This paper asks how an ontological perspective on Late Nordic Bronze Age art can advance archaeological interpretation of the ornamentation on personal objects used and carried directly on human bodies. To this end, the theoretical concepts perspectivism and ontological alterity are operationalized as an alternative to epistemological approaches to art. This entails framing the art on personal objects as a set of relations with the capacity to act and affect the lives of the humans interacting with it, rather than as representations. A central point is that this art should be considered as cosmology rather than representations of cosmology. The relational effects of this art in its bodily context are presented in examples illustrating how cosmology was encountered and experienced through the use of the objects. The paper concludes that art functioned as a medium for dialogue between the metaphysical and physical realities as it made cosmology present via personal objects.

To assess the time scales and relative importance of temporal decoupling between hillslope erosion and the introduction of sediment to streams in a Yangtze River headwater basin, we used multiple techniques to date sediments in alluvial fans and terraces in a third-order stream valley draining a 30-km2 catchment in SW Sichuan, China. Poorly sorted angular sediments in tributary-junction alluvial fans ranged in age from 11261 BCE to 1844 CE, and predominantly fine-grained overbank sediments in alluvial terraces date to approximately 1700–1950. Ethnographic observations and field mapping of hillslope soil depths indicate that terrace sediments and upper strata of several fans correspond to a period of hillslope erosion associated with the intensification of hillslope swidden agriculture. Contemporary sediment production is dominated by lateral fluvial erosion of valley-bottom landforms rather than by hillslope erosion. The long-term temporal decoupling by valley storage of hillslope erosion from sediment delivery to streams has relevance to contemporary hillslope erosion and sedimentation control efforts in the Yangtze Basin. It also motivates investigating whether valley-filling anthropogenic “legacy sediments” may play a role in decoupling hillslope erosion from sediment production in other Yangtze Basin headwater basins.

Many archaeologists recognize a need for a more proactive archaeology, one that is responsive to the goals of communities and so one that carries the potential to advance restorative justice and reclamation. But this work requires shifts in time and resources. Such high-investment community archaeology comes with unfolding developments, or cascade effects. We frame positive ones as including finding, honoring, elevating, and protecting cultural heritage and suggest these may offer those grappling with accommodating such shifts practical examples of the benefits. Our example comes from the Great Bay Archaeological Survey (GBAS) focused on colonial New Hampshire’s Great Bay Estuary/P8bagok (ca. AD 1600–1780). With years of community engagement in place, a landowner had heard of GBAS and stopped development when he noticed large stones. Here, we found an early colonial homestead site, the Meserve Garrison, and our attendant research traced out a trajectory of colonial expansion from Indigenous homelands transformed into English property, property into intergenerational wealth. With rising wealth came the dispossession of labor; GBAS found enslaved (freed) Africans lived in this rural northern New England frontier, a place not typically associated with chattel slavery. We are working to protect the site and publicly commemorate and restore an accurate, inclusive, colonial history.

Isotopes of strontium, oxygen, and carbon were analyzed in human tooth enamel from two Postclassic sites in the central Peten lakes region, Guatemala, to examine patterns of mobility and diet during a time of social unrest. Excavations at both sites, Ixlu and Zacpeten, have revealed evidence for purposeful dismemberment and interment of individuals. This study examines a possible shrine surrounded by rows of skulls at Ixlu, and a mass grave of comingled individuals interred at Zacpeten. The interments coincide with a period of conflict and warfare between two dominant polities, Itza and Kowoj. The 14 sampled individuals at Ixlu were young males, six of whom isotopically match the Maya Mountains of central Belize/southeastern Peten. At Zacpeten, isotopic signatures of adults and children (n = 68) suggested that many were either local or came from other parts of the Maya lowlands, but not the Maya Mountains. In the Late Postclassic, the Zacpeten individuals were exhumed, defiled, and deposited in a mass grave, probably by Kowojs. Although temporally and geographically related, the Ixlu and Zacpeten burials represent two distinct cases of ritual violence that reflect the tumultuous political landscape of the Postclassic period.

2026 sees the centenary of the publication of Mill Stephenson’s List of Monumental Brasses in the British Isles, a work that is still the sole complete inventory of all British monumental brasses. Stephenson was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and it was the Society’s own collection of brass rubbings that provided the essential foundation for his work. Stephenson’s project was a collaborative one that drew heavily on the endeavours of other like-minded antiquaries, and the Society’s Inner Library was the nerve-centre of his operation. Stephenson published extensively, and he left many of his papers and collections to the Society. Together, these sources allow us to build a picture of his working methods and the stages from which the List was to emerge. The article will look afresh at Stephenson’s career, about which hitherto little has been written, looking especially at his private life and the range of his acquaintances, his List and the role of the Society in its creation. It will further attempt an evaluation of his scholarly achievement, considering both his strengths and weaknesses as a scholar, and it will conclude with some reflections on how the listing of brasses has evolved since his time.

