The West Area of Samos Archaeological Project (WASAP) conducted fieldwork over four years (2021–4), with the aim of investigating the western portion of the island of Samos. This article presents the results of the work undertaken in the southern part of the WASAP study area. WASAP fieldwork in this area was focused on the plain of Marathokampos, and areas of the southern coastline between Koumeiika in the east and Limnionas in the west. The data collected sheds new light on activity in this area between the Archaic and Byzantine periods.

Excavations at the Iron Age site of Worlebury hillfort during the mid-late 19th century revealed a large number of human skeletal remains, interpreted as victims of a ‘massacre’. Reanalysis of these remains, combining AMS dating, osteological, aDNA, histotaphonomy, and isotope analysis, has enabled a re-evaluation of this hypothesis. AMS dating lends support to the notion that many of these individuals may have died during a single episode, while osteological analysis has identified significant evidence for perimortem trauma, and the histology supports a short period between death and deposition. The genetic data suggest that the human remains represent a group with biological links through the maternal line and connections to another nearby site, while the isotope values are consistent with a local population, consuming animals raised in a salt-marsh environment like the Severn Estuary. Our results demonstrate the value of returning to often unpromising antiquarian collections using an integrated suite of modern analytical approaches.

The period between 450 and 350 BC is regarded as a time of significant social change during the European Iron Age, with numerous processes of transformation, instability, conflict, and mobility unfolding across the European continent. However, in contrast to other episodes of abrupt social transformation, this period has received considerably less attention: it has been understood as a starting point or a sudden change but not usually researched in its own right.

The present study begins by reviewing different European archaeological contexts, exploring how this century is usually interpreted as a significant break. Next, the focus will shift to a specific region, north-west Iberia, in order to identify changes in patterns of occupation and social dynamics. The primary objective is to examine the shift that occurred around 400 BC, identify any common pattern or trend across different regions, and assess long-term consequences. Finally, I propose a series of interpretations at different scales, aiming to raise some possible hypotheses for understanding the development of this brief yet eventful period.

Using calibrated radiocarbon dates, this study investigates climate signals recorded in fluvial sedimentary archives from southern Poland, eastern Netherlands, and eastern Germany. Summed probability density functions (PDFs) were constructed and analyzed in the context of INTIMATE stratigraphy. The results indicate that fluvial sedimentation and erosion processes were closely linked to climate fluctuations, particularly during GS/GI and GI/GS transitions. The analyses indicate multi-scale relationships between regional geomorphological processes and global climate trends during the period from 50 to 15 cal kBP. This study provides a reconstruction of Late Pleistocene fluvial activity and highlights the need for more precise radiocarbon dates to refine correlations between regional and global climate events.

The discovery of Middle Bronze Age field systems at Fengate, to the east of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire (Pryor 1980), in the 1970s, was hugely significant for Bronze Age studies in eastern England. Since then, gravel quarry excavations along the western edge of the East Anglian Fens – several of which have become vast, long-running landscape projects – have shaped our understanding of the region’s prehistory. This paper will examine new evidence from the (comparatively) ‘upland’ region of East Anglia, to the south and east of the Fens – primarily through two case study landscapes: South Cambridgeshire (along the Cam Valley) and East Norfolk (the Bure and Yare/Wensum Valleys). Both areas have seen extensive archaeological investigation over the past 15 years and offer new perspectives on the region’s Bronze Age, where land division and settlement context appear different to that of the Fenland and where burial rites display a diversity that has until recently been largely unrecognised. Recent and upcoming publication of these landscapes highlights the need for up-to-date synthesis and review of the region’s Middle Bronze Age evidence, and accordingly, the wider East Anglian context is also briefly considered here, in the hope of providing stimulus for further research and analysis.

