Sedentary occupation of the southern Levantine coast spans from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic C to the Early Bronze Age Ib phase (c. 7000–3100 BC). Sites dating to the Early Pottery Neolithic (c. 6400–5500 BC) are scarce, however, potentially reflecting the effects of the 8.2ka climatic event. Here, the authors present the investigations at the submerged site of Habonim North off the Carmel Coast. Typological and radiocarbon dating indicate an Early Pottery Neolithic occupation and evidence for continuity of subsistence and economic strategies with both earlier and later Neolithic cultures. The results indicate the resilience of coastal communities in the face of significant climatic uncertainty and contribute to understanding human responses to environmental change.

The protected Tel-Dor coastal embayment in the eastern Mediterranean preserves an unusually complete stratigraphic record that reveals human–environmental interactions throughout the Holocene. Interpretation of new seismic profiles collected from shallow marine geophysical transects across the bay show five seismic units were correlated with stratigraphy and age dates obtained from coastal and shallow-marine sediment cores. This stratigraphic framework permits a detailed reconstruction of the coastal system over the last ca. 77 ka as well as an assessment of environmental factors that influenced some dimensions of past coastal societies. The base of the boreholes records lowstand aeolian deposits overlain by wetland sediments that were subsequently flooded by the mid-Holocene transgression. The earliest human settlements are submerged Pottery Neolithic (8.25–7 ka) structures and tools, found immediately above the wetland deposits landward of a submerged aeolianite ridge at the mouth of the bay. The wetland deposits and Pottery Neolithic settlement remains are buried by coastal sand that records a middle Holocene sea-level rise ca. 7.6–6.5 ka. Stratigraphic and geographic relationships suggest that these coastal communities were displaced by sea-level transgression. These findings demonstrate how robust integration of different data sets can be used to reconstruct the geomorphic evolution of coastal settings as well as provide an important addition to the nature of human–landscape interaction and cultural development.

Archaeologists have a responsibility to use their research to engage people and provide opportunities for the public to interact with cultural heritage and interpret it on their own terms. This can be done through hypermedia and deep mapping as approaches to public archaeology. In twenty-first-century archaeology, scholars can rely on vastly improved technologies to aid them in these efforts toward public engagement, including digital photography, geographic information systems, and three-dimensional models. These technologies, even when collected for analysis or documentation, can be valuable tools for educating and involving the public with archaeological methods and how these methods help archaeologists learn about the past. Ultimately, academic storytelling can benefit from making archaeological results and methods accessible and engaging for stakeholders and the general public. ArcGIS StoryMaps is an effective tool for integrating digital datasets into an accessible framework that is suitable for interactive public engagement. This article describes the benefits of using ArcGIS StoryMaps for hypermedia and deep mapping–based public engagement using the story of copper production in Iron Age Faynan, Jordan, as a case study.

Digital media and learning initiatives for virtual collaborative environments are contributing to the definition of new (sub-)disciplines in archaeological and heritage sciences. New nomenclature and terminology is emerging such as cyber archaeology, cyber archaeometry, virtual worlds and augmented and immersive realities; and all of them are related to museums and cultural heritage—tangible, intangible or natural (Forte 2010; Liritzis et al. 2015).

The Dark Energy Survey is undertaking an observational programme imaging 1/4 of the southern hemisphere sky with unprecedented photometric accuracy. In the process of observing millions of faint stars and galaxies to constrain the parameters of the dark energy equation of state, the Dark Energy Survey will obtain pre-discovery images of the regions surrounding an estimated 100 gamma-ray bursts over 5 yr. Once gamma-ray bursts are detected by, e.g., the Swift satellite, the DES data will be extremely useful for follow-up observations by the transient astronomy community. We describe a recently-commissioned suite of software that listens continuously for automated notices of gamma-ray burst activity, collates information from archival DES data, and disseminates relevant data products back to the community in near-real-time. Of particular importance are the opportunities that non-public DES data provide for relative photometry of the optical counterparts of gamma-ray bursts, as well as for identifying key characteristics (e.g., photometric redshifts) of potential gamma-ray burst host galaxies. We provide the functional details of the DESAlert software, and its data products, and we show sample results from the application of DESAlert to numerous previously detected gamma-ray bursts, including the possible identification of several heretofore unknown gamma-ray burst hosts.

The Iron Age sequence in the southern Levant is one of the most evocative and provocative in ancient history, since it coincides with events remembered in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). The authors show how a scientific chronological framework can be created and contribute an independent voice to the historical debate. They also show that, if archaeology is to complement history, such a framework requires an especially rigorous application of precision, in context definition, data handling and Bayesian radiocarbon dating, and urge such application to forthcoming work at the key Biblical site of Megiddo.

The authors have explored the workplace and house of copper workers of the early Iron Age (twelfth to tenth century BC) in Jordan's Wadi Faynan copper ore district, showing that it belongs in time between the collapse of the great Bronze Age states and the arrival of Egyptians in the area under Sheshonq I. They attribute this production to local tribes – perhaps those engaged in building the biblical kingdom of Edom.

Des données en nombre croissant montrent que dès la fin du Ve millénaire B.C., les sociétés de la Palestine ont connu de profondes transformations sociales et technologiques. Certaines d'entre elles sont attestées par l'apparition de lieux de culte, de sanctuaires et de cimetières, par la spécialisation artisanale, et la métallurgie, en relation avec une formidable augmentation de la population et l'organisation de sites en entités hiérarchisées avec des centres qui régulaient tant l'organisation socio-économique que les activités religieuses. C'est au cours du IVe millénaire B.C. que se sont constitués les fondements de toutes les sociétés historiques du Levant. En termes archéologiques, cette période protohistorique, datant de 4500 à 3200 B.C., est appelée chalcolithique.