This article results from a series of visits by the authors to the 44 hillforts of south-east England. Our aim was to re-contextualize these hillforts in their landscapes. Analysis of the pottery assemblages and radiometric dates allows a three-phase chronological division of these hillforts. Assessment of the topographic positions and excavated evidence indicates that the enclosures may have functioned in distinctly different ways in each of the three phases. The data for south-east England offer a counter-analysis to the extant ‘Wessex-centric’ view of southern British hillforts.

The article considers the ways in which material culture and especially architecture is used in the negotiation of social relationships in Neolithic settlements in Thessaly, Greece. Thus it reconstructs the possibilities past agents had to form an identity in relation to houses and subsequently the consequences of two different habitation strategies, i.e. rebuilding on the same spot or relocation to another area, in relation to the conceptualization of time and the past. It is suggested that the different entanglement of memories with the material culture played an important role in the negotiation of relationships, by allowing agents to use the past as cultural capital and, even more, in the late Neolithic, to appropriate its reference points spatially and thus lay preferential claims over it.

The slopes of the Tågerup promontory in western Scania contain one of the largest known Mesolithic settlements that has ever been excavated in Scandinavia. The Tågerup site displays a unique combination of huts and houses, graves and wooden implements, flints and bones which constitute a 1500-year-long Mesolithic occupation sequence, dated 6500–5000 cal BC. During that time, there were gradual but far-reaching changes in settlement structure and organization, the use of the landscape, flint technology and food procurement strategies.

Using recent work relating to subsistence and residential patterns in the British ‘Neolithic’, I argue that the dispersal of human skeletal material, characteristic of the ‘Neolithic’ in southern Britain, can be seen as the ‘fall-out’ of a dispersed and mobile pattern of residence. This pattern of human skeletal material can therefore be viewed independently from any specific complex and multiple-stage mortuary processes. Further, the role of the stone, timber and earthen constructions that frame this mobile ‘dwelling-scape’ is viewed in relation to their changing visibility as the vegetation changed. I reach the conclusion that the ‘Neolithic’ of southern Britain was one of dispersed and mobile human activity within a dwelling-scape, which was itself in constant flux.

We present data on the chemical and lead isotope composition of copper and bronze objects from Nuragic Sardinia. The sample suite comprises, inter alia, objects from the hoard finds at Arzachena (21 objects), Bonnanaro (10), Ittireddu (34), and Pattada (20), all in northern Sardinia. With one exception, all ingot fragments (49) consist of unalloyed copper; the exception comes from Ittireddu and contains 11 per cent tin. In contradistinction, all implements (21) are made from standard bronze with a mean tin content of 10.8 per cent. A dozen sword fragments from the Arzachena hoard, all of fairly uniform small size, are pieces of a large number of different swords. The low tin content of only about 1 per cent would have made for poor weapons, confirming the archaeological identification of the fragments as pieces of votive swords. Scrap metal from Arzachena is remarkable for its wide range of trace element contents and lead isotope abundance ratios. It is dissimilar to all other metal samples investigated, possibly representing metal from local smelting experiments using a variety of different copper ores. Lead isotope data and trace element patterns, alone or in conjunction, do not allow us to tell oxhide ingots from plano-convex (bun) ingots. Most ingot fragments have a lead isotope signature similar to those of Cypriot copper ores but there are also a number of ingots whose lead isotope fingerprints are fully compatible with them being local products. Of the bronzes, none has lead with an isotopic composition characteristic of copper ingots from Cyprus. All contain local lead, suggesting the bronze implements were manufactured locally. Isotopically-fitting lead is found in copper and lead ore deposits from the Iglesiente-Sulcis district in south-west Sardinia and from Funtana Raminosa in central Sardinia.

Malta's Neolithic megalithic ‘temples’, unique in the Mediterranean, provide a striking challenge to the archaeological imagination. Most explanations have employed a simple functionalism: the temples resulted from Malta's insularity. Such explanations lack the theoretical grounding provided by studies of agency and meaning, and they do not sufficiently account for Malta's pattern of integration into and differentiation from a central Mediterranean regional culture. I argue that: (a) contextual evidence suggests that the temples created settings for rites emphasizing local origins and identity; (b) even in periods of greatest cultural difference, the Maltese had contacts with nearby societies, and Maltese travellers probably recognized cultural differences in important ritual practices; and (c) when ritual practitioners began reinterpreting a common heritage of meanings to create the temple rites, they also created a new island identity based on these rites. In effect, after two millennia of cultural similarity to their neighbours, the Neolithic Maltese created a cultural island, perhaps in reaction to changes in the constitution of society sweeping Europe in the fourth millennium BC. The result was an island of cultural difference similar in scale and, perhaps, origin to many other archaeologically unique settings such as Val Camonica, the Morbihan, Stonehenge, and Chaco Canyon.

