This study investigates the effects that an encounter with a foreign object can have on local traditions. Notions of object agency and object biographies will be utilized to address what happens when people become entangled with new things: the new context can have an impact on the newly introduced object, and those newly introduced objects can similarly impact locals and their traditions. The Late Bronze Age southern Levantine site of Tel Burna will serve as a case study, where a number of imported Cypriot pithoi were found alongside locally produced pithoi. It will be demonstrated that in their new context, the Cypriot pithoi were given new meaning and function. At the same time, the imported pithoi played active roles in the local potters of Tel Burna making pithoi. However, the local pithoi resemble local storage jars, so while the potters mimicked the concept of the Cypriot pithoi, they did so according to local normative forms.

Large walling projects are among the most visible features in the archaeological record. However, enclosure walls remain relatively under-theorized relative to other monumental buildings. In an attempt to move beyond simple explanations that analyse walls solely as defensive features or symbols, I link monumental walls to notions of sovereign power and action-oriented theories of value(s). Using examples from Pharaonic Egypt, I argue that monumental enclosure walls were attempts to define and realize particular social totalities, whether these were a temple complex, a royal tomb or an urban centre. If all efforts at border-making are also an exercise in power, walls have the potential to illuminate some of the goals and values of those ordering their construction. By analysing changes and continuities related to which structures required the protection of a monumental enclosure wall over time, it is possible to shed light on the fluid priorities of the most important political actors in Pharaonic society. Yet the very presence of a wall implies potential dissent and alternative practices—otherwise a wall's construction would not have been necessary.

Countering the passive representation of rivers in many previous accounts of later prehistory – as static vessels for spectacular deposits, highways for transport and communication, and backdrops for settlement and farming – this paper asks if and how rivers actively shaped prehistoric lives. Rivers have long been hailed as conduits for prehistoric materials and ideas. However, positive archaeological correlates of the processes involved are notoriously difficult to identify and have rarely been scrutinised in detail. Using the example of Late Bronze and Early Iron Age pottery in the east of England (1150–350 bc), we examine in detail how prehistoric pottery-making traditions cohered around river valleys over an extended time period and were thus, to a certain extent, generated by rivers. Drawing on wider evidence for the flow of people and things in this region we build a broader multi-dimensional account of how people, objects, and practices moved in a period of diverse lifeways in which the makeup of human mobility is not well understood. In doing so, we hope to tether abstract arguments about the active role of rivers and other non-human elements in shaping past lives and to approach the often missing ‘middle ground’ – small-scale movements at local and regional scales – in existing archaeological discussions about mobility.

This article describes a series of steps to integrate multiple modes of archaeological mapping in arid and agricultural settings. We use the coastal region of Peru as a case study and share our recent field experience at Cerro San Isidro, a multicomponent hill site located in the agriculture-intensive and mid-elevation (about 500 m asl) Moro region of the Nepeña Valley. In June and July 2022, we spent eight weeks deploying a combination of drone aerial imagery, pedestrian GPS reconnaissance, and GPR survey to map the surface and subsurface features at the site and in the adjacent agricultural fields. Our efforts suggest that the ancient settlement extended over an area of at least 50 ha, well beyond the visible surface architecture. Using a multimodal approach to confirming the partial destruction of archaeological vestiges by modern agricultural encroachment is both time-effective and noninvasive. The article offers insights from our experience, including the sequence of field operations, technical troubleshooting, and the collection and integration of datasets. We discuss the methodological potential and implications of this combination of multimodal mapping and its deployment in coastal Peru, a region that, like many others in the world, is increasingly subject to rapid agricultural expansion and other anthropogenic developments.

