Archaeology and palaeoclimatology have provided a strong chronological framework for the Holocene settlement of the central Libyan Desert (Eastern Sahara), but this does not integrate the abundant rock art that is present. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this article amalgamates primary environmental and climatic evidence, 14C dates, stratigraphy and other chronologically relevant archaeological indicators with a systematic analysis of the relative sequence of local rock art styles derived from superimpositions and weathering. Evidence from each discipline corroborates that of the others, enabling the establishment of an absolute chronological framework for the Holocene rock art in the region.

Sai Island, in the Nile in northern Sudan, has a series of settlement sites spanning the entire period from the eighth millennium BC through to the Eighteenth Dynasty of the Egyptian New Kingdom. This long sequence provides an excellent opportunity to study continuity and discontinuity in long-term pottery traditions. Ceramics from the varying cultural phases of the occupation reflect changing dynamics between broader regional social identities, notably Kerma to the south and Egypt to the north. Combining studies of petrography with trace element composition and chaîne opératoire analysis, the authors present the first diachronic study of ceramic manufacture throughout the extended cultural history of Nubia, highlighting the varying manifestations of change and continuity.

The complex of Niuheliang, in north-eastern China, with its concentration of ceremonial architecture and unusual art, has been considered the most highly developed polity of the Hongshan period, representing the integration of a large territory. In contrast, the supposed absence of residential remains has been advanced to suggest that it was a vacant ceremonial centre. Systematic survey of the area is now helping to clarify relationships between ceremonial sites and occupation patterns. Densities of utilitarian pottery sherds were used to map settlement and estimate population levels in relation to the locations of ceremonial architecture and concentrations of ritual pottery. This reveals that despite unproductive soils, the area had a relatively high, although scattered, population, focused in part on ritual locations. The results support a role for Niuheliang as a place of pilgrimage, but within a nexus of settled communities that sustained its ceremonial activities.

Megalithic or earth-cut chambered tombs containing large numbers of buried individuals are a key feature of the Late Neolithic of northern France. The discovery and analysis of one such tomb at Bury offers an exceptional opportunity to investigate changing burial practices during the fourth and third millennia BC. This was not a static monument: funerary practice changed significantly over time, and several different episodes of mortuary use have been identified. Comparing and contrasting these episodes suggests that there was no substantial change in the local population using the grave, but changes in burial practice reveal a shift towards more selective inclusion. These may reflect broader changes in contemporary society during the third millennium BC.

The remarkable subterranean architecture of the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum on Malta has generated many claims about its dramatic acoustic effects, but previous studies have lacked rigour. A systematic, methodical approach has now been applied to measure the acoustic properties of the site, and to test earlier assertions. The results confirm some, but not all, prior observations, and demonstrate how a sound-based approach can contribute to an understanding of the archaeological context. It is argued that for the people who created the Hypogeum, the acoustics must have had particular significance and ritual power.

The capital cities of early Iron Age Syria and Anatolia have been extensively excavated, but their lower towns—where most of the populace actually lived—remain under-explored. In 2014, an intensive surface survey was undertaken across the 16ha lower town of Tell Tayinat, capital city of the Iron Age kingdom of Patina, in what is now southern Turkey. Results indicate clear spatial distinction between dense and sparsely occupied zones, an uneven distribution of wealth and localised craft production. The lower town seems to have been occupied by a diverse array of people and interest groups, with varying degrees of social status, including some elite households, but predominantly less wealthy and powerful than their neighbours on the acropolis.

A richly furnished grave of an elite woman from the Hallstatt period was discovered close to the Heuneburg, the earliest proto-urban settlement north of the Alps. Dendrochronological analysis of timbers from the grave chamber dates the burial to 583 BC, the earliest of a series of such burials north of the Alps and a key anchor in the absolute chronology of the Early Iron Age in Europe. The woman was adorned with gold, bronze, jet and amber jewellery; gold filigree objects, amber fibulae and items of horse-head armour suggest close connections south of the Alps. An infant female burial close to the main grave included gold jewellery made for a child but similar to that of the woman.

