This article revisits the concept of the ‘Christian city’ in Late Antique North Africa by shifting the focus from topography to the lived and perceived urban experience. While earlier scholarship has emphasized the accumulation of Christian buildings, this study argues that religious transformation is equally, if not more, visible through the evolving practices of city inhabitants. By analysing both Christian and continuing pagan traditions between the fourth and seventh centuries, the article explores how monuments and public religious practices shaped the perception and function of the city. Special attention is given to the volumetric presence of sacred architecture and to the role of public spaces, particularly streets, in hosting religious acts. Ultimately, the study offers a more nuanced understanding of the Christian city: one defined not solely by the presence of basilicas, but by the rhythms, gestures, and visibility of religious life within the broader civic landscape.

It has often been considered that the representations of the gods in Ancient Central Mexico were purely symbolic and that we should not look for the presence of glottograms, i.e. signs that encode linguistic units pronounced in the Nahuatl language. This article intends to demonstrate that we should reject the image/writing dichotomy in this context. In order to understand the identity of the Nahua gods, it is necessary to combine symbolic deciphering with a reading of the names embedded in their bodies and ornaments. This article takes the example of several representations of gods in codices of the Aztec tradition. It shows that this embedded script used the main scriptural techniques known in Nahuatl writing: logograms, phonograms, and indicators. In this way, the identity of the god, and therefore its ritual effectiveness, was expressed simultaneously visually and phonically.

Rhizoliths, cylindrical concretions formed primarily by CaCO3 accumulation around plant roots, serve as valuable indicators of past environmental conditions, including hydrology, redox dynamics, and carbon cycling. Despite growing interest in paleo-reconstructions, the lack of quantitative studies on formation mechanisms complicates interpretation. We present “RhizoCalc”, the first mechanistic model (deployed in HYDRUS-1D) computing rhizolith formation in CaCO3-containing loess soils, integrating water fluxes, root water uptake, and (Ca)-carbonate chemistry to simulate conditions under which rhizoliths develop. Hydraulic fluxes drive Ca2+ transport (0.13–1 mmol/L) toward the rhizosphere, governed by root water uptake under low (ETo = 0.03 cm/d) and high (ETo = 1 cm/d) flow rates at optimal (ho = –100 cm) and intermediate (ho = –1000 cm) moisture conditions. The simulations show that hydraulic constraints and calcite-induced jamming of the porous medium are key inhibitors of rhizolith growth, distinguishing physical limitations from biogeochemical feedbacks in the rhizosphere. On top of this, our work reveals root encasement and reliquary varieties, linking their physical and biogeochemical mechanisms to rhizolith transformations and offering insights into paleosol hydrology and redox dynamics. Under intermediate soil-water conditions with 1 mmol/L Ca2+, concentric rhizoliths with 0.2–3 cm radii form chrono-sequentially over 1.5–150 years. Each layer preserves CaCO3 constituents (δ18O, δ13C, 44Ca, 46Ca, 48Ca), root-derived biomarkers (e.g., lignin), and clumped isotopes (Δ47), preserving environmental signatures across time into the future. Therefore, this framework conceptualizes each rhizolith as a ‘time-capsule’ with each successive CaCO3 layer encapsulating a snapshot of vital environmental proxies, providing a window into otherwise inaccessible historic ecosystem dynamics. Refining reconstructions of Earth’s paleoclimatic history requires cross-sectional isolation of concentric layers in well-preserved rhizoliths, capturing distinct isotopic bands and their stratigraphy.

A 103 km2 aerial lidar survey of Dzibanche/Kaanu’l, Mexico, reveals the city’s settlement to be more populous and well-organized than previously thought. The sprawling settlement incorporated the early center of Ichkabal in a network of smaller peri-urban civic-ceremonial nodes. The density and complexity of the Kaanu’l settlement is consistent with its extraordinary political reach as a multiregional hegemonic state. The city and settlement grew to their maximum extent during the Early Classic period until AD 630. The lidar-derived data show that Dzibanche may have had the largest monumental zone and highest population density in the Maya Lowlands at that time. The Early Classic layout was unaltered by later construction, allowing us to document a well-developed system of causeways connecting an urban center and peripheral plaza groups with surrounding settlements and agricultural fields. The spatial organization and interconnectedness of this Early Classic settlement suggests a greater level of urban planning for optimal flow of goods and people across urban and peri-urban zones than previously thought.

Intertextual linkages between Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions and mythological narratives have significantly contributed to our understanding of royal self-presentation and historicization. Less explored, however, are how such linkages may be interpreted and visualized within royal art. In this paper, I propose an intervisual connection between Ninurta mythologies and Assyrian royal lion hunts by unpacking modes of display and interaction embedded between image, text, and lived experience in the palace art of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. Intervisuality was arguably deployed as an innovative strategy to craft a sophisticated connection between royal and divine kingship. I explore how Anzû, a mythological adversary of Ninurta that embodies chaos and disorder, was conceptualized and manifested across media, including cylinder seals and in relief art. Consequently, the paper displaces the typical focus given to the Assyrian king by instead investigating the roles of animals and monsters in upholding royal narratives. I argue that the form and actions of Anzû as embodied and performed in objects act as powerful symbolic referents that anchor its transformed image in royal hunt narratives. In conclusion, I consider why Ashurbanipal may have employed visual references to Anzû in his palace art.