This article is devoted to the understanding of the importance of seasonal use of grasslands in the occupation of the Eurasian steppe during the Bronze Age. The pilot section of the research is Kalmykia – a steppe situated between the lower Volga and the Don rivers. We have to look at specific strategies of using local environments, river valleys, upland plateaux, and open steppe lands. During the third millennium BC, pastoralists of the Yamnaya and Catacomb cultures began to exploit the Eurasian steppe grasslands and they had to take advantage of the seasonal variation in steppe vegetation to create a sustainable economy. Seasonal use of grasslands became the main feature of the definition of pastoralism. This is the first time that early steppe materials have been analysed for seasonal data. On the basis of a combination of the seasonal data, settlement data and recent chronological information, a preliminary reconstruction is presented of two contrasting periods of land use for the third millennium BC.

The repertoire of cult-iconography produced in Gaul and Britain during the Iron Age and Roman periods contains a group of images that are a blend of human and animal forms. Such pieces are generally interpreted as depictions of divinities, but while it remains probable that they are expressive of cult perceptions, there is a need to re-evaluate their function and identity. The hybridity of the images suggests meanings associated with boundary-crossing, risk and the challenge to ‘normative’ concepts. It is argued here that such contradictive and liminal representations might be identified with transgression between earthworld and spiritworld, and that monstrous images perhaps express the identity of individuals who, within the context of ritual practice, habitually ‘moved’ between worlds, by means of trance and altered states of consciousness. It may be that, in the context of Gallo-British cosmologies, images with antler-head-dresses, horns or other animal attributes should be identified as shamans rather than as gods.

The process of the production of copper and bronze is presented in this paper as a sequential operation. Each stage of this process may influence the final product. The deconstruction of the process is a convenient way of examining each individual stage, using archaeological case studies from different places within the Old World and, where useful, ethnographic studies. The examination will focus on two aspects: innovation and specialization. It seeks to move beyond technological determinism by relating the study of technology to the context of those societies which shaped and practised it and which exercised certain choices in its execution.

Despite recent emphasis on the impact of nationalism on archaeology, the discussion has centered more on the ideological framework of the culture-historical school of archaeology, particularly on the concept of archaeological culture. Comparatively little attention has been paid to how archaeologists contributed to the construction of the national past. This article examines Slavic archaeology, a discipline crisscrossing national divisions of archaeological schools, within the broader context of the ‘politics of culture’ which characterizes all nation-states, as ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson 1991). Indeed, the current academic discourse about the early Slavs in Ukraine, Russia, and Romania appears as strikingly tied to political, rather than intellectual, considerations. In eastern Europe, the concept of archaeological culture is still defined in monothetic terms on the basis of the presence or absence of a list of traits or types derived from typical sites or intuitively considered to be representative cultural attributes. Archaeologists thus regarded archaeological cultures as actors on the historical stage, playing the role individuals or groups have in documentary history. Archaeological cultures became ethnic groups, and were used to legitimize claims of modern nation-states to territory and influence.

The current consensus is outlined about the application of lead isotope analyses to metal provenance studies and to the unravelling of the Mediterranean Bronze Age copper trade, with special reference to copper oxhide ingots. Various misconceptions, especially some of those contained in Knapp (1999, 2000), are corrected. It is shown that there is no need to fall back on hypotheses based upon the Mediterranean-wide mixing/recycling of copper metals to explain the lead isotope characteristics of post-1250 BC copper oxhide ingots, since there is a good isotopic coincidence between these ingots and the Apliki region ore deposits in Cyprus. Weaknesses are exposed in the hypotheses of direct or indirect pooling of Cypriot ores, and of the proposed widespread recycling of metals in a Mediterranean-wide koine, particularly since there is no evidence for a homogeneity of lead isotope composition in artefacts and no tin in the oxhide ingots.

