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The origin and authenticity of artifacts unearthed outside controlled archaeological excavations pose challenges for archaeologists, especially when they do not fit established patterns in the archaeological record. This article presents a detailed analysis of a stone stela discovered in non-professional circumstances on the Great Hungarian Plain. The stela’s engraved design, previously unknown in the regional archaeological record, closely resembles that of a slab in the Gavrinis passage grave in Bretagne, France. In addition to the provenance of the rock, our investigations specifically focused on the identification of the find context and the authenticity of the engravings. The results thus far support the engravings’ authenticity and suggest that the stela was removed from a Yamnaya kurgan and repurposed several millennia later. We argue that the Kevermes stela testifies to complex dynamics of long-distance mobility and cultural exchange in Europe during the late fourth and the first half of the third millennium BC.

The research investigates the waste management and taphonomy of a Linear Pottery Culture (c. 5600–4900 BC) settlements. Waste deposition significantly shaped the archaeological record of the Early Neolithic in Central Europe and its reconstruction fundamentally influences our perception of the settlement space and the daily life of Neolithic people. Traditionally, it has been assumed that individual households discarded waste near their longhouses. However, findings from the site Hlízov (Czech Republic) reveal a more complex waste management system, with designated disposal areas and differential treatment of various waste types. Additionally, two overlapping waste distribution networks were identified, indicating distinct models of production and waste management organisation. These settlement-wide networks were discovered due to the abandonment of the rigidly used house unit model, which appears to be inadequate for this site.

Neolithic black pottery from continental Eurasia has attracted scholarly interest since the 1930s, yet its diverse production and use remains poorly understood. This study examined 165 black pottery sherds from Fenghuangzui, a walled town in the middle Yangtze River valley of China, to investigate raw materials and technological choices during the Upper Qujialing (5300–4500 cal BP) and Shijiahe (4500–4200 cal BP) periods. Raman analysis confirms that carbon black was the sole colorant, formed through the absorption of carbon particles. Microscopic examinations categorized 104 fine-paste sherds into 4 sub-groups based on surface texture, identifying 3 clay sources (AA, BB, and BB*) through chemical analysis. AA and BB were the primary sources during both periods, while BB and BB* were preferred in the Shijiahe period for higher-quality serving and drinking vessels linked to feasting. Thin-section petrography and thermal expansion curves indicate the use of local raw materials and firing temperatures of 820–920°C. The consistent clay sources and firing conditions suggest stable practices, while the correlation between certain clay sources and finer pots indicates the potter’s adaptability to specific needs, reflecting the active role of Fenghuangzui inhabitants in sociopolitical events during the Shijiahe period.

Occurring throughout the Americas, ceramics with negative decoration have been variously used as archaeological markers of chronology, provenance, ethnic affiliation, or cultural interaction. In the highlands of the adjacent regions of Nariño (Colombia) and Carchi (Ecuador), they are recovered and discussed frequently, but the lack of technical studies has prevented any conclusive inferences about their technology, craft organisation, or diachronic evolution. Here we present the first comparative analysis of the chaînes opératoires of three ceramic wares – Capulí, Piartal, and Tuza – based on a large sample from multiple sites. Combining geometric morphometrics, bulk chemistry, microscopy, and microanalysis, we provide high-resolution characterisation of each ware before comparing their chaînes opératoires . We demonstrate that Capulí and Piartal share decorative features and production pathways, which we interpret as indicating the direct knowledge transmission and interaction between their makers. Similarity in vessel morphology and clay sources between Piartal and Tuza ceramics suggests continuity between these two technological traditions, but new decorative techniques and designs in Tuza vessels are strongly indicative of exogenous influences. This study has implications for regional archaeology but also offers a model for the nuanced comparison of ceramic traditions in other areas (for an extended summary in Spanish, see Supplementary Material).

The aim of this article is to comprehend the significance of superimpositions as social practices and processes and to deconstruct how notions of superimpositions and vandalism have been used in rock art studies. Although attempts in the past have been made to determine why certain motifs were intentionally placed on top of other images, superimposition and vandalism/iconoclasm are often – and unhelpfully – used interchangeably in rock art literature. Interpretations have mostly lingered on the negative connotations of superimpositions, such as the “defacement” of previous motifs. Here, we argue that uncritically categorising certain practices as vandalism – often from the perspective of a Western knowledge system – has a negative influence on interpretations of traditional art systems. Instead, by recognising the active role that past depictions played – and, in some places, continue to play – within contemporary Indigenous communities, we hope to clarify and expand conceptualisations of superimpositions in rock art research. Our case study focusses on superimpositioning in the Kimberley region of Australia.

