Volume 7, Issue 1

The paper explores the phenomenon of rock art found in and around rock art cavities in Trans-Baikal region of South-East Siberia. Although many researchers noticed that caves have had a special value in cultures around the globe, no research has been carried out specifically into the cave rock art of Trans-Baikal which was not distinguished from other rock art found in open localities and shelters. This study was conducted based on field data collected by the author in 2017. In order to answer the question whether the cave sites had a specific role in the cultures of Bronze Age Trans-Baikal, the sets of motifs of the cave sites were compared to those of the closest open sites. Drawing on the stylistic difference revealed by the analysis and landscape context, it is suggested that the cave rock art sites could be places where rituals of more restricted nature took place. Ethnographic records may imply that these ceremonies were aimed at the fertility increasing being performed by shamans or shamannesses or without their assistance. It is also possible that the ceremonies could be gender-exclusive, conducted only for women, although this interpretation needs further research.

The archaeological discussion still appears to largely disregard the role of natural resources in the early agricultural economy of Central Europe. Cereal cultivation and animal husbandry strategies remain a central area of studies. Wild resources are the only proxy data helping to reconstruct the strategies mentioned above. The data for the assessment of the wild resource role in consumption strategies are scarce. Plant and animal remains preserved within the archaeological sites represent one of the very few sources of information. The dominant funeral rite – cremation – leaves no opportunity for insight into the human bones’ diet composition signatures. This study’s primary goal is to gather in one place all information concerning wild resource food use based on archaeological data, which is scattered through various publications. The study’s time scope corresponds to Lusatian, post-Lusatian (Pomeranian Face Urn Culture), and contemporary cultures (Western Baltic Kurgans Culture). It covers roughly the time span 1400–400 BC, which is the late Bronze and early Iron Ages. Only data from a homogenous settlement context was included within the presented review. Although the reviewed literature methodology does not always meet the modern standard, it still offers insight into broader plant and animal food use in the past. The animal bone analysis is usually based on hand-collected bone material or sifted soil samples. Malacological materials come from sampled features. Some clam mussels were also identified among the bone materials submitted for zooarchaeological analysis. All plant materials come from sampled features undergoing soil analysis.

This article presents a comparison of material records of two nearby regions on the coast of the Bothnian Bay. The timeframe is 5300–2000 BCE. The focus is on regional differences, which indicate a schizmogenesis of communal identities. The study calls for a reorientation of research concerning Fennoscandian prehistory. More attention should be paid to localized prehistories. It is argued that when prehistoric society is used as a fundamental group category, especially in the context of forager communities, the modern concept of state society distorts the underlying framework. Focusing on the regional level by constructing local prehistoric narratives limits the anachronistic effect and allows the proliferation of local communal identities. Such local prehistories, when collated and compared, offer a pathway to understanding prehistoric stateless societies, which are misrepresented by simplistic material cultural zones and the inherent homogeny ingrained within the concept of society. In this paper, the analysis is focused on practices representing local traditions. Two divergent themes that arise from the local prehistoric narratives are the Late Mesolithic use of local stone materials and regional changes in Neolithic dwelling forms.

This paper presents a new rapid, low-cost method for the large-scale documentation of pottery sherds through simultaneous multiple 3D model capture using Structure from Motion (SfM). The method has great potential to enhance and replace time-consuming and expensive conventional approaches for pottery documentation, i.e., 2D photographs and drawing on paper with subsequent digitization of the drawings. To showcase the method’s effectiveness and applicability, a case study was developed in the context of an investigation of the Phoenician economy at the Lebanese site of Tell el-Burak, which is based on a large collection of amphora sherds. The same set of sherds were drawn by an experienced draftsperson and then documented through SfM using our new workflow to allow for a direct comparison. The results show that the new technique detailed here is accessible, more cost-effective, and allows for the documentation of ceramic data at a far-greater scale, while producing more consistent and reproducible results. We expect that these factors will enable excavators to greatly increase digital access to their material, which will significantly enhance its utility for subsequent research.

We carried out a full-coverage survey of the Yautepec Valley in the 1990s to reconstruct demography and settlements and their changes through time. We investigated the extent to which well-documented developments in the adjacent Basin of Mexico were paralleled in Yautepec, as well as the impact of regional empires and economies on local society. Our analyses focused on Teotihuacan relations in the Classic period and relations with the Aztec empire and the Mesoamerican world system in the Middle and Late Postclassic periods. In addition to locating, mapping, and describing sites and taking grab-bag artifact collections, we also made a series of systematic intensive surface collections (5 × 5 m) and test excavations at samples of Classic and Postclassic sites. In this paper, we describe the survey and changing settlement patterns in the Yautepec Valley. We also present several analyses of changing patterns of urbanization through the Prehispanic era. We conclude with a synthesis of changing social and cultural dynamics in this region.

This paper investigates water bodies in the Greek colony of Selinus, Western Sicily-Italy. It focuses especially on one of the two rivers of the city: the Cottone. The investigative strategy adopted in this study consists of an interdisciplinary approach based on the analysis of archaeological evidence, Earth Sciences data, and the study of historical cartography. Results indicate that the Cottone River was not a swampy and unhealthy intermittent stream as it was believed so far; it was instead a fully functional water body featuring an active floodplain. Most importantly, research presented in this article indicates several floods occurred in Selinus from the second or third quarter of the sixth century BC to the end of the fifth century BC. These floods, which occurred at the peak of Selinus’ cultural and economic life, were related to severe major events, rather than seasonal floods, as suggested by other scholars. The management of these floods and the waterscape was crucial to the city’s prosperity. This article also analyzes the relationship between the Cottone River and the fortification walls located at the Cottone River Valley. Results indicate that the fortification walls functioned not only as a defensive infrastructure, but also as a hydraulic engineering solution for flood retention. A better understanding of the environment in which Selinus was settled is now available, and knowledge on the importance of waterscapes and their management has been enhanced.

Andronovo culture is the largest Eurasian formation in the Bronze Age, and it had a significant impact on neighboring regions. It is the important culture for understanding many historical processes, in particular, the origins and migration of Indo-Europeans. However, in most works there is a very simplified understanding of the scientific problems associated with this culture. The history of its study is full of opposing opinions, and all these opinions were based on reliable grounds. For a long time, the existence of the Andronovo problem was caused by the fact that researchers supposed they might explain general processes by local situations. In fact, the term “Andronovo culture” is incorrect. Another term “Andronovo cultural-historical commonality” also has no signs of scientific terminology. Under these terms a large number of cultures are combined, many of which were not related to each other. In the most simplified form, they can be combined into two blocks that existed during the Bronze Age: the steppe (Sintashta, Petrovka, Alakul, Sargari) and the forest-steppe (Fyodorovka, Cherkaskul, Mezhovka). Often these cultures are placed in vertical lines with genetic continuity. However, the problems of their chronology and interaction are very complicated. By Andronovo cultures we may understand only Fyodorovka and Alakul cultures (except for its early stage); however, it is better to avoid the use of this term.

In 1955, a figure, representing a comic actor, was discovered on a spoil heal in the Roman Fort of Iža. It is a unique find without close parallels in the whole of the Roman Empire, making it difficult to determine from which object it was derived or what was its function. The results of new research are presented here and demonstrate the object is a fragment of a luxury, figural knife handle made from bone rather than ivory. It was probably produced in a provincial workshop under a Mediterranean influence where similar figures, though from different materials, occur throughout the second century.

This paper offers an overview of Roman Melite: the paper examines the epigraphic evidence for the topography of the urban centres of Gaulos and Melite in particular, the activities of wealthy benefactors and the civic government of the municipia through benefactions to the Temples to Apollo and Proserpina and dedications to the Imperial Cult. There is only limited evidence for the buildings themselves apart from the Domus Romana that was discovered on the outskirts of Rabat in 1881. The urban area appears to have been in decline by the fourth century AD despite the presence of a Late Roman see and Byzantine officials. The paper concludes with the abandonment of the island as a consequence of the Aghlabid sack of 870.

The archaeological site of the Domus Romana in Rabat, Malta was excavated almost 100 years ago yielding artefacts from the various phases of the site. The Melite Civitas Romana project was designed to investigate the domus , which may have been the home of a Roman Senator, and its many phases of use. Pending planned archaeological excavations designed to investigate the various phases of the site, a team from the Institute for Digital Exploration from the University of South Florida carried out a digitization campaign in the summer of 2019 using terrestrial laser scanning and aerial digital photogrammetry to document the current state of the site to provide a baseline of documentation and plan the coming excavations. In parallel, structured light scanning and photogrammetry were used to digitize 128 artefacts in the museum of the Domus Romana to aid in off-site research and create a virtual museum platform for global dissemination.

The discovery of a set of ashlar blocks uncovered at the waters’ edge at Ramla l-Ħamra Bay in Gozo has prompted a series of assessments to understand if the exposed archaeological remains were an already known part of a Roman villa complex investigated in 1911 or whether these were a new addition. The study presents the results of the research undertaken through a series of on-site surveys and desktop studies confirming a new addition to the already known villa complex. The new discoveries are discussed within the light of the published sources and provide additional interpretations of the site. This study also provides an opportunity to reconsider the new discoveries and makes a case for a renewed interest for archaeological investigations which could shed more light on the remains of the Roman bathhouse as well as its environmental setting.

The archaeological study of the Maltese Islands has received considerable scholarly attention in regard to its island settings and long-term human occupation. However, emphasis on the prehistoric periods of the archipelago runs the risk of creating a biased focus with limited engagement in successive periods. In the spirit of this edited volume, the present article seeks to provide a broader chronological view of two rural areas in the larger island of Malta: Ta’ Qali and ix-Xarolla. These two areas have offered some evidence, through intermittent discoveries from recent construction activities, of three broad periods of increased landscape manipulation and transformation during the Middle-Late Bronze Age, Roman, and Early Modern periods. In seeking to provide an islandscape-based narrative, this article seeks to show that the Maltese Islands experienced periods of more intense human occupation that would have inevitably impacted the agriculturally viable areas of Ta’ Qali and ix-Xarolla. Therefore, despite the Roman period focus of this edited volume, this article takes a long-term view of two rural areas to illustrate identifiable landscape uses and changes.

The Maltese funerary context during the Punic and Roman times is documented from discoveries and archaeological reports primarily from the twentieth century. Notwithstanding, documentation standards in the first half of the last century were such as to provide limited archaeological data to properly understand the context, phasing and ritual. The combination of robust policy-driven archaeological monitoring procedures together with a scientific excavation of reported discoveries is essential to provide fresh archaeological data which must necessarily be published within adequate time frames. This will by no small means contribute to the formulation of a proper national research agenda by identifying lacunae as well as giving rise to new research questions. This study draws attention to the survival of archaeology seen as limited stratigraphic contexts that have persevered through the centuries and the continuous exploitation of the site. It is a case study of the application of a stratigraphic scientific approach to a recent archaeological discovery during archaeological monitoring, providing ample data with regard to funerary reuse and associated practices and rituals together with an in-depth osteological observation of skeletal remains therein discovered.

