Since his discovery in 1991 the iceman has been widely seen as meeting a dramatic end – mortally wounded by an arrow shot while attempting to flee through an Alpine pass. A careful study of all the located grave goods, here planned comprehensively for the first time, points strongly towards the scene as one of a ceremonial burial, subsequently dispersed by thawing and gravity. The whole assemblage thus takes on another aspect – not a casual tragedy but a mortuary statement of its day.

History, legend and memory have long pointed to Co Loa, an earthwork enclosure outside Hanoi, as the seat of an indigenous power that gave identity to the people of the Bac Bo region, north Vietnam. Survey, excavation and a set of radiocarbon dates now put this site on the historical map. The main rampart of the middle circuit was built in the later centuries BC, before the coming of Han Imperial China. Nor was this rampart the first defence. The authors show the potential of archaeology for revealing the creation and development of a polity among the prosperous people of the Dongson culture.

The site of Tell Sabi Abyad in Syria offers a superb stratified sequence passing from the aceramic (pre-pottery) to pottery-using Neolithic around 7000 BC. Surprisingly the first pottery arrives fully developed with mineral tempering, burnishing and stripey decoration in painted slip. The expected, more experimental-looking, plant-tempered coarse wares shaped by baskets arrive about 300 years later. Did the first ceramic impetus come from elsewhere?

The furnished barrow burials of Wessex represent a maturation of the Beaker rite during the Early Bronze Age in Britain. Many of these burials were unearthed centuries ago, when archaeology was at its most eager and insouciant, but – happily for us – there were often a few careful recorders on hand. Thanks to their records, the modern scientists engaged in the Beaker People Project can still follow the trail back to a museum specimen and obtain high precision dates – as in the case of the ‘Wessex 1’ grave from West Overton in Wessex reported here.

We present the authentication and analysis of these beautiful Dacian bracelets of the first century BC, originally pillaged by treasure hunters and recovered thanks to an international crime chase. They were originally fashioned from gold panned from the rivers or dug from the mines of Transylvania and hammered into the form of coiled snakes. The lack of context is the greatest loss, but a votive purpose is likely given their proximity to the great sacred centre at Sarmizegetusa Regia.

Intensive survey and initial excavations have succeeded in pushing back the Neolithic human occupation of Cyprus to the earlier ninth millennium cal BC. Contemporary with PPNA in the Levant, and with signs of belonging to the same intellectual community, these were not marginalised foragers, but participants in the developing Neolithic project, which was therefore effectively networked over the sea.

The Bayesian model presented in this article is the first attempt to produce a chronological framework for the Iron Age in the Levant, using radiocarbon dating alone. The model derives from 339 determinations on 142 samples taken from 38 strata at 18 sites. The framework proposes six ceramic phases and six transitions which cover c. 400 years, between the late twelfth and mid eighth centuries BC. It furnishes us with a new scientific backbone for the history of Iron Age Levant.

The article is supported by an online supplement which can be found in at http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/finkelstein324

Does climate affect behaviour and social process? In this case study, powerful scientific, anthropological and archaeological arguments are deployed to show that it can. The capricious climate of the latest centuries of the Marquesas Islands was instrumental in transforming a chieftain society into less hereditary and more flexible polities by the time of European contact.

The island site of Biskupin with its densely planned interior bears an uncanny resemblance to a prison camp. Is it typical of the Iron Age in Northern Europe? The authors here explore neighbouring sites around Poznań using aerial photographs, geophysical survey and dendrochronology – to stunning effect. These low impact methods have given high impact results: dated street plans, some similar and others different from Biskupin, but within the same time frame: almost a repertoire of early urbanism. The authors must also be congratulated on the identification of a new type of Iron Age feature, the ‘open area for spouse avoidance’ defined at Sobiejuchy.

Precision radiocarbon dating continues to bring historical order into key moments of social and economic change, such as the use of metals. Here the author dates human bone in graves with metal artefacts and shows that copper, antimony and silver were being fashioned into daggers and beads in west central Italy by the early to mid fourth millennium cal BC; but the new-fangled objects had not reached contemporary cemeteries on the other side of the Apennines. We can perhaps look forward to a time when the arrival of metallurgy in Europe is neither diffusionary nor piecemeal, but the result of real historical events and social contacts, mapped for us by radiocarbon.