This article is a Bioarchaeology of Care and Disability focused analysis of an individual who suffered a severe fracture of the left knee in Late Medieval Lund, Scania (1300–1536 CE). We question the degree to which written sources from the period represent the reality of the disability experience, and to that end how identities intersect in the Medieval urban landscape. Following an index of care model methodology, we provide an interpretation of the pathological evidence within the archaeological and historical context of Medieval Lund. In this case, the individual received both short and long-term care, which included treatment of pain and inflammation, assistance with hygiene and nutrition, and the management of disability as a result of physical impairment for the remainder of the individual’s life. Their treatment in death with a prominent burial position close to the church, a symbol of upper social status during the Medieval period, demonstrates that the identity of disability in the past is a much more complex process than can be gleaned from the written sources. Our analysis also employed 3D online visualization and annotation solutions to aid in the analysis and dissemination of our results, making data more accessible to readers and researchers alike.

This article examines open access (OA) publishing within archaeology by using Norway as a case study. The authors present data on research publications ( n = 1,517) produced by archaeologists at Norwegian universities between 2010 and 2021 and classified according to their OA status. The aim is to analyze trends in OA publishing during this period and assess how it aligns with official policies and initiatives from lawmakers, funders, and institutions. The findings indicate a growing proportion of OA publications, with scientific journals emerging as the primary publishing platform during the period. The archaeological publications are also compared with other academic sectors, and the study reveals that the field of archaeology is progressing toward OA at a fast rate compared to the broader humanities sector but slower compared to other academic sectors. The authors suggest that the increasing prevalence of OA publications can primarily be attributed to national and institutional guidelines, rather than changes in researcher behavior, although this works in tandem.

This article focuses on Hagbards galge (in English Hagbard's gallows ), a burial site in south-west Sweden that consists of two stone settings with monumental paired standing stones decorated with rock art. The combination of these different features into one burial site makes the monument unique in a Scandinavian setting. This article aims to contextualize the monument in a European Bronze Age framework. We do this by discussing the stone settings and the standing stones and comparing these to other similar monuments to get an idea of their dating. Furthermore, a new laser scanning documentation has been carried out on the rock art revealing new details and images. Our findings suggest that the monument was constructed in Montelius’ period 4 (1100–900 BC) and that the rock art includes images of a sword and a shield which are atypical for Scandinavia but appear in Central Europe and in the British Isles. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that the people controlling this site held a key position in a communicative network including both land-based and sea-based transportation routes. Altogether, this suggests the burial to be a manifestation of wealth based on international trade networks which were intensified in the twelfth century BC.

This study presents the findings of the 2024 geophysical prospection campaign conducted within the south-western Lower City of the Hellenistic capital Artaxata, situated in the Ararat plain, Armenia. Using advanced magnetic survey techniques, we sought to investigate the urban layout and expansion of the ancient city. The campaign aimed to test hypotheses derived from aerial imagery regarding the existence of city walls in this area, a previously undocumented feature for the Lower City. Spanning approximately 20 ha, the survey revealed an array of archaeological features, including wall structures, ditches, and pits, alongside evidence of domestic and craft activities such as fireplaces. Notably, the findings confirmed the presence of the south-western city walls, delineating a settlement area larger than previously known. Additional discoveries include monumental architectural remains, such as an octagonal structure potentially associated with an early Christian church. However, the interpretation of these structures, including their chronology and function, remains tentative pending further excavation. These results not only extend our understanding of the city’s urban development but also highlight the efficacy of integrating geophysical surveys with archaeological methods in reconstructing historical urban landscapes. Future investigations will focus on resolving ambiguities through targeted excavation and refining interpretations of the magnetic anomalies observed.

Pottery production during the Late Period ( circa 950–1450 AD) in Northwestern Argentina (NWA) was characterized by conservative and household-based production, primarily utilizing local raw materials. During this era, potters engaged in a specific material practice involving the addition of grog (or crushed pottery fragments) to certain ceramic vessels such as infant funerary urns and bowls. This practice was linked to a distinct animistic worldview that shaped how people perceived and connected with various materials and nature. In contrast, Inca pottery ( circa 1450–1532 AD) exhibited a high degree of standardization in terms of form and size. It was produced in a centralized manner across the entire territory, mainly through the labor system known as “ mita ” at various geographical workshops in the Andean region. This article aims to evaluate and discuss how potters during Inca times borrowed the practice of using grog at NWA. It seems to have been a deliberate technological choice adopted by these potters, possibly influenced by practices from the Late Period potters.

Perishable organic raw materials such as plant fibres have been widely used since the time of the earliest human groups, although their poor preservation limits our knowledge of their use. Filling this gap requires a focused search for plant fibre evidence in non-perishable materials. Since teeth are sometimes used in fibre processing, evidence of fibres can be sought in mineralised bacterial plaque, and therefore, its analysis can potentially be useful in the study of plant–human relationships. Experimental protocols have been tested to improve the recovery of microremains in dental calculus, although these are typically focused on microremains other than plant fibres. This article investigates the possibility that plant fibres are identified less often in dental calculus because the corrosive agents used cause their disappearance. Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and hydrochloric acid agents at 0.2 and 0.5 M were applied for 5, 30, 90, and 170 h to six different modern plant fibres considering their use in archaeological craft activities and showed that none of the procedures affected their characteristics. After testing the same approach on medieval control dental calculus samples, a selected methodology (0.5 M EDTA) was applied to ancient dental calculus from the Neolithic site of Cova del Pasteral (La Cellera de Ter, NE Spain) as a case study to identify the plant fibres present in it.

