The article presents a philological edition of K.2727+K.6213, a fragmentary tablet from Nineveh that deals with a ritual for opening a canal. The paper discusses other references to this ritual, i.e. parallel sources for this type of ritual, the materials used, the gods addressed, and the specialists who performed the ritual actions.

The conquest of the Shang Dynasty at Anyang around 1046 BCE by the Zhou is one of the major events for not only Chinese Bronze Age but also early interaction between the pastoralist groups from the Eurasian Steppes and agriculture ones in the Central Plains of China. It is well-known from historical texts that the pre-Zhou people lived in the ancient Bin region (豳), the exact location of which is unclear, but most likely in the Jing River valley. At some point the leader Gugong Danfu (古公亶父) moved from Bin to the capital Qi (Zhouyuan), which preceded the Zhou invasion of Anyang. We have produced a new high resolution radiocarbon chronology for Zaolinhetan, a small settlement in the pre-Zhou heartland. This shows not only an exceptionally long chronological span for the site, but also a different phasing compared to the traditional pottery typology, which raises new questions regarding the regional variation of pottery typologies. Intriguingly, the analysis also reveals a rapid abandonment of Zaolinhetan around 1100 BCE, at the same time many larger sites, such as Zhouyuan, which later became the capital of the Western Zhou dynasty, were significantly expanding. We argue that the drastic decline of Zaolinhetan as revealed by the substantial number of radiocarbon dates and probably also the movement of pre-Zhou political center from Bin to Qin, was part of bigger picture that involved a range of social and environmental factors.

In the early 1990s the two fragments of black stone making up the Tower of Babylon stele with pictures of the ziggurat in Babylon and the king Nebuchadnezzar II were found in the large open trench from the German excavations of Amran in 1900. The findspot was about 20 m north of the Esagil temple in Babylon, but the level where it was discovered is not Neo-Babylonian but later, possibly Parthian. The archaeological and historical background of the stele is discussed, and the image of the Ziggurat on the stele is considered. After 28 years in the Schøyen Collection Oslo, the stele is now in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad.

This paper explores the processes of specialized viticulture in the province of Gallia Narbonensis over the first three centuries CE and brings this evidence to bear on broader economic questions, particularly as they relate to the effects of connectivity and globalization on Roman economic development. Evidence from small farms to sprawling villas suggests that specialized production stretched across multiple strata of society in Narbonensis, from so-called peasants to the wealthiest elites. The existence of specialized agricultural production at the scale documented in Narbonensis required significant demand, well-connected and integrated markets, sustained trade, and an awareness of these economic factors by the residents of the province. The evidence presented here demonstrates that the residents of Narbonensis recognized that they were part of an economic environment in which high levels of connectivity and integrated markets allowed them to pursue more profitable production strategies and that they pursued these opportunities.

This paper uses a “dates as data” approach to understand how grave good use and cemetery space changed across the early medieval period in England. A series of composite kernel density estimations were created, based on a dataset of nearly 1100 graves with associated radiocarbon dates, from between the fourth and ninth centuries AD. This modeling revealed a previously unrecognized peak in grave furnishing around 600 AD, which coincides with a peak in isolated burials, and a low point for unfurnished graves and for small cemeteries. It argues that this peak is unrecognized as previous models of chronological change have focused only on graves containing chronologically distinctive artifacts and highlights the importance of radiocarbon dating as a way of avoiding this limitation.

The Palaeolithic archaeological record from current dryland contexts informs on activity across only a fraction of occupied Pleistocene landscapes. Now-submerged contexts, such as those preserved beneath the southern North Sea, allow past human activity to be considered at a more representative scale. Previous investigations have recovered internationally significant Middle Palaeolithic archaeology associated with submerged Pleistocene landscapes in the southern North Sea. Discovered through aggregate dredging in marine aggregate licence Area 240, the archaeology is associated with Pleistocene deposits of the Paleo-Yare river system. Subsequent studies have demonstrated that the Palaeo-Yare catchment extended across adjacent aggregate areas, leading to the implementation of a regional monitoring programme at aggregate wharfs to monitor, manage, and assimilate new archaeological data.

This paper reviews all new Palaeolithic lithic finds recovered between 2011 and 2022 from Area 240 and adjacent licence areas. Most are Middle Palaeolithic artefacts from Area 240. These new Middle Palaeolithic discoveries are related to previous finds and the combined collections placed within their wider Middle Palaeolithic British context. Middle Palaeolithic activity within the Palaeo-Yare catchment included multiple phases of occupation associated with different favoured technological repertoires, indicating that two groups of artefacts are present: Levallois artefacts likely to date to the early Middle Palaeolithic (MIS 8–7–6) and handaxes dating to the Late Middle Palaeolithic (MIS 5d–3).

The excavation of a large administrative building at the city of Tell Brak in northern Syria saw the recovery of a considerable quantity of charred cereals dated to the mid-third millennium B.C.E. This remarkable discovery provides a rare snapshot into the nature of agriculture in Upper Mesopotamia during the Early Bronze Age. The material has been studied using a combination of primary archaeobotanical analysis, crop stable isotope determinations, and functional weed ecology to deliver new insights into cultivation strategies at Tell Brak as well as to contribute to the wider debate regarding trade and crop importation in this region. Specific crop regime choices also reveal how the farmers of Tell Brak were able to reduce the overall risk of crop failure by careful water management, a vitally important factor in this semi-arid region, with potential implications for the analysis of other large-scale urban agro-economies in the Middle East and beyond.