The Glastonbury Lake Village in Somerset, UK, is made up of 90 mounds comprising 40 roundhouses. Excavations between 1892 and 1907 revealed Iron Age structural and material remains unparalleled in Western Europe. The settlement's exact chronology, however, has remained uncertain. Here, the authors present a programme of radiocarbon and dendrochronological dating and chronological modelling on samples from recent excavations. The results indicate that the site was founded in the early second century cal BC, with the last structures being built just over a century later. This new, robust chronology can be used to date a wide range of associated material culture, and complements chronologies established for other Iron Age sites.

The Late Nordic Iron Age (AD 550–1050) was characterised by significant change in political, military, judicial and religious structures across Scandinavia, most clearly manifested in the appearance of high-status ‘central places’ in the landscape. Recent ground-penetrating radar surveys at Gjellestad in Norway have revealed a site comprising several large burial mounds—one of which contains a ship burial—in addition to a possible cult house and a feasting hall. This combination of features suggests that Gjellestad was part of a hitherto unknown central place on the eastern shores of the Oslofjord. If correct, the authors’ interpretations demonstrate that the layouts of these sites were formulaic, and that central places may be more common than previously thought.

Research on ancient Greek rural settlement and agricultural economies often emphasises political agency as a driving force behind landscape change, with comparatively less attention directed to the potential effects of climate. This study analyses climate variability and the spatial configuration of land use in the north-eastern Peloponnese during the Late Hellenistic and Roman (c. 150 BC–AD 300) periods. A synthesis of archaeological field survey data combined with new palaeoclimatological data provides novel insight into how changing climate influenced land use. The authors argue that although climatic variability alone did not drive socio-economic change, drying conditions may have influenced the relocation of agricultural production.

Despite the importance of wine in the Iron Age Mediterranean, known structures associated with its production are rare. Recent excavations at Phoenician Tell el-Burak have now revealed the first Iron Age wine press in Lebanon. Its remarkable state of preservation enables a systematic study of its plaster to be made as well as a comparison with two other plastered installations at the site. Archaeometric analyses offer new data concerning the composition and technology of Iron Age lime-plaster production, confirming the existence of a local and innovative tradition of plaster production in southern Phoenicia. These results contribute to the wider discussion of Phoenician technology in the broader Iron Age Mediterranean.

Viking Age burial mounds are usually interpreted with reference to their exterior dimensions, the funerary treatment of the deceased and the artefacts placed within them. The process of constructing these mounds, however, may also have played an important role in funerary traditions. Investigations at the Gokstad mound in Norway demonstrate that the building of this mound—in terms of its phases and material expressions—formed an integral part of the overall burial rite. The complex construction sequence contained references to both the physical and mythical landscapes, revealing the potential of the study of burial mound construction at other sites in Viking Age Scandinavia and beyond.

Excavations in marginal areas of the loess uplands in southern Poland have revealed that the northern periphery of the Sandomierz Upland was intensely colonised in the sixth and fifth millennia BC by Linearbandkeramik and Malice Culture Danubian communities. This research suggests that analogous settlement clusters may exist in other marginal regions of the Central European loess belt, previously thought to be uninhabited.

Understanding socioeconomic inequality is fundamental for studies of societal development in European prehistory. This article presents dietary (δ13C and δ15N) isotope values for human and animal bone collagen from Early Neolithic Osłonki 1 in north-central Poland (c. 4600–4100 cal BC). A new series of AMS radiocarbon determinations show that, of individuals interred at the same time, those with copper artefacts exhibit significantly higher δ13C values than those without. The authors’ results suggest a link between high-status goods and intra-community differences in diet and/or preferential access to the agropastoral landscape.

In prehistoric coastal and western-central Thailand, rice was the dominant cultivar. In eastern-central Thailand, however, the first known farmers cultivated millet. Using one of the largest collections of archaeobotanical material in Southeast Asia, this article examines how cropping systems were adapted as domesticates were introduced into eastern-central Thailand. The authors argue that millet reached the region first, to be progressively replaced by rice, possibly due to climatic pressures. But despite the increasing importance of rice, dryland, rain-fed cultivation persisted throughout ancient central Thailand, a result that contributes to refining understanding of the development of farming in Southeast Asia.

The cemetery at Zvejnieki in Latvia was in use from c. 7500–2600 BC, spanning part of the regional Mesolithic and Neolithic. This article presents a reanalysis of finds from a double inhumation burial of a male and a female dating to 3786–3521 BC. A unique leg ornament associated with the female is composed of tubular beads. Previously believed to have been made of bird bone, reanalysis of 68 of these beads now demonstrates that they were produced from fossilised sea lilies (Crinoidea). This new identification of a rarely recognised raw material is discussed in the context of other hunter-gatherer encounters with unusual materials and their environments.

During the Early Neolithic in the Near East, particularly from the mid ninth millennium cal BC onwards, human iconography became more widespread. Explanations for this development, however, remain elusive. This article presents a unique assemblage of flint artefacts from the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (eighth millennium BC) site of Kharaysin in Jordan. Contextual, morphological, statistical and use-wear analyses of these artefacts suggest that they are not tools but rather human figurines. Their close association with burial contexts suggests that they were manufactured and discarded during mortuary rituals and remembrance ceremonies that included the extraction, manipulation and redeposition of human remains.

Antiquity—the past—has been fundamental to archaeology from the very beginnings of the discipline, and it remains the central concept around which archaeological research is developed. Over the years, however, alternative ways of doing and thinking archaeology have come forth to challenge this orientation on the past. Despite their growth in scope and sophistication, these alternatives remain at the margins of our community. In this article, the authors argue that it is in the best interests of archaeology—both as a community and as a discipline—to not brush aside these alternatives but rather to afford them serious attention.

It is often claimed that changes in material culture signify adaptations to changing environments. Deploying novel conceptual models and computational techniques, research funded by the European Research Council seeks to reconstruct the patterns and processes of cultural transmission and adaptation at the turbulent transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene.

Our understanding of Roman urbanism relies on evidence from a few extensively investigated sites, such as Pompeii and Ostia, which are unrepresentative of the full variety of Roman towns. This article presents the results of the first high-resolution GPR survey of a complete Roman town—Falerii Novi, in Lazio, Italy. The authors review the methods deployed and provide an overview of the results, including discussion of a case-study area within the town. They demonstrate how this type of survey has the potential to revolutionise archaeological studies of urban sites, while also challenging current methods of analysing and publishing large-scale GPR datasets.

The recent renovation of a house in Chajul in western Guatemala has revealed an unparalleled set of wall paintings, most probably from the Colonial period (AD 1524–1821). The iconography of the murals combines pre-Columbian elements with imported European components in a domestic rather than a religious setting, making them a unique example of Colonial-period art. Here, the authors present the results of iconographic, chemical and radiocarbon analyses of the Chajul house paintings. Dating to the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries AD, the paintings may be connected to a revival of the local religious organisation (cofradías) in the context of waning Spanish colonial control.

The hyperarid climate of the central Sahara precludes permanent agriculture, although occasional temporary ponds, or etaghas, as a result of rain-fed flooding of wadi beds in the Tadrart Acacus Mountains of the Libyan Sahara allow the pastoral Kel Tadrart Tuareg to cultivate cereals. Geoarchaeological and archaeological data, along with radiocarbon dating and evidence from rock art, however, suggest a much greater antiquity for the exploitation of these etaghas. The authors propose that the present-day cultivation of etaghas mirrors attempts at flood-recession or rain-fed cultivation by late prehistoric Pastoral Neolithic groups, who first exploited residual water resources to supplement their pastoral subsistence practices.