Cathodes with recessed sample surfaces have several benefits in cesium sputter ion sources, including higher output, more efficient use of sample material, and improved focusing of the extracted ion beam. However, the Ionplus MICADAS uses cathodes with a graphite surface that is essentially flush with the sample holder. To evaluate the performance of recessed graphite with the MICADAS and determine the optimal surface depth, we tested four different depths, including the standard (flush) pressing method, 0.5 mm, 1.0 mm, and 1.5 mm. We found that recessed depths of 1.0 and 1.5 mm resulted in 20% higher ion beam current compared to the standard method under the same source conditions. The results are consistent with the beam produced from the recessed targets being more narrowly focused with a lower emittance, resulting in better transmission through the accelerator. Small graphite samples (200 µg C) with recessed surfaces produced higher currents for longer, leading to a 2–3× increase in sample ionization efficiency. Additionally, there was some evidence that isotopic ratio measurements of recessed samples were more stable over time. Overall, samples recessed to 1 mm depth offered numerous advantages over the standard pressing method and we have subsequently started pressing all MICADAS graphite using this approach.

Obtaining accurate radiocarbon (14C) results from wood samples requires the extraction of cellulose. In the past, this has been done using different combinations of methods including acidified bleaching, acid-base-acid, and strong bases. This often becomes a time-consuming task in most analyses, especially when single ring isotope chronologies are needed from wood samples. Using 14C and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), we tested four different pretreatment methods to determine their ability to produce high quality cellulose. We then adjusted the best methods to determine a method for pretreating wood laths of multiple rings. A sequence of base-acid-base-acid-bleach + strong base (BABAB+) and BABAB produced the most accurate results when compared to the Bomb20 Northern Hemisphere Zone 1 curve with an average difference in Δ14C of 1.3‰ and 5.8‰ respectively. These methods were adjusted to pretreat an entire wood lath and a comparison of the FTIR results suggest that our adjusted BABAB+ and BABAB produced high quality cellulose comparable to that of an individually pretreated ring. The possibility to pretreat wood lath samples has the potential to more than double the number of tree rings which can be pretreated in a week. This is a significant reduction in time when creating long tree ring chronologies.

Massive ground ice found in the Barrow Permafrost Tunnel at 3–7 m depths from the surface has been interpreted as an ice wedge and used to reconstruct early Holocene environmental changes. To better understand the development of this ground ice, we conducted radiocarbon dating for 34 samples of plant remains from the massive ground ice and underlying sediment layer. A significantly large gap in the measured radiocarbon ages (more than 24 ka) between massive ice and the underlying sediment layer throughout the tunnel profile suggested at least two possibilities. One is that the lower and older sediment layer had thrust upwards at the boundary between intruding ice wedge and adjacent sediment, and the growing ice had pushed the sediment sideways. Another is that erosional events had removed surface materials at about 12–36 ka BP (14–41 cal ka BP) before the overlaying sediment layer with massive ground ice developed. The overall distribution of radiocarbon ages from the massive ice supported the ice-wedge hypothesis as a formation mechanism, although our results showed several age inversions and large fluctuations. Dating of densely spaced samples revealed two ground-ice regions with similar ages around 11–11.5 and 10–10.5 ka BP divided by a relatively narrow region of transitional ages along the tunnel long-axis. This distribution may be explained by a possible misalignment between the sampling direction and the ice-wedge growth line or by intermittent ice growth with repeated cracking at more random locations than the classic ice-wedge growth model suggested.

Southern Peru is home to one of the richest sites with rock art in South America—Toro Muerto. A unique aspect of the iconography of the petroglyphs of the site is the figures of dancing humans, the so-called danzantes, which are additionally frequently associated with geometric motifs, mostly variants of zigzag lines. Drawing upon intriguing data recorded during Reichel-Dolmatoff's research in Colombia related to the meaning of analogous motifs in Tukano art, as well as broader exploration of the sonic sphere in South American cultures and the thesis that Amazonian animism was a more archaic ontology over a broader area of South America, this paper suggests that the geometric patterns at Toro Muerto, with which the figures of danzantes are juxtaposed, may have been representations of songs. An extension of this hypothesis is the suggestion that some of the more complex compositions consisting of danzantes and linear geometric motifs were graphic metaphors of transfer to the other world.