This article explores the pressing need for consistent structured guidance and training in post-excavation (PX) skills within the field of archaeology. This need was identified through consultations with commercial practitioners facilitated by the Federation of Archaeological Managers and Employers as part of the Archaeologist’s Guide to Good Practice (AG2GP-Handbook) project. Through collaborative work with a range of archaeological practitioners across the UK, within the limits of a 1-year AHRC/UKRI budget, the project has successfully developed prototype online resources at https://archgoodpractice.com/ that embody and promote FAIR and sustainable best practices within the commercial archaeological sector for wider public benefit and use internationally. PX skills are critical for transforming and synthesising raw field data into meaningful insights about the past. The AG2GP-Handbook project focused on improving stratigraphic analysis, but this work highlighted that current educational and professional training across the UK, and beyond, often falls short of equipping archaeologists with these capabilities. The article examines related key challenges, such as gaps in university education and continuing professional development, that leave graduates and junior field practitioners ill-prepared for professional PX demands and with a very limited grasp of how their records in the field should be used afterwards.

Digital technologies have become a core component of archaeological and cultural heritage research and “born digital” data sets are now commonplace within the discipline. Yet, despite significant efforts within the digital community, there exists an increasing dichotomy between approaches that make information and data accessible to wide audience and user groups and those that require a significant depth of specialism to access. Broadly speaking, the latter fall into the data analysis and interpretation category, carrying a lag between innovation and wider adoption. Here, we discuss the value of “democratising” these processes. That is to say: how can we open complex digital approaches to as wide a user group as possible? Not in a way that undermines specialisms, but which increases the amount of digital data that can be analysed and interpreted in novel ways. Using the documentation and analysis of carved rock art as a case study, this article aims to stimulate a discussion about the value of democratisation within digital workflows. It defines key terminology and criteria that have an impact on the democratisation process and highlights the importance of self-reflection and “future proofing” in how we publish methods. Ultimately, this article argues that everyone benefits from a broadening approach to digital data capture, analysis, and dissemination and hopes to contribute to the ongoing discussions of “digital affect” and methodological curation within archaeological research.

In Scandinavia, numerous regions with high densities of rock art exist. One notable area is Mälardalen in central Sweden, where rock art, primarily dating from the Bronze Age and featuring various characters and symbolic meanings, is located along the prehistoric Lake Mälaren coastline. This article examines the landscape locations of these carvings in order to identify their distribution patterns. The methods employed include spatial analysis with geographic information system combined with Maxent, a machine learning technique. Geospatial data on the environment, particularly the bedrock, along with information about archaeological sites and the number of carvings, were analyzed. The primary findings reveal a significant correlation between rock art and quartz arenite. Despite covering only 1.6% of the land area in Mälardalen, this bedrock type hosts half of the known rock art. In this study, rock art is defined as images depicting various figures, such as ships, while cup marks are analyzed separately. The study argues that there has been a significant preference for specific rock types in the creation or preservation of rock art. The rock must be sufficiently soft to allow for carvings, yet hard and stable enough to withstand weathering.

The Lengyel culture (4800–4100 calBC), covering Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, is a hotspot for figurative finds, with especially high numbers occurring in Lower Austria, Moravia and Transdanubia. After the end of the Linear Pottery Culture, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines, vessels and applications appear in huge numbers, which is in stark contrast to post-LBK phenomena further to the west, like Hinkelstein–Großgartach–Rössen and the Stroked Pottery Culture (SBK), where such finds are very rare. However, a more fine-grained analysis of the Lengyel culture figurative objects shows that they are not distributed evenly in the course of time. Rather, they appear in large numbers in the first 200 years of this cultural phenomenon and disappear almost completely after 4500/4300 calBC. The article aims to outline the origin, rise and decline of these objects and offers possible explanations for their appearance and fading, which may be related to larger societal changes.

We are presenting a first overview of the ceramic annulets found in Neolithic contexts in the Balkan Peninsula, which we are interpreting as bracelets with a very specific short-term use and function. Based on available information, we are revealing their geographical and chronological distribution. The ceramic bracelets appeared within the first farming communities of the Central Balkans at the break from seventh to sixth millennium BC. They are not abundant, always fragmented and found in residential contexts at Neolithic sites north of the Aegean between 6000 and 5400 BC. The assemblages from the two Neolithic sites Amzabegovo and Svinjarička Čuka, both on the Vardar-Morava neolithization route into Europe, are presented here as case studies. Based on our data, we reveal their physical properties and their place in the ceramic production, their diversity and evolution, as well as their possible function and relation to social aspects as part of the Neolithization process.

