"Archaeologists deal with material that was deposited, discarded, lost or deliberately buried over long and often difficult-to-discern periods of time. This paper presents some ideas for periodising Myanmar archaeology and interpreting archaeological evidence that may reduce our reliance on the old-style European terminology of ?Neolithic”, ?Bronze Age” and ?Iron Age”. The development of technology in preurban Myanmar has involved increasing complexity and an increasing diversity in the materials used (as Tan discusses in detail in his paper elsewhere in this volume) rather than the sudden replacement of one material by another as might be implied in the notion of a sequence of ?ages”. The addition of copper/bronze and iron to a technological repertoire that before the arrival of metals included highly skilled drilling and polishing of stone tools and ornaments can be put into a broad timescale. But we can also look for other indicators of the passing of time..."