Contents. Research Papers: Ancient Fires on Southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada: A Change in Causal Mechanisms at about 2,000 ybp (Kendrick J Brown and Richard J Hebda); The Traditional, Historical and Prehistoric Use of Ashes as an Insecticide, with an Experimental Study on the Insecticidal Efficacy of Washed Ash (Tom Hakbijl); Sources of Meat in Colonial Diets: Faunal Evidence from Two Nineteenth Century Tasmanian Whaling Stations (Susan Lawrence and Catherine Tucker); Assessment and Further Development of the Recording and Interpretation of Linear Enamel Hypoplasia in Archaeological Pig Populations (Keith Dobney, Anton Ervynck and Beverly La Ferla); British Agriculture: Texts for the Zoo-Archaeologist (Simon J M Davis); Fish Otoliths and their Relevance to Archaeology: An Analysis of Medieval, Post-Medieval, and Recent Material of Plaice, Cod and Haddock from the North Sea (Wim Van Neer, Anton Ervynck, Loes J Bolle, Richard S Millner and Adriaan D Rijnsdorp); Derivation and Application of a Food Utility Index (GFUI) for European Wild Boar (Sus scrofa L.) (Peter Rowley-Conwy, Paul Halstead and Patricia Collins). Short Contributions: A Donkey (Equus asinus L.) Partial Skeleton from a Mid-Late Anglo-Saxon Alluvial Layer at Deans Yard Westminster, London SW1 (Ian L Baxter); Iron Age Cultigen? Experimental Return Rates for Fat Hen (Chenopodium album L.) (Paul Stokes and Peter Rowley-Conwy); Wetland Microfossils in Soil: Implications for the Study of Land Use on Archaeological Landscapes (Mark Horrocks, Martin D Jones, Scott L Nichol and Douglas G Sutton). Book Reviews: R Gale and D Cutler (2000), Plants in Archaeology. Identification manual of vegetative plant materials used in Europe and the Southern Mediterranean to c.1500; G Bailey, R Charles, and N Winder (eds) (2000), Human Ecodynamics; D Dincauze (2000), Environmental Archaeology: Principles and Practice.