Research articles

When grounded within relevant archaeological contexts, ancient DNA analysis can provide critical insights into prehistoric human populations. This is demonstrated in this article, where the authors examine the genetic relatedness of individuals whose remains were placed in five Neolithic tombs in Caithness and Orkney, northern Scotland. The results reveal a web of biological ties that, the authors argue, suggests sustained contact between these communities beyond the onset of the Neolithic and shared understandings of kinship, including descent and a sense of affinity, but emerging local differences in how kinship was materialised through monumental architecture.

The ability of urban centres to grow and persist through crises is often assessed qualitatively in archaeology but quantitative assessment is more elusive. Here, the authors explore urban resilience in ancient Mesopotamia by applying an adaptive cycle framework to the settlement dynamics of the Bronze and Iron Age Khabur Valley (c. 3000–600 BC). Using an integrated dataset of settlements and hollow ways, they identify patterns of growth, conservation, release and reorganisation across six periods, demonstrating the value of coupling archaeological data with resilience theory and network analysis to understand the adaptive capacities of complex archaeological societies.

An archaeological survey of Kitsissut, a remote island cluster in the High Arctic of Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), has revealed a human presence almost 4500 years ago, during the formation of a vital marine environment—Pikialasorsuaq polynya. Kitsissut is accessible only by a difficult open-water journey, and repeated occupation thus permits inferences on the sophistication of watercraft technology and navigational skill. Here, the authors argue that this demonstrable reach of Early Paleo-Inuit communities across marine and terrestrial ecosystems enhances our understanding of their lifeways and environmental legacy, raising critical new questions about Indigenous agency in shaping emerging Arctic ecosystems.

Despite contemporary relevance in understanding how cities historically overcame demographic, social and economic constraints imposed by the lack of clean, fresh water, the value of estimating aqueduct delivery rates and their potential relationship with population size in the Roman Empire remains uncertain. Here, the authors use settlement scaling theory to examine recent statistics for city size and aqueduct capacity, revealing a systematic but sublinear relationship between these variables, whereby water supply increased at a slower rate than population size. Far from merely ostentatious displays of power, aqueducts were carefully planned to ensure an adequate supply of clean and fresh water.

Discussions of social organisation in early complex societies often rely on traditional narratives of a linear progression to hierarchy, but archaeological evidence is increasingly showcasing a spectrum of social structures. Here, examination of burial practices in 50 tombs from Kedurma, Sudan, helps illustrate social stratification and identity negotiation beyond the binary rendering of elite/non-elite during the Meroitic period (third century BC to fourth century AD). The diversity of architectural forms and grave goods highlights the importance of inter-regional exchange networks and a more fluid social dynamic, contributing to our understanding of early African state formation.

Founded in 228/227 BCE, the Carthaginian city of Qart Hadasht in southern Spain became the principal Punic political centre and military port in the western Mediterranean. Its defensive architecture featured a robust casemate wall composed of an outer sandstone face and inner mudbrick walls. Here, the authors present the geoarchaeological analysis of the earthen materials used in the construction of this wall. The results reveal differences in composition and provenance between mudbricks and mud mortars, with the former sourced across distances of 7–8km, highlighting the detailed knowledge of hinterland resources and complex political organisation involved in the wall’s construction.

Debates concerning the roles of sensory perceptions and responses in past societies are increasingly gaining traction in the archaeological discipline, but European medieval archaeology has only recently begun to engage with them. Moving beyond previous approaches in medieval studies that focused on the five physical senses, this article investigates material culture through the conceptual lens of sensory regimes. Drawing on case studies from the sixth to seventeenth centuries and examining diverse archaeological evidence—including artefacts, burial practices and urban environments—the author argues that material culture can facilitate or oppose social, political and religious regimes through sensory practices.

Diet and material culture are interlinked, and examination of organic residues in ceramic vessels permits the simultaneous study of both; exemplified here in the analysis of early-medieval pottery from England and Denmark for biomarkers indicative of fish processing, a possible dietary indicator of Scandinavian migration during the Viking Age (c. AD 793–1066). While almost a quarter of sampled Danish pots were used to cook fish, diagnostic aquatic markers were securely identified in only 13 of 298 English vessels. Geographic homogeneity and temporal persistence in processing terrestrial animal fats instead suggest that Scandinavian settlers pragmatically conformed to Anglo-Saxon culinary traditions.

The analysis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in bone collagen can reveal aspects of diet and how this may change between periods and places. Here, the authors apply a ‘whole-town’ approach to isotopic analysis, to characterise and explore variation in diet within medieval Cambridge and its hinterland. By adopting this approach, and a robust isotopic baseline, the authors argue that the number of confounding variables that typically plague archaeometric research are reduced, allowing for more nuanced interpretation of data. For medieval Cambridge, this nuance comes in the form of inter-site comparisons in the lived experience of social differentiation.

The Covid-19 pandemic widened public awareness of the close links between socioeconomic status and resilience in the face of infection, yet this interplay was already well established in archaeological discourse. Here, the authors combine osteoarchaeological, stable isotope and pathogenomic analyses with archival research to explore the formation of multiple, or ‘plural’, burials at an early hospital in Basel, Switzerland. Identification of a stamped clay pipe, Yersinia pestis DNA and a high proportion of subadults link the burials to an outbreak of plague in 1665–1670, while physiological stress, dietary and pathological insights contribute to our understanding of prior experiences affecting differential mortality.

The discussion on decolonisation is now happening everywhere, yet it should be remembered that this outcome is the result of decades-old struggles and that the prominence of this quest is owed to the broader social movements of the preceding century. Here, the author explores the implications for archaeology, suggesting a shift of emphasis from colonisation to coloniality. The principle that decolonisation should entail substantive material and structural changes is proposed as a necessary starting point. In moving forward, the author argues that our efforts to build a decolonial archaeology should be guided by the concepts of refusal, care and repair.