one could if only to say a few words not less or more. Matt has given support in the webbing of articles and the co-ordination of the trowel article. He is not a web dancer by nature due his failing in the all important class: Patience 101. In the case of assemblage, he has made great efforts to overcome this in order to work with the fine group of people that comprise of the editorial staff. Matt is a first year Ph.D. student working on Late Bronze Age Minoan material.

Heidi Taylor is currently studying for a M.A. in landscape archaeology at Sheffield. Her work for assemblage involved researching, editing and helping to write up the Fun pages with Jennifer. She highly recommends Heather Ale! Although lithics and landscapes have formed her main archaeological interests, she may soon venture into the shady world of the Medieval period. She is not a great fan of stockcar-racing.

Emma Wager was lured into joining assemblage by the thought of having lots of blissful opportunities to get anal about things like commas and the length of people's paragraphs. Since then, she has been hindering the lovely Jennie Hawcroft at every opportunity and reading as many of the free books as possible, instead of sending them out for review. She also dabbles in a bit of copy-editing and enjoys soliciting – but only for assemblage articles. When not writing interesting articles about glass, Emma likes to pretend to her supervisor that she has started a Ph.D. looking at Bronze Age copper mining. She also likes playing with her two remaining goldfish, Biscuit and Gareth, practising Jedi mind-tricks and imagining that she's really good at pool.

Graeme Warren was cajouled into this over a cup of coffee and holds Kathryn Denning fully responsible. After his first meeting he then hid his head in the sand for a while, making excuses along the lines of "I have to earn some money" to cover up his manifest lack of any editorial type activity. A combination of seascapes, Kenny, and assemblage-info changed all of this and he is now a reformed character, able to bore anyone by telling them how easy webbing really is. Many of these biographic bits have an alternative 'in the real world' section. However this is his real world. He finds writing in the third person rather peculiar and thinks it's time he stopped.

Judith Winters has been involved with assemblage since February 1996. Acting primarily as features editor for issue one, she has evolved into the monster now known as General Editor for issue number two along with Mel Giles, which has mostly entailed drinking lots of coffee. For her sins, other responsibilities have included soliciting material, advising, emailing (always emailing...), editing, playing around with graphics, webbing and, more often than not, delegating. Judith is in her second year of a Ph.D. at Sheffield and gets quite excited about Peak District millstones. Originally from Northern Ireland, she now lives in Sheffield with husband to be Jon and likes lying in on Sunday mornings and getting up for Countryfile. She writes lots of 'to do' lists.

Judith wishes to thank this issue's editorial team for all their hard work, effort and enthusiasm, but especially Kathryn Denning, her predecessor, for her help, guidance and advice. The only person who has had more input into this issue than she can ever be credited for. Thanks KD!

© assemblage 1997