The paper presents the results of the archaeogeophysical study carried out in the medieval villa of Rosas (Girona-Spain). The village was built in a space that had already been occupied in Greek and Roman times. In the sixteenth century, a large fortress was built around the town. Once the village was abandoned in the seventeenth century, the site underwent a major conversion process, with the construction of military buildings and the demolition of most of the medieval constructions. When it came to studying the village, its large size (20,000 m 2 ) made it advisable to combine different methodologies and approaches in order to obtain optimum results. Some of the areas analysed by the geophysical surveys were subsequently tested archaeologically in order to verify their reliability, taking into account the specific conditions of the terrain. The combined use of geophysical prospecting, archaeology, and the study of historical planimetry and documentation has made it possible to reconstruct the town planning of the medieval villa, as well as the transformations it underwent after its abandonment.

This study presents an integrated analysis of two nineteenth-century gunflint workshops located in the Wadi Sannur (Eastern Desert, Egypt) and dated from Mehemed Ali’s reign. Our research focuses on the technological analysis of the lithic production from excavated assemblages and a broader survey of the mining area. The workshops are organized in both extraction and manufacturing zones, indicating segmentation of the knapping activities and craft specialization. The lithic assemblages – comprising 4,006 artifacts from four workstations – demonstrate a gunflint manufacturing process similar to those observed in Western Europe. The technological framework of these workstations suggests a flexible organization of knapping stages between the two sites. This raises questions about the identity of the craftspeople and the labor organization within the quarry’s lifespan. The dominant technique involves an integrated blade–debitage system producing standardized, rectangular gunflints of French-English style. Lithic evidence suggests the adoption of a Western European-inspired knapping tradition, aligning with the introduction of imported muskets and locally manufactured French-style firearms in the Egyptian army. Additionally, a secondary technique indicates the presence of Mediterranean-style gunflint production in select workstations. The coexistence of these technical traditions highlights the transfer of chert knapping expertise toward military-industrial strategies under Mehemed Ali’s modernization efforts. It also underscores the complexity of technological transmission in lithic production, shaped by both cultural traditions and functional military requirements.

The Early Neolithic (EN) period (5500–4800 BCE) marks the first sedentary settlement of the Maltese Islands by farmers. Despite advances in petrographic and archaeometric studies of pottery in Maltese archaeology, such methods have rarely been applied to Neolithic assemblages. This study addresses the lack of a systematic, published analysis of EN pottery from Malta, focusing on the Għar Dalam and Skorba facies. Thirty-two sherds from the sites of Skorba (Malta) and Santa Verna (Gozo) were analysed using polarised light microscopy, supplemented by additional characterisation techniques (X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray analysis). Three distinct fabric groups were identified for each facies, primarily differentiated by the nature of their temper. All primary raw materials appear to have been locally sourced, with no direct evidence of imported pottery. The results suggest similarities in production techniques between the two facies, such as paste preparation, alongside differences – particularly in firing regimes. Finally, the use of calcitic tempers reflects a technological tradition consistent with broader Mediterranean practices during the Neolithic.

The present study explores the iconographic and cultural significance of a unique case of microarchitecture from Bohemia in the wider context of ecclesiastical donation imagery in late antique, Byzantine, and early medieval art. It focuses on a stone model of a Romanesque church from the city of Žatec. Dating back to the first half of the twelfth century, this small microarchitecture, depicting a single-nave church with a semicircular apse, is the only surviving example of its kind from the early medieval period in Bohemia. There are extremely few analogies to the Žatec model north of the Alps, and only a few in the eastern regions. This makes the Žatec model a unique testament to the intersection of artistic, architectural, and religious traditions, as well as to the continuity of ancient and Byzantine imagery. Particular focus is placed on the tradition of donors or saints carrying church models as votive offerings, and how this tradition evolved from two-dimensional representations to three-dimensional microarchitecture. The Žatec model provides a rare material instance of this phenomenon, bridging the symbolic and the architectural modus operandi . In searching for possible parallels, attention was given to the use of archaeometric methods to determine the provenance of carbonates, considering the circulation of these materials, products, and patterns in a late antique to early medieval Mediterranean context. To further assess its material provenance, the model was investigated using X-ray powder diffraction, which highlights its role as an artefact of both artistic and archaeological significance. While the model’s original function remains uncertain, its iconographic parallels, most notably with the obverse of the denarius of Svatopluk (1107–1109), suggest strong ties to contemporary visual, ecclesiastical, and political culture. Similar forms of stone microarchitecture are attested only in a few other instances, such as the sculptures of Saint-Denis in France and certain Eastern churches, where church models appear carved on façades or as free-standing, votive representations.

Ancient Anatolia is well known for housing significant artifacts from the Roman period. One such artifact, the Burçevi Monumental Tomb, stands out as a unique example in this region of Anatolia, with no other known parallels, and has not yet been documented in the scientific literature. This study aims to examine the Burçevi Monumental Tomb through both analogical and analytical approaches. The primary goal is to introduce the monument to the archaeological community. In addition to the commonly used analogical methods of archaeology and architectural history, the study integrates innovative analytical techniques. These methods provide insights into the tomb’s architecture, chronology, material composition, and structural durability. The results indicate that the Burçevi Monumental Tomb was locally produced. The fact that this structure is the only known example from the second century AD within the borders of Sivas Province underscores its importance as a reflection of Roman Imperial Period burial traditions in Anatolia.