Roman Malta has been the subject of numerous historical and archaeological studies since the seventeenth century. However, the lack of documented excavations and the restricted number of sites – particularly those within the boundaries of the two main Roman towns – meant that numerous grey areas persist in our understanding of the islands under Roman rule, regardless of how many studies have been done so far. This article attempts to provide an overview of past works, studies and a discussion of the known consensus on knowledge of sites, populations and economies. This in an attempt to provide a clear picture of what we know (and what we do not) about Roman Malta. Finally, I will comment on current and new research and projects which are being carried out by various local entities and foreign institutions to enhance our knowledge of this very important historic era for the Maltese islands. This culminates into a proposal for the use of a predictive model that may help us identify new sites and, consequently, provide new data on this phase.

The Roman Domus in Mdina, Malta, has become an idealised example of the Roman presence in the Maltese Islands; the partial remains of a lavishly decorated domus that would have in its time been situated within the walls of the urbanised Roman city of Melite. The site, last excavated more than 100 years ago, is also home to the only museum in the Maltese Islands, which is solely dedicated to house and showcase a collection of artefacts that date from the Roman period in Maltese history. This site alone provides a unique perspective on Roman Malta, being our only substantial remnant from the Roman Maltese capital, and needs a refocused and renewed exploration. For a long time, the archaeology of Roman sites in Malta has suffered a distinct lack of priority, and it has only been in the last two decades that considerably more focus has been placed on understanding the Roman period. Most of the archaeological focus, in this respect, has centred on agricultural villas, and though this study has illuminated a better understanding of the Roman period, very little has been undertaken in the last century in piecing together the importance of urban Melite to the broader nature of life in the islands, as well as their place in the larger context of the central Roman Mediterranean. The Melite Civitas Romana Project offers the potential of new understanding of the domus and the surrounding archaeological environment through a modern exploration of the site and the promise of the first available assemblage of Roman material from an urban Roman context.

New investigations on Ustica (Palermo, Sicily) originated from the need to improve our knowledge of the island’s archaeological and environmental heritage. Through field surveys, particular attention was paid to human occupation in the Neolithic phases and focused on the less investigated southern side of the island. The systematic survey of the area of Piano dei Cardoni in 2018 brought to light a new Middle/Late Neolithic site, already partially documented in the literature. The island was settled for the first time during these phases, as also testified from the area of Punta Spalmatore. The presence of Serra d’Alto, incised dark burnished, and Diana styles suggests that the site and the archaeological assemblage dates from the mid to late 5th millennium BC, as confirmed by AMS dating. In addition to pottery, obsidian artifacts were also recovered, and a preliminary study of these materials is presented here. Portable XRF analyses on a sample of 41 obsidian artifacts, representing a high percentage of the lithic assemblage compared to chert tools, show that the provenance of the raw material is Gabellotto Gorge (Lipari) and Balata dei Turchi (Pantelleria). These results provide new insight into broader regional debates about obsidian technology and its exchange during the Neolithic and open an important consideration for sites that are far from the raw material sources.

The paper presents the results obtained by techno-typological analysis of a lithic assemblage from the Neolithic layers of Grotta San Michele Arcangelo di Saracena (Cosenza) together with the results of micro-wear analysis obtained from a preliminary selection of obsidian artifacts with different provenances distinguished by pXRF analysis. The site provides one of the best preserved Neolithic sequences in the area, from the earliest Impressed Wares (or Impresse Arcaiche ) (early sixth millennium BC) to the Spatarella pottery style (end fifth – early fourth millennium BC). Along the Neolithic sequence, it is possible to observe some major changes within lithic resources management. In particular, it is possible to notice some techno-typological breakages between the Early Neolithic and the further stages, until the second phase of the Late Neolithic, when another rupture, corresponding to the Spatarella facies, is evident.

In this study, we introduce the themes of the Special Issue on Art, Creativity and Automation. Sharing 3D Visualization Practices in Archaeology , and present the most important outcomes of a roundtable session involving prominent researchers in the field, organized by the authors during the Archon Winter School in February 2020. By assessing the diversity of research aims, artistic projects, creative practices and technology used in the contributions to the Special Issue, and drawing on the thoughts and perspectives generated during the roundtable discussion, we seek to identify shared challenges within the community of visualizers which could ultimately pave the way to shared practices. In this light, we assess whether established charters and guidelines are still relevant in a now matured digital archaeology, where visualization techniques have attained a central position in archaeological knowledge production. Although parts of the guidelines have become common practice, the remainder did not keep up with the fast pace of development of digital practice and its current fundamental role in archaeology, and as a result some of the guidelines risk becoming obstructive in archaeological creative practice.

This paper describes our creative responses to a surface assemblage (a scatter) of lithic artefacts encountered on either side of a worn track across a field early on in the pandemic. Our art/archaeology response takes place within a phygital nexus in which artefacts or assemblages can be instantiated either physically or digitally, or both. In the nexus we create, connect and explore an ontological multiplicity of – more or less – physical and digital skeuomorphs and other more standard forms of records for sharing (i.e. Latour’s immutable mobiles, such as photographs), but rendered with radically different properties and affordances, at different scales, with different apparatus. These include interactive Reflectance Transformation Images, graphical surface models, machine intelligence style transfer, and 3D prints, all of which were produced in a variety of isolated analytical “bubble” settings and transmitted to and from (both digitally and physically) a home office in an isolated Hampshire village and a home studio in a London suburb. Our approach is to describe, diffractively, the ontological shifts and itineraries associated with some of these objects and assess how this assemblage came to matter as an art/archaeology installation. Ultimately, some of these deterritorialised, (re)colourised, affective, biodegradable, and diffractively born metamorphic instars, now inscribed with new meanings, are returned to the original findspot of the lithics to be (re)discovered.

This paper presents our ongoing work in the Virtual Interiors project, which aims to develop 3D reconstructions as geospatial interfaces to structure and explore historical data of seventeenth-century Amsterdam. We take the reconstruction of the entrance hall of the house of the patrician Pieter de Graeff (1638–1707) as our case study and use it to illustrate the iterative process of knowledge creation, sharing, and discovery that unfolds while creating, exploring and experiencing the 3D models in a prototype research environment. During this work, an interdisciplinary dataset was collected, various metadata and paradata were created to document both the sources and the reasoning process, and rich contextual links were added. These data were used as the basis for creating a user interface for an online research environment, taking design principles and previous user studies into account. Knowledge is shared by visualizing the 3D reconstructions along with the related complexities and uncertainties, while the integration of various underlying data and Linked Data makes it possible to discover contextual knowledge by exploring associated resources. Moreover, we outline how users of the research environment can add annotations and rearrange objects in the scene, facilitating further knowledge discovery and creation.

Archaeological collections are crucial in heritage studies and are used every day for training archaeologists and cultural heritage specialists. The recent developments in 3D acquisition and visualization technology has contributed to the rapid emergence of a large number of 3D collections, whose production is often justified as the democratization of data and knowledge production. Despite the fact that several 3D datasets are now available online, it is not always clear how the data – once stored – may be engaged by archaeology students, and the possible challenges the students may face in the learning process. The goal of the Dynamic Collections project at Lund University is to develop a novel 3D web infrastructure designed to support higher education and research in archaeology. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, all teaching at Lund University moved online, reinforcing the urgency for such an infrastructure. By letting a group of students test an early version of the system as part of their online teaching, we were able to study how they used and interacted with an archaeological collection in 3D and explore the intersection of digital methods and pedagogy in archaeology. This article presents the preliminary results from this experiment.

Visualization techniques may have changed over the years, but have they fundamentally changed archaeological visual literacy and the ways archaeologists create knowledge? Or do new digital tools merely disguise conventional practices? The answer may reside in a deeper understanding of the long tradition of visualization practice, from the Renaissance to the present, for which the foundation lies in the activities of antiquarians and artists, as well as artistic, technical, and scientific innovations. This paper presents an historical synopsis of two usually separated but complementary research areas, digital archaeology and archaeological visualization, and builds on previous research undertaken on these traditionally separated subjects. By taking a slightly Dutch perspective I will introduce a few visualizing protagonists who have left substantial traces in our collective visual memory, aiming to contribute to a more inclusive historical narrative on archaeological visualization. The overview ends with an integrated discussion on the shared creative visual practice and its epistemic role in archaeological knowledge production. A praxis-oriented and reflexive approach to the history of visualization provides a critical understanding of the current workings of 3D visualization as a creative practice, and how archaeology responds and acts upon innovations and the adoption of new visualization technology.

The development of digital technologies and the use of advanced photogrammetry programs for modeling archaeological excavations and sites have opened new possibilities for spatial analysis in archaeology and the reconstruction of archaeological contexts. In addition, these tools allow us to visually preserve the features of archaeological sites for future use and facilitate the dissemination of archaeological heritage to local communities and the general public. This paper summarizes 3D photographic visualization of three cave art sites (Los Cayucos and Cueva No. 1 in Punta del Este, Cuba, and José María Cave in the Dominican Republic) and two burial spaces (Canímar Abajo and Playa del Mango, Cuba) using photogrammetry software. The application of these novel methods at the cave art sites allowed us to visualize faint pictographs that were invisible to the naked eye, to better define the shapes of petroglyphs and to reconstruct the position of lost/removed panels. At the burial sites, 3D modeling allowed us to register the archaeological context with greater precision. The use of 3D modeling will improve spatial analysis and data safeguarding in Cuban archaeology. Moreover, 3D movies are an effective way to disseminate knowledge and connect local communities with their cultural heritage, while reducing the impact of public visits to remote or endangered sites.

Digital reconstruction and visualization of archaeological sites are beneficial not only for public edification and admiration, but they can also significantly contribute to the site interpretation process. By going beyond basic modeling scenarios, one can apply 3D analyses for accurately testing visibility and lighting parameters, among other aspects. Based on the results of these tests, further insights can be extrapolated about the lived experience of culturally specific ancient peoples. The case of a Roman “villa” at Apollonia-Arsuf in Israel presents the opportunity to apply these informal techniques to a household shrine, or niche-style lararium , found within the building in order to ascertain sightline visibility based on the architectural plan and visual impact as a result of artificial illumination from ceramic lamps. This paper also considers how photorealistic visualizations aid in phenomenological areas of research through sensory archaeology and sense of place, which in turn encourages reflection on the political, social, and religious meanings of the built environment. When we combine the power and diverse applications of 3D visualization technology with decades of research about Roman architecture, culture, religion, and social norms, the result is a step closer to recreating archaeological remnants and, in turn, understanding the ancient experience.

Museums have been increasingly investing in their digital presence. This became more pressing during the COVID-19 pandemic since heritage institutions had, on the one hand, to temporarily close their doors to visitors while, on the other, find ways to communicate their collections to the public. Virtual tours, revamped websites, and 3D models of cultural artefacts were only a few of the means that museums devised to create alternative ways of digital engagement and counteract the physical and social distancing measures. Although 3D models and collections provide novel ways to interact, visualise, and comprehend the materiality and sensoriality of physical objects, their mediation in digital forms misses essential elements that contribute to (virtual) visitor/user experience. This article explores three-dimensional digitisations of museum artefacts, particularly problematising their aura and authenticity in comparison to their physical counterparts. Building on several studies that have problematised these two concepts, this article establishes an exploratory framework aimed at evaluating the experience of aura and authenticity in 3D digitisations. This exploration allowed us to conclude that even though some aspects of aura and authenticity are intrinsically related to the physicality and materiality of the original, 3D models can still manifest aura and authenticity, as long as a series of parameters, including multimodal contextualisation, interactivity, and affective experiences are facilitated.