The results of research on the human remains and artefacts recently discovered at Heaning Wood Bone Cave, Cumbria, UK are reported. A programme of radiocarbon dating has established that the human remains include the earliest so far discovered in northern Britain, the ‘Ossick Lass’, which date between 9290 and 8925 cal BC. The cave was used for burial during three phases in prehistory: one individual dating to the Early Mesolithic, four to the Early Neolithic and two to the Early Bronze Age and is thus an important addition to our developing knowledge about the deposition of human remains in caves in north-west Europe at these dates. Genomic analysis has established that all but one of the sampled individuals were biologically female. Osteological and taphonomic analysis shows that, in each phase, the burial practice seems to have been successive inhumation of the recently deceased body into the vertical entrance of the cave. Artefacts associated with the burials include perforated periwinkle shell beads radiocarbon dated to the Early Mesolithic, a small assemblage of worked stone, including diagnostically Early Neolithic pieces, and sherds of Early Bronze Age Collared Urn pottery.

The goal of this study is the presentation and evaluation of settlement patterns in the region between the Minoan palatial centres of Knossos and Malia, mainly on the north coast of Heraklion, during the second millennium BCE. The approach is based on new archaeological data from large- and small-scale rescue excavations and supervised digging activities in the context of public or private construction projects. Existing archaeological knowledge of this particular region is also taken into consideration. Following a chronological sequence, a Prepalatial (Middle Minoan [MM] IA) long wall, which is located 250 m south of the hill of Paliochora at Amnissos and belongs to a wider architectural planning of access control from the coast of Amnissos to the hinterland, is presented along with a contemporary rural installation in Stalida. An extensive settlement in the area of the Amirandes Hotel in Kato Gouves is dated mainly to the Protopalatial period and shows close affinities with Malia. Of the same date and cultural orientation is the extensive occupation near Agriana, which continues to exist in the early Neopalatial period. The Minoan settlement at Kastri in Chersonesos is dated to MM IIIB, while an earlier Protopalatial phase was also identified. A number of other sites in the district of Gouves are dated to Late Minoan (LM) III. A unique example of continuous habitation from LM IB to LM IIIB was excavated near the local primary school in Gournes. The decrease of sites in MM IIIB–LM IA and the scarcity of LM IB settlements, in contrast to the density of Protopalatial installations, confirm the centralisation of the habitation model during the late Neopalatial period, probably due to the expansionist policy of Knossos. However, the balance of power of the two palatial centres over the region under discussion shifted through time, with Malia having control of most of the area during the Protopalatial period and Knossos expanding its influence during the Prepalatial, Neopalatial and Final Palatial periods.

Datasets from around the world suggest that people completed early monumental construction projects without long-term structures of hierarchy or authority. In the Maya area, some of the first monuments produced by semisedentary societies, such as those at Yaxuna and Ceibal, were built in the absence of substantial social inequality. The focus of these monuments was a relatively inclusive plaza. This article presents evidence of an eighth-century BC monumental construction at Ucí, another site that was probably not fully sedentary. At Ucí, however, the first large architecture is not inclusive. Structure 14sub5 lacks a front stairway, separating people in the plaza from those who could ascend the building from the back. The difference between the inclusivity at Ceibal and Yaxuna and exclusivity at Ucí suggests variation in degrees of inequality. Different societies experimented creatively with social and political organization. This aligns with the inherent complexity of egalitarian societies as well as the possibility that not all complex societies began as egalitarian. Consonant with the idea that people had power to act otherwise, early exclusivity at Ucí developed into inclusive forms of governance in the Late Preclassic.

Classic Maya burials are complex archaeological contexts, shaped by distinctive depositional and postdepositional activities. To address this complexity, mortuary archaeologists have increasingly adopted theoretical and methodological frameworks from archaeothanatology. This article applies an archaeothanatological approach to the analysis of 35 burials from Group IV, a nonroyal elite residential compound at the Classic Maya site of Palenque, Mexico. The study reveals a complex funerary sequence that includes predepositional body preparation, primary and secondary depositions, and postdepositional modifications, reflecting long-lasting relationships between the living and the dead. The results provide evidence for differential treatments. Protracted rituals were conducted around elaborate burials, although they rarely included secondary skeletal manipulation. Conversely, simpler stone graves underwent reopening and secondary manipulation, and a few individuals were buried directly into the soil. Despite their differences, these activities were materializations of beliefs, which underscored the centrality of ritual interaction with the dead in Classic Maya mortuary traditions. These patterns mirror broader ritual traditions at Palenque that involved the prolonged usage of ritual spaces and burials, as well as concerns about corpses’ decay.