What type of implement was used to cut and move earth in prehistory? In the Mississippian culture at least, the key tool was the stone hoe – formed from a chert blade strapped to a handle. These blades were hoarded and depicted in use, leaving little doubt that they were for digging, in the service of agriculture and extracting earth for building. Drawing on a series of controlled experiments, the authors deduce the capabilities and biographies of the stone hoes, evoking the admirable efforts of the people who constructed the massive mounds of Cahokia.

Indian Rouletted Ware pottery is the iconic marker of the overseas reach of the subcontinent at the turn of the first millennium AD. In the mid twentieth century this was naturally seen as prompted by the contemporary Roman Empire, while the later post-colonial discourse has emphasised the independence and long life of Indian initiatives. In this new analysis the author demonstrates a more complex socio-economic situation. While Greyware is distributed long term over south India, Rouletted ware is made in at least two regional centres for coastal communities using a new ceramic language, one appropriate to an emerging international merchant class.

The dwellings of prehistoric Native North Americans are amongst the hardest archaeological structures to find and characterise – they leave only a shallow ring of stones. But the authors show that, when recorded to modern levels of precision, these tipi-stances contain a wealth of information. The stone rings are mapped in detail by hand, and located by GPS, their hearths are located by fluxgate survey and sampled for radiocarbon dating, and the results displayed in layered maps on GIS. Different social groups had different floor plans, so that, even where artefacts are missing, the movement of peoples can be dated and mapped. The results also bring to the fore the great cultural value of these, the dominant monument types of Bighorn Canyon National Recreational Area.

Playing mancala-type games was an addictive pastime of antiquity and leaves its archaeological imprint on steps and ledges in the form of rows of little scoops. Here the author examines the traces of the game at Palmyra and shows that the Roman game of the third century (with five holes a side) was superseded when Palmyra's Temple of Baal was refashioned as a fort in the seventh century or later. The new Syrian game, with seven holes a side, was played obsessively by the soldiers of an Arab or Ottoman garrison on the steps and precinct wall of the old temple.

The authors have explored the workplace and house of copper workers of the early Iron Age (twelfth to tenth century BC) in Jordan's Wadi Faynan copper ore district, showing that it belongs in time between the collapse of the great Bronze Age states and the arrival of Egyptians in the area under Sheshonq I. They attribute this production to local tribes – perhaps those engaged in building the biblical kingdom of Edom.

Finds of metalwork always raise the question of why they were deposited: a smith's collection, a concealed hoard or a votive offering? Findspots in water suggest offerings, since they would be awkward to retrieve. But understanding the context of deposition means knowing the prehistoric environment. The Fenland area of England has many Bronze Age sites, and deposits of metalwork and a well-mapped ancient environment too. Putting all three together the authors begin to assemble a grammar of deposition: swords and rapiers in rivers, some mixed collections placed in still water and others on once-dry land with burnt mounds.

Modern methods of analysis applied to cemeteries have often been used in our pages to suggest generalities about mobility and diet. But these same techniques applied to a single individual, together with the grave goods and burial rite, can open a special kind of personal window on the past. Here, the authors of a multidisciplinary project use a combination of scientific techniques to illuminate Roman York, and later Roman history in general, with their image of a glamorous mixed-race woman, in touch with Africa, Christianity, Rome and Yorkshire.

Six wells at Tossal de les Basses in Spain captured a large assemblage of Iberian woodworking debris. The authors' analysis distinguishes a wide variety of boxes, handles, staves, pegs and joinery made in different and appropriate types of wood, some – like cypress – imported from some distance away. We have here a glimpse of a sophisticated and little known industry of the fourth century BC.

The chance discovery of a carved symbol on a waterlogged tree of the six–ninth century AD may be the earliest mark on a living tree that has so far come to light. Given its rarity, an obvious interpretation remains elusive, but the authors review a wide range of possibilities from analogies ancient and modern. Symbols on trees have been used to mark trails, the ownership of land and resources, and all manner of votive moments from superstitious sign-making, worship of a god, thanks for a successful hunt or the memory of a loving tryst.

The discovery of rare bird stencils from a unique Australian rock art complex is reported, the species they most closely resemble is discussed and their significance in terms of world rock art and climate change is highlighted.