Early representational art seems to tell a story all of its own, but in reality, it depended on the oral stories that accompanied its production. The art system has four parts: the producer, the subject of the story, the images of that subject, and the seer. Through the stories of the producer and the seers, this system implicated members of society in ways that were not limited to the images produced. By tying those stories to particular places, rock art influenced society more broadly through foraging choices and ritual. Because the persisting marks of rock art necessarily required storytelling, the stories penetrated the mental lives of people in the society. Interwoven with these considerations is the observation that for archaeologists, the producer, the stories and the original seers are gone and all that is left is the material of the rock art and the archaeologist. Writing archaeohistory from these materials requires interpretation in light of the archaeological evidence distributed across both space and time. One way of interpreting archaeohistory suggests that rock art played a significant role in cognitive evolution through its engagement in ritual.

Radiocarbon observations (Δ14C) in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) of seawater provide useful information about ocean carbon cycling and ocean circulation. To deliver high-quality observations, the Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics (LIP) at ETH-Zurich developed a new simplified method allowing the rapid analysis of radiocarbon in DIC of small seawater samples, which is continually assessed by following internal quality controls. However, a comparison with externally produced 14C measurements to better establish an equivalency between methods was still missing. Here, we make the first intercomparison with the National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (NOSAMS) facility based on 14 duplicate seawater samples collected in 2020. We also compare with prior deep-water observations from the 1970s to 1990s. The results show a very good agreement in both comparisons. The mean Δ14C of 12 duplicate samples measured by LIP and NOSAMS were statistically identical within one sigma uncertainty while two other duplicate samples agreed within two sigma. Based on this small number of duplicate samples, LIP values appear to be slightly lower than the NOSAMS values, but more measurements will be needed for confirmation. We also comment on storage and preservation techniques used in this study, including the freezing of samples collected in foil bags.

European ideas about unicorns spread across the world in the colonial era. In South Africa, hunts for that creature, and indigenous rock paintings of it, were commonplace. The aim was proof from ‘terra incognita’, often with the possibility of claiming a reward. There has, however, been little consideration of the independent, local creature onto which the unicorn was transposed. During cross-cultural engagements, foreign beliefs in the mythical unicorn and a desire for evidence of its natural history intermixed to an extraordinary degree with local beliefs in a one-horned animal. For over two centuries, colonists and researchers alike failed to realize that the local creature, by chance, resembled the European unicorn. A new synthesis of southern African ethnography, history and the writings of early travellers, missionaries and colonial politicians provides unambiguous evidence that one-horned creatures obtained in local beliefs before the arrival of colonists. Moreover, it shows that these creatures are depicted in South African rock art, and that they are a manifestation of San (Bushman) rain-animals. By ignoring relevant beliefs and images, previous scholars have failed to acknowledge that the South African unicorn was, apart from its four legs and single horn, a creature wholly different from the European one.

How can we understand prehistoric lithic objects? What meaning should we give them and what view should we adopt to claim access to their significance? How can we reduce and clarify our biases? This article is a proposal to introduce Peircian semiotics to review lithic objects. For a long time, these were apprehended as types, sometimes within evolutionary lineages; however, in this research, knapped stone objects will be perceived through a semio-pragmatic grid and reviewed as signs. The proposed approach is a new way of accessing the fields of technical phenomena of prehistoric communities. This new perception aims at a quest for objectivity, by clarifying the affective, analytical and interpretative a priori as an answer to the sometimes very personal view of the prehistorian on lithic objects. Charles Sanders Peirce’s logical theory of signs or semiotics is contextualized within an ‘artisanal’ reading of prehistoric tools as initiated by Éric Boëda and further developed by Michel Lepot. Through this phaneroscopic/phenomenological vision, the technical object, now a sign-object, is placed in action (semiosis) within a system of signs. This new trajectory is positioned both as a methodological tool and as an innovative milestone in the construction of a more logical episteme in Prehistory, taking lithics both as signs of past human activity and of archaeological representations.

In autumn of 2016, the National 1MV Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Laboratory at The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK), Marmara Research Center (MRC), Türkiye (Turkey), started to offer radiocarbon (14C) analysis service internationally. In this article, the process from sample acceptance to reporting and the primary procedures implemented and applied for 14C analysis at the TÜBİTAK AMS Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory are described. The service provided by the laboratory includes sample evaluation for 14C analysis, sample preparation, graphite production, AMS measurement, data supervision, calendar date calculations, and consultancy. For commercial testing and analysis, a one-page official report which shows the 14C age and uncertainty is provided for each sample. In addition to a dedicated wet chemistry laboratory to process samples before measurement with AMS, there are two systems for the conversion of CO2 to elemental carbon process; an automated graphitization system (AGE III) and a manual graphitization system based on a glass high vacuum line. A 1MV UAMS NEC Pelletron system installed in the laboratory is used for natural level 14C samples needed to be analyzed for archeological, geological, geographical, and environmental and forensic science applications. In addition to commercial 14C testing and analysis activities, national and international research projects can be developed or contributed to within the scope of project management or partnership.