In this contribution, we present new data from the multi-layered Starčevo site of Svinjarička Čuka in southern Serbia, highlighting its key role in reconstructing processes involved in the dispersal of the Neolithic way of life from Anatolia into Central Europe from the perspective of the chipped stone assemblage. This case study explores factors such as deliberate choices of raw material procurement and the occasional resilience to innovations shaped by local traditions resulting from the ease of access to specific resources versus openness to interconnectivity on a local, regional, and supra-regional scale. In-depth raw material and technological analyses of the chipped stone assemblage from Svinjarička Čuka, which were recovered from three out of altogether six Starčevo occupation phases dating to the middle of the sixth millennium calBC, provide insights into the development of early Neolithic resource management and socio-cultural and economic behavior. The results of our study can be regarded as a reflection of key mechanisms involved in the Neolithization of the central Balkans.

The use of lithotheques, libraries or collections of rocks is relatively recent in archaeological research in Spain. These collections have mostly been formed through isolated initiatives in different institutions, without any scientific strategy to guide their development and growth. The perspective in the last few years has changed substantially as these infrastructures are now regarded as a scientific resource of great interest and potential in research on the mobility of human groups, their contacts, interactions, and subsistence strategies throughout prehistory. However, owing to their territorial scale, the collections had not developed joint initiatives to share data on integrated digital platforms that may be consulted in accordance with a policy of open science. This article presents the first results of a thematic network that aims to solve these deficiencies in Spain. Its first action has been to gather information from thirteen lithotheques of siliceous rocks. The results allow a first diagnosis of their potential and shortcomings, as an initial step towards the development of more extensive future collaborative strategies.

Located in the southwest of the Lycian Xanthos Valley, the harbor city of Patara and its surroundings are surrounded by hills and ravines. Many of these ravines, which are often referred to as streams by the locals, carry water during heavy rainfall, which can sometimes turn into huge torrents. Even today, this poses a threat to the modern village of Gelemiş and the ruins of the ancient city of Patara. It seems that things were not much different in antiquity. Architectural remains that have been uncovered in recent years bear witness to structural measures taken against such risks. These are canals, bridges, or tunnels that form parts of a drainage system. A brief analysis of this drainage system and the topography of the area surrounding the city of Patara provides valuable information that brings us a step closer to locating the oracle sanctuary of Apollo of Patara, which was famous well beyond the region in antiquity. It was probably located north-northeast of today’s marshy harbor bay of Patara.

A concern with ethics and commitments to ethical conduct and standards has increasingly been raised within archaeology, recently also concerning aDNA data. We suggest that codes, whether for working with ancient DNA or other archaeological practices, need to be multi-faceted, or layered, to reflect the different situational contexts of research. We further argue for a more reflexive text addressing “issues of attention” or “concerns.” We address a number of concerns that should be considered and balanced against each other in the research process. They include respect, rights, appropriation, access, and collaboration.

This study presents the use of a new methodological tool for studying the history of ancient religions through social and geographical aspects. NodeGoat, an open-source online software, helps in creating maps and social network charts as well as visualizing the data on a time axis. The study of worshippers of Allat and Atargatis in the Near East and beyond in the Hellenistic and Roman periods focuses more on the people and their role in creating the religioscapes of the goddesses. Through a digital approach, we can visualize the epigraphic data concerning ancient people, their ties with places, gods, and with each other. The charts and maps show the connectivity of distant places, such as Delos, Syrian Hierapolis, Athens, and Rome, and people of different cultural backgrounds who worshipped the goddesses. The database also lists the professions (capacities) of the worshippers, creating a platform for future study on the prosopography of ancient people, especially in the area of cults. This research highlights the importance of setting ancient people and their belief systems in their geographical and social contexts. Last but not least, it points to the necessity of ordering and cataloguing the dispersed epigraphic sources to explain the processes in ancient religions from the bottom-up approach.

Research on how forms of religiosity are produced through the interaction of local, exogenous, and hybrid elements is fundamental for the improvement of religious studies. This becomes particularly noteworthy in the context of the Levant during the Second Millennium BCE when cultural hybridization phenomena played a pivotal role in shaping novel religious beliefs. Such an exploration, in fact, opens up avenues in the process that ultimately led to the emergence of the Israelite monolatry in the First Millennium BCE. To reach this target, the Godscapes project combines a material culture perspective with the Semantic Web, an innovative application of artificial intelligence that will aid researchers in understanding religious phenomena by not only reconstructing inherent missing information within the data but also furnishing a powerful tool to search, query, and visualize them. Hence, the project aims to build “The Godscapes Ontology” (TGO) through a deconstruction process of the elements recognizable in four aspects associated with material religiosity: religious architecture, religious iconography, funerary rituals/beliefs, and religious texts. After introducing the project’s scope and methodology, the article will present the conceptual model for TGO, showing how the aforementioned aspects are related to each other in the construction of religious beliefs and practices. It will further detail the semantic ontology elaborated to model the religious architecture of the Second Millennium BCE Levant. Finally, the interrogation of the dataset through pilot queries in the Semantic Web language (SPARQL) will provide validation of the designed model, and assess the potential applications of the approach.

