Excavations at the Iron Age site of Worlebury hillfort during the mid-late 19th century revealed a large number of human skeletal remains, interpreted as victims of a ‘massacre’. Reanalysis of these remains, combining AMS dating, osteological, aDNA, histotaphonomy, and isotope analysis, has enabled a re-evaluation of this hypothesis. AMS dating lends support to the notion that many of these individuals may have died during a single episode, while osteological analysis has identified significant evidence for perimortem trauma, and the histology supports a short period between death and deposition. The genetic data suggest that the human remains represent a group with biological links through the maternal line and connections to another nearby site, while the isotope values are consistent with a local population, consuming animals raised in a salt-marsh environment like the Severn Estuary. Our results demonstrate the value of returning to often unpromising antiquarian collections using an integrated suite of modern analytical approaches.

This study presents the integrated results of stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope and aDNA analyses, conducted to examine dietary and mobility practices in two mid- to late Byzantine communities in western Anatolia: the coastal cosmopolitan site of Kadıkalesi Anaia and the rural inland settlement of Barcın Höyük. Isotopic data from thirty-eight individuals indicate that both populations primarily consumed terrestrial C₃-based resources. At Kadıkalesi, δ15N values show greater variability, suggesting more differentiated access to animal protein sources, whereas the rural community at Barcın Höyük exhibits isotopic homogeneity, consistent with more uniform dietary practices and an equitable access to food. Kadıkalesi also shows intra-site dietary variation by age and sex, while Barcın is again more homogeneous. At Barcın, aDNA results indicate a predominant local genetic continuity, suggesting a stable population; a single instance of external ancestry is attested by a male individual with affinities to western populations, particularly from eastern Europe, in line with historical military resettlement patterns (stratiotika ktemata). By integrating isotopic and genomic evidence, this study demonstrates how ancestry and mobility shaped dietary habits, offering insights into the interplay of urbanism, mobility, and social organization in the Byzantine period.

Roman amphitheatres were centres of public entertainment, hosting various spectacles that often included wild animals. Excavation of a building near the Viminacium amphitheatre in Serbia in 2016 uncovered the fragmentary cranium of a bear. Multistranded analysis, presented here, reveals that the six-year-old male brown bear (Ursus arctos) suffered an impact fracture to the frontal bone, the healing of which was impaired by a secondary infection. Excessive wear to the canine teeth further indicates cage chewing and thus a prolonged period of captivity that makes it likely this bear participated in more than one spectacle at the Viminacium amphitheatre.

The Romans were among the first societies to extensively exploit fish resources, establishing large-scale salting and preservation plants where small pelagic fish were fermented to produce sauces such as garum. Here, the authors demonstrate that, despite being crushed and exposed to acidic conditions, usable DNA can be recovered from ichthyological residues at the bottom of fish-salting vats. At third-century AD Adro Vello (O Grove), Galicia, they confirm the use of European sardines (Sardina pilchardus) and move beyond morphology to explore population range and admixture and reveal the potential of this overlooked archaeological resource.

While recent aDNA and other scientific analysis has served to underline the recurrent role of migration in the process of Neolithisation right across Europe, there remains plenty of scope for better integration of archaeogenetic and archaeological interpretations and for detailed narratives of local and regional trajectories. This paper focuses on relations between Britain and Ireland in the early Neolithic, in the first part of the 4th millennium cal BC. I argue that direct connections between Britain and Ireland have been overlooked and underplayed — hidden in plain sight — in the search for perceived common sources in continental Europe. I advance four propositions for debate: that the first Neolithic people in Ireland came mainly from Britain, perhaps from several parts of western Britain; that subsequent connections, long described but curiously not much further interpreted, constitute an intense set of interactions; that such links were probably spread over time through the early Neolithic, coming thick and fast near the beginning and perhaps even intensifying with time; and that such relations were maintained and intensified because of the concentrated circumstances of beginnings. The latter arguably contrast with those of the relationship between the Continent and southern Britain. The maintenance of connections was political, because a remembered past was actively used; lineage founders, concentrated lineages and other emergent social groupings may have developed through time as part of such a process.

