The “Concession to Avicenna,” also known as the seventh chapter of De substantia orbis, is one of Averroes’s several philosophical attempts to reconcile between the corporeality of the celestial bodies and their eternity. The “Concession” contains a brief and rare nod of approval to Avicenna, which prompted the title under which it circulated. The work, lost in Arabic, survives in Ṭodros Ṭodrosi’s Hebrew translation from 1340, from which Abraham de Balmes’s subsequent Latin translation was made in the early sixteenth century. The present contribution offers, for the first time, an edition of the text in Hebrew and its original Latin translation (before its editorial revision for the 1525 editio princeps), alongside an introduction, a philosophical analysis of the argument, an English translation, and a glossary.

Newgrange, the Neolithic monument and centerpiece of the Brú na Bóinne UNESCO World Heritage complex, is a high-profile example of prehistoric societies’ observation of, and reverence for, solar events. Comparatively little is known about how these concepts were remembered by those using Newgrange over subsequent millennia. While excavations have uncovered large quantities of later material culture, debate continues about what these subsequent activities represent. We combine zooarchaeological, radiocarbon, and isotopic evidence to assess the nature and seasonality of human–animal–environment relationships at Newgrange. Results show a concentration of feasting activity, focused on pigs, dating to 2600–2450 BC and indicate that most pigs were slaughtered shortly after a period of rapid, pannage-fueled weight gain. This seasonal specificity indicates feasting likely occurred in the weeks around the winter solstice and suggests that, centuries after passage tomb construction ended, practices at Newgrange continued to focus on the general winter solstice timeframe. We also connect a unique isotopic signature for mast (tree nuts) with pannage husbandry, a pattern that should allow for reinterpretation of archaeological pig diets and human–woodland relationships across Europe.

The Tudor and Stuart New Year's gift exchange rolls were prepared every year. The manuscripts were kept in the Jewel House as an audit and accounting record of the inventory and were removed when the contents of the Jewel House were dispersed in 1649. A total of thirty-five rolls of the Tudor and Stuart exchanges are known to be extant. Between the mid-seventeenth century and the present time these manuscripts were held in private muniment collections, sold at auctions and intermittently studied by dilettantes. Individuals purchased the rolls for personal study and as curiosities. Antiquarians and Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London were interested in and recognised the value of these gift rolls. Antiquarian book dealers and autograph collectors enhanced the rarity of royal signatures and emphasised the rarity of these manuscripts. Sale catalogues of various bookdealers and auction houses record the path of the gift rolls from and/or into private collections and archives. Presently, while they should be included with the other state papers, these manuscripts are in the custody of eleven different archival locations in three countries. This paper tracks the preservation of these manuscripts through their ownership journeys and the records related to their locations.

‘Giant’ handaxes are a widely recognized but infrequently investigated phenomenon of the Acheulean period. The scale of their distribution and the selective pressures underpinning their production are not well explored. Here, we report new data from a large-scale experimental study that identifies the point at which handaxes become too large to use with a single hand, alongside a review of known Acheulean assemblages displaying ‘giant’ handaxes. On the understanding that most ‘regularly sized’ Acheulean handaxes were gripped in one hand, if handaxes require bimanual grips, alternative explanations for their production—beyond unimanual butchery and woodworking tasks—should be sought. Our data identify clear mass, length and thickness thresholds for bimanual gripping. It is revealed that spatially and temporally diverse archaeological sites display ‘giant’ artefacts that exceed these thresholds. We suggest these atypically large handaxes would most plausibly have been utilitarian tools used for cutting, but in alternative ways to more regularly sized bifaces. This includes when worked materials were secured by another individual or structure, during digging activities, or when used as a stationary cutting ‘plane’ secured on the ground.

All societies throughout time have shown a greater or lesser degree of superstition when facing the traumatic event of death. Roman society was no exception, especially when numerous religious currents participated in the funerary rituals, sharing their own conception and beliefs. The following lines present a brief overview of children’s death, especially premature ones, from the early Imperial to the late Imperial period, when they became more highly regarded. It is followed by the traumatic or marginal deaths of some individuals whose behaviour, illnesses or ways of dying were suspicious for their closest people: the article closes with the treatment given to certain women. All the deaths in this research aroused suspicions among their relatives or the authorities, who did not hesitate to practise rituals to calm them in the afterlife and ensure that they did not return to life as evil spirits. In this article we will focus on the practices that developed in the city of Onoba and its hinterland or influential area; a Roman colony located in the westernmost part of the province of Baetica, a port city of enormous importance for the Empire given its importance as a gateway for minerals coming from the Urium mines.

Tell settlements often provide a unique window into prehistoric lifeways due to remarkable preservation and safeguarding from modern disturbances. Vésztő-Mágor in Hungary is one such tell with stratigraphy, features and finds that reflect thousands of years of prehistoric settlement. In 2021, the Vésztő-Mágor Conservation and Exhibition Program began the work of stabilizing, documenting and preserving prehistoric deposits, features and artefacts exposed in an in situ exhibition trench at Vésztő-Mágor. In the process, an exceptionally well-preserved carbonized item was discovered embedded in a series of Middle Bronze Age house floors. We describe the object and context of discovery, and interpret it as matting inside a wattle-and-daub house. We expand our discussion to similar contexts known from Vésztő-Mágor, in the Carpathian Basin, and beyond, to highlight the technologies involving organic materials used at prehistoric tell sites and their significance for understanding lifeways at these settlements.