The reconstruction of past mortuary rituals and practices increasingly incorporates analysis of the taphonomic history of the grave and buried body, using the framework provided by archaeothanatology. Archaeothanatological analysis relies on interpretation of the three-dimensional (3D) relationship of bones within the grave and traditionally depends on elaborate written descriptions and two-dimensional (2D) images of the remains during excavation to capture this spatial information. With the rapid development of inexpensive 3D tools, digital replicas (3D models) are now commonly available to preserve 3D information on human burials during excavation. A procedure developed using a test case to enhance archaeothanatological analysis and improve post-excavation analysis of human burials is described. Beyond preservation of static spatial information, 3D visualization techniques can be used in archaeothanatology to reconstruct the spatial displacement of bones over time, from deposition of the body to excavation of the skeletonized remains. The purpose of the procedure is to produce 3D simulations to visualize and test archaeothanatological hypotheses, thereby augmenting traditional archaeothanatological analysis. We illustrate our approach with the reconstruction of mortuary practices and burial taphonomy of a Bell Beaker burial from the site of Oostwoud-Tuithoorn, West-Frisia, the Netherlands. This case study was selected as the test case because of its relatively complete context information. The test case shows the potential for application of the procedure to older 2D field documentation, even when the amount and detail of documentation is less than ideal.

This contribution analyses and discusses the use of 3D technology in education and learning. Basing the discussion on a case study performed during two seasons of a field school for 1st-year archaeology students, we explore how to expand traditional didactic programs by developing and testing a web-based system for educational purposes. We examine how these technologies can be used as educational means and supporting tools during an excavation; how universities can incorporate these technologies into pedagogy. We investigate whether the combination of these technologies with a successful pedagogical theory could promote students’ comprehension of the reflexive approach and engagement with the interpretative process. We introduced the students to a complete excavation methodology, including excavation, documentation, data management, and interpretation. Alongside the traditional documentation, a digital approach was added, with 3D technologies and an Interactive Visualisation System that allows fully three-dimensional reasoning from the beginning and throughout the whole archaeological process. Preliminary results show that students easily incorporate 3D documentation into their toolbox for analysing and visualising the material and understand both the possibilities and limitations of the system. However, we identified some limitations in the students’ use of the system. Together with the students’ feedback, we will use them to develop it further and discuss its use in education.

Digital technologies have been at the heart of fieldwork at the Kaymakçı Archaeological Project (KAP) since its beginning in 2014. All data on this excavation are born-digital, from textual, photographic, and videographic descriptions of contexts and objects in a database and excavation journals to 2D plans and profiles as well as 3D volumetric recording of contexts. The integration of structure from motion (SfM) modeling and its various products has had an especially strong impact on how project participants interact with the archaeological record during and after excavation. While this technology opens up many new possibilities for data recording, analysis, and presentation, it can also present challenges when the requirements of the recording system come into conflict with an archaeologist’s training and experience. Here, we consider the benefits and costs of KAP’s volumetric recording system. We explore the ways that recording protocols for image-based modeling change how archaeologists see and manage excavation areas and how the products of this recording system are revolutionizing our interaction with the (digital) archaeological record. We also share some preliminary plans for how we intend to expand this work in the future.

3D data captured from archaeological excavations are frequently left to speak for themselves. 3D models of objects are uploaded to online viewing platforms, the tops or bottoms of surfaces are visualised in 2.5D, or both are reduced to 2D representations. Representations of excavation units, in particular, often remain incompletely processed as raw surface outputs, unable to be considered individual entities that represent the individual, volumetric units of excavation. Visualisations of such surfaces, whether as point clouds or meshes, are commonly viewed as an end result in and of themselves, when they could be considered the beginning of a fully volumetric way of recording and understanding the 3D archaeological record. In describing the creation of an archaeologically focused recording routine and a 3D-focused data processing workflow, this article provides the means to fill the void between excavation-unit surfaces, thereby producing an individual volumetric entity that corresponds to each excavation unit. Drawing on datasets from the Kaymakçı Archaeological Project (KAP) in western Turkey, the article shows the potential for programmatic creation of volumetric contextual units from 2D point cloud datasets, opening a world of possibilities and challenges for the development of a truly 3D archaeological practice.

This study developed a framework to evaluate, in the context of COVID-19, the performance of an OVRWCHT (online 360° virtual reality world cultural heritage tourism) system created by the authors for the purpose of heritage interpretation and presentation. The research framework was based on the seven main principles of the ICOMOS Charter for the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites, and evaluation criteria were established for each. This framework was used to evaluate an OVRWCHT for the Hailongtun Tusi World Heritage Site in Guizhou Province, China. Data were mainly based on 1,062 questionnaires and analyses of the developed system. The findings indicated that, whether in terms of user experience or the interpretation of the UNESCO criterion “outstanding universal value,” Stakeholders agreed that OVRWCHT has played a positive role in heritage interpretation. Yet, more data support is needed to improve both technology and theory – especially the transferability of OVRWCHT to countries other than China. Based on the findings, it is suggested that the International Council on Monuments and Sites should continue to issue charters on how emerging technologies can support heritage site interpretation and presentation.

The archaeological project on the hill of Poggio Imperiale began in 1992. From the beginning this project was characterized by intense experimentation with a range of IT applications. During 2014, the University of Siena began a new project focused on the valorisation of archaeological data with the creation of an Open-Air Museum of the Carolingian village, one of the archaeological phases of the settlement. Over the last several years, the use of three-dimensional (3D) data in archaeology has increased exponentially due to the application of photogrammetry to record every stratigraphic unit. This ever-increasing amount of data fostered the development of the C.A.P.I. project (Collina Accessibile di Poggio Imperiale – Accessibility of the Hill of Poggio Imperiale), which involved the construction of a 3D model of the archaeological area of Poggio Imperiale. The project modeled the three main life stages of the hill using 3D computer graphics. Virtual tours can be experienced through PCs, tablets, smartphones, and even virtual reality headsets, offering users a fully immersive experience. However, virtual reality will not be a replacement for the materiality of the archaeological site. On the contrary, it will provide an additional tool to make the site accessible and inclusive to any potential visitor, regardless of physical distance, physical ability, or time zone.

A key development in archaeology is the increasing agency of the digital tools brought to bear on archaeological practice. Roles and tasks that were previously thought to be uncomputable are beginning to be digitalized, and the presumption that computerization is best suited to well-defined and restricted tasks is starting to break down. Many of these digital devices seek to reduce routinized and repetitive work in the office environment and in the field. Others incorporate data-driven methods to represent, store, and manipulate information in order to undertake tasks previously thought to be incapable of being automated. Still others substitute the human component in environments which would be otherwise be inaccessible or dangerous. Whichever applies, separately or in combination, such technologies are typically seen as black-boxing practice with often little or no human intervention beyond the allocation of their inputs and subsequent incorporation of their outputs in analyses. This paper addresses the implications of this shift to algorithmic automated practices for archaeology and asks whether there are limits to algorithmic agency within archaeology. In doing so, it highlights several challenges related to the relationship between archaeologists and their digital devices.

In this art/archaeological study, we question the utility of the interrelated concepts of provenance, provenience, and paradata as applied to assemblages in art, archaeology, and cultural heritage contexts. We discuss how these overlapping concepts are used to establish values of authenticity and authoritative attributions. However, as cultural assemblages are increasingly being extended through virtualisation, they may exist digitally as well as physically, or as combinations of both, that is phygitally. We show how provenances and paradata can now become unstable and even detached from the assemblage. Through a sequence of collaborative projects, we expose two provenance illusions at the centre of archaeological recording and presentation practices. In these illusions, the archaeologists and much of the archaeology they record actually disappear from the authoritative reports that are published. Using a transdisciplinary, diffractive art/archaeology approach, these illusions are unpacked to reveal how superficially slight changes to traditional archaeological “drawings” and “photographs” have wrought fundamental ontological shifts in their modern phygital incarnations which undermines their provenances and associated paradata. We conclude that archaeology like fine art does not require conscious paradata in order to support statements of authority and interpretation. Instead, we argue that archaeologists should adopt an art/archaeology approach and subvert and dismantle established practices, methods, tools, techniques, and outputs. By highlighting and challenging inconsistencies in what we say we do with what we actually do, we expose gaps in our knowledge and data and shortcomings in our practices. These deficiencies can then be tackled by developing more robust (trans)disciplinary approaches.

This article focuses on the role of “skeuomorphic technologies” and “skeuomorphs of practice” in the development of digital workflows in archeology, seeking to examine whether there are common trends toward skeuomorphism in our development of digital infrastructures. By considering the way in which GIS, tablet, and 3D technologies were integrated into the digital field recording at the sites of Çatalhöyük in Turkey and Kämpinge in Sweden, we argue that skeuomorphic emulation may form an essential part of the process of “controlling” “socializing” new digital technologies and ultimately transforming digital practice. Ultimately we contend that a field approach that explicitly takes into account skeuomorphism as a crucial element of transformation is more likely to encourage the development of practices, which go behind the traditional investigation paradigms. Understanding the role of skeuomorphism as a mode of socializing technology (see below) within the broader framework of the development of digital field practices can help us to critically address the process of transformation of practice and identify new methodological directions.

This paper seeks to do justice to the often complex, messy, and sometimes ambiguous meaning making practices of archaeological field work. Taking recent adoptions of assemblage theory and sensory studies in archaeology as an angle of arrival, I contribute here to discussions on self-reflective and interpretive archaeology. Drawing on empirical encounters with troweling and backfilling at the Ardnamurchan Transitions Project in western Scotland, I describe the production of archaeological knowledge in terms of storying: the coming into existence of an earthly archaeological world through sensory correspondences. I show how storying generates meaning and knowledge through correspondences of more proximate with more distant excavation practices and interplays between them. Furthermore, I propose that through storying, archaeological meaning making as well as knowledge production can be understood as worlding: the generation of sustained remembrances of earthly events with lively corresponding materials.

Digital methods have undoubtedly become an integral part of archaeology in recent decades. This has had a major impact on how archaeological knowledge is produced. Accordingly, there has been a recent increase in the number of studies addressing this issue and calling for a reflexive approach. Although studies have so far focused on the changes in knowledge production in fieldwork practices, studies of postexcavation processes are rare. This way of archaeological knowledge production is described using the analysis of old excavation documentation of the medieval waterfront of Schleswig, northern Germany, through geographic information system. It is achieved by an approach that combines the methodological tool of a chaîne opératoire with concepts based on the actor-network theory, whereby the production of knowledge is understood as a translation network. The approach reveals the individual processing steps and how the data change. Accordingly, for each step, not only are the applied practices described in detail, but also the influence of actors, devices, and documents is mentioned. This allows not only a critical reflection of the approach and a review of the interpretation, but also demonstrates that profound archaeological findings are possible despite data alteration through digital methods.

