Innovations in horse equipment during the early Middle Ages provided advantages to societies from the steppes, reshaping the social landscape of Eurasia. Comparatively little is known about the precise origin of these crucial advances, although the available evidence points to early adoption in East Asia. The authors present new archaeological discoveries from western and northern Mongolia, dating to the fourth and fifth centuries AD, including a wooden frame saddle with horse hide components from Urd Ulaan Uneet and an iron stirrup from Khukh Nuur. Together, these finds suggest that Mongolian groups were early adopters of stirrups and saddles, facilitating the expansion of nomadic hegemony across Eurasia and shaping the conduct of medieval mounted warfare.

Durable architecture is a hallmark of Polynesian chiefdoms, associated with centralised control of residential and agricultural land. Previous work in West Polynesia has indicated a relatively late date for the onset of such construction activity—after AD 1000—suggesting that political development was influenced by events such as post-colonisation migration. The authors report new dating evidence from the excavation of a large earth mound on the island of Tongatapu. Its construction 1500 years ago indicates that, in contrast to previous findings, well-developed chiefdoms and field monuments probably dominated the landscapes of West Polynesia substantially prior to the colonisation of more easterly island nations.

The deposition of intentionally damaged metal artefacts within burials and hoards is a phenomenon attested in areas as disparate as Ireland and the Caucasus during the Bronze and Iron Ages. While ritual significance is often attributed to such damage in burial contexts, the intentions behind the inclusion of damaged objects in hoards remain enigmatic. This article synthesises evidence for the intentional destruction of metal artefacts from 70 sites in the territory of modern Georgia and analyses patterns of deliberate damage over time and space. The study of these damaged artefacts enhances our understanding of ritual practice at a local level and locates the south Caucasus within the wider networks of this phenomenon.

Despite significant research, the direct and indirect causes of a population decline in the eponymous foragers of the Late Jōmon period (c. 4500–2300 BP) in Japan remains undetermined. Here, the authors examine the impact of nutritional stress, using scurvy as a case study, on Middle and a Late/Final Jōmon populations. While an increase in the prevalence of scurvy between the time periods is apparent, no associated change in age at death was observed. The authors argue that the Late Jōmon adapted their food-sharing practices in times of ecological stress, and they highlight the need to consider morbidity and mortality together in palaeopathological assessments and the growing evidence for a non-nutritional cause in the Late Jōmon population decline.

Rock art of the Middle and Upper Orinoco River in South America is characterised by some of the largest and most enigmatic engravings in the world, including snakes exceeding 40m in length. Here, the authors map the geographic distribution of giant snake motifs and assess the visibility of this serpentine imagery within the Orinoco landscape and Indigenous myths. Occupying prominent outcrops that were visible from great distances, the authors argue that the rock art provided physical reference points for cosmogonic myths, acting as border agents that structured the environment and were central to Indigenous placemaking along the rivers of lowland South America.

The settlement of Ban Non Wat charts the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in north-eastern Thailand. Examination of grave inclusions and mortuary treatment at this important site allows insights into social change during this key period. Increasing complexity and the inclusion of exotic items in the mortuary treatment of some individuals early in the Bronze Age is suggested to show the rise of a lineage of aggrandisers who controlled access to these symbolic articles. But, the author argues, their elevated status was ephemeral, forfeited as local bronze casting became established.

Comparative studies of inequality based on archaeological data rely on universal notions of status or prestige that are not always meaningful across diverse cultural contexts. Here, the authors evaluate three broadly contemporaneous urban communities (Marothodi, Molokwane and Kaditshwene) in the southern African interior in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries AD. The study combines a statistical measure of inequality, the Gini coefficient, with insights from the rich ethnohistorical archives of African knowledge systems. The results suggest markedly different levels of inequality, but contextualisation points to divergent social strategies for settlement organisation and for managing sociopolitical insecurity. The findings raise important questions about cross-cultural indices of social inequality.

The origins of Iron Age urbanism in temperate Europe were long assumed to lie in Archaic Greece. Recent studies, however, argue for an independent development of Hallstatt mega-sites. This article focuses on developments in Western Thessaly in mainland Greece. The author characterises the Archaic settlement system of the region as one of lowland villages and fortified hilltop sites, the latter identified not as settlements but refuges. It is argued that cities were rare in Greece prior to the Hellenistic period so its settlements could not have served as the model for urban temperate Europe. Consequently, the social and political development of Greece and temperate Europe followed different trajectories.

In this article, the authors present an analysis of radiocarbon dates from a stratified deposit at the Greek Geometric period settlement of Zagora on the island of Andros, which are among the few absolute dates measured from the period in Greece. The dates assigned to Greek Geometric ceramics are based on historical and literary evidence and are found to contradict absolute dates from the central Mediterranean which suggest that the traditional dates are too young. The results indicate the final period at Zagora, the Late Geometric, should be seen as starting at least a century earlier than the traditional date of 760 BC.

Imagery-based survey is capable of producing archaeological datasets that complement those collected through field-based survey methods, widening the scope of analysis beyond regions. The Geospatial Platform for Andean Culture, History and Archaeology (GeoPACHA) enables systematic registry of imagery survey data through a ‘federated’ approach. Using GeoPACHA, teams pursue problem-specific research questions through a common data schema and interface that allows for inter-project comparisons, analyses and syntheses. The authors present an overview of the platform's rationale and functionality, as well as a summary of results from the first survey campaign, which was carried out by six projects distributed across the central Andes, five of which are represented here.

