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

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

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 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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Sled dogs are among the most iconic animals of the North, and their efforts in pulling sleds facilitated trade and subsistence practices that sustained many Indigenous groups for thousands of years. Unfortunately, the history of dog sledding is difficult to trace in archaeology. The identification of dog sledding in the past has been mostly addressed through the association of dog skeletal remains

Gypsum-based stucco decorations of 47 monuments in Iran, from the Seljuq to the Ilkhanid period (11th-14th centuries), were studied by multimodal analytical methods, including X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence, scanning electron microscopy and image analysis to evaluate their composition properties. The assessment of results shows that stucco masters in those periods exerted control over the setting

The smooth scallop (Flexopecten glaber) is a seafood that was widely consumed in Gallia Narbonensis (Southern France) during Roman times. Harvested from lagoons along the Mediterranean coast, the species was transported to consumers up to a hundred kilometres from the seashore. However, the origins of this fresh produce supplied to the Gallo-Romans remain largely unknown. The variation in size and

Ceramic samples from the sites Alto del Cardal and Nuevo Corinto in Costa Rica, dating between 700 and 1500 CE (Common Era), were analysed. These sherds, excavated from domestic, funerary, and workshop contexts, exhibited substantial socio-productive activities, including tool manufacturing. The ceramics were characterized by significant thickness, ranging from 9.25 to 12.46 mm. Analysis using infrared

This study examines a grave of the Złota culture from the Late Eneolithic period (the first half of the 3rd millennium BC), discovered at a cemetery in Sadowie, southeastern Poland. The deliberately constructed grave chamber contained the remains of six individuals of varying sex and age: five males and one female. Evidence of fatal injuries was observed on the skulls of three individuals, while flint

Crombé and Langohr (2025) criticize our interpretation (Huisman et al., 2024) that morphological and micromorphological differences between modern ant nest remains and Mesolithic “pit hearth“ features support an anthropogenic origin of the latter. In this response to the main points of their response, we argue that podzols were present during the Mesolithic and could be humus-cemented. Furthermore

We propose a comprehensive approach for the reconstruction of the prehistoric state of El Castillo Cave (Puente Viesgo, Cantabria) that allows a precise spatial analysis of the distribution of its parietal motifs.

This study investigates the evolutionary and morphological divergence of Neotropical cervids across mainland and island populations, integrating size, shape, and ecological data. Three extant cervid species were analyzed: Mazama temama, Odocoileus virginianus, and Passalites nemorivagus, San José Island cervids, alongside extinct archaeological samples from Playa don Bernardo (PdB) on Pedro Gonzalez

We provide a new approach to the method of ceramic dating by tracking the dehydroxylation and rehydroxylation of water species using infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. Water bands at 3655 cm−1 (OH/H2O), 4550 cm−1 (OH), and 5160 cm−1(H2O) were used to determine the various forms of water absorbed or released from the ceramic surface and the interior, which permitted the calculation of prehistoric

Compared to what is found in many other scientific disciplines, archaeological data are typically scarce, biased and fragmented. This, coupled with the fact that archaeologists can rarely test their hypotheses using experimental design, makes archaeological inference and our ability to assess the robustness of quantitative methods used to make such inferences challenging.

This short paper provides arguments against Huisman et al.’s (2024) conclusion that Mesolithic “pit-hearths” are definitely anthropogenic in origin. We believe that this conclusion is insufficiently supported by the presented data and the size of the study, which is limited to two recent ant nests. The main problem resides in the assumption that Humus-iron Podzols pre-date the construction of “pit-hearths”

Specific chemical compositions of glass indicate certain raw materials, sources, technical processes and chronologies. A decade ago, Journal of Archaeological Science published a perspective into future glass research, emphasizing the need to further characterize glass compositional groups with their production location and long-distance movement, next to determining the timing and location of inventions

Bone tools are an important component of human material culture and contain rich information about ancient cultures and technologies. The selection strategies of prehistoric humans for bone-tool materials in ultra-high-elevation regions represent a cultural adaptation to extreme environments characterized by cold and hypoxia. Current research on bone tools predominantly emphasizes artifact description

This paper presents a broadly reusable and straightforward methodology for examining ancient road networks in the hinterlands of Roman frontiers, with attention to both intra- and inter-regional connectivity. It employs a range of tools—including Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Least Cost Analyses (LCA), Spatial Social Network Analysis (SSNA), and Visibility Analysis (VA)—to trace and interpret

Native Australian plant exudates are an important material for a variety of cultural uses including hafting materials and pigment binders. Spectroscopic analysis of exudates informs on their composition, properties, use and conservation status. However, native Australian exudates are not as well characterized as European species, although there are often chemical parallels between the two. While mid-IR

Lead glass ornaments are common throughout Central and Eastern Europe from 10th to 13th c. They are regarded as a local product due to the discovery of glass crucibles, semi-finished products and an ore deposit. Technological (electron probe microanalysis) and provenance analyses (lead isotope analyses) of eleven fragments of high-lead-glass jewellery from Wrocław (SW Poland) and high-lead-glass and

Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs) are distinct archaeological sites in the Amazon, characterized by their enriched nutrient content in soil layers. While activities related to human occupation are acknowledged as the primary driver of the geochemical properties of ADEs, the intra-site spatial variations in their formation processes, and how they relate to human settlement, are not completely documented

Fish was an important component of (pre)historical consumption products. The study of (pre)historical fish products has been impeded by the morphological identifications in zooarchaeological research, based on poorly preserved fish bones. In this study, we applied the Bulk Bone Shotgun Metagenomic (BBSM) approach to unidentifiable bone fragments excavated from the Kongsangqiao site (dated to 652–768

Zooarchaeology has undergone a significant transformation in recent years, evolving from a discipline focused on human-animal relationships to a broader investigation of the complex interplay between humans, animals, and environments. This shift is driven by advancements in methodologies, including geometric morphometrics, low-magnification dental dietary analysis, and palaeo-species distribution modelling

The past few decades have seen a growing use of GIS in archaeological research to study ancient movement at varying scales. In the case of urban networks, most spatial analyses of street systems have been modelled on pedestrian movement. At the site of Pompeii, however, recent scholarship has highlighted the ways in which the material evidence of the construction, use, and disuse of the street network

We aimed to experimentally test the credibility of the diacritic analysis, which is one of the methods used to study lithic knapping technology. A series of blind tests conducted by lithic experts and students on experimentally knapped artefacts were used to estimate the reliability and validity of the method. The estimated average error rate was 21%, although it was smaller among the experts in the

Level IV0 at Pincevent, dating from the Late Magdalenian (15-14 ka cal BP), has revealed a singular assemblage of more than 400 artefacts in colouring materials, including a unique series of perforated discs. This unusual occurrence of shaped colouring materials extends the diversity of uses and functions of these mineral resources. Using a combination of non-invasive petrographic analysis and detailed

Despite new impetus for Late Pleistocene research in West Africa, little is known about the range of Middle Stone Age behaviours in this region. Yet, the multiplicity of Middle Stone Age lithic technologies testifies to significant behavioural and demographic dynamics, marked by innovation and adaptability. Here, we present the first in-depth analysis of ochre remains in West Africa. New data from

Birds of prey (‘raptors’) often consume anthropogenic foods and can be closely associated with human settlements. In medieval Britain, birds of prey were commensal animals, especially in towns where biological waste was abundant. However, the antiquity of this relationship has not been well explored. In this study, we used stable isotopes of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) in bone collagen to investigate