Rice, domesticated in the Yangtze River Basin, was introduced to the Guanzhong Plain, and became prominence alongside millets during the Longshan period (ca. 4600-4000 B.P.). This study analyzes flotation samples from the Yangyuan site, revealing a significant abundance of charred rice grains and spikelet bases, surpassing those found at other contemporaneous sites in the Guanzhong Plain. The high

The Great Tumulus of Vergina (Aegae) is considered to be the royal burial complex of the Macedonian kings. Beneath it four tombs were discovered, labeled Tomb I, II, III and IV. Several hypotheses have been proposed for the identities of the occupants of the “royal tombs”, but without scientific backing. We present new data from Tomb I (“The Tomb of Persephone”), which contained inhumed (unburnt),

The Mediterranean Sea is the world's second-largest biodiversity hotspot and has been impacted by several environmental changes and human activities since pre-historic times. We present the results of a systematic review of the published literature on the nature and extent of these impacts on the ancient-historic Mediterranean marine ecosystems. We aim to provide an overview of the current state of

This article analyzes the interaction networks in the Tairona chiefdom communities of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, to investigate settlement patterns and the scales of socioeconomic integration over time. Employing network analysis on the technological and typological attributes of ceramic artifact assemblages from pre-Hispanic settlements within a 40-square-kilometer area of the Regional

Draught cattle, used for ploughing and carting, contributed to drive social transformations in prehistoric societies by replacing or complementing human power. However, identifying draught cattle from archaeological sites has proven challenging due to the dearth of direct evidence. This paper presents a biometric approach to identifying draught cattle in archaeological assemblages based on metapodials

Research into fires and pyrogenic materials found on archaeological sites has grown exponentially in the last decade or so, producing a large specialised body of innovative methods and major interpretative advances. This review examines those developments with respect to our understanding of fire contexts and the materials produced. Although often rooted in soil micromorphology, the approaches used

The past decade saw the proliferation of projects that use 3D and related technologies to engage with Indigenous heritage through museum collections and cultural heritage site digitization projects involving the documentation and sometimes physical replication of objects and landscapes; some of these projects involved Indigenous origin communities. Although 3D technologies have become more widespread

La cueva de Altamira es un enclave declarado Patrimonio Mundial por UNESCO, famoso por sus pinturas y grabados prehistóricos. Aunque el arte rupestre de la cueva de Altamira fue descubierto hace más de 140 años, su evolución cronológica aún no está plenamente definida (Heras, Montes y Lasheras, 2013). Las anteriores dataciones por radiocarbono del pigmento negro de alguna de sus pinturas, sugerían

This paper provides a context for the use of anthropogenic palynology in the study of landscape and land use. Retrospective considerations indicate a history to current trends and inform future developments. Recent and prospective studies secure palynology as an essential element in archaeological and related environmental research. It is stressed that palynology is an inherently spatio-temporal discipline

The Japanese archipelago, surrounded by the sea and rich in marine resources, has a long fishing history, dating back to the Jomon period (c. 14,000-900 BCE). Evidence of this includes discovering fish bones and fishing gear from around 2700 shell mounds. While research on the Jomon fishing nets has focused on various aspects, such as net mesh size and marine life caught, there has been limited attention

Context and chronology are fundamental in archaeological studies, and without rigorous standards in both fieldwork and analysis, researchers risk drawing faulty conclusions. The role of submerged aquatic plants in radiocarbon dating is a case in point. For example, research at White Sands National Park, New Mexico, has dated fossil human and megafauna trackways using Ruppia cirrhosa (Ruppia) seeds

We analyze two technically sophisticated stone points dated between 15,580 and 14,319 cal. BP discovered at the open-air site of Mitshakila, Democratic Republic of Congo, combining diacritic analysis, experimentation, and traditional morphometrics. Diacritical analysis is applied following techno-functional (also called "morpho-structural") and productional approaches. An experimental corpus consisting

Ethnographic accounts of Melanesian exchange systems, such as the Kula and Hiri, have significantly influenced the development of anthropology. These accounts primarily focus on male agency framed by heroic seafaring ventures, while the agency of women and their cultural practices—key to the interconnectedness of Melanesian societies—has often been overlooked. On Papua New Guinea’s south coast details