From the late second century AD to the end of the fourth century AD, black, shiny materials were popular in Britain and the Rhineland for the production of jewellery. In the past, in the absence of accurate, detailed analysis, all these products, irrespective of composition, have invariably been described as being made of ‘jet’. A project at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, has used the non-destructive technique of reflected light microscopy to identify the various black materials used by the Roman craftsmen. Long used for petrographic studies of coals and fossil fuels, this technique has proved very suitable for the analysis of small artefacts. The project initially focused on black objects from the area of Hadrian's Wall but was extended to look at objects from Rhineland sites as well as finds from other parts of Britain and the Continent. The project has revealed that a wide range of ‘jets’ and shales and varieties of coal from a diversity of geographical sources were used, and that the Rhineland objects were not carved from Whitby jet but from an unidentified source.

From Neolithic Malta, there is evidence of increasing population size accompanied by increasingly elaborate material culture, including the famous megalithic architecture. Stoddart et al. (1993) argued that social tensions and controls increased as food resources diminished. One important requirement of this argument is that the Neolithic inhabitants of Malta depended entirely on domesticated plants and animals for subsistence and therefore, with increased population sizes, the poor agricultural potential of these islands was stretched. However, it is possible that the consumption of wild foods, particularly marine resources, in the Neolithic would make up any shortfall in the agricultural foods. A direct way of measuring the amounts of marine protein in human diets is through chemical analysis of human bone. Stable isotope analyses undertaken on seven Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon dated humans from the Neolithic at the Brochtorff Circle indicated that there is no evidence for the significant use of marine foods by these Neolithic individuals. These new data indicate that agricultural foods were the dietary staple for this sample of the Maltese Neolithic population and therefore support the argument that increasing population during the Neolithic could have resulted in increasing resource stress.

Any new knowledge that goes beyond the stone tools and techniques used in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic is most significant as it reveals the cultural and technical capabilities of the people living in these periods. In 1963, two pitch finds were discovered in a lignite open-mining pit in the northern foothills of the Harz Mountains, in a layer the geological age of which was dated as being older than 80,000 years. The great significance of these finds was therefore immediately apparent. One of the finds showed a fingerprint as well as the imprints of a flint stone tool and the structure of wood cells. This was indicative of the pitch piece having served as an adhesive to secure a wooden haft to a flint stone blade.

Over 30 years later these finds were transferred to the Doerner Institut for investigation. The GC and GC/MS analyses revealed that, in both cases, birch pitches, well-known historical adhesives, had been used. These consist predominantly of pentacyclic triterpenoid components of the lupane type, with betulin forming the major component. The comparison with birch bark extracts showed that the biological peak profile (bio-marker) was surprisingly well preserved in these pitch finds and that hardly any degradation products were present.

Today, comparable pitches can easily be produced with modern technical methods, i.e. using airtight laboratory flasks and temperature control facilities. However, any attempt at simulating the conditions of the Neandertal period and at producing these birch pitches without any of these modern facilities will soon be met with many difficulties. This implies that the Neandertals did not come across these pitches by accident but must have produced them with intent. Conscious action is, however, always a clear sign of considerable technical capabilities.

Temper is an essential element in pottery making in many parts of the world and in large parts of prehistory. Furthermore, it readily lends itself to qualitative and quantitative study without advanced equipment. Since all non-plastic materials in theory may be used as temper, variations in the choice of type and quality (amount, grain size) are important indications of craft traditions, functional differences and contacts between different areas. Even other, more elusive considerations might lie behind the choice of temper. Like the bride who should wear something new, something old, something borrowed and something blue, the tempering of pottery may include materials which allude to other objects or situations, thus establishing a coherence between the pot and other phenomena. Some new examples of special tempering with bone and chaff in pottery from the Iron Age in Scandinavia are presented for discussion.

The application of medical scanning technologies to archaeological skeletons provides novel insights into the history and potential causes of osteoporosis. The present study investigated bone mineral density (BMD) in medieval skeletons from England and Norway. Comparisons between the two adult populations found no statistically significant differences. This compares with a modern fracture incidence for the femoral neck in women from Norway that is almost three times that in the UK. The pattern of age-related bone loss in medieval men was similar to that seen in men today. In contrast, the pattern in medieval women differed from that of modern young women. On average, medieval women experienced a decrease in BMD at the femoral neck of approximately 23 per cent between the ages of 22 and 35. These losses were partially recovered by age 45, after which BMD values show a decline consistent with post-menopausal bone loss in modern western women. A possible explanation of the rapid decline in BMD in young medieval women is bone loss in connection with pregnancy and lactation in circumstances of insufficient nutrition.