This article explores the potential of engaging the public in an ongoing interdisciplinary research project on castle inventories at the universities of Salzburg and Innsbruck. Our aim is to create a digital platform that uses inventories as a key to explore the living conditions in late medieval and early modern castles. In this article, we want to give an initial insight into the research project in terms of the theme of this volume: how the digital platform we are creating will contribute to engaging the public with material culture projects. We start from the hypothesis that inventories are neither objective nor simple lists of things, but products of an inventory practice, with traces of this activity, found both in the texts and in the materiality of the archival records. They contain a wealth of information on relations between things, people, activities, rooms, and the words used for them. We use digital methods of text recognition to interpret a corpus of 130 castle inventories from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries in the historical region of Tyrol (Austria/Italy) as historical sources and on castles as social spaces. With ontological modelling and deduction from the archival records, we want to make the historical practice of creating inventories visible and use the information to explore everyday life at the castles. For selected castles, we will combine historical data with results from building history to create virtual room books. Digital tools will allow presenting the relations of objects, spaces, individuals, actions, and social practices and provide results for the scientific community as well as for the interested public.

Hohensalzburg Digital is a Digital Humanities project realized at Salzburg University and dedicated to digitally process and connect room- and object-related information taken from written sources and from building history data on Hohensalzburg Castle. Via digital interfaces, we create the basis for an Austrian Local Time Machine Project on the castle, a popular landmark. In three steps, the project opens up cultural heritage digitally for scientific community and international public alike: (1) The first part is dedicated to digital processing and exploring historical sources on rooms of the castle, their furnishings and function, from the earliest sources dating back to the sixteenth century until 1816 when Salzburg became part of the Habsburg Empire. (2) The second part connects the historical information deduced from the written sources with the results of building research and other work on realia, for example, on the famous tiled stove in the Goldene Stube (Golden Chamber). The digital room book created in this way allows a new comprehensive view on the development, furnishings, and use of the rooms and the whole building as a social space for the people who lived there. (3) The final part prepares the data for incorporation in the Europe Time Machine.

In the Lower Austrian part of the Danube region, known as the Wachau, viticulture as an agrarian form of economy was established to a large extent by monastic estates. From the ninth century onwards at the latest, numerous monasteries in Austria, Salzburg, Bavaria, and Bohemia came into possession of vineyards in the Wachau by donation or purchase. Charters, urbaria, and tax lists document the importance of these mostly far-off properties from the beginning of the thirteenth century. Viticulture played a special role in this process. This is even more remarkable because the distances between the monastery and the estates – the so-called “Lesehöfe” – were sometimes considerable, for example, in the case of the Augustinian canons’ monasteries of Herrenchiemsee (Traunstein, Bavaria) and Höglwörth (Berchtesgaden, Bavaria) or the Benedictine monasteries of Prüfening (Regensburg, Bavaria) and Tegernsee (Miesbach, Bavaria) and the Hochstift Freising. These far-off estates served as an interface for the interests of both local and foreign actors, still visible today in the form of surviving buildings and historical documents and objects. As part of a project, the monastery estates and their historical documents were catalogued to establish a basis for an interdisciplinary analysis of the phenomenon. The essential goal of the project was to record the monastic estates as broadly as possible to create a basis for an interdisciplinary analysis of the phenomenon. Basic groundwork was laid to make the various estates available for the interests of cultural tourism within the Wachau World Heritage region.

This article discusses the Pallasboy Project, an exploration of prehistoric woodworking, based around the “experimental” crafting of replicas of artefacts preserved in waterlogged deposits. These artefacts included the eponymous Pallasboy vessel, an Iron age alder wood trough from Toar Bog, Co. Westmeath, Ireland; the Bronze Age “Red Man of Kilbeg” anthropomorphic figurine; the Lees Island 5 Iron Age log boat; and the Iron Age Ballachulish Goddess, another anthropomorphic figurine, from Scotland. We sketch how the project developed, in an organic way, from small-scale informal interactions with archaeologists and woodworkers, to the involvement of artists, musicians, and diverse members of the “general public.” Some of these connections were fleeting and momentary, others in-depth and extended, but all resulted in equitable exchanges between different individuals, communities of practice, and the core project team. We consider the process in relation to the Irish concept of Meitheal , a practice of reciprocal exchange of labour, for and on behalf of the community. We also reflect on the importance of different spaces and places for the process of re-making and other interactions, and consider the importance of engagements that are unknowable and thus escape our attempts to capture or “archive.”