In the American Southwest and northern Mexico, it has long been argued that ceramic vessels with exterior surfaces that are covered with small nodes are Datura seed pod effigies. Datura is a genus of flowering plants containing psychoactive alkaloids that, when consumed, can induce hallucinations. Scholars have argued that these noded vessels were part of a ritual complex originating in Mexico and spreading throughout the Southwest. In his 2012 article, Lankford hypothesized that this ritual complex made its way into the southeastern United States based on the presence of the ceramic type Fortune Noded in the Mississippi River Valley. In this article, we evaluate three hypotheses suggested by Lankford. Our absorbed residue study did not support his first hypothesis that Fortune Noded vessels were directly related to Datura consumption. However, existing archaeological data do support the idea that a ritual complex including noded vessels moved through the Caddoan region to the Central Mississippi Valley. Those data also confirm Lankford’s final hypothesis that Datura was used in Mississippian period contexts in the Central Mississippi Valley. We conclude that Lankford’s hypothesis has merit and suggest that noded vessels and other ritual equipment be considered inalienable objects that moved through a network of ritual practitioners.

The increasing destruction of cultural heritage in conflict zones has exposed the shortcomings of current crisis response frameworks. Traditional, state-led mechanisms have struggled to address the complexities and rapid developments of modern warfare, leading to the emergence of more flexible, decentralized approaches. In this context, civil society organizations (CSOs) have emerged as key actors, stepping in to address the shortcomings of national governments and international heritage institutions. This article explores the evolving role of CSOs in emergency cultural heritage protection, focusing on Heritage for Peace (H4P) and its interventions in Syria, Sudan, and Gaza. Through case study analysis, this research examines the logistical, ethical, and operational challenges faced by H4P, and presents a model of its strategic interventions in emergency contexts. This model illustrates the opportunities and constraints inherent in crisis environments, including mobility and safety risks, alongside structural challenges in cultural heritage protection, such as limited funding and short-term project cycles that hinder sustainability. The research advocates placing the local population at the center of emergency strategies, strengthening local partnerships, implementing proactive preparedness measures, and strengthening international cooperation mechanisms.

This article uses the lens of commodity theory and, in particular, the scarcity effect to consider ways that consumer desire is reflected within auction catalogs for cultural objects. Taking Brodie and Manivet’s (2017:3) assertion that “auction sales do not offer a clear window onto the broader antiquities trade” as a motivating initial hypothesis, I find that auction catalogs do represent marketing material that can provide at least a blurry window onto the needs, wants, and desires of consumers acting within the market for archaeological and heritage objects. Consumer motivation at an auction is notoriously difficult to assess externally and has long represented a gap in the analysis of public antiquities sales. Failures to effectively regulate market consumption may relate to a misunderstanding of the people who are being regulated. Using more than 50 years of auction sales of Pacific cultural items as a case study, I present auction narrative analysis as a method to consider consumer desire and thereby inform heritage policy and market interventions.

This review considers how scientific archaeological publications, especially those relying on new digital technologies, can become sensationalized for the public in popular media. I present three separate examples of lidar-based mappings of ancient landscapes in the Amazon and Central Asia, each initially published by archaeological teams in the journals Nature or Science since 2022. These academic publications were followed by many news articles in the popular press. A common trope of these popular presentations includes the concept of “lost cities” being finally “found” by the lidar surveys. This oversimplification usually ignores existing knowledge, especially that of Indigenous local communities and archaeologists. We archaeologists should, therefore, become more aware of the potential consequences of our scholarly communications. We should consider the public’s experience with parsing scientific advances and what ways we can try to influence the public discourse.

What does it mean to care for culture? How does an individual, a community, a government, a nongovernmental organization, or an international agency care for objects entangled in the legal and illegal antiquities trade, held in contentious museum collections, or at risk due to cultural or natural disasters? How do the various stewards of the past work across the unpredictable boundaries of private, public, and community ownership? Caring for culture involves a range of activities and commitments aimed at safeguarding tangible and intangible cultural representations and ensuring that they remain accessible to present and future generations while honoring the traditions, beliefs, and identities of the contemporary communities. This editorial introduction to this thematic issue of Advances in Archaeological Practice begins with an analysis of the duty of care for the Neo-Assyrian reliefs at the Virginia Theological Seminary, asking whether the decision to sell one of their fragments was caring for culture or a commodification of the past. The remaining contributions to this issue share the theme of caring for culture, acknowledging and building on the enduring scholarship of Neil J. Brodie and Patty Gerstenblith.

Landscape evolution in karst terrains affects both subterranean and surface settings. For better understanding of controlling processes and connections between the two, multiple geochronometers were used to date sediments and speleothems in upper-level passages of Fitton Cave adjacent to the Buffalo River, northern Arkansas, within the southern Ozark Plateau. Burial cosmogenic-nuclide dating of coarse sediments indicates that gravel pulses washed into upper passages at 2.2 Ma and 1.25 Ma. These represent the oldest epigenetic cave deposits documented in this region. Associated sands and clay-rich sediments mostly have reversed magnetic polarity and thermally transferred optically stimulated luminescence dates of 1.2 to 1.0 Ma. Abandonment of these upper passages began before 0.72 Ma, when coarse sediment was deposited in a passage incised below older sediment. Maximum U-series dates of 0.7–0.4 Ma for flowstones capping clastic deposits mark the stabilization of older sediments and a change to vadose conditions that allowed post–0.4 Ma stalagmite growth. Resulting valley incision rates since 0.85 Ma are estimated at 27 m/Ma. Coarse cave-sediment pulses correlate to Laurentide glacial tills about 300 km to the north, suggesting climate influence on periglacial sediment production. Dated cave sediments also may correlate with undated older strath terraces preserved at similar heights above the Buffalo River.