In the second half of the first century ce, the Romans built a fort at the mouth of the river Apsaros on the coast of Colchis. A Roman garrison was stationed there also in the second century and first half of the third. One of the reasons for fortifying the estuary of the river, given by both Pliny the Elder and Arrian, was the immediate vicinity of the kingdom of Iberia. Both Roman authors also described the local tribes living on the coast between Trebizond and Apsaros and further north. One wonders whether they were the indigenous population of the region and what kind of a relationship they had with the Roman Empire. This study searches for answers to these questions in the preserved written sources and in the archaeological record.

The Inka empire's expansion incorporated diverse cultural and ecological elements in microcosmic representations of their empire. Imperial practices included the resettlement of communities from various regions into labour enclaves near Inka ceremonial, administrative and economic hubs. This degree of imperial control might suggest a limitation on Inka subjects’ freedom to integrate non-local food resources into their diets. Employing starch grain analysis from stone tools, we seek to identify the range of plant food sources and examine the extent to which the Inka imposed constraints on inter-community interactions and the exchange of comestibles. Focusing on a translocated labour force residing near the Inka provincial centre of Vilcashuamán, our findings reveal the consumption of a variety of edible plants originating from multiple, occasionally distant, ecological regions. The results indicate that, in contrast to the restrictions on trade of other commodities as recorded in ethnohistorical accounts and previous archaeological research, the exchange of edible plant species among the subjugated peoples may have been less regulated. This study demonstrates how food landscapes potentially served as loci of resistance to the Inka empire's manipulative cosmopolitanism.

Textiles have long been recognized as a key feature in the economic and social development of early complex societies. Many comparative dimensions, however, remain unexplored, including within the ancient Near East. Unlike contemporary societies in Syria and Mesopotamia, wool was not used as a staple finance good in the Early Bronze Age southern Levant (c. 3700–2000 bce) since the landscape could not permit adequately scaled production. In larger cultural regions wool was produced at vast scales and helped underpin royal institutions. But without a non-perishable, high-volume and high-value commodity like wool, staple finance in the southern Levant was restricted to seasonally produced grain, wine and oil, primarily used in exchange for local labour. Moreover, without wool there was little need in the southern Levant for the administrative and security technologies used elsewhere, namely seals and sealing, and later, writing. This limited the development of complex institutions and cognitive abilities.

Drawing on insights from contemporary urban theory, this contribution questions where medieval urbanization took place. It is proposed that urbanization is a process which extends beyond towns and cities, which are merely a representation of a more expansive and transformative process. Through discussion of building stone, grain production, salt extraction, woodland management and mineral exploitation, it is argued that medieval urbanization was generative of political ecological relations which challenge prevailing understandings of the rural/urban divide and re-frame urbanization as a metabolic process. The discussion utilizes contemporary concepts of ‘extended urbanization’, ‘urban metabolism’ and ‘political ecology’ to re-frame perceptions of medieval–urban relations and the notion of urban hinterland.

This article uses tensions over the construction of a flow-regulation infrastructure built to control outflow from Lake Titicaca into the Desaguadero River, on the border between Peru and Bolivia, as a case study to explore the ways that relationships to water emerge and are contested. We argue that a nuanced understanding of tensions arising from this infrastructure requires us to recognize the long-term history of how the river accumulated practices, meanings and materials. Adapting the work of Arturo Escobar, we use the concept of ‘water regime’ to think about how engagements with the river are based in different spatiotemporal frameworks that have developed transhistorically and come into tension around the materiality and dynamism of the river itself.

This study considers the role played by Teotihuacan in the emergence of the office of the Classic Maya ajawtaak, or ‘lords’. I argue that the synthesis of this office at the site of Tikal was influenced by the building of Teotihuacan's Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent between about 180 and 230 ce. Prior to and in concert with this building's construction, Teotihuacanos orchestrated the sacrifice of an estimated 200 or more individuals, some number of whom resided beyond the Basin of Mexico before burial. Osteological traits consistent with origins in the Maya region are present among these sacrifices. The Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent features mirror and obsidian icons, which later grew to prominence in the self-presentations of the ajawtaak. I note that around the time of this monument's construction, Tikal's obsidian corpus changed in ways that paralleled similar, earlier changes that had occurred to obsidian procurement strategies at Teotihuacan. I conclude that from about 200 ce, some Classic ajawtaak observed the religion that cohered with the building of Teotihuacan's Temple of the Feathered Serpent. The ajawtaak occupied a unique positionality in Early Classic Mesoamerica that was neither essentially Teotihuacan nor essentially Maya, but a dynamic syncretism of the two ethnicities.