A lot of different concepts have been utilised to elucidate diverse aspects of archaeological practices and knowledge production. This article describes how the notion of choreography can complement the existing repertoire of concepts and be used to render visible the otherwise difficult to grasp physical and mental movements that make up archaeological work as a practical and scholarly exercise. The conceptual discussion in the article uses vignettes drawn from an observation study of an archaeological teaching excavation in Scandinavia to illustrate how the concepts of choreography, choreographing, and choreographer can be used to inquire into archaeological work and data production. In addition to how explicating physical, temporal, and ontological choreographies of archaeological work can help to understand how it unfolds, the present article suggests that a better understanding of the epistemic choreographies of archaeological, scientific, and scholarly work can help to unpack and describe its inputs and outputs, the data it produces, what the work achieves, and how it is made in space and time.

Archeological research depends on a complex infrastructure of information systems and services built on different funding models. The information systems enable innovative approaches and progress in information making, but each system also organizes information by means of the system design, the structures, and relations established and the terminologies promoted. This article adopts a knowledge infrastructural perspective on systems used for information sharing in archeology. The purpose is first to expand the perspective on the systems for research information sharing in archeology and second to discuss the potential impact of the knowledge infrastructure on disciplinary knowledge-making, the shaping of archeological information, and legacy data. Based on an analysis of qualitative interviews ( N = 31) with archeologists from Europe and the United States, the results show that the interviewees use sharing solutions developed within the archeology discipline as well as general information sharing systems. One important task for further research is to better understand how archeologists choose information sharing systems and how their choices impact what information they share. Also, information sharing for specific topics or with specific coverage appears to be developed with project funding outside of the more established sharing institutions. A key question for the infrastructural sustainability is how to support the inclusion of innovative sharing solutions in institutionalized sharing environments. The results emphasize the need for further studies of how information systems shape archeological legacy in the making, which in turn will support data literacy awareness and training.

Archaeologists are the mediators between fragmented, and often contested, pasts and the momentary present. To record, organise, interpret, and reconstruct complex narratives of the past and to communicate these to present-day peers and the public, they use a wide range of visualisation methods. As such, visualisation methods form an intrinsic part of the representation of practical and intellectual findings, being crucial to knowledge production in archaeology. The adoption and adaptation of digital visualisation technology changes the way archaeologists shape new knowledge. However, for a discipline that is particularly concerned with how technology had an effect on past societies, for example, the impact of the potter’s wheel on local ceramic production strategies, archaeologists have a remarkably limited awareness of how current (digital) technology has an impact on their own visualisation practice and the subsequent knowledge production. This study presents the conceptual framework “tradition in transition,” which integrates technological and visualisation methodologies, and aims to provide a framework to analyse the underlying processes and mechanisms that shape and change the practice of creating visualisations.

While the epistemological affordances and varied impacts of different media on archaeological knowledge production have been scrutinized by many practitioners in recent decades, sources of digital structured data (e.g., spreadsheets, traditional relational databases, content management systems) have seen far less critical enquiry. Structured digital data are often venerated for their capacities to facilitate interoperability, equitable data exchange, democratic forms of engagement with, and widespread reuse of archaeological records, yet their constraints on our knowledge formation processes are arguably profound and deserving of detailed interrogation. In this article, we discuss what we call the emerging supremacy of structured digital data in archaeology and seek to question the consequences of their ubiquity. We ground our argument in a case study of a range of texts produced by practitioners working on the Çatalhöyük Research Project. We attempt to map short excerpts from these texts to structured data via the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model. This exercise allows making preliminary observations about the representational affordances and resistances of texts (which can be considered as a type of semi- or unstructured data) and structured data. Ultimately, we argue that the push to create more and more structured and structurable data needs to be tempered by a more inclusive digital practice in archaeology that protects difference, incommensurability, and interpretative nuance.

Archaeological practice is increasingly enacted within pervasive and invisible digital infrastructures, tools, and services that affect how participants engage in learning and fieldwork, and how evidence, knowledge, and expertise are produced. This article discusses the collective imaginings regarding the present and future of digital archaeological practice held by researchers working in two archaeological projects in the Eastern Mediterranean, who have normalized the use of digital tools and the adoption of digital processes in their studies. It is a part of E-CURATORS, a research project investigating how archaeologists in multiple contexts and settings incorporate pervasive digital technologies in their studies. Based on an analysis of qualitative interviews, we interpret the arguments advanced by study participants on aspects of digital work, learning, and expertise. We find that, in their sayings, participants not only characterize digital tools and workflows as having positive instrumental value, but also recognize that they may severely constrain the autonomy and agency of researchers as knowledge workers through the hyper-granularization of data, the erosion of expertise, and the mechanization of work. Participants advance a notion of digital archaeology based on do-it-yourself (DIY) practice and craft to reclaim agency from the algorithmic power of digital technology and to establish fluid, positional distribution of roles and agency, and mutual validation of expertise. Operating within discourses of labour vs efficiency, and technocracy vs agency, sayings, elicited within the archaeological situated practice in the wild, become doings, echoing archaeology’s anxiety in the face of pervasive digital technology.

This article presents the mineral resource procurement territories of Early Neolithic settlements (LBK or Rubané ) in the Aisne valley. Our study focuses on data from 15 LBK sites belonging to the final LBK of central Europe; C14 dates for the sites fall between 5100 and 4900 cal BC. The bulk of pottery from these sites seems to have been produced using local raw materials that can be found over a large part of the valley; only a dozen recorded vessels were made of an exogeneous raw material. Analysis of the supply and management of sandstone and flint productions indicates the presence of three groups of villages. These distinct groups correspond to the definition of a cluster as proposed to define site organization in the Aisne valley. On the LBK sites of the Aisne valley blades, polished tools and certain personal ornaments were occasionally made of non-local materials. Some of these objects seem to indicate contacts outside the LBK settlement zones and suggest relationships with southern Neolithic groups.

The transition to agriculture in northern Europe around 4000 BC presents an unresolved question. Explanations have vacillated between the adoption of Neolithic things and practices by indigenous foragers to the displacement of Mesolithic populations by immigrant farmers. The goal of this article is to articulate some thoughts on this process. First, it would have been necessary to introduce food production practices, by acculturation or immigration, to disrupt not only the forager economy but also their values of sharing and social relations. The use of milk for dairy products is a prime candidate for such a disruptive technology. The attraction of Neolithic ways may have been initially concealed from others, and only the realization of their widespread appeal caused fellow foragers to change their preferences. Second, it was necessary for foragers to commit to these changes and for the changed values to spread through mechanisms of social contagion. Immigrant farmers may have been especially influential in this regard, with increased sedentism and interaction being catalysts for completing the transition to agriculture.

This article presents an overview of the current evidence on the process of Neolithisation in the Dutch wetlands. Over the years, several models have been proposed with different perspectives on the timing and pace of the process: a long transition, an early short transition, and a late short transition. The applicability of any of these models is, of course, dependent of the evidence. In this article, we briefly discuss recently obtained data from the Netherlands on vegetation disturbance (woodland clearing), soil disturbance (tillage), cereal cultivation, animal husbandry, and the use of ceramics. The data discussed involve palynological, sedimentary, micromorphological, archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, as well as lipid analyses. Hence, it is concluded that from the mid fifth millennium cal. BC onwards, various aspects of a more “Neolithic lifestyle” become apparent in the archaeological record, including cereal cultivation on a structural, but small-scale basis in wetland environments. However, despite the “gradual” tendency that can be observed, the evidence is as yet inconclusive with regard to any of the models, due to persisting limitations of the datasets, potential regional variability, and aspects of scale. A new project, the Emergence of Domestic Animals in the Netherlands (EDAN), aims at a better understanding of animal husbandry through aDNA and isotope analyses, within a framework of statistical chronological modelling. We expect this project to enhance the debate greatly.

The goal of this article is to discuss the significance of the archaeological evidence from the sites of La Draga (Banyoles, Spain) and Coves del Fem (Ulldemolins, Spain), in the context of the neolithisation of Northeastern Iberia. The 14 C dates have been analysed using Bayesian statistics. The stratigraphy of Coves del Fem covers the transition between the last hunter–gatherers of the region and the first farmers. The chronological sequence covers approximately 1,300 years, from 6065–5990 cal BC to 4700–4550 cal BC. The site of La Draga was occupied by the first farmers circa 5300–5230 cal BC when a wooden platform was constructed and first used. Subsequent repairs of the wooden piles have been dated as well. Another use of the wooden platform is documented around 5200–5085 cal BC, although until now new construction evidence has not been documented. La Draga site was reoccupied later, when several travertine structures dated in two moments between the years 5100–4900 cal BC and 4950–4700 cal BC were constructed and used. The radiocarbon dates of Coves del Fem and La Draga support the existence of two different models of neolithisation in Northeastern Iberia. In the southern part of the territory, Coves del Fem suggests that the Holocene hunter–gatherer populations remained in the area until the arrival of the first farmers, in a model similar to the one observed at the Ebro basin. On the contrary, the site of La Draga supports the hypothesis of the first farmers colonising a previously unoccupied territory.

Within Linearbandkeramik (LBK) studies, several models of social structure and organisation have been debated since the 1960s, influenced by several major anthropological theories that even today guide the debates. We discuss here the notion of social interactions in LBK contexts by focusing on the primary form of LBK social unit: the household. Assuming that the solutions found by the LBK communities to navigate their ambivalent position regarding sedentism and mobility probably formed the basis of their social organisation, social networks would have played a crucial role in ensuring the longevity and spread of the LBK culture. The village pioneer stage crystallises several core mechanisms of LBK society and is particularly relevant for assessing the dynamic processes involved in the fundamental social interactions that structure LBK societies. Invoking rather the “hofplatz” or the “ward” models, the coexistence of different groups attached to specific expressions of identity within the same settlements was highlighted and led to several hypotheses of social organisation putting clan or lineage structures at the foreground. Differentiation or inequalities between individuals and groups were also debated, even recently based on new technological and bioarchaeological data. In the frame of the current ANR Homes project, our goal is to test the reliability of these models based on an evidence-based approach and deepen the economical model we recently proposed.

Early pottery on the territory from the Eastern Caspian Sea and Aral Sea to Denmark reveals a certain typological similarity. It is represented by egg-shaped vessels with an S-shaped profile of the upper part and a pointed bottom. The vessels are not ornamented or decorated with incised lines, organized often in a net. This type of pottery was spread within hunter-gatherer ancient groups. The forest-steppe Volga region is one of the earliest centers of pottery production in Eastern Europe. The first pottery is recorded here in the last quarter of the seventh millennium BC. Its appearance is associated with the bearers of the Elshanskaya cultural tradition. The most likely source of its formation is the territory of Central Asia. Later, due to aridization, these ceramic traditions distributed further westward to the forest-steppe Don region. During the first half of the sixth millennium BC, groups associated with the bearers of the Elshanskaya cultural tradition moved westward. Significant similarities with the ceramic complexes of the Elshanskaya culture are found in materials from a number of early pottery cultures of Central Europe and the Baltic (Narva, Neman, and Ertebølle).