Paleoindians buried Spirit Cave Man in a Nevada cave, and archaeologists excavated these remains in 1940. Radiocarbon testing in 1996 dated the burial and associated grave goods as older than 10,700 years. Living just 10 miles from Spirit Cave, the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe filed a NAGPRA claim in 1997 requesting the repatriation of the Spirit Cave ancestor they call “The Storyteller.” This claim

Chipped stone tools termed perforators and gravers are characterized by projections. Although the implied function of these tool types differs, there are no guidelines for classifying perforators and gravers based on their morphology. Consequently, researchers classify these tools differently, which precludes meaningful comparisons of the frequencies of these types between assemblages. A use-wear study

Domestic cats have lived alongside human communities for thousands of years, hunting rats, mice, and other pests and serving as pets and a source of pelts and meat. Cats have received limited archaeological attention because their independence limits direct insight into human societies. An adult and juvenile cat recovered from the Emanuel Point wreck 2 (EP2) reflect what are, most likely, the earliest

High latitude habitats are subject to thermally-driven energetic constraints that make their occupation challenging. This is likely to have had a particularly significant impact on energy-expensive tissue like the brain, especially during periods of lower global temperatures during the Mid-Pleistocene Ice Ages. I analyse data on endocranial volumes for archaic humans (Homo heidelbergensis, H. neanderthalensis

This paper presents a detailed analysis of a unique pointy bone artefact produced by Neanderthals, which was found in 2003 in a Middle Paleolithic layer dated c. 80–70 ka at Mezmaiskaya Cave in the Caucasus. The definition and interpretation of anthropic traces related to technological modifications and functional use of the bone tool were analyzed using stereoscopic and metallographic microscopes

The aim of this paper is to shine light on fundamental statistical concepts that archaeologists do not talk about enough. I argue that more deliberate discussion of these statistical ‘elephants in the room’ can have a positive impact on improving statistical training and on steering us away from perpetuation of poor research practices.

The origin of fire control is considered a major turning point in human evolution and remains a highly debated albeit central subject in archaeology. Studying paleo-fires is challenging because of taphonomic phenomena that alter combustion structures and hinder the identification of the oldest hearths. Moreover, hearths do not record all fire events and do not provide a chronological record of fire

The Haidai region, renowned for its Neolithic cultural fluorescence (Dawenkou-Longshan traditions), underwent sociopolitical reorganization during the Yueshi period (ca. 1900–1500 BCE). Late Shang (1300–1046 BCE) expansion into Northern Shandong, driven by the Shang polity's control over Laizhou Bay salt resources, catalyzed regional revitalization, yet the agricultural foundations of this transformation

The Tibetan Plateau, the highest region in the world, presents significant challenges for human survival due to its extreme environment characterized by hypoxia, low temperatures, intense radiation, and limited food resources. The formation and development of agriculture (including crop cultivation and livestock husbandry) on the Tibetan Plateau reflect human adaptation to high-altitude environments

Wudang Mountain ancient building complexes were royal Taoist buildings during the Ming Dynasty, comprising over 20,000 structures. The question of whether the architectural glazed tiles in huge demand were transported from other regions or produced locally reflects the organizational system of glazed tile production and the supply of raw materials in royal architectural engineering. Glazed tiles from

Few realms of archaeological research are as fraught with potential error as the study of prehistoric population pressure. Much of this error stems from the challenges involved in making prehistoric population and carrying capacity estimates, both of which are conceptually complex and entail numerous assumptions and relatively wide error ranges. But overcoming these challenges is well worth the effort

The writing boards excavated from Nimrud (modern Iraq) represent the first material evidence of cuneiform writing on wax. Scientific investigations conducted in the 1950s identified the yellowish writing paste as a mixture of beeswax and orpiment (As2S3), with the boards possibly made from walnut (Juglans regia). Advances in analytical techniques and further archaeological discoveries of writing boards

Like stone artefacts, ochres (Earth mineral pigments) are durable, surviving from deep time archaeological contexts across the globe, leaving lasting records of the lifeways of those people who gathered and used them. However, unlike stone tools, variation between ochres is not always obvious. Ochres that look the same in colour and texture may have been gathered from distinct or disparate locations