In recent decades, rural societies have been forced to face major transformations in the context of globalization. Social and economic changes, such as the disappearance of traditional economic bases or the severe process of depopulation and exodus towards urban spaces and, in turn, the aging of the persistent population in rural areas, have been translated into a dynamic of disarticulation that has also affected identities and has brought into question the survival of cultural elements with a long historical diachrony. This context has stimulated the research that different scholars carry out trying to understand the rural world from a complex and multifaceted perspective, but it has also served to draw attention to the need to generate forms of research and knowledge creation more connected to the communities. In this article, we present our experience through the project ConCiencia Histórica , a proposal that we have developed with a school located in a mountain area in northern Spain that uses project-based education and STEAM methodologies and in which we followed our historical and archaeological research in this area as a common thread in its educational programming.

This proposal aims to focus on development-led archaeological research in terms of valuing material cultural heritage investigations and how to engage the audience(s). As a case study, Besoitaormaetxea Baserria , a farmhouse in Berriz (Biscay, Basque Country, Spain), is analysed, where archaeological data and material culture can lead us through the occupation of the landscape and its several phases. The main goal of this proposal is to generate links and relationships and provide value and meaning to heritage, engaging the public(s) and promoting its conservation through its understanding. This initiative leads from a development-led archaeological and historical research, which has resulted in several dissemination activities through community participation. It is, therefore, a project about education and heritage sensitisation, in which possible and multiple lines are used to generate relations and to provide value and meaning – based on historical knowledge– through the stakeholders involved. In this sense, it is set up that archaeological activities and studies, including those carried out from a development-led practice, when provided with the necessary apparatus and contexts of application, are tools with a great ability to attract the audience(s) to build heritage and educators.

The aim of this article is to advocate and raise awareness of the vital need for universal, barrier-free and inclusive scientific dissemination: outreach in which everyone is involved in the whole process, from the design of the activity to its assessment. It starts with some reflections and the practical process used to develop new activities and didactic tools. Three experiences with groups with difficulties in accessing knowledge are then presented. First, we describe a Neolithic cookery workshop for immigrant students with language difficulties, which enabled them to obtain a certificate of professional insertion. Second, we present an archaeological research simulator to explain the scientific method to people with different intellectual disabilities. Third, a giant board game was designed to entertain and make children undergoing cancer treatment experience the challenges of the Neolithic period. Finally, we assess the outcomes of the activities and draw some conclusions.

Museum-excavations – discovering unprovenanced and forgotten objects in museums’ storerooms – open new opportunities for engagement and highlight the consequent necessity to (de-)contextualise the discovered artefacts. Despite being unprovenanced – or even because of that – it is important to make sense of these “ordinary” finds. Developing strategies of unmasking the EXTRAordinary within such objects – an approach which I presented in my work Narrating the Extra the Ordinary has: “Re-excavating” objects in storage rooms of local museums as part of an archaeology of unloved objects as part of the workshop “Excavating the Extra-Ordinary - Challenges & merits of working with small finds” (JGU Mainz, 08–09 April 2019 – Zinn, 2019b) – and communicating them as part of imaginative activities for the wider public and the research community has been at the core of the described cooperative project, aiming at the literal and cultural (re-)discovery of ancient Egyptian artefacts. As Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery serves the local South Wales valleys, it was seen difficult to incorporate the Egyptian collection into the narrative of the museum’s permanent exhibition. The project brings these objects back to life by simultaneously creating different types of cultural representations via academic outputs, exhibitions, storytelling, a Museum of Lies, and artwork inspired by the items. All these methods centre on the materiality of the objects from which different meanings are drawn. This approach connects these objects with several identities in which they are placed. The engagement with all audiences/stakeholders proved crucial for the success of this project and leads to a sustainable interaction with neglected artefacts.

In the past few years, social media has become an integral part of many of our lives. We keep in touch with our friends, find out about the events taking place, follow the news or our favourite celebrities on various social media platforms. In addition to the aforementioned, we can also follow scientific institutions and blogs that expand one’s knowledge in small bites and share interesting facts and news. More and more archaeologists and institutions involved in archaeology (e.g. museums, universities) are discovering this opportunity for scientific communication and are using it with more or less success. Yet, how effectively are these pages able to reach their target audience? What are the most important aspects when creating a successful post, and what are the most interesting topics for non-professionals? Does online scientific communication influence the appreciation of the profession? If so, can its effect be measured at all? Finally, whether we can turn online followers into active participants in offline programs. I had these questions in mind when I launched the questionnaire titled “ The effects of social media and online knowledge dissemination on the social perception of archaeology ” (in short: SMArch) in July 2022. Overall, it was filled out by more than 200 people in less than 2 weeks. Although some of the questions were specifically aimed at investigating the situation in Hungary, the results of the questionnaire may also be enlightening to archaeologists from other countries and backgrounds.