During the last decade, early Neolithic sites with unique flat-bottomed pottery as distinguishing feature were discovered in the southern part of Western Siberia at the Baraba forest-steppe and identified as the Early Neolithic Baraba Culture (briefly, Baraba culture). The culture is represented in settlements and ritual complexes, has households, as well as implements made of stone and bone. Samples of mammal bones, bird bones and bone artifacts were collected from three sites of the Baraba Culture: Vengerovo-2, Tartas-1, and Ust-Tartas mounds, and dated by accelerator mass-spectrometry (AMS) to reconstruct the chronology of the sites. 36 reliable radiocarbon dates were obtained: 12 of them at the Curt-Engelhorn-Centre of Archaeometry (Mannheim, Germany) and 24 at the AMS Golden Valley (Novosibirsk, Russia). Minimal-to-no differences between radiocarbon dates assessed at GV and MAMS facilities were identified by Bayesian analysis of covariance/analysis of variance. Bayesian chronological modeling supports existence of the Baraba culture between the middle of 8th millennium BC till the start of 6th millennium BC. Two stages of sites’ use were identified, separated by the transitory period of uncertain duration lasting since the end of 7th millennium. The end of the first stage was followed by abandonment of the Tartas-1 site, which we suggest coincided with the start of the 8.2k climatic event.1

This paper puts forward a new interpretation of Deleuzian philosophy for prehistoric archaeology through an examination of the ontology of prehistoric rock art. Whereas Deleuzian philosophy is commonly defined as a relational conception of the real, I argue that one must distinguish between three different ways in which Deleuze’s conception of the real can operate: (1) transcendental empiricism, (2) simulacrum and (3) prehistory. This distinction is dependent upon the different ways in which the realm of virtuality and the realm of actuality can relate to one another. In the case of prehistoric rock art, we are dealing with a non-hierarchical relation between virtual and actual in which there is a simultaneous movement from virtual to actual, and from actual to virtual. This is distinct from a relational conception of the real, which is based on the loss of distinction between virtual and actual. Through an analysis of the cup-and-ring rock art of Neolithic Britain and the cave art of Upper Palaeolithic Europe, I argue that it was in prehistoric rock art and not in modern art that the true ontological condition of art manifested itself.

In this study, we argue that uncovering losses from public collections and making efforts to recover them is of fundamental importance concerning the responsible management of state assets and the maintenance of the cultural public interest. In recent times, the perception of museums has been in a constant state of flux, with international expectations associated with them sometimes appearing to be contradictory. While much attention has been paid to the diligence of care, museums must exercise in areas such as acquisition, deaccessioning policies, repatriation, and decolonization, an equally important function – but one less discussed in the international literature – which is the duty of public collections to safeguard and manage state-owned assets. In 2023, the Hungarian National Museum implemented a new initiative aimed at recovering cultural property that had disappeared from public collections under unknown circumstances. This procedure has already generated numerous insights that the current study analyzes, ranging from the difficulty of shedding light on decades-long ownership chains to the challenges of acquisition and the effectiveness of dispute resolution. The Hungarian initiative represents an additional approach to the protection of cultural property, addressing a significant gap in the Hungarian heritage protection system that has received less attention.

Understanding the developmental and occupational histories of Ancestral Maya settlements is crucial for interpreting their roles in broader social, political, and economic dynamics. This article presents 62 new accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C dates from residential groups in the outlying settlement zone at Alabama, a major inland Ancestral Maya center in East-Central Belize. Alabama is a rare example of a “boomtown” in the Maya lowlands, experiencing rapid development primarily during the 8th and 9th century CE, corresponding to the Late to Terminal Classic periods. Using Bayesian stratigraphic sequence models, we construct detailed developmental and occupational histories for the townsite, clarifying the timing of its development, occupation, and abandonment. Our analysis reveals complex residential histories, confirming a rapid tempo of Late and Terminal Classic settlement growth and indicating continuities in occupation into the 10th century CE and beyond. Furthermore, we identify two separate periods of occupation during the Early Classic (cal AD 345–545) and the Late Postclassic (cal AD 1325–1475), demonstrating that parts of the settlement were inhabited at different intervals over many centuries. These results offer the first detailed deep-history perspective for the East-Central Belize region, establishing a framework that addresses challenges in chronology-building posed by poor pottery preservation and the complexities of earthen-core architecture at the site and enabling future chronological modeling in this lesser-known frontier of the eastern Maya lowlands.