Up until now, the neolithisation of Western Europe during the sixth millennium BCE has mainly been approached through the characterisation of its diffusion vectors (cultural vs demic diffusion) and the emergence of technoeconomic innovations (rhythms, scenarios, and transmission). Traditionally, two primary routes of agricultural diffusion are distinguished: one extending along the Danube river corridor to the Atlantic coast ( Linearbandkeramik ) and the other along the Mediterranean coastal zone (Impressed Ware). To move beyond this dichotomy, this article proposes a first attempt at an integrated approach to the mechanisms of neolithisation in Western Europe, one of the few territories where it is possible, and therefore necessary, to investigate the processes that are common to both of these principal neolithisation complexes. The most widely held vision, inherited from the 1980s, of a European Neolithic that developed from east to west following a regular rhythm has progressively been replaced by a more complex model of diffusion characterised by arrhythmia and cultural reconfigurations. Despite having different origins and trajectories, the expansion of the first farmers was made possible by a number of common mechanisms. Impresso-Cardial and Linearbandkeramik societies faced similar constraints, especially with regard to ensuring the stability of their social and economic models, while minimising the risks inherent to the colonisation of new territories. Three main mechanisms would have structured the first neolithisation phases of both spheres: a strong mobility of populations regulated to varying degrees by social rules, a strong solidarity expressed at multiple levels of interactions within each sphere, and, finally, the existence of syncretism and cultural recompositions including close and long-distance relations.

This article focuses on the early Neolithic settlement patterns in northern Dalmatia, located in the middle of the eastern Adriatic. At the present state of research, a total of 35 Neolithic sites have been known in this region, 26 of which belong to the Early Neolithic. Observing the type and character of the early Neolithic sites, their micro-topographic features, proximity and availability of resources, organization of life in relation to environment requirements, continuity of life at a particular location, and economic strategies, we come to the conclusion that the early Neolithic settlement patterns in northern Dalmatia were determined by natural landscape and its resources. They are the postulate and basis for the development of different aspects of social life and economy, as well as the starting point for the interpretation of the character and dynamics of the development of the early Neolithic communities in this area. The site locations, stratigraphic relations, and radiocarbon dating also suggest movements of the early Neolithic communities. The movements seem to have taken place exclusively within the fields. Discussion whether it was one or several simultaneous communities/settlements remains limited, since the state of research does not allow precise attribution of the site to certain chronological segments of the Early Neolithic.

Funerary usage of Galeria da Cisterna (Almonda) and Gruta do Caldeirão began at the onset of the Neolithic and continued until Early Medieval times. At Cisterna, the thin Holocene deposit was unstratified; at Caldeirão, the stratigraphic sequence underwent post-depositional disturbance. Using radiocarbon dating, typological considerations, spatial distribution patterns, and physical anthropological data, these palimpsests can be disentangled to a significant extent. At both sites, the earliest depositions fall in the c. 5250–5500 cal BC interval and are associated with large numbers of beads. Wares extensively decorated with shell and comb impressions are likely to belong in this phase. Another style of decoration – shell impressions forming bands below the rim and garlands between prehension knobs – probably dates to a slightly later time. Burial continued at both sites through the c. 5000–5250 cal BC time range, but which decorative styles were then in fashion remains difficult to ascertain; it is likely that the irregular arrangements of shell impressions seen in some Cisterna vessels are among them. At Caldeirão, non-Cardial impressed and incised wares date to c. 4500–5000 cal BC, while undecorated wares are associated with human bone samples demonstrating two different periods of burial during the c. 3500–4000 cal BC interval. Most if not all of the nine Cardial individuals directly dated at the two sites died coevally with the more recent of the Mesolithic interments found in the shell-midden sites of the Tagus estuary.

The first Neolithic communities settled in the East of the Iberian Peninsula developed a complex strategy of land occupation. These strategies evolved as their social, demographic, and economic bases were transformed. In this paper, we focus on the analysis of archaeological sites located under rock shelters, which were recurrently occupied throughout the Early Neolithic. To deepen this analysis, we reviewed the archaeological record of Penya Roja de Catamarruc (Planes, Alicante), as well as other sites of similar characteristics. This information, combined with different spatial analyses – prominence, visibility, and capacity of use of the soils – allowed us to define a series of patterns of occupation and exploitation of the territory of the first Neolithic communities. This study highlights the importance of the forest as a resource related not only to hunting and gathering as traditionally seen, but also to shepherding.

This paper is focused on the various kinds of personal adornments that were used during the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic in the Iron Gates region (southwest Romania). We review how the adornments were used, based on an analysis of their morphology and use-wear, and attempt to identify the sequence of actions involved in their manufacture. We document the changes in ornament type and technique that occurred between 12700–5600 cal BC, highlighting the fact that some “Mesolithic” types continued to be used in the Early Neolithic alongside the introduction of new types reflecting the arrival and integration into the region of a new population with different cultural traditions.

The beginning of the Neolithic in the Adriatic region dates back to approximately 6000 cal BC, and the appearance of Impressed Ware pottery marks its generic development. By combining lithic, economic, and paleoenvironmental data, we propose a new arrhythmic model for the chronology of Neolithisation in the Adriatic. On the one hand, the available data suggest that in the south-central part of the basin (Dalmatia and Apulia) the transition to farming was relatively quick, resulting from the colonisation of an open landscape (seemingly linked to the “8.2 ka event” and the onset of a drier climate). These newcomers mostly settled in the fertile plains of the Dalmatian and Apulian hinterlands, basing their subsistence almost exclusively on agriculture and livestock, while lithic blade production in cherts from Gargano (southern Italy) indicates important social aspects and complex management strategies (mining activities, more complex modes of pressure flaking, and specialised distribution networks). However, on the other hand, in the northern Adriatic (Istria, Karst, eastern Po Plain, and Marches), the Neolithic emerged somewhat later, possibly as a result of some form of acculturation. Although available data are still scarce, some evidence suggests that the last Mesolithic groups played an active role in the process of Neolithisation in these areas, where certain Castelnovian traditions have been identified in the lithic production accompanying Impressed Ware (the use of local cherts, lamellar production by indirect percussion, and “simpler” forms of pressure flaking) and in the economy, e.g. importance of fishing.

Ring-shaped objects, used mainly as bracelets, appear in the archaeological record associated with the first farming societies around the Mediterranean area. These bracelets, among other personal ornaments, are related to the spread of the farming economy in the Mediterranean (10th–6th millennium BC). In particular, stone bracelets, given their intricate technology, are linked with the early stages of craft specialization and the beginnings of complex social organization. Likewise, their frequency in Early Neolithic assemblages and the lithologies in which they were made have become an important element in the study of the circulation networks of goods, as well as the symbolic behaviors and aesthetic preferences of the first farming groups. This research provides the first overview of the stone bracelets of Neolithic groups in the Mediterranean. We compare the similarities and differences among these ornaments in different geographical zones across the region including Turkey, Greece, Italy, and Spain. Using all the information available about these ornaments – chronology, typology, raw materials and manufacturing processes, use-wear, repair, and alteration practices – we shed light on a complex archaeological trans-cultural manifestation related to the spread of the Neolithic lifestyle across the European continent.

In Puglia, human representations on vessels were widespread from the Early Neolithic. Some of these have been interpreted as faces, but they could also be representations of the entire body complete with torso, arms and legs: these include some recently studied symbols from Grotta dei Cervi, which have been compared with others from Grotta delle Veneri, whose published descriptions are open to revision. From this starting point, the scope of the research was expanded to include all documented anthropomorphic symbols on Neolithic vessels from south-east Italy, taking account of their chronology, origin and context. It was possible to establish that in the sixth millennium BC, there were three different categories of human representation in Puglia: vessels decorated with human faces (face vessels), vessels decorated with whole-body human figures and vessels in the shape of human beings (anthropomorphic vessels). Some faces include all elements, while others have just some of them (e.g. the nose). In addition, some faces have extra elements such as bands or bundles of lines that can be interpreted as tattoos, beards, ornaments or clothes. The symbols may be representations of praying figures, dancers, high status or powerful members of the community, ancestors and even gods, who were tasked with either protecting the community or acting as an intermediary between the community offering the vessel and the deity of the underworld. This study examines the presence of these artefacts in settlements, caves and other cult sites, with the aim of describing this distinctive phenomenon that was particularly characteristic of Puglia during the Early Neolithic.

In this article, we study the role played by pottery production in the transition from Early Neolithic to Middle Neolithic in Western Iberia (∼4500–3300 cal BC) based on a critical analysis of the available empirical data. We establish a chronological and cultural sequence for this period, regarding which the historical problematic is still poorly defined due to a lasting absence of scientific discussion about the long Neolithisation process. During the evolved Early Neolithic (∼5200–4500 cal BC), archeological record shows regional specificities and cultural identities in human groups occupying a vast territory. Pottery collections evidence the strong social importance of decorative grammars, marked by a wide variety of techniques and decorative patterns. In quantitative terms, decorated vessels largely prevail over undecorated vessels. However, in the following chrono-cultural phase, the Initial Middle Neolithic (∼4500–3700 cal BC), it starts an increasing prevalence of undecorated vessels over decorated. Decorative systems prefer the incision technique to impression (dominant in the Early Neolithic). Recurrent use of an incised motif called incised line below the rim . In this period, this type of decoration prevails in the set of decorated pottery and is found in different geographic contexts. This adds consistency to the interpretation according to which the same artifact collections are found in all settlements of the initial Middle Neolithic. Finally, by the time of the first-known Megalithic burials – Full Moment of the Middle Neolithic (3700–3300 cal BC) – the decorative grammars almost disappear from pottery sets, which became more “common” and missed some of their symbolic and social meaning. Undecorated vessels prevail even more strongly than in the previous period.

This article aims to contribute novel data and perspectives into the long-standing debate about economic strategies in the fourth and third millennium in South Norway, by introducing novel results from a Pitted Ware coastal site in Agder County, southern Norway. The analysis of artifactual and faunal assemblages as well as lipid analysis from ceramics indicate a varied subsistence economy with terrestrial hunting, gathering, and specialized marine fishing strategies, targeting Atlantic bluefin tuna and seals. These procurement strategies were maintained throughout the middle and into the late Neolithic period (c. 3300–2200 BCE). No unequivocal evidence of cultivation was documented before the early Bronze Age, around 1700 BCE. This article maintains that exploring and explaining long-time continuity, and the environmental, cultural, and social mechanisms, which underwrite enduring traditions, remains a pertinent issue in Neolithic archeology. To broaden our understanding of the causes underlying cultural persistence, we need to move beyond a view of foraging peoples as either ecologically adapted or as economically optimized and employ a perspective that acknowledges the fundamental importance of human–animal relations in prehistoric lives and worldviews. Drawing on insights from relational anthropology and multi-species archaeology, we maintain that an animist ontology endured among the Pitted Ware groups and endorsed the foraging persistency characterizing the third millennium in Southern Norway.