The authors report on ancient DNA data from two human skeletons buried within the chancel of the 1608–1616 church at the North American colonial settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. Available archaeological, osteological and documentary evidence suggest that these individuals are Sir Ferdinando Wenman and Captain William West, kinsmen of the colony's first Governor, Thomas West, Third Baron De La Warr. Genomic analyses of the skeletons identify unexpected maternal relatedness as both carried the mitochondrial haplogroup H10e. In this unusual case, aDNA prompted further historical research that led to the discovery of illegitimacy in the West family, an aspect of identity omitted, likely intentionally, from genealogical records.

This paper builds on the recent aDNA results from Hazleton North chambered tomb to explore how people might have repeatedly negotiated kinship, descent, and affinity in Early Neolithic southern Britain. Hazleton North was constructed around 3700 cal bc, was in use for less than a century, and – unlike many other Cotswold-Severn tombs – was never modified to alter the arrangement of chambers. The aDNA analysis from 35 individuals whose remains were deposited at the site revealed that 27 were biologically related and represented five sequential generations. Here we explore changing practices across those generations. We argue that Hazleton North was constructed to demonstrate the vitality of a lineage at a specific moment in time while choices about who to entomb indicate an inclusive expansion of the lineage in the first two generations which is not evident during the remaining generations. We argue that by the third generation lineage members increasingly chose to dispose of the remains of their dead elsewhere. Hazleton North was built in a landscape rich in earlier tombs, many of which were modified to produce long cairns with multiple chambers: some of those formed opposed pairs similar to the chambered areas at Hazleton North. We argue this was part of a growing trend in ‘kinship work’ which accentuated lineal descent and sub-lineage distinctions in the centuries around 3700 cal bc. However, deposition at Hazleton North was short-lived. This can be set in the local context of not only the construction and use of further chambered tombs but also increasing investment in larger corporate projects like causewayed enclosures. These enclosures formed new arenas where negotiations of descent and community were played out with increased intensity and in different ways to activities at chambered tombs. Overall, we argue that kinship, affiliation, and belonging were repeatedly renegotiated among the monument building communities of Early Neolithic southern Britain.

The remarkable archaeological record of Neolithic Orkney has ensured that these islands play a prominent role in narratives of European late prehistory, yet knowledge of the subsequent Bronze Age is comparatively poor. The Bronze Age settlement and cemetery at the Links of Noltland, on the island of Westray, offers new evidence, including aDNA, that points to a substantial population replacement between the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age. Focusing on funerary practice, the authors argue for interconnecting identities centred on household and community, patrilocality and inheritance. The findings prompt a reconsideration of the Orcadian Bronze Age, with wider implications for population movement and the uptake of cultural innovations more widely across prehistoric north-western Europe.

Recent aDNA analyses demonstrate that the centuries surrounding the arrival of the Beaker Complex in Britain witnessed a massive turnover in the genetic make-up of the island's population. The genetic data provide information both on the individuals sampled and the ancestral populations from which they derive. Here, the authors consider the archaeological implications of this genetic turnover and propose two hypotheses—Beaker Colonisation and Steppe Drift—reflecting critical differences in conceptualisations of the relationship between objects and genes. These hypotheses establish key directions for future research designed to investigate the underlying social processes involved and raise questions for wider interpretations of population change detected through aDNA analysis.

In 1968, a weapon grave with brooches was found at Suontaka Vesitorninmäki, Hattula, Finland. Since then, the grave has been interpreted as evidence of powerful women, even female warriors and leaders in early medieval Finland. Others have denied the possibility of a woman buried with a sword and tried to explain it as a double burial. We present the first modern analysis of the grave, including an examination of its context, a soil sample analysis for microremains, and an aDNA analysis. Based on these analyses, we suggest a new interpretation: the Suontaka grave possibly belonged to an individual with sex-chromosomal aneuploidy XXY. The overall context of the grave indicates that it was a respected person whose gender identity may well have been non-binary.

Ancient DNA from Yersinia pestis has been identified in skeletons at four urban burial grounds in Cambridge, England, and at a nearby rural cemetery. Dating to between ad 1349 and 1561, these represent individuals who died of plague during the second pandemic. Most come from normative individual burials, rather than mass graves. This pattern represents a major advance in archaeological knowledge, shifting focus away from a few exceptional discoveries of mass burials to what was normal practice in most medieval contexts. Detailed consideration of context allows the authors to identify a range of burial responses to the second pandemic within a single town and its hinterland. This permits the creation of a richer and more varied narrative than has previously been possible.

