Understanding the Palaeolithic emergence of human social complexity opens up a key perspective on later periods of cultural evolution. Palaeolithic mortuary practice is particularly revealing, as it echoes the social statuses of both the living and the dead. The famous Sunghir burials fall at the beginning of this sequence. Bioarchaeological analysis of the Sunghir individuals, viewed in the context of earlier Upper Palaeolithic mortuary behaviour more generally, reveals the concurrent practice of a range of funerary treatments, some of which are probably related to individual pathological abnormalities. Through this approach, the Sunghir burials become more than just an example of elaborate Palaeolithic burial, and highlight the diversity of early social and mortuary behaviours.

Archaeological evidence from the submerged North Sea landscape has established the rich diversity of Pleistocene and Early Holocene ecosystems and their importance to hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies. Comparatively little of this evidence, however, dates to the Late Glacial, the period when Northern Europe was repopulated by colonising foragers. A human parietal bone and a decorated bovid metatarsus recently recovered from the floor of the North Sea have been dated to this crucial transitional period. They are set against the background of significant climatic and environmental changes and a major technological and sociocultural transformation. These discoveries also reaffirm the importance of continental shelves as archaeological archives.

Unusually for a Palaeolithic cave, the Grotta di Cala dei Genovesi on the island of Levanzo, off the west coast of Sicily, Italy, has yielded evidence of both parietal and mobiliary art. Developments in dating techniques since the excavations of the 1950s now allow the age of the mobiliary art—an engraved aurochs—to be determined. At the same time, stylistic comparison of the parietal art at Grotta di Cala dei Genovesi with other broadly contemporaneous sites that demonstrate well-documented cave art allows a relative chronology to be proposed. The two methods taken together enable a direct chronological comparison to be made between the production of parietal and mobiliary art at this important cave site.

The excavation of several structures at the site of Hasankeyf Höyük in south-east Anatolia has revealed evidence for the continuity of hunter-gatherer lithic technology into the early stages of the Neolithic in the tenth to ninth millennia BC. In particular, the Nemrik point, previously seen as a hallmark of the early Neolithic, can now be shown to have been in use in a local tradition of hunter-gatherer lithic technology. Overall, the continuity in time and space at Hasankeyf Höyük indicates a long-term persistence of lithic technologies, which contrasts with the pattern of change in the Levant and which suggests different pathways to the Neolithic in different parts of the Fertile Crescent region in the Near East.

The socio-cultural behaviour of Scandinavian Mesolithic hunter-gatherers has been difficult to understand due to the dearth of sites thus far investigated. Recent excavations at Kanaljorden in Sweden, however, have revealed disarticulated human crania intentionally placed at the bottom of a former lake. The adult crania exhibited antemortem blunt force trauma patterns differentiated by sex that were probably the result of interpersonal violence; the remains of wooden stakes were recovered inside two crania, indicating that they had been mounted. Taphonomic factors suggest that the human bodies were manipulated prior to deposition. This unique site challenges our understanding of the handling of the dead during the European Mesolithic.

Longhouses are a key feature of Neolithic Linearbandkeramik (LBK) settlements in Central Europe, but debate persists concerning their usage, longevity and social significance. Excavations at Versend-Gilencsa in south-west Hungary (c. 5200 cal BC) revealed clear rows of longhouses. New radiocarbon dates suggest that these houses experienced short lifespans. This paper produces a model for the chronology of Versend, and it considers the implications of the new date estimates for a fuller understanding of the layout and duration of LBK longhouse settlements.

The Late Neolithic Corded Ware Culture (c. 2800–2300 BC) of Northern Europe is characterised by specific sets of grave goods and mortuary practices, but the organic components of these grave sets are poorly represented in the archaeological record. New microscopic analyses of soil samples collected during the 1930s from the Perttulanmäki grave in western Finland have, however, revealed preserved Neolithic animal hairs. Despite mineralisation, the species of animal has been successfully identified and offers the oldest evidence for domestic goat in Neolithic Finland, indicating a pastoral herding economy. The mortuary context of the goat hair also suggests that animals played a significant role in the Corded Ware belief system.

El Médano-style rock art from the Atacama Desert coast in Chile provides one of the most spectacular and expressive representations of ancient marine hunting and maritime traditions. These red pictographs comprise hundreds of hunting scenes and portray a complex marine hunter-gatherer society. This study presents the discovery of El Médano pictographs from new sites—in particular the Izcuña ravine—and seeks to understand further the processes of marine hunting and the interspecies relationships between hunter and prey. When combined with archaeological evidence, this analysis provides important new information concerning the value and significance of this rock art to those ancient hunter-gatherers.