Technological analysis of variations in blade production and the flow of siliceous raw materials revealed new understandings of different types of socio-economic functioning on a supra-regional scale. In this article, we are focusing on supra-regional relationships between technical groups and the social dynamics involved in early Neolithic mobility within the communities of East Belgium. A detailed technological analysis was done to highlight discrete characteristics that permit the identification of distinct technical groups within the village of Vaux-et-Borset. Four technical groups have been identified in the Blicquy/Villeneuve-Saint-Germain village, whereas two technical groups have been highlighted for the previous Linear Pottery culture (LPC) occupation. The search for the origin of the different technical groups was to understand the micro-processes of Neolithization in East Belgium. A central area with a high-density population during the pioneer LPC colonization, Hesbaye became a peripheral occupation area of the Blicquy/Villeneuve-Saint-Germain culture. This fringe territory seemed to attract neighbouring communities in different ways. Multidirectional dynamics seems to characterize this small territory leading to the coexistence of a high diversity of technical groups.

In the western Mediterranean, the question of the settlement patterns of the first farming communities remains a much debated issue. Frequently compared with the LBK model, based on hundreds of well-documented villages, the settlement organization of the Impressed Ware complex is still poorly characterized and highly diversified. New data obtained in Southern France (Languedoc) may shed light on this matter, based on new excavations, revised data, and a multi-proxy perspective (site type, domestic area, food supply strategies, activities, spheres of acquisition of raw material, and so forth). Rather than reproducing a pattern of site locations and settlement structuring, it seems that these Early Neolithic groups sought to optimize the location and structuring of their settlements in relation to the specific characteristics of the surrounding environment and available resources. We therefore propose that the diversity observed in the settlement organization of these first farming communities is a reflection of a social organization well-adapted to the diversity of the ecosystem.

In the lower Rhône Valley, many sites are attributed to the Early Neolithic and dated between 5600 and 4800 cal. BC. According to their ceramic production, they are associated with two cultural facies: the Cardial and the Epicardial. The relation between these two entities is still under debate (chronological, cultural or functional distinctions?). However, little is known about the lithic production of the region since the chipped stone industries are rarely evoked in the socioeconomic and cultural understanding of these first agropastoral societies. The objective of this paper is to propose a regional synthesis regarding Early Neolithic lithic industries, based on typo-technological studies of several assemblages in the Rhône Valley: The Montclus rockshelter (layers 5 to 2), the Baume de Ronze rockshelter, Le Taï and the Aigle cave. These sites are considered to be the key sites for understanding the Cardial/Epicardial complex in this area, but their lithic assemblages have never been thoroughly studied. Special attention will be given to the factors of variability or, on the contrary, to the permanence in the “ schema opératoire” and we will propose explanations related to geological, functional, chronological and cultural constraints. We will also focus on lithic blade production made from honey flint and the spacialisation of “ chaine opératoire ” which could highlight circulation of this raw material and specialised distribution network. Finally, this synthesis is based on a renewed corpus of radiocarbon dates in order to understand this evolutionary dynamic as finely as possible.

The Linearbandkeramik (LBK) is behind the spread of the Neolithic way of life in a large part of Western Europe. This period is often regarded as the beginning of social inequalities whose ideological frameworks deserve to be highlighted. According to social anthropologists, funerary practices are relevant for this debate as they reflect the symbolic thought in relation to death. In addition, as they are perpetuated by the living, funerary practices are pertinent in addressing the ideological values, symbolic systems, and thoughts that support social organisation. Whilst examining how grave goods are allocated amongst the LBK population, we have identified a small group of dominant men characterised by a specific burial kit (adzes, arrows, lighter set, and red deer antlers), a richer protein intake in diet, and their local origin. Comparing them to other social categories characterised by minor marking of identity in grave goods, poorer protein intake in diet, and of diverse origin, we aim to explore the ideological frameworks and values sustaining the social LBK system. LBK dominant ideology appears to revolve around hunting and exploits in warfare, manhood, and virility, in short around violent behaviours perhaps linked to a territorial competition.

This article emphasises on the results of the master´s thesis “Burials in Bytes. A Quantitative Study of Linear Pottery Cemeteries in Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Southern Germany” and further elaborates on interpretations of identified patterns at Early Neolithic cemeteries. The focus will lie on the Lower Bavarian site “Aiterhofen-Ödmühle.” Although the cemetery was subject to different analyses and interdisciplinary research in the past, there are still unsolved issues regarding chronology, structure, meaning of the local mortuary rites and rules, and its significance in the superregional context. The study utilised data acquisition via the Montelius image database and quantitative methods performed through the softwares WinSerion and Google Mapper. These data consisted of various typologies and classifications, while several variations of correspondence analysis, seriation, Analysis N Next Neighbours, and the creation of distribution maps have been involved in the process of evaluation. The results of the evaluations of Aiterhofen-Ödmühle favour a chronological south–north progression. Inhumations and cremations differ in grave good equipment, potentially representing contrasts in gender distribution. Spatial groupings are distinguishable through their properties – open to various ways of interpretation and comparable to clusters of other cemeteries. Differences regarding age and sex were also highlighted. Overall, Aiterhofen-Ödmühle stands out among Early Neolithic cemeteries through region-specific grave goods and death gesture, local peculiarities, variation of burial types, and its site structure. Similarities to other sites include characteristic Linear Pottery traits, although less obvious connections can also be recognised through the quantitative evaluations. Instead of rigid funerary rules, dynamic and flexible rites are suggested.

The purpose of this work is to analyze in which way the technical system of the Early Neolithic flint mine of Casa Montero (5350–5220 cal. BC) was organized to manage different flint-based reduction sequences. The particular features and genesis of Casa Montero’s flint limited the efficiency of one of the main goals of the mine: blade production. As a result, a great amount of the extracted raw material was discarded throughout the process. However, an efficiently planned management allowed its reuse for other purposes. One of the key social activities that took place at the mine was knapping apprenticeship. Younger community members were progressively introduced to this complex technical system, taking part in a many-sided set of tasks and parts of the whole production process, from extraction to recycling and waste management. However, knapping learning, as an operative sequence itself, needs a great amount of raw material. By means of the factorial analysis of the relationships between skill levels and raw material varieties and features of blanks, we can understand the complex organization of this technical system in which some strategies were carried out to avoid competition for raw material and allow motivation of apprentices. The spheres of mining, knapping, and learning coexist harmonically and benefit each other. Younger people of the community participated in mining as a workforce, knapping offers them abundant waste to practice, and learning allows social reproduction.

The frontier position of the Balkan Peninsula, next to Anatolia and the Aegean, emphasises its key importance for the study of the Neolithisation processes taking place in Europe during the seventh–sixth millennia BC. A look at the distribution of most Early Neolithic sites along the submeridional alluvial plains of its central mountainous part often leaves the impression that the valleys of the Vardar, Struma, Mesta and Maritsa rivers functioned as natural corridors, allowing for the rapid advance of the farming way of life towards the interior regions of Europe. However, comparative analysis of the distribution patterns of specific diagnostic components of Early Neolithic cultures, such as white painted pottery, anthropomorphic figurines and miniature “cult tables”, from the Early Neolithic settlements in the Middle Struma Valley, southwestern Bulgaria, namely Kovachevo, Ilindentsi, Brezhani, Drenkovo and Balgarchevo I shows a rather unexpected direction and dynamic of cultural/social contact during this crucial period.

After years of intense fieldwork, our knowledge about the Neolithisation of the Pyrenees has considerably increased. In the southern central Pyrenees, some previously unknown Neolithic sites have been discovered at subalpine and alpine altitudes (1,000–1,500 m a.s.l.). One of them is Cueva Lóbrica, 1,170 m a.s.l., which has an occupation phase with impressed pottery dated ca. 5400 cal BCE. Another is Coro Trasito, 1,558 m a.s.l., a large rock shelter that preserves evidence of continuous occupations in the Early Neolithic, 5300–4600 cal BCE. Evidence of human occupation at higher altitudes has also been documented. In the Axial Pyrenees, at the Obagues de Ratera rock shelter, 2,345 m a.s.l., an occupation has been dated to around 5730–5600 cal BCE. At Cova del Sardo, in the Sant Nicolau Valley, at 1,780 m a.s.l., a series of occupations have been excavated, dated to ca. 5600–4500 cal BCE. These sites allow us to discuss patterns of occupation of the mountainous areas between the Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic. Recent data suggest that the last hunter–gatherer occupied all altitudinal stages of the Pyrenees, both in the outer and inner ranges. A change in the settlement pattern seems to have occurred in the Early Neolithic, which consisted of a concentration of occupations in the valley bottom and mid-slopes, in biotopes favourable to both herding and agriculture.

While we know that cereals played an important role in the diet of Linearbandkeramik (LBK) and Blicquy/Villeneuve-Saint-Germain (BVSG) populations in the Paris Basin, many questions remain to be answered as to the real contribution of other plants. To assess this topic, the recovery of other lines of data beyond macrobotanicals is crucial: starch grains have the potential to reveal additional information regarding past plant use. However, in Western Europe, in particular, for the Neolithic period, there is a significant lag in the development of the discipline. We, therefore, present how our current reference collection (composed of nearly 100 taxa spread across 35 families) was established, the reasoning behind our plant selections, and where the material comes from. Overall, our work shows that even though not all the selected plant organs produce diagnostic starch grains, it may be possible to broaden the spectrum of plants likely consumed by Early Neolithic (and beyond) populations in the Paris Basin, in particular concerning the use of wild plants and specific plant parts, especially underground storage organs (tubers, rhizomes, roots, bulbs, etc.). We believe our research will help guide future scholars in the creation of their own starch grain reference collection and to carry out such analyses on archaeological material from this region by consulting our image database. We conclude by providing a brief summary of what the starch grain record in the Paris Basin tells us to date on ancient plant use.

This work is a starting point for rethinking the role of the Iberian Peninsula in the neolithisation of northern Morocco. It focuses on the similarities and divergences between the first pottery productions and their decorations in both territories. This relationship is supported by the existence of an accurate chronological gradation between the first evidence of Neolithisation in Iberian Peninsula and that of northern Morocco which suggests a north–south direction. We also present arguments on the possible links between the early ceramics from the north of Morocco and those from the south of Iberia, providing a first approach to an issue that will need to be carefully analysed in future research.

The purpose of this paper is the presentation of the settlement of the first farming communities of the Linear Pottery culture in the Polish lowlands. A case study of three neighboring micro-regions excavated on a large scale in eastern Kuyavia was conducted, which offered the possibility of analyzing various levels of the settlement. Based on the results obtained a local model of the LBK occupation in Kuyavia could be reconstructed. I argue that despite some regional variability a very general common settlement pattern existed for the whole LBK consisting of an iconic longhouse as the basic unit, the presence of micro-regional clusters of more or less contemporary sites, and the preference for regions with optimal environmental conditions. However, a detailed comparison within and between separate sites in the study area revealed some degree of variability inside this supposedly homogeneous pattern which can indicate the existence of different social units among small regional communities and their changes over time.