In this paper the history of one house and a human burial in the prehistoric settlement of Monjukli Depe, Turkmenistan, serves as a case study for the use of Bayesian chronological modelling to approach the reach of past memories. The method combines relative and absolute chronological data and aims not only at a more precise and robust chronology of past events, but also allows estimations of duration of particular processes. However, chronological models must be constructed with care, since the prior archaeological information significantly affects the output. The comparison of three alternative models for the Aeneolithic settlement of Monjukli Depe shows that prior information in modelling has a considerable impact on duration estimates for periods of the settlement history. The modelling chronology for Monjukli Depe allows the tracing of commemorative practices at a generational scale—the memory of Monjukli Depe House 14 was transmitted over several generations of inhabitants long after the house destruction. It is clear that houses possessed a great value in the social life of the settlement since local building histories were remembered over a long time.

This article delves into the contemporary social perception of the three abandoned Soviet Cold War tactical nuclear bases in Poland, focusing on often overlooked phenomena in archaeological studies such as the contemporary myths (folk tales, contemporary legends, modern folklore, etc.) and nostalgia that have emerged around these sites. While contemporary myths and nostalgia are distinct phenomena with different outcomes, they share a common feature: a mythologized approach to the past. Established historical and archaeological narratives, derived from detailed studies, often coexist with alternative versions of the past inspired by folk imagination. This article aims to highlight their cultural value as an integral part of local identity, actively shaping the perception of material heritage. Contemporary myths offer insight into another layer of collective perception of the past, while nostalgia delves into the emotional aspects of human existence, coping with transience and searching for meaning.

The present analysis focuses on the material component of time, the devices used for measuring and counting it. The biological basis for subjective, experiential time is first reviewed, as are early strategies found cross-culturally for measuring and counting time objectively. These strategies include timekeeping by natural phenomena, using tallies to keep track of small periods of time, harnessing shadows for daily and annual time, and visualizing time with clocks and calendars. The conclusion then examines how such timekeeping devices might influence the conceptualization of time.

The present study offers an epistemological and ontological historiographical review of the concept of the unit of analysis using island archaeology as a case study. We carry out a critical investigation to lay out the main ideas used to define units of analysis, and we consider the discourse that has emerged between this and other fields when defining such a concept. From an epistemological point of view, we can define three distinct strategies: first, those that define units of analysis by their outer limits, their borders; secondly, those that make the definition based on the internal dynamics taking place within the units of study; and in third place, strategies that focus on defining the analytical unit as a set of interactions between agents. From a more ontological point of view, we can differentiate between strategies that take on a categorical perspective and those that take on a more relational perspective. Ultimately, we reflect on the conceptualization and function of the unit of analysis in the process of interpretation, and in so doing, we provide evidence of the great theoretical richness of the concept and the multiple interrelated factors involved in its development.

Western Anatolian ritual pits provide valuable insights into socio-cultural, economic and symbolic practices during the Early to Middle Bronze Age. Findings in feasting pits, such as carbonized seeds and animal bones, indicate a strong link between ritual and food. Standing stones, altars and carefully arranged artefacts suggest a symbolic and sacred dimension beyond mere ceremonies. The pits from this period contain carbonized seeds and fragments of wood, indicating the presence of small fires during certain rituals. Changing features in ritual pits from the Early to Middle Bronze Age reveal a dynamic relationship between spatial arrangements and religious practices. The study shows that in the first half of the second millennium bce several ritual activities known from different regions reached western Anatolia for the first time. Interregional trade involved not only goods, but also the dissemination of rituals over a wide geographical area. This cultural interaction reveals western Anatolia as a dynamic and influential centre in this historical period. By exploring the ritual practices of second-millennium bce western Anatolia, this paper presents new perspectives on the rituals of the region.

This paper uses material efficacy as an analytical position to consider how silver helped to shape large-scale historical trajectories in Iron Age Scotland. Roman silver entered Scotland as imperial matter beginning in the first century ad and later inspired an assemblage of indigenous wearable silver in the fourth–fifth centuries. I investigate the human–silver collaborations involved in the transition from hoarding Roman silver coins to recycling Roman Hacksilber. By tracing the object trajectory of spiral rings, I show how silver's material properties and entanglements played a role in developing Scotland's earliest silver products. Around the fourth century, a diversity of spiral rings was replaced by a specific style of silver spiral finger ring. Silver brought to Iron Age Scotland by the Romans inspired and afforded individuals in northern Britain a new and empowering regional socio-political identity. Material efficacy, as explored in this case study, has relevance beyond Iron Age/Roman studies to any anthropological investigation of underrepresented human agency.