Research at the Chelechol ra Orrak rockshelter in Palau has revealed an extensive cemetery with at least 50 interred individuals, their graves overlain by later occupational deposits. Previous radiocarbon dating placed this sequence of burial and occupation at c. 3000 cal BP, making it one of the earliest Pacific Island cemetery sites. To provide a more robust chronological framework, Bayesian modelling was applied to construct probability ranges for the date and duration of activity at the site, assisted by a suite of new 14C determinations. The results provide more secure evidence for burial activity dating back to c. 3000 cal BP, thus confirming Chelechol ra Orrak as one of the only cemeteries in Remote Oceania that dates to the earliest, known stages of island colonisation.

The relative scarcity of ancient Arabian rock reliefs has been a significant barrier to understanding the development, function and socio-cultural context of such art. The recently discovered ‘Camel Site’ in northern Arabia depicts, for the first time, life-sized camelids and equids carved in low- and high-relief. Analysis and stylistic comparison of the art suggest a distinct Arabian tradition, which perhaps drew upon Nabataean and Parthian influences. That this isolated and seemingly uninhabitable site attracted highly skilled rock-carvers is striking testimony to its importance for surrounding populations. Perhaps serving as a boundary marker or a place of veneration, the Camel Site offers important new evidence for the evolution of Arabian rock art.

Archaeological evidence for the Viking Great Army that invaded England in AD 865 is focused particularly on the area around St Wystan's church at Repton in Derbyshire. Large numbers of burials excavated here in the 1980s have been attributed to the overwintering of the Great Army in AD 873–874. Many of the remains were deposited in a charnel, while others were buried in graves with Scandinavian-style grave goods. Although numismatic evidence corroborated the belief that these were the remains of the Great Army, radiocarbon results have tended to disagree. Recent re-dating of the remains, applying the appropriate marine reservoir correction, has clarified the relationship between the interments, and has resolved the previous uncertainty.

The role of pre-contact indigenous peoples in shaping contemporary multi-ethnic society in Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and elsewhere in the Caribbean, has been downplayed by traditional narratives of colonialism. Archaeological surveys in the northern Dominican Republic and open-area excavations at three (pre-)Contact-era Amerindian settlements, combined with historical sources and ethnographic surveys, show that this view needs revising. Indigenous knowledge of the landscape was key to the success of early Europeans in gaining control of the area, but also survives quite clearly in many aspects of contemporary culture and daily life that have, until now, been largely overlooked.

The development of an advanced stone-working technology in the Aegean Bronze Age is suggested by the putative Mycenaean pendulum saw. This device seems to have been used to cut through hard sedimentary rock at a number of sites on the Greek mainland and, according to some scholars, also in central Anatolia. As no pendulum saws are preserved in the archaeological record, understanding the machine relies on preserved tool marks and experimental research. This paper presents the results of stone-cutting experiments conducted with a modern reconstruction of a pendulum saw. The research investigates blade shape, size, design and the mechanics of the device, while questioning the accuracy of earlier reconstructions.

From 1924–1928, Gertrude Caton-Thompson and Elinor Gardner surveyed and excavated Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic sites across the Fayum north shore in Egypt, publishing a volume entitled The Desert Fayum (1934). Since then, a number of researchers have worked in the Fayum (e.g. Wendorf & Schild 1976; Hassan 1986; Wenke et al. 1988; Kozłowski & Ginter 1989), and most recently the UCLA/RUG/UOA Fayum Project. The long history of research in the area means that the Fayum is a testament to changing archaeological approaches, particularly regarding the Neolithic. Caton-Thompson and Gardner's study is recognised as one of the most progressive works on Egyptian prehistory, and their research provided the foundation for many subsequent studies in the region (e.g. Wendrich & Cappers 2005; Holdaway et al. 2010, 2016; Shirai 2010, 2013, 2015, 2016a; Emmitt 2011; Emmitt et al. 2017; Holdaway & Wendrich 2017). A recent article in Antiquity, however, uses Caton-Thompson and Gardner's preliminary interpretations of their excavations at a stratified deposit in the Fayum, Kom W, to generate a series of speculative statements concerning agricultural origins in the region (Shirai 2016b). The majority of these statements are very similar to conclusions initially made by Caton-Thompson and Gardner in the first half of the twentieth century, and new data and theory needed to reassess earlier conclusions are not considered. Recently published studies concerning the Fayum north shore and adjacent regions provide a different view of the state of research in this region and the Egyptian Neolithic in general. Here we acquaint Antiquity readers with current archaeological approaches to the Fayum north shore Neolithic, with the intent of stimulating academic debate.