Water wells are the most unique finds from the Early Neolithic period in Central Europe. These features provide unusual insight into societies and their settlements, as well as into the water management process. This article presents the updated results of material analyses and excavations of Early Neolithic wells at Mohelnice, Brno-Bohunice and Uničov in Moravia, Czech Republic. We studied the possibilities of the spatial and temporal distribution of wells on the example of these settlements. The social relation between the large longhouses and the wells in their immediate neighbourhood has not been proven. On the contrary, they could have been communal wells, serving the inhabitants of the entire settlement. Moreover, it turned out that in the Moravian region, geomorphological conditions were a key factor for choosing the location to build a well. By comparing radiocarbon dates, we estimated the time span of the existence of wells with respect to each other and to the settlements. Sealing and repairs of the well constructions prove that the first farmers maintained the wells over a long period of time. Studies of the well’s vertical sections shed light on its usage and decline; intentional backfilling of the well seems to have been common. Water management covered an entire cycle of activities, including the making of wooden buckets, which were mainly used for the pulling of water from wells.

Why was “chaff temper” used in pottery production? The possible reasoning behind the practice of intentionally adding organic matter (various plant parts and plant-containing materials) to the clay paste when making pottery is explored by studying four Early Neolithic open settlements. Located in contrasting regions, northwest and southwest Bulgaria, they have contrasting geological settings, altitude, climate, and “pottery styles.” Ceramic fragments containing vegetal remains (charred, semi-charred parts, imprints, and phytoliths) found both on the surface of the vessels and within the body clay are studied in hand specimens, thin-sections and by using scanning electron microscopy. Whether the addition of “organic temper” was an actual functional prerequisite (e.g. caused by technological limitations of the local clays, the vessels’ use, etc.), and how to interpret the variable contents and types of vegetal remains within the clay fabrics, are the main questions discussed within a broader context. The observed variability raises awareness of a series of potential biases when interpreting vegetal remains in Early Neolithic Southeast European pottery. This study not only tackles the interrelation between two major Early Neolithic cycles – ceramic technology and agriculture – but also reveals the potential to examine the synergies between specifically technological, agricultural, and environmental study aspects. It demonstrates the intrinsically intertwined crafts and husbandry activities, technological landscapes, decision-making strategies, and subsistence patterns, all within site-specific environment. It also frames a debate on such inclusions’ strictly technological significance, their role as a cultural factor embodied in social behaviour, or completely accidental presence in the clay fabrics, and a whole spectrum in between.

The introduction of agricultural practices fostered the development of specific technologies for the new subsistence practices and the production of new artefacts. Pyrotechnological structures such as ovens are part of the Neolithic equipment and accompanied the spread of agriculture from the Near East across Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. Ovens located within settlements – mainly domed, above-ground structures – have been traditionally linked to cooking and baking. The function is usually deduced from techno-morphological traits, although experimental approaches or ethnoarchaeological observations have often been used. This article aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of the multidisciplinary approach to understand the function of fire structures. An integrated methodology that combines archaeological analysis, archaeometry, and experimental archaeology has been applied to study the underground ovens of the Early Neolithic site of Portonovo (Marche, Italy) dated to the sixth millennium BCE. Samples of hardened sediment of archaeological ovens’ inner surface and selected pottery fragments were analysed through X-ray powder diffraction to estimate the temperature reached. A life-size replica of an underground oven was then created to perform firing experiments, including pottery firing. Samples of the oven’s walls and experimental vessels were analysed with the same method, and the values were compared. Our results indicate that the Portonovo ovens are potentially multifunctional structures, built for about 700 years, always with the same technique exploiting the natural soil’s insulating properties.

This article attempts to draw attention to the social choices of the earliest farming societies, evaluating new and old settlement data from the Early Neolithic of Thessaly in Greece. We examine the inhabitation of landscapes, the organisation of the inhabited spaces and the human–landscape interaction as a framework for the creation of a socialised environment. Taking into account aspects such as settlement location, duration, architecture and intra- and intersite arrangements, this study shows that the observed diversity in space and time reflects alternative modes of settlement and land use, variations in notions of permanence and continuity and different modalities of the adoption and meaning of new socioeconomic practices. This evidence challenges traditional interpretations of simplicity, homogeneity and change as being induced from outside and calls for a new reading of the Early Neolithic. We argue that the model of a single and uniform development, deriving from concepts of diffusionism and evolutionism, does not hold in Neolithic Thessaly (or in Greece). Instead, Neolithisation was a contextual process that involved human awareness and different choices, and that the social landscape created by the pioneering farming societies set the stage for all kinds of different developments that occurred in later phases.

The Cova Colomera is located in the pre-Pyrenees, at a central point of a set of natural paths traditionally used by shepherds for herd movements. The Early Neolithic occupations documented in this cave (5250–4780 cal. BC) make it a key point for understanding the beginning of husbandry in the area. In this work, we present a zooarchaeological study of the macrofaunal remains recovered from these Early Neolithic occupations of the Cova Colomera. As observed at other sites in the region, the herds that occupied the Cova Colomera were mainly composed of domestic sheep and goats, raised for their milk and meat. Cattle, as well as a variety of wild animals, served as a food supplement and a source of secondary resources. The low number of recovered remains is interpreted as evidence of the low intensity and/or short duration of the occupations, which would have taken place at different times of the year, mainly in spring and autumn. This suggests that the Cova Colomera was used as a transient settlement during the movement of flocks. The data corroborate the idea that the natural resources of the pre-Pyrenees were exploited by the earliest shepherds in the Early Neolithic.

The transition from the late Swifterbant culture to the first appearance of the Funnelbeaker Westgroup raises numerous questions, from cultural discontinuities to gradual transitions. This process describes the transformation from a late mesolithic of hunter‐gatherer societies to a fully neolithic society in Northwestern Europe. The Early Neolithic in this area marks a technological and sociocultural transition zone, which we can identify. Although the first megalithic buildings of the Funnelbeaker Culture were erected around 3600 BC, Swifterbant sites and findings can still be traced. Many studies assume a hiatus between these phases, which is based on a research‐historical but also a conservation‐related problem. With this contribution, we attempt to generate a chronological Bayesian model on the basis of absolute chronological data. The aim is to compare the numerous available radiocarbon data from different periods in one overview. It is a model to visualize discontinuities or overlaps of the currently available data. It becomes apparent that there is a slide overlap between the archaeologically defined chronological phases. This model serves as a basis for further discussion and chronological models.

This article is an attempt to understand the driving forces behind the process of Neolithization in the Eastern Europe Forest zone, where the consumption economy existed till the Bronze or even till the Early Iron Age. Main peculiarities of the sociocultural development in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland region (EGF) on the transition from Mesolithic to farming societies (sixth – first ka. BC) are discussed in relation to the changes in material culture, subsistence strategy, communication system and settlement pattern. The process of neolithization lasted there for several thousand years. Overview of the dynamics of the social and cultural development in the region revealed several phases of substantial changes in archeological materials (presumably reflecting considerable sociocultural changes). These changes happened later than in the neighboring territories and were preceded by dramatic environmental transformations that affected prehistoric communities in the coastal zone. For the population of the region, innovations could be considered as not “steps toward,” but “retreat in the face of” neolithization. Resistance of the population of EGF to the innovations could be based on environmental conditions that were extremely favorable for hunter–gatherers’ subsistence, but made farming (especially early farming) rather risky.

The microstratigraphic study of the Cova Colomera (Sant Esteve de la Sarga, Lleida, Spain) confirms that there are several discontinuous ovicaprid stabling episodes in the Late Cardial Neolithic sequence ( c . 5250–4780 cal BC). There are episodes with and without combustion traces. From the burnt episodes, it has been possible to identify bedding and fodder due to their good preservation and abundance in the X-32 sector, specifically the level CE14. The main constituents are grassy remains and to a lesser extent, conifer twigs and needles, beech twigs, and box leaves. These data give an idea about the landscape near the cavity. From the nonburnt episodes, we emphasize the sector W-31, specifically the top of level CE13, in which bedding and fodder appear in a smaller quantity. Its components are also well preserved, with an emphasis on sheep/goat excrements in which it has been possible to identify part of their diet composed of leaves and culms of grasses ( Poaceae ). From these episodes and their components, we propose that Cova Colomera had different uses as a pen of a small size herd. In some episodes, the herd was more permanent in the cave, and therefore, more waste was generated, so burning was required; and in other episodes, occupation was more sporadic and the burning of waste was not so necessary. In short, Cova Colomera allows us to propose that the study of pastoral activities in caves and rockshelters is more complex than previous studies have shown and that it is necessary to analyze these records with high-resolution techniques to broaden the knowledge of these first livestock communities.

The Early Neolithic is an interesting period for observing the changes that took place in material culture and also in the ideology that influenced the production of personal ornaments. Objects of adornment are useful for understanding how past peoples differentiated themselves on the basis of gender, age, or group affiliation. The Early Neolithic in Italy developed throughout the entire sixth millennium cal. BC, during which the first farming communities settled in the Italian peninsula and islands, with diverse Neolithic groups related to wider-ranging cultural spheres. Early Neolithic ornaments were mainly ring bracelets, manufactured beads and perforated shells or teeth. Through their choice and the raw materials used for their production, individuals and groups emphasized their diverse identities based on shared traditions. Focusing on some of the more significant sites, this article considers similarities and differences in forms and raw materials employed for ornaments by different Early Neolithic groups and how these could have been useful attributes to emphasise identities and in particular the membership of particular social or cultural groups.

La Hoguette and Limburg pottery and the role their producers played in the Neolithization of western Central Europe are still a matter of debate. These styles exist in parallel to Linearbandkeramik (LBK) but are different from LBK pottery and here called Non-LBK wares. The various Non-LBK styles are mainly defined based on decoration, but this does not coincide with important technological features. Therefore, an technological approach including the parameters of temper, vessel morphology, and firing methods was used for an alternative classification and to trace knowledge transmission networks. It is suggested that several technologically distinguishable Non-LBK pottery traditions of different geographical origins existed contemporaneously in western Central Europe. While the early mineral- and organic-tempered ware shows some similarities with the Earliest and Early LBK, the widespread early bone-tempered pottery with its uniform design cannot be traced back to either Cardial or LBK pottery. This is probably the oldest pottery in western Central Europe. This means that here pottery emerged first as a tradition outside both the LBK and Cardial cultures. Increasing interaction between producers of various Non-LBK wares and LBK pottery makers can then be traced over several centuries. All styles are shown to be diverse and dynamic and to be undergoing substantial internal development. The persistent mutual influencing is a key for understanding the development of Non-LBK pottery, as well as for innovations within LBK ceramic production. Here, a hypothesis is proposed that the makers of Non-LBK wares may be hunter-gatherers, although this cannot currently be proven.

This article presents the current state of research on the Early Neolithic settlement enclosures in the Eastern Balkans (ca. 6200/6000–5500 cal. BC), with a focus set on the ditch-digging practices. A large database was accumulated in the last decade during surface surveys, large-scale excavations, and geomagnetic prospection, demonstrating conclusively that ditch enclosures were indeed a tradition rather than an exception. In the Eastern Balkans, enclosures consist mostly of single or multiple ditches and rarely a combination of ditch and wooden, emplectum, or a stone wall. Moreover, some sites existed long enough that the development of the settlement pattern demanded also changes in the enclosures’ layout and/or design. Most of the settlements were enclosed as early as their initial stages. However, no enclosure features have been identified at the earliest Neolithic sites in the area even though this might reflect biased research strategies.