The symbolic expression, due to its social and cultural potential, should make a decisive contribution to the reconstruction of Palaeolithic social systems. Paradoxically, the limitations of the traditional study methods do not facilitate the exploitation of this possibility. In this article, we have presented an initial proposal to approach the study of visual rock art from a different perspective

Chichilticale is a long-sought-after location on the Coronado expedition route in southeastern Arizona. It is referred to numerous times in documents, and various expedition members stayed there, making it potentially one of the most discoverable of the Coronado expedition camp sites. Nonetheless, it remained lost until recently when data from a variety of sources provided a basis to establish hypotheses

Ancient bronze naval rams were a weapon used in Mediterranean naval warfare to destroy, swamp, or sink enemy vessels for nearly a millennium (c. 500 BCE–500 CE). This study utilized experimental archaeological methods to reconstruct a ram using shipbuilding and casting techniques reflective of those from Greek and Roman cultures. This project represents the first successful casting of a ram in over

At the time of its annexation in the 1st c. BC, cremation was not a customary practice in the Roman province of Syria. This contrasts with the western provinces of the Empire, where burning the body for burial remained the method of choice until the turn of the 2nd c. AD. As such, the discovery of cremation burials in the Roman Near East raises questions about the identities and origins of the buried

This study shows and discusses an innovative approach devised for archaeological feature detection using unmanned aerial system (UAS) LiDAR and an open-source probabilistic machine learning framework. The methodology employs a Random Forest classification algorithm within CloudCompare’s 3DMASC plugin to analyse dense LiDAR point clouds. The main steps include classifier training, hyperparameter adjustment

This paper re-evaluates recent kinship studies in Neolithic Ireland through a close analysis of biomolecular and fine-grained archaeological data. It outlines the rich possibilities these datasets offer when interwoven to enhance our understanding of diverse webs of social relationships. We synthesize a range of archaeological and scientific data to form a new model of kinship and its relationship

We present a Cumulative Interaction Path Analysis (CIPA) that combines a Least Cost Path (LCP) analysis with a gravitational principle of political interaction to examine the development of a peripheral area in relation to a peer polity system and its changes through time. We performed this analysis on a large settlement pattern database of pre-Hispanic sites in the Mixteca Alta region of Mexico, centered

Proteomic approaches to understanding ancient foodways have rapidly expanded in recent years, addressing diverse questions, regions and sample types. Proteins are well placed to explore questions of ancient food given that they can sometimes provide tissue and taxonomically specific ingredient detections and can be resistant to degradation into archaeological timescales. Here I review the development

During the Iron Age, or Talayotic period, the landscape of Mallorca was transformed by the construction of cyclopean, tower-shaped structures that served as communal gathering spaces. The scale and location of these monumental structures have led to their interpretation as places designed to see and be seen, with a range of GIS-based viewshed studies caried out in order to characterise and delineate

Over the past two decades, the field of garden archaeology has expanded significantly in both temporal and spatial scopes, moving beyond its initial focus on the gardens of the Vesuvius region. These early Roman gardens, remarkably well-preserved, feature the first instances where garden soils were treated as archaeological artifacts. This innovative approach laid the groundwork for the study of ancient

During the first millennium AD, the much-discussed Migration Period marked a major episode of demographic and consequent economic, social and political change across large areas of Europe. Slavic migration from Eastern into Central Europe, between 500 and 700 AD, brings a proposed change in ‘kitchen culture’ and subsistence, displacing Germanic (e.g. Longobard) groups elsewhere, marking the end of

Celtic societies at the end of the last millennium BCE experienced a shift in the scale of production and exchange, leading to a revolution in mobility.