Individuals have long manipulated the dimensions of architecture, vessels, and monuments. Although scaled-up objects are often conspicuous parts of communities, this article instead considers scaled-down objects, specifically Postclassic Maya small, uncarved stelae. After presenting previously documented examples of these monuments from the Maya lowlands, the article introduces two recently recorded examples from Punta Laguna in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula: each is associated with the final deposition of hundreds of fragments of broken and unreconstructable anthropomorphic incense burners. Although the exact functions and meanings of these stelae remain elusive, understanding them as miniatures—as abstracted and compressed scaled-down versions of referents—aids in efforts to reenvision the Postclassic period and to uncouple notions of scale and complexity. More specifically, understanding small, uncarved Postclassic stelae as miniatures reframes their creation as a purposeful choice, rather than as an act of necessity; suggests they are a legitimate rather than anomalous type of monument; and encourages scholars to eschew conventional considerations of what these stelae lack—size, writing, and carved figural representations—and focus instead on what they retain: the medium of stone, their basic shape and upright nature, and their placement in nondomestic contexts and association with nondomestic artifacts.

This memoir of John Ellis Jones, best known for his contributions to the Classical archaeology of rural Attica, traces his early studies in North Wales, his first encounters with Greece in the early 1950s, his family life, and the teaching posts he held at the University of Leicester (1957–8) and at the University College of North Wales (now Bangor University) – the latter for 37 years until his formal retirement in 1995, after which he continued to support Classics in North Wales for many more years. His important contributions to the archaeology of Classical Greece, especially rural Attica, are outlined, together with an example of the distinctive artwork with which he embellished his copious publications. Also highlighted are his many contributions to the archaeology and history of North Wales. The memoir is accompanied by a complete bibliography of his publications, many in Welsh.

This article uses the assemblage of surface-survey ceramics collected in the 2021 and 2022 West Area of Samos Archaeological Project (WASAP) field seasons to discuss the landscape structure and networking patterns (internal and external to the island) of Archaic through Byzantine south-west Samos. Collected in the basin of Marathokampos with intensive field pedestrian methods, a subset of a dataset of 1303 ceramics is discussed alongside the environmental context of their findspots. Spatial analysis is used to identify 15 ‘Areas of Interest’ in the landscape, densely populated by surface ceramics. The ceramic assemblage is interpreted in the framework of the Samian pottery production, to evaluate the entanglements of south-west Samos in regional and extra-regional trade networks. The main fabric groups are discussed and the range of types compared to material from the Hera Sanctuary and other parts of Samos. This leads to the surprising picture of a mostly inwards-looking island economy. Through the ages the assemblage is by far dominated by local productions, and the very few long-distance imports reflect more indirect trade contacts than an actively maintained, extensive trade network.

The source of material for Group XX stone artefacts is reassessed using extant geological and petrological information and complemented with new field and artefact pXRF analyses. Our reassessment of extant archaeological and petrological data supports earlier conclusions that a possible origin for Group XX stone tools is in the Charnwood Forest area, just north of Leicester. Based on petrographic evidence, this source is now considered to lie within the geological Bradgate Formation. This formation is exposed in a broad, U-shaped band around the eastern and southern fringes of Charnwood Forest where the Ediacaran volcanic tuff rocks form rugged exposures penetrating the overlying Triassic sandstones and mudstones. A new study of Group XX artefacts at museums in Cambridge, Leicester, Lincoln, and Sheffield revealed a number of distinct morphologies, two of which lead us to suggest that they represent axehead templates that are likely to have derived from specific design and manufacturing, rather than from ad-hoc extraction or loose material selection and random shaping. New pXRF data are used to supplement existing information and similarities in immobile large ion lithophile and high field strength element concentrations between both artefacts and exposures, presenting the possibility that the immediate area near the Windmill Hill exposure of the Bradgate Formation, at Woodhouse Eaves, is close to, or indeed contains the source of, Group XX material.