Climate change is still a subject of debate for archaeologist-neolithicists. Its exact chronology, internal pattern, variations in space and time, and impacts on sites and ecosystems and on coastal dynamic and river systems have yet to be assessed. Only a strict comparative approach at high chronological resolution will allow us to make progress on the causality of the socio-environmental processes at work during Neolithisation. Post-depositional impacts on the Early Neolithic hidden reserve also remain underestimated, which has led to the perpetuation of terms such as “Macedonian desert” and “archaeological silence” in the literature on the Neolithic. Off-site geoarchaeological and paleoenvironmental approaches provide some answers to these questions and opens up new research perspectives.

When the first farmers landed on the eastern coast of the Italian peninsula (end of seventh millennium cal BC), they brought with them a system of knowledge and technologies that quickly spread along both the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic coasts. The study of the material culture, therefore, assumes an important role in understanding the social and cultural identity of these incoming groups. Analyses of ornament production – involving manufacture technology, raw materials, and stylistic choices – may supply information about the cultural choices and the technical skills of human groups and shed light on the social and symbolic system of these ancient populations. Data obtained from this work show that the ornaments became symbols of a growing cultural identity, which began to be developed within Italian territory. In the ornamental assemblages of the newcomers, the relevance of shaped lithic items is clearly visible, and there was the development of types that will become more and more standardized during the Neolithic period. However, elements in the symbolic culture of these first settlers, such as the use of Columbella rustica and the exclusive production of hard animal matter ornaments in some sites, recall previous traditions. This study intends to extend our knowledge on the ornamental customs of the first Italian Neolithic communities. It will attempt to establish if the chronological and the geographical differences that emerge from our analyses reflect diversities in the cultural and symbolic systems of the incoming farmers and different possible interactions with the native population.

Organic-tempered pottery is considered characteristic for the early pottery assemblages in most parts of Southwest Asia and Southeast Europe. The aim of the present paper is to explore: (a) the chronological consistency of this practice, i.e. is it always related to the early assemblages and how intensively was it employed by the various communities? and (b) is its use related to vessel type, surface treatment etc. and how does this change in time and space? In order to address these questions we explore the distribution patterns of this practice in this large geographical area, based on published information, since the appearance of pottery in the Near East until the early sixth millennium in Southeast Europe. Moreover, in the case of the Early Neolithic in Greece, new data is presented on the appearance and distribution of organic-tempered pottery within the assemblages of six newly studied sites in northern Greece, spanning the second half of the seventh millennium BC and the beginning of the sixth millennium BC. The emerging picture indicates that the cultural practice of organic tempering was available in all of this area for almost a millennium, although the significations may have not remained unaltered, and variably embraced by the various Neolithic communities. As such, this study offers insights into the complex process of neolithisation, and at the same time contextualizes the appearance of organic-tempering in northern Greece, which includes some of the earliest Neolithic sites in Europe.

After the development of an experimental protocol concerning an enigmatic tool rarely recognized archaeologically and potentially used as a sword beater, that is, blades in bone or wood, we were able to establish certain diagnostic criteria. These tools recur in sites in the south of France and Italy, for example, dated to 3023 BC. If our experimental reference work is extended, we may be able to determine which fibers were used for textile production during the Neolithic. This could reveal a virtually unknown field in the prehistoric economy and shed light upon the procurement and the use of plant and animal resources developed by populations living in a period when domestication was just beginning.

The main goal of this article is to present an overview of current knowledge about the subsistence strategy of Linear Pottery culture (LBK) in Moravia, Czech Republic. The main aspect of the subsistence strategy mentioned here will be the issue of dietary. Early Neolithic sites that in some way contributed to the knowledge about the dietary character (both meat and plant food) will be presented here. On this occasion, a case study of the Žádovice site, which belongs to the most recently analyzed settlements, will be presented. In addition, the methods used in the subsistence strategy of LBK in Moravia will be mentioned. The existing knowledge will be included in a broader settlement context and will be compared with each other. For the time being, it seems that in terms of the species spectrum of farmed animals, the area of Moravia does not differ from the situation known from Central Europe. Certain geographical differences are possible in Moravia, but this hypothesis must be verified in the future, depending on the expansion of the database. The study thus represents a springboard for further research in this area.

The excavations at “Cova del Randero” (Pedreguer, Alicante, Spain) began in 2007 within the programme of archaeological interventions of the Archaeological Museum of Alicante. The cavity, located in one of the valleys that connect the coast with the inland mountains, presents a wide sequence of occupations that begins in the Upper Palaeolithic and continues throughout the different phases of the Neolithic. The results of a multidisciplinary study, carried out in an archaeological context associated with the first Neolithic presence of the cavity, are presented here. This occupation is defined by a unique combustion structure to which a set of artefacts and biofacts are linked. This archaeological context, probably of a specific nature, is related to the first agro-pastoral communities settled in the area. The fireplace is well defined stratigraphically and sedimentologically because of its reddish soil, which corresponds to hunter-gatherer occupation levels of the cavity, and under the greyish sediments that characterise the use of the cave as a fold during the Middle Neolithic. This occupation event was dated both by the associated materials, among which a fragment of cardial ceramic was found, and by radiocarbon dating of a metacarpus of Ovis aries around 5075–4910 cal BC (epicardial Early Neolithic). This data allows us to link the occupation of the cavity at this time with pastoral activity in a medium mountain environment. However, it also allows us to infer the environmental characteristics in which the first farming communities of the mountains of Alicante were developed.

This study focuses on the pottery-bearing (“Neolithic”) sites of the northern Azov Sea region. The vessels ornamented with comb imprints appeared there in the sixth millennium BC. In the light of a recent re-dating of the Rakushechny Yar site sequence, the sites of the northern Azov region appeared to be the earliest evidence for this innovation. The innovation in the ceramic assemblage is accompanied by an innovative lithic tool set. The latter included macro-blades and fan-shaped end-scrapers, which were previously unknown in the studied region. Their reanalysis (including new field work at the single-layer site of Chapaevka) helped formulate a hypothesis of maritime transmission of comb-ornamented ceramics in the Black and Azov Sea. This hypothesis will stimulate further discussions regarding the ways of Neolithization in Eastern Europe. It underlines the connections between Balkan “classic” Neolithic and pottery-bearing sites of the Ukrainian Steppe. The impressed ware from Makri and other mainland Greek sites is treated as the closest analogy to the finds of the northern Azov Sea region.

In recent years, the notion of landscape learning has been the object of increasing attention when discussing the neolithization of Europe. The landscape learning model stresses the necessity of gathering environmental information about a previously unfamiliar region. Therefore, it is particularly relevant in cases where the beginning of a farming economy is better explained in relation to the movements of peoples (colonization), rather than to the adoption of crops and livestock by pre-existing hunters and gatherers (acculturation). Unlike other Iberian regions, where the adoption of agriculture runs parallel to that of animal husbandry, the available data on the neolithization process of the Sierra de Gredos mountain range seem to suggest that raising livestock may have preceded plant cultivation. Based on an interdisciplinary and multi-proxy approach, this paper explores the idea that the adoption of a food-producing economy in the Amblés Valley (Ávila, Central Iberia) may have been connected with pastoralism. In this context, landscape learning provides a model for analyzing how Early Neolithic herders in their seasonal movements were capable of wayfinding by memorizing spatial features that functioned as visual landmarks.

The purpose of this article is to present an inventory of certain faunal remains from Linearbandkeramic (LBK) settlements in the Paris Basin (Ile-de-France, Hauts-de-France and Champagne) that seem to belong to a particular category, that of “sign-objects,” in other words, tangible evidence intended to be shown and directly interpretable by an observer belonging to the society which produced them. Based on three categories of archaeological contexts, a ceremonial enclosure, settlements and graves, we will attempt to highlight the species that were important to Neolithic society. Two of them, the domestic cattle and the aurochs, are particularly involved in the deposits through the exhibition of their bones or their horn cores. Sheep and roe deer are also involved through, for example, transformed bones such as perforated tibias or sharpened roe deer antlers. The results of the analysis were integrated into an archaeological model previously developed to approach the social structure of the Neolithic society.

Origins of the Neolithic in the north-eastern part of Central Europe were associated with migrations of groups of the Linear Pottery culture after the mid-sixth millennium BC, as in other parts of Central Europe. During these migrations, a careful selection of settlement regions took place, in terms of the ecological conditions most favourable for agriculture. The enclave-like pattern of the Neolithic settlement persisted into the fifth millennium BC when these enclaves were inhabited by post-Linear groups. The remaining areas, inhabited by hunter-gatherers, were not subject to direct Neolithisation. However, there are some indications of contact between farmers and hunter-gatherers. This situation changed from c. 4000 BC onwards because of the formation and spectacular territorial expansion of the Funnel Beaker culture (TRB). This archaeological unit for the first time covered in a relatively compact way the territory under consideration. The human substratum of this process consisted of both hunter-gatherers and farmers. Consequently, one can discourse about Neolithisation as such only in the former case. Not all Late Mesolithic hunter-gatherers accepted TRB patterns. Those communities still successfully carried on traditional lifestyle, gradually supplementing it with pottery (para-Neolithic). Their Neolithisation ended perhaps only in the first half of the second millennium BC.

Western Iberia Early Neolithic has been described as an ultimate and very altered form of the Mediterranean Neolithisation process. Despite its Atlantic position, this territory – corresponding mainly to Central/Southern Portugal – is, in its physical and cultural geography, a Mediterranean landscape deeply connected to a historical process arriving from beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. The presence of cardial pottery led archaeologists to ascribe Portuguese Early Neolithic to a Mediterranean impressed Pottery cultural area, and according to demic diffusion models, small pioneer groups carrying the Neolithic package originated there. Recently, the archaeological record for the Western Mediterranean Neolithisation is becoming more complex and longer lasting cardial dominance over the seas has been disputed. Previous Neolithic groups seafaring the Mediterranean coasts with Impressa style pottery could have reached Iberian Peninsula by 5600–5400 cal BC, proving that by the mid-sixth millennium, different cultural entities were moving in the Western Mediterranean regardless of their genetic features. The main goal of this study is to disclose this cultural diversity in Western Iberia using a robust chronological database and debating how different proxies, like pottery styles and ancient DNA (aDNA), reveal it in Western Iberia. While recognising the Mediterranean input to Western Iberia groups, mapping the variability and the significance of different decoration techniques, such as cardial, false acacia leaf , impressed stripes, and using the aDNA to identify continuities/changes in ancient populations are here as tools to understand when, who, and how new kids came to the block . To do so, different disciplinary boundaries are crossed, and some transdisciplinary critical aspects are also commented.

Based on reconstruction of the spatial context of causewayed enclosures and long barrows of the Proto- and Early Eneolithic period, we attempt to model the phenomenon of the ritual landscape in Central and North Bohemia. Discussing the purpose and meaning of the long barrows and enclosures, they are being described as funerary and religious structures related to the cult of ancestors. An alternative explanation views them primarily, in economic terms, as territorial markers delineating the areas controlled by different communities. It seems likely that both of these interpretations are valid and well characterise the true nature of such structures. Both types of monuments should not be perceived as isolated structures, but just the opposite as they are part of a pattern of regional and super-regional identity of communities and individuals. In fact, they are crucial elements of the overall system of structuring of the prehistoric landscape.