Objects imported over long distances often have rich biographies, not least a collection of bronze objects found in a peat bog in Estonia that included an elaborate lamp of Roman origin. Combining new scientific approaches with earlier observations and traditional archaeological analysis, the authors reconstruct the provenance, possible itinerary and changing use of the lamp over half a millennium, and across thousands of kilometres. They highlight its variable roles, from luxurious illumination to valuable raw material. The results demonstrate the importance of looking beyond the original time and place of manufacture, and beyond the primary function when constructing the biographies of imported objects.

Colour was a key feature of Greek and Roman sculpture, but due to the current bare-marble appearance of many such statues, it is now frequently overlooked. This is illustrated here by the first study of polychromy in Roman statues from the province of Africa Proconsularis. Five sculptural fragments dating to the second and third centuries AD were examined using techniques including XRF analysis, and a variety of pigments were detected. The differing colour schemes presented by each of the pieces are here assessed, and consideration is given to the technical process by which they were coloured, the significance of their decoration and the potential for applying similar approaches in future studies of ancient statuary.

Occupation of the Ambato Valley in north-western Argentina ended abruptly in around AD 1200, with destructive abandonment resulting in burnt and collapsed buildings. Analysis of broken pottery sherds from La Rinconada suggests that this may have been the outcome of a deliberate ‘closing’ activity. Re-fitted vessels were found to be largely complete despite extensive fragmentation; two portions of one vessel were 10m apart with a wall in between. Conjoining fragments of other vessels exhibited contrasting effects of thermal alteration, or were associated with lithic objects that may have been used to destroy them, or appeared to have been deliberately arranged. The evidence is altogether indicative of the intentional destruction and deposition of this material immediately prior to the burning of the site.

Metal detecting in England has recovered a large number of Viking Age single finds that have been reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme. These reveal that silver bullion of Scandinavian origin was used as currency throughout the Danelaw between AD 865 and 940. Standardised weights of copper alloy were an integral part of this metal-weight economy. Bullion was not the sole means of silver payment during this period: coinage had long been used in the occupied Anglo-Saxon territories and continued to be minted under the Vikings. The resulting dual-currency economy may have facilitated trade with neighbouring Scandinavian territories, but the two currencies also served as markers of cultural identity, offering a choice of monetary media.

A rare, intact Viking boat burial in western Scotland contained a rich assemblage of grave goods, providing clues to the identity and origins of both the interred individual and the people who gathered to create the site. The burial evokes the mundane and the exotic, past and present, as well as local, national and international identities. Isotopic analysis of the teeth hints at a possible Scandinavian origin for the deceased, while Scottish, Irish and Scandinavian connections are attested by the grave goods. Weapons indicate a warrior of high status; other objects imply connections to daily life, cooking and work, farming and food production. The burial site is itself rich in symbolic associations, being close to a Neolithic burial cairn, the stones of which may have been incorporated into the grave.

In the mid eleventh century AD, Cahokia emerged as a substantial Mississippian urban centre. To the east, a shrine-complex known as the Emerald Acropolis, marking the beginning of a processional route to the city, also flourished. Excavations and geophysical survey of the monumental landscape around this site suggest that lunar cycles were important in the orientation of structures and settlement layout. They further indicate that water played a significant role in the ritual activities associated with the closure and abandonment of individual structures. The contemporary development of these sites suggests an intrinsic connection between them, and provides early evidence of the importance that the moon and water came to assume in Mississippian culture.

A unique wooden sculpture collected by James Cook during his first voyage to the Pacific is widely considered to be a masterpiece of Oceanic art, but its exact provenance has been unclear. New analysis of shavings from the object now indicate that a) the tree from which it was carved was felled between 1690 and 1728, and that the carving was therefore up to 80 years old when obtained, and b) it originated in Tahiti, despite its stylistic affinities with art from the Austral Islands. Motifs and forms clearly travelled within regions, and populations interacted in ways that blur presumed tribal boundaries. It is perhaps time to reconsider the association between region and style upon which the cataloguing and identification of objects routinely depends.

As the centenary commemorations of the Battle of Passchendaele approach, this article is a timely demonstration of how archaeology can provide new insights into the landscape of the Western Front. Assessment of over 9000 aerial photographs taken during the First World War, integrated with other approaches to landscape archaeology, offers a new perspective on the shifting nature of the historic struggle around the town of Ypres in Belgium. The results not only illustrate the changing face of the landscape over that four-year period, but also highlight the potential of aerial photographic records to illuminate hitherto overlooked aspects of landscape heritage.