This study examines the organization of large-scale chert biface production in the Maya Lowlands, focusing on Took’ Witz, an architectural group of El Palmar in Campeche, Mexico. Excavations and debitage analysis at three plazuelas and a major debitage deposit revealed a complex lithic industry. The results identified segmented production activities in households, from sourcing materials and early-stage reduction to late-stage biface production. The production scale far exceeded household consumption, probably supporting intensive agriculture in the region. The results provide insight into the variable settings and organization of the biface industry throughout the Maya Lowlands.

Indigenous archaeology and archaeology of Indigeneity are paramount in the contemporary world. We certainly need more of it across the archaeological scale and across the archaeological globe. Archaeology’s unhealthy attachment to colonialism, colonial administration and imperialism keeps on affecting our discipline on all levels. It is therefore encouraging to read Felix Acuto’s call for an engaged and activist Indigenous archaeology of Latin America. It is certainly needed, but depressing to learn about the recurrent atrocities against Indigenous peoples in Argentina.

This report discusses recent excavations in a residential neighborhood of Palenque and the broader implications of a preliminary analysis of chert and obsidian flaked stone. We argue that the high relative frequency of obsidian blades, chert drills, cores, and primary core shaping debitage from one residential group is evidence for multicrafting and intensified production beyond the immediate needs of the household.

This paper investigates how Assyrian kings protected their material legacies for posterity and why in some prominent instances such protections failed, with a particular focus on the palaces of Kalḫu and Nineveh during the Sargonid Period. I approach this question through the lens of intergenerational reciprocity; Assyrian worldviews provided various channels through which past, present, and future kings could engage with one another in reciprocal and coercive relationships across time. Unlike curses and blessings, which were relatively easy for Assyrian kings to disregard, these reciprocal relationships provided more compelling incentives for rulers to honour and preserve their predecessors’ material legacies. However, practical or ideological concerns would sometimes result in the need to alter buildings in ways that damaged the material legacy of a past ruler. In some of these instances, steps were taken to symbolically compensate the past ruler in question for this damage. In this fashion, rulers were able to negotiate the ideological tension between tradition and innovation to preserve historical memory while adapting living cultural heritage to meet current needs.

This paper presents the palaeoecological analysis of five latest Pleistocene (17,500–13,500 cal yr BP) Arctic ground squirrel (Urocitellus parryii) middens from three sites in the Klondike goldfields of central Yukon Territory. Plant and invertebrate macrofossil records were represented by 24 and 20 taxa, respectively, providing a record of the local environment and the earliest known occurrences in Yukon Territory for several taxa (e.g., the robber fly [Lasiopogon sp.] and marsh yellowcress [Rorippa cf. palustris]). The plant and invertebrate assemblages indicate the persistence of steppe-tundra to at least 13,680 cal yr BP by the preservation of taxa typically occupying dry sites, many of which remain components of grasslands and south-facing azonal steppe communities in present-day Yukon Territory. In the context of shrub expansion that is documented to have occurred by 14,000 cal yr BP in interior Alaska, we consider the taphonomic biases associated with Arctic ground squirrel middens that may lead to the lack of shrub macrofossils preserved at the sites. Our study provides an ecologically unique and chronologically constrained perspective on the local persistence of steppe-tundra in easternmost Beringia despite the regional expansion of shrubs.

This study reconstructs the fluvial dynamics of the Bras de Fer distributary in the Rhône Delta (France) during the Little Ice Age (LIA) in response to short-term climatic forcing. A multiproxy approach combining historical cartography, sedimentology, geochemistry, magnetic susceptibility, and hydrological archives reveals accelerated meander migration and extensive overbank accretion between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries CE. Increased flood frequency, coinciding with positive phases of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO+), promoted rapid lateral channel shifts and the formation of crevasse splay complexes along the outside bank of the Grande Ponche meander. The results demonstrate that, despite stable relative sea levels, deltaic morphology remained highly sensitive to decadal-scale climatic variability, highlighting the dominant role of hydrological extremes in shaping fluvial-deltaic environments of Rhône delta during the late LIA.

The length of time that cemeteries were used provides important insights into the persistence of social identities and how communities situate themselves in the landscape. In Bronze Age Europe, the duration of use of cemeteries is an important line of evidence to assess the role of mortuary practices in a time of social change across the continent. This study presents new dates and a Bayesian model of cremation at a Middle Bronze Age (2000–1500 BCE) cemetery in Transylvania (Romania). The cemetery at Limba-Oarda de Jos-Șesul Orzii is the largest known cemetery associated with the Wietenberg culture in Transylvania during the Middle Bronze Age. Unlike Early Bronze Age cemeteries and other Middle Bronze Age cemeteries elsewhere in the Carpathian Basin where burial activity often continued for over 500 years, the duration of use of Limba-Oarda de Jos-Șesul Orzii was much briefer. The cemetery formed within 160 years; we argue closer to 50–100 years. This use life is similar to the nearby Wietenberg cremation cemetery at Sebeș and stands in contrast to mortuary practices in previous time periods and other contemporaneous regions. The short duration of burial activity, and subsequent abandonment of the site, has ramifications for understanding Middle Bronze Age settlement patterns, mortuary rituals, and the dynamics around emerging inequality in Transylvania and beyond.