Key tipping points of history are rarely found directly in the archaeological record, not least because an event's significance often lies in the perception of the participants. This article documents an early-ninth-century ritual fire-burning event at the Maya site of Ucanal in Guatemala and argues that it marked a public dismantling of an old regime. Rather than examine this event as part of a Classic period Maya collapse, the authors propose that it was a revolutionary pivot point around which the K'anwitznal polity reinvented itself, ushering in wider political transitions in the southern Maya Lowlands.

The remains of black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) are relatively common at archaeological sites as it grows naturally around settlements in north-western Europe. All parts of the plant may be used as a medicine or a narcotic but its natural prevalence in built environments makes it difficult to interpret any intentionality behind its presence in the archaeological record. Evidence of the deliberate collection and use of black henbane seeds in the Roman Netherlands is presented here for the first time. Examination of Classical texts and interrogation of the archaeobotanical data allow the authors to place the discovery at Houten-Castellum of a hollowed bone containing hundreds of black henbane seeds within the context of the wider Roman understanding of the plant and its properties.

In the Andean highlands, hilltop fortifications known as pukaras are common. Dating predominantly to the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000–1450), pukaras are important to archaeological characterisations of a political landscape shaped by conflict but the distribution of these key sites is not well understood. Here, the authors employ systematic satellite imagery survey to provide a contiguous picture of pukara distribution on an inter-regional scale covering 151 103km2 in the south-central highlands of Peru. They highlight the effectiveness of such survey at identifying pukaras and capturing regional variability in size and residential occupation, and the results demonstrate that satellite surveys of high-visibility sites can tackle research questions at larger scales of analysis than have previously been possible.

Humans inhabit rich social and physical worlds and archaeology is increasingly engaging with the multi-sensory experience of life in the past. In this article, the authors model the soundscapes of five Chacoan communities on the Colorado Plateau, where habitation sites cluster around monumental great houses. The work demonstrates that the audible range of a conch-shell trumpet blown from atop these great houses consistently maps the distribution of associated habitation sites. Staying within the audible reach of great houses may have helped maintain the social cohesion of communities in the past which, the authors argue, also has implications for the management of archaeological landscapes in the modern world.

The north coast of Peru is among the most extensively surveyed regions in the world, yet variation in research questions, sampling strategies and chronological and geospatial controls among survey projects makes comparison of disparate datasets difficult. To contextualise these issues, the authors present a systematic survey of satellite imagery focusing on hilltop fortifications in the Jequetepeque and Santa Valleys. This digital recontextualisation of pedestrian survey data demonstrates the potential of hybrid methodologies to substantially expand both the identification of archaeological sites within difficult terrain and, consequently, our understanding of the function of defensive sites.

Exogamous marriage alliances involving royal women played a prominent role in the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to Christianity in the seventh century AD. Yet the large number of well-furnished female burials from this period suggests a broader change in the role of women. The authors present the results of isotopic analysis of seventh-century burials, comparing male and female mobility and the mobility of females from well-furnished versus poorly/unfurnished burials. Results suggest increased mobility during the Conversion Period that is, paradoxically, most noticeable among women buried in poorly furnished graves; their well-furnished contemporaries were more likely to have grown up near to their place of burial.

The late seventh-century introduction of silver coinage marked a transformation in the economy of north-west Europe, yet the source(s) of the silver bullion behind this change remains uncertain. Here, the authors use combined lead isotope and trace element analysis of 49 coins from England, Frisia and Francia to provide new insights into north-European silver sources during the ‘long eighth century’ (c. AD 660–820). The results indicate an early reliance on recycled Byzantine silver plate, followed by a shift c. AD 750 to newly mined metal from Francia. This change indicates the strong role of the Carolingian state in the control of metal sources and economic structures across the North Sea zone.

Fog oases (lomas) present pockets of verdant vegetation within the arid coastal desert of Andean South America and archaeological excavation within some of the oases has revealed a long history of human exploitation of these landscapes. Yet lomas settlements are under-represented in archaeological datasets due to their tendency to be located in remote inter-valley areas. Here, the authors employ satellite imagery survey to map the locations of anthropogenic surface features along the central Peruvian coast. They observe two categories of archaeological features, large corrals and clustered structures, and document a concentration of settlement features within lomas landscapes that suggests a pre-Hispanic preference for both short- and long-term occupation of these verdant oases.

The inability to differentiate skeletal remains belonging to the ferret from those of its wild ancestor, the European polecat, presents a particular challenge for zooarchaeologists which currently hinders a better understanding of ferret domestication history. Using a geometric morphometric approach on the mandible, this study provides a new method to distinguish the two forms. Despite a small sample size and some overlap in the dataset, this method allowed the identification of a (post)medieval specimen from Mechelen (Belgium) as a wild polecat. Results demonstrate that ferrets can largely be distinguished from polecats based on mandibular morphology.

The widespread significance of tobacco in Mesoamerica is documented in historical and ethnographic sources, yet recovery of the organic remains of this plant from archaeological contexts is rare. Here, the authors present evidence for the ritual use of tobacco at Cotzumalhuapa, Guatemala, during the Late Classic period (AD 650–950). Detection of nicotine in residue analysis of three cylindrical ceramic vases recovered from cache deposits near the El Baúl acropolis suggests that these vessels contained tobacco infusions or other liquid preparations. These results suggest an ancient ritual practice involving tobacco for which there was previously no physical evidence in Mesoamerica.