Temper is an essential element in pottery making in many parts of the world and in large parts of prehistory. Furthermore, it readily lends itself to qualitative and quantitative study without advanced equipment. Since all non-plastic materials in theory may be used as temper, variations in the choice of type and quality (amount, grain size) are important indications of craft traditions, functional differences and contacts between different areas. Even other, more elusive considerations might lie behind the choice of temper. Like the bride who should wear something new, something old, something borrowed and something blue, the tempering of pottery may include materials which allude to other objects or situations, thus establishing a coherence between the pot and other phenomena. Some new examples of special tempering with bone and chaff in pottery from the Iron Age in Scandinavia are presented for discussion.

This study explores the impact of recent discoveries on our understanding of the transition from the Roman to early medieval periods in northern England. Using the Tees Valley as a case study, it shows how modern interpretations of this process have focused primarily on the afterlife of the military sites in the region. However, the increased identification of significant Roman civilian settlements forces us to reconsider the dominant narratives and rethink the underlying processes that influenced the move from Roman-controlled frontier society in the fourth century to a fifth century society comprising both culturally Anglo-Saxon social groups and sub-Roman successor polities. A wider consideration is also given to how the changing patterns in the use of space and in refuse disposal strategies can be used to shed light on wider patterns of changing social identity in the later fourth century AD.

The aim of this research is to compare the cloth cultures of Europe and Egypt in the Bronze Age and New Kingdom. The comparison focuses on the fourteenth century cal BC and includes four geographically separate areas, including the oak coffin burials of southern Scandinavia, the Hallstatt salt mines of central Europe, Late Minoan Crete, and the tombs and towns of the later Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. The comparative approach can bring insights even when applied to unconnected cultures or regions. However, in this study I concentrate on a restricted chronological period and areas that were connected, directly or indirectly, by widespread networks of trade or exchange. The concept of cloth cultures is used to include both textiles and animal skins as these were closely related materials in the prehistoric past. Information was gathered according to the following categories: raw materials, including textile fibre, and species of skins; fabric structure and thread count (only for textiles); decoration and finish; and use and context. From this study, it is possible to recognize the universally shared principles of cloth cultures and the great versatility and creativity in the regional cloth cultures of the Bronze Age.

This article looks at the non-utilitarian functions of writing in Crete during the Palatial period. It argues that writing was used as a marker of status and prestige and that it was also used for communication with the divine. It also attempts to interpret what have usually been seen as isolated examples of writing systems as pseudo-writing.

Any new knowledge that goes beyond the stone tools and techniques used in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic is most significant as it reveals the cultural and technical capabilities of the people living in these periods. In 1963, two pitch finds were discovered in a lignite open-mining pit in the northern foothills of the Harz Mountains, in a layer the geological age of which was dated as being older than 80,000 years. The great significance of these finds was therefore immediately apparent. One of the finds showed a fingerprint as well as the imprints of a flint stone tool and the structure of wood cells. This was indicative of the pitch piece having served as an adhesive to secure a wooden haft to a flint stone blade.

Over 30 years later these finds were transferred to the Doerner Institut for investigation. The GC and GC/MS analyses revealed that, in both cases, birch pitches, well-known historical adhesives, had been used. These consist predominantly of pentacyclic triterpenoid components of the lupane type, with betulin forming the major component. The comparison with birch bark extracts showed that the biological peak profile (bio-marker) was surprisingly well preserved in these pitch finds and that hardly any degradation products were present.

Today, comparable pitches can easily be produced with modern technical methods, i.e. using airtight laboratory flasks and temperature control facilities. However, any attempt at simulating the conditions of the Neandertal period and at producing these birch pitches without any of these modern facilities will soon be met with many difficulties. This implies that the Neandertals did not come across these pitches by accident but must have produced them with intent. Conscious action is, however, always a clear sign of considerable technical capabilities.

The Neo-Assyrian Kingdom and the Urartian Kingdom were two important Near Eastern states in the Middle Iron Age (ninth to sixth centuries BC) that steered political developments and considerably transformed the lives of populations within their territories. This article aims to explore the origins of Urartian–Assyrian relations: the processes and ways through which Mesopotamian and Assyrian influences reached the eastern Anatolian highlands. The populations who founded the Urartian Kingdom lived mostly as semi-nomadic tribes in eastern Anatolia and surrounding areas during the Early Iron Age (thirteenth to ninth centuries BC). It is impossible to explain the emergence of the Urartian Kingdom in the Van region towards the mid-ninth century BC—which quickly became a powerful rival of its contemporaries—as a natural development of local culture. The main question at this stage is how and from where Assyrian influences were transmitted to the tribes who founded the Urartian Kingdom. Our opinion is that the answer to this question should be sought in the Upper Tigris region, which was inhabited by both cultures (Pre-Urartian and Assyrian) before the foundation of the Urartian Kingdom.