Pottery studies constitute a core domain in archaeology. The establishment of typo-chronologies forms the backbone of most chronological inferences in Mediterranean archaeology in particular. Computational approaches such as network science can help us expand the interpretative and explanatory power of these material frameworks in our understanding of the past. Network science has increasingly become mainstream in archaeology, yet, its applications in Mediterranean archaeology remain uneven and highly differential in scope and depth. In this article, I explore the potential and limitations of network science using three case studies of network analysis from Mediterranean archaeology. Each case study relates to a different research specialization and covers a different time period. I then show some of the potential of network analysis for pottery studies using an example from my own research on late Hellenistic and early Roman pottery from the eastern Mediterranean. This article outlines a way forward in which material specialists closely collaborate with other specialists such as computer scientists to develop new forms of synergy between computational methods and domain knowledge that can lift research outcomes to a higher level.

Across a fragmented landscape, the Neolithic communities of the Zagros Mountains (in modern Iraq and Iran) maintained complex networks of material exchange and knowledge transfer. From the early Holocene, small groups of people explored new ways of doing and being in the world, sharing innovative ideas with one another through tangible material media. Drawing on research at sites in the Central Zagros, case studies illustrate differing approaches to the curation of networks amongst the inhabitants of highland and lowland landscapes from the Epipalaeolithic to the Chalcolithic. Through key material strands and shared networks of practice, we can identify catalysing factors behind the growth of communication networks in the Early Neolithic and consider the implications of intensified connections. The research addresses transects through time and landscapes through inter-disciplinary research at PPNA Sheikh-e Abad and Jani in the high Zagros of Iran and in the Zagros foothills at Epipalaeolithic Zarzi Cave, a PPNA open-air site Zawi Chemi Rezan, PPNB Bestansur, and Shimshara in the Kurdish Region of Iraq. This article examines material case studies from these sites and considers how engagement with networks was selective and contingent for individual communities.

This article argues that the landscape attributes of a network are an influential factor in the network’s formation and function. By this, we mean that the realities of terrain and environment affect both physical and social networks in ways that can be productively incorporated into network analyses. Using two case studies from the sites of Buweib and the Paneion of the Wadi Minayh in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, we illustrate how landscape performs as an actor in the networks of the Graeco-Roman period, influencing the location of network “weak-tie” nodes and functioning as a medium of communication that, through practices of landscape marking, allows information to be exchanged between travelers, across language and cultural barriers, and even across millennia. These inscribed stopping places act as vibrant spaces of exchange in the desert by exercising an influence on how people interact physically and conceptually with the landscape.

This paper constructs networks, using social network analysis, of Delian maritime trade and the diffusion of art and architectural styles from Mediterranean locations to Delos in the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods. The dataset used is based on a selection of published archaeological finds and other primary sources supported by modern scholarship. Primary sources include art and architecture, evidence of commercial exchange from the archaeological record and ancient textual sources. Also considered is the large corpus of honorary and dedicatory inscriptions at Delos, mainly from the early Hellenistic period, and whether ethnicity also relates to trade or locations influential in Delian art and architecture. Art influences include the representation and practice of cults manifested in both direct copying of styles, hybrid productions and syncretism. Subject to the limitations discussed, this approach illustrates the extent to which trade and the influences of art and architecture originate from the same source and less so in relation to the ethnicity of inscriptions. The maps for each period demonstrate how trade, art and architectural influences changed diachronically and in sync with changing political powers. This demonstrates the tolerance of the island to outside influences, a cosmopolitan, tolerant melting pot of peoples, cultures and cults.

The article presents an early test case of the author’s ongoing project, in which she utilises aspects of social network analysis (SNA) to study social and economic life under Ptolemaios II Philadelphos and Ptolemaios III Euergetes as reflected in the largest surviving private archive from Ancient Egypt, the so-called Zenon Archive. Spanning a limited period of some 35 years (263–229 BCE), the c. 1845 documents of this archive reveal a wealth of information about individuals living under various conditions in Egypt and beyond. Since several places and persons are attested across more than one document, relational and attribute data retrieved from them can be meaningfully conceptualised and modelled as 1-partite and k -partite networks. With a case study of texts predating or written while Zenon travelled and worked as the financial minister’s private agent in the Levant, the author demonstrates how formal methods of SNA can be used to map, visualise, and analyse 3-partite networks of people and places mentioned in ancient texts. Finally, she reflects on what doing so on a larger scale may teach us.

Procopius of Caesarea’s work Buildings (ca. 550) is often used by archaeologists as a source of information on the building works of the eastern Roman emperor Justinian (r. 527–565 CE). Procopius’ own literary agenda, however, makes direct interpretation of the information he presents difficult, whether it comes to understanding the form of lost works, or understanding the historicity of his claims of patronage for Justinian. Network visualizations can provide an easy-to-interpret overview of differences between Procopius and information scattered throughout historiography in multiple languages, and other sources such as archaeology and epigraphy. In this work, we demonstrate the applicability of network theory by applying it to intra- and extratextual networks comprising urban patrons and building projects mentioned in Book 1 of the Buildings , on Constantinople. The clear diagrams generated as a result provide a “network perspective” on the complex historiographical and archaeological data, and provide a starting point for qualitative analysis of Procopius’s literary strategy. This in turn enhances the potential for informed use of the text as a source for historical reconstruction of the material past.