Population genetic studies often overlook the evidence for variability and change in past material culture. Here, the authors use a Mesolithic example to demonstrate the importance of integrating archaeological evidence into the interpretation of the Scandinavian hunter-gatherer genetic group. Genetic studies conclude that this group resulted from two single-event dispersals into Scandinavia before 7500 BC. Archaeological evidence, however, shows at least six immigration events pre-dating the earliest DNA, and that the first incoming groups arrived in Scandinavia before 9000 BC. The findings underline the importance of conducting careful archaeological analysis of prehistoric human dispersal in tandem with the study of ancient population genomics.

In this paper we explore ancient DNA (aDNA) as a powerful new technique for archaeologists. We argue that for aDNA to reach its full potential we need to carefully consider its theoretical underpinnings. We suggest that at present much aDNA research rests upon two problematic theoretical assumptions: first, that nature and culture exist in binary opposition and that DNA is a part of nature; second, that cultures form distinct and bounded identities. The nature–culture binary, which underpins much aDNA research, not only is a misunderstanding of our world but also results in placing archaeology and material culture in a secondary and subservient position to science and aDNA. Viewing cultures as distinct and bounded creates exclusionary, simplistic and singular identities for past populations. This stands in contrast to the work of social scientists, which has revealed identity to be complex, multiple, changing and contradictory. We offer a new way forward drawing upon assemblage thinking and post-humanism. This allows us to consider the messy and complex nature of our world and of human identities, and demands that we expect equally messy and complex results to emerge when we bring aDNA into conversation with other forms of archaeological evidence.

It is generally assumed that the digenean human liver fluke, Fasciola hepatica, gained entry to South America during the 15th century upon arrival of Europeans and their livestock. Nonetheless in Patagonia, Argentina, digenean eggs similar to F. hepatica have been observed in deer coprolites dating back to 2300 years B.P. The main objective of our present study was to identify and characterize these eggs using an ancient DNA (aDNA) study. Eggs were isolated and used for aDNA extraction, amplification and sequencing of partial regions from the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 and the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide dehydrogenase subunit 1 mitochondrial genes. Also, phylogenetic trees were constructed using Bayesian and maximum likelihood. Our results confirm the presence of F. hepatica in South America from at least 2300 years B.P. This is the first report and the first aDNA study of this trematode in South America prior to the arrival of the European cattle in the 15th century. The present work contributes to the study of phylogenetic and palaeobiogeographical aspects of F. hepatica and its settlement across America.

Since aDNA research suggested a marked gene influx from Eastern into Central Europe in the 3rd millennium bc, outdated, simplistic narratives of massive migrations of closed populations have re-appeared in archaeological discussions. A more sophisticated model of migration from the steppes was proposed recently by Kristiansen et al. As a reaction to that proposal, this paper aims to contribute to this ongoing debate by refining the latter model, better integrating archaeological data and anthropological knowledge. It is argued that a polythetic classification of the archaeological material in Central Europe in the 3rd millennium reveals the presence of a new complex of single grave burial rituals which transcends the traditional culture labels. Genetic steppe ancestry is mainly connected to this new kind of burials, rather than to Corded Ware or Bell Beaker materials. Here it is argued that a polythetic view on the archaeological record suggests more complicated histories of migration, population mixtures and interaction than assumed by earlier models, and ways to better integrate detailed studies of archaeological materials with a deeper exploration of anthropological models of mobility and social group composition and the molecular biological data are explored.

The warrior woman has long been part of the Viking image, with a pedigree that extends from the Valkyries of Old Norse prose and poetry to modern media entertainment. Until recently, however, actual Viking Age evidence for such individuals has been sparse. This article addresses research showing that the individual buried at Birka in an ‘archetypal’ high-status warrior grave—always assumed to be male since its excavation in 1878—is, in fact, biologically female. Publication, in 2017, of the genomic data led to unprecedented public debate about this individual. Here, the authors address in detail the interpretation of the burial, discussing source-critical issues and parallels.