In recent decades, the Eurasian Middle–Upper Palaeolithic (M–UP) transition has been a topic of major interest among palaeoanthropologists. Great progress has been made in several domains, particularly palaeogenetics, which have revealed the complex ancestry of early Eurasians. This progress—including the identification of a ghost lineage of Eurasians in the Middle East—is providing important new biogeographical hypotheses. A key region for such topics is the Iranian Plateau—an area that has so far not been subject to intensive research.

At the end of Antiquity’s ninetieth year, this issue of NBC looks at a selection of new books through the eyes of Antiquity’s founder: O.G.S. Crawford. He died exactly 60 years ago, but were he to be resurrected in 2017, what would he make of archaeology today? What would be familiar? And what developments would surprise him? He would undoubtedly scour Antiquity to bring himself up to date, but he might also turn to some introductory texts for a panorama of the modern archaeological landscape; he would have plenty to choose from.

Is the era of globalisation on the wane or on the cusp of a new phase of extraordinary expansion? US president Trump's abandonment of trade agreements and the rise of protectionism coincide with China's ‘Belt and Road Initiative’, an unprecedented investment in infrastructure across Asia, Europe and North Africa to improve the connectivity of China with its markets by both land and sea. The future is therefore anyone's guess, but what about the past? There has been much discussion by archaeologists about ancient globalisations (most recently, Hodos 2017), but archaeological studies have often typically been set within the looser framework of ‘connectivity’—the interconnectedness of people and places and the movement of material culture and ideas. The books reviewed here are concerned with various aspects of connectivity, focusing on the Eastern Mediterranean and its European hinterland. All of the volumes are edited collections, each adopting a different unifying theme—the influence of Braudel, a single country as microcosm, the transfer of technology, change vs tradition, and the effects of boundaries and frontiers. Do any wider insights into connectivity in the past emerge? And where might archaeological studies of connectivity go next?

Since 2012, the French Mission in Oman has discovered several Palaeolithic sites in the south-eastern foothills of the Sufrat Dishshah (a hill of the Sufrat Valley/Wādī al-Сufrāt), in the Adam region of north-central Oman. These sites are attributed to the Lower through to the Late Palaeolithic (Bonilauri et al. 2015). The 2016 field season was dedicated to further investigation of the previously identified sites of the Sufrat Dishshah area. A number of additional artefacts were located and studied on site; four artefacts—two bifaces and two Nubian cores—were retained for further study. These finds have particular importance for the understanding of Middle Palaeolithic variability and cultural diffusion in Oman, and they represent one of the most significant results of the 2016 Adam expedition.

Evidence for the earliest occupation of Cyprus (c. 11000–8500 cal BC) has been elusive as it often consists of small, diffuse and unobtrusive scatters of debris from stone tool manufacture. Yet tracing these sites is crucial if we are to understand how humans first explored the island, learned to exploit its resources and introduced useful flora and fauna from elsewhere. Our approach to this problem is to employ new methods of pedestrian survey and predictive modelling so as to investigate a route that could have linked the coast and the interior.

Modern research in the Caucasus involving both obsidian artefact characterisation and sourcing enhances our knowledge of the early exploitation and exchange of this raw material (Le Bourdonnec et al. 2012; Montoya et al. 2013; Chatainger & Gratuze 2014; Doronicheva & Shackley 2014; Frahm et al. 2014; Pleurdeau et al. 2016).

The start of sedentary farming and herding in the Middle East transformed social and economic organisation and reshaped ideological structures and artistic representations. Tepe Baluch is a Neolithic settlement on the Neyshabur Plain in north-east Iran. Amongst the ceramic material excavated at the site, one particular sherd is of great interest. It is decorated with two (possibly three) motifs in the form of human figures. For this date and region, such Neolithic iconography is rare, and this short article develops a comparative analysis to explore its significance.

In world archaeology, there has always been a problem regarding the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition. Late twentieth-century research has attempted to address this issue through the recognition of Initial Upper Palaeolithic (IUP) lithic industries. These assemblages were first characterised through evidence from the sites of Boker Tachtit and Ksar Akil (the Levant), and they are now identified in many regions of Eurasia, including Central Asia, the Near East, the Altai Mountains, Transbaikalia, Mongolia and northern China. A characteristic IUP assemblage has also been recently found in Kazakhstan (Ushbulak-1) (Shunkov et al. 2016). Large blades and elongated pointed flakes dominate these assemblages, and there is a prevalence of Upper Palaeolithic tool types in tool sets.

Neolithic societies were defined by the development of agricultural economies not only because part of their diet was obtained from cultivated plants, but also because crop-husbandry practices strongly affected people's lifestyles in a variety of ways. It is therefore unsurprising that the development and diffusion of agriculture can be studied from diverse perspectives and with different approaches, by analysing, for example, the macro- and micro-botanical remains of fruits and grains for morphometric and taxonomic variation (Colledge & Conolly 2007) and genetic history (Mascher et al.2016). Conversely, agriculture can be indirectly assessed through its impact on the environment and subsequent landscape modifications (Zanchetta et al.2013; Mercuri 2014). Yet another approach explores crop-husbandry practices as reflected in changing technology. New agricultural tasks required the adaptation of existing technologies and the adoption of new tools and practices, including querns, millstones and other grain-grinding equipment, as well as artefacts and structures for grain storage, cooking and processing.

Portable energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) has become a widely used tool for the chemical characterisation (source identification) of obsidian found in archaeological contexts. While laboratory techniques such as neutron activation analysis (NAA) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) can analyse more elements and have lower detection limits, pXRF can provide quantitative data of sufficient resolution to be able to match obsidian artefacts with their volcanic sources. At the same time, pXRF offers several advantages for obsidian research: (i) it can be deployed ‘in the field’ (i.e. on site or in a museum) without the need to bring samples back to a laboratory for analysis; (ii) information on elemental composition can be obtained relatively quickly; and (iii) measurements require no special preparation of samples and cause no visible damage to materials.

Over the last five years, excavation of a large, stone, fortified site at Shimao, on the northern edge of the Loess Plateau in Shaanxi Province, China, has radically changed our understanding of the events that precipitated the development of the first bronze casting in central China at Erlitou (Figure 1). An international conference on the Shimao site, held at Shenmu in August 2016, explored many aspects of this major discovery.