Migration is an established topic in archaeology, approached by researchers in multiple ways. We argue, however, that new ways of thinking are needed to understand migration in new ways in relation to new results coming from ancient DNA studies and other archaeometric analysis. We apply a transdisciplinary approach and engage with (critical) migration studies, critical heritage studies and archaeology

Within this paper, glocalization is presented to explain the heterogeneity of the Uruk Expansion/Phenomenon, a process which saw extensive interactions and cultural integration across Mesopotamia during the fourth millennium bce, characterized by the spread of southern Mesopotamian material culture and cultural practices. Through close examination of archaeological data from the Adhaim-Sirwan Drainage

The archaeological settlements of the Early Neolithic Urfa region in Türkiye have garnered academic and public interest since the 1990s due to their large-scale stone architecture and rich iconography, particularly featuring phallic imagery. While mainstream narratives suggest a male-centred society in the region, feminist and queer theory approach such interpretations with a critical eye. By challenging

The Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (c. 2900–1600 bc) of Central Europe are characterized by burial practices that strongly differentiate between men and women through body placement and orientation in the grave, as well as through grave goods. The osteological sex estimation of the individuals from the cemeteries of Franzhausen I and Gemeinlebarn F corresponds to the gender expressed in the funerary

The field of paleopathology is closely linked with both archaeology and science and has provided readers of the Journal of Archaeological Science with many articles exploring human and animal health and disease in the past. Along with a brief review of the history of paleopathology, and through an evaluation of contributions to the Journal over the past 50 years, suggestions for future research are

Lepenski Vir, in the Danube Gorges area, was a Mesolithic and Neolithic settlement, famous for artistic sandstone boulders often associated with the remains of trapezoidal houses during the Mesolithic-Neolithic Transformation phase. Additionally, neonates' burials were cut into the red-plastered floors of these buildings, but the reasons remained unknown. We produced paleogenomes of four individuals

Obsidian sourcing (or provenancing) is the process by which obsidian artifacts are matched to the geological sources from which the raw material originated. Given that obsidian is a substance that has been used from the emergence of our genus to the 21st century, reconstructing the movement of obsidian artifacts has great relevance to a wide variety of research questions. Matching obsidian artifacts

Sequential stable isotope analyses of hypsodont ruminant molars provide insights into animal behavior and human-animal interactions at seasonal scales. Stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope ratios obtained from intra-tooth sequences of dentinal collagen inform on animal weaning and feeding habits, but sequential sampling of this tissue is rarely carried out in part due to the undefined relationship

This paper explores the nature and dynamics of economic and political borders emerging in Later Prehistory between highly centralised and exploitative societies and their much more dispersed and small-scale neighbours. While increasing evidence indicates that Early Bronze Age entities such as El Argar, Únětice or Minoan Crete reached highly complex economic and political forms around 1850–1750 BCE

Radiocarbon dating of archaeological textiles can be particularly challenging when exogenous organic balms were deposited on their surface, as these organic mixtures can sometimes contain radiocarbon-depleted materials such as fossil bitumen. This is a key issue for radiocarbon dating of linen fragments used in the wrapping of Egyptian mummies, as bitumen has been repeatedly identified in several contexts

New zooarchaeological discoveries in the Middle Nile support the scenario that proto-pastoralist communities arrived from the sub-Saharan region with large ruminants at the beginning of the Holocene. Until now, it has been accepted that domesticated cattle arrived in Africa in 6000 BCE from the Middle East. New osteometric data from Letti Desert 2 (LTD2) in Sudan analysed through point-scale method

On the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, archaeologists encounter evidence that challenges conventional understandings of early state formation as a transition from ‘small-scale, egalitarian’ to ‘large-scale, stratified’ societies. One such location is the Early Bronze Age cemetery of Başur Höyük, which presents evidence of grand funerary rituals—including ‘retainer burials’ and spectacular

Pigments played a vital technological role by enabling the development of advanced artistic techniques, preserving cultural heritage through durable materials like frescoes and facilitating innovations in early chemistry, such as the creation of synthetic colouring compounds. This paper examines pigments found in some exceptional Pompeian contexts spanning the 3rd century BCE to the 79 CE eruption

This study introduces new macroscopic and microscopic evidence for identifying archaeological animal penning areas: phosphatic crusts. Despite the importance of herding activities for reconstructing the social, economic, and ecological aspects of ancient communities, evidence for animal penning areas has traditionally relied on faint architectural traces or microscopic indicators that are often challenging

Observations about handaxe techno-morphology, like their symmetry, refinement, and fine edges have long been used to reconstruct the evolution of hominin cognition, skills, and technological decision making. However, these interpretations about the cognitive and technical abilities of Acheulean hominins often rely on the most ‘beautiful’ or supposedly ‘archetypical’ looking handaxes. But how often