The excavation of Kilu Cave and the discovery of a Pleistocene prehistory for the Solomon Islands have already been reported in ANTIQUITY by Wickler & Spriggs (62: 703–6). Residue analysis of stone artefacts from the site now provides the earliest direct evidence for the prehistoric use of root vegetables, in the form of starch grains and crystalline raphides identifiable to genus. The direct microscopic identification of starch grains opens new avenues for the study of the plant component of human diets in the distant past.

The conventional chronology of the Aegean Late Bronze Age was challenged by P.J. James and his co-workers in Centuries of darkness (1991). The present paper is an exhaustive and critical re-examination of radiocarbon dates from a number of key sites in the region using the technique of probabilistic computer archaeological wiggle matching which concludes that the conventional arhcaeological chronology still holds good (whatever the flaws in its original construction) on the basis of the independent radiocarbon evidence.

The Šventoji site in western Lithuania is of considerable importance in understanding prehistoric settlement in the east Baltic area, not least because of the exceptional preservation conditions present. The data obtained show that prehistoric populations in the area were remarkably stable over a considerable period.

The modern plan of the west Midlands city of Worcester, like so many in England, hides a series of ancient towns under the standing streets. Archaeological and historical exploration, and the old topography that shows itself in modern plots and street lines, make possible the recovery of the early pattern.

Despite the city's long and illustrious history, little is known about the urban origins of Venice from the archaeological record. Recent excavations at the church of San Lorenzo have produced radiocarbon dates that give direct evidence for human occupation in the late 6th and 7th centuries AD, lending support to the tradition of settlement by refugees from the Lombard occupation of the mainland.

The current received view is that the economy of the Bronze Age of northern Europe was based on gift exchange rather than trade. This paper, based on a comparative analysis of three groups of Scandinavian bronze and gold artefacts – bronze statuettes of ‘goddesses with necklets’, golden ‘oath rings’ and Fårdrup bronze axes – suggest that there were one or more standard weight systems in use in Bronze Age Scandinavia. The author uses these data to state a case for a trade economy, reminiscent of the Mycenaean world.

The quantity and quality of material from the late Mesolithic/early Neolithic in southern Scandinavia has dominated the study of this important period in northwest Europe. Recent evidence from the west of Scotland suggests that, despite a rich and varied resource base similar in many ways to that in southern Scandinavia, a very different process of change occurs. The evidence suggests a very gradual transformation, with selected parts of the farming socio-economy being being adopted at varying rates. This situation is compared with that in various parts of Europe and is considered to fit in well with a pattern of great regional diversity in the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic.

From the beginning, the culture-history of the Chinese archaeological sequence has had its own character. And in a country and a civilization so vast, regional variation can also be on a grand scale. An examination of a late Neolithic culture on the southeastern coast finds jade in early contexts that give a new perspective to the traditional – and later – importance jade bears in the dynastic northern sequence.

In the usual explanation, the lintels of Stonehenge were raised on a timber crib. A new, partial Concretehenge in Bohemia offers an alternative method.

A circle of pits from the Welsh borders is another addition to the curious catalogue of British ceremonial monuments of the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age, and provides – as often before – intriguing clues as to how it was structured and used.

Studies of prehistoric extractive and fabrication techniques suggest that the traditional view, that the earliest copper metallurgy in the British Isles was based on the exploitation of primary minerals deriving from the southwest of Ireland, is fallacious. Elaborate mineral selection and process control is not needed to produce copper of the composition reported for the Early Bronze Age, and so ore deposits in Britain were probably being exploited from a very early period.

A Late Iron Age chieftain's burial recently excavated at St Albans is the most elaborate so far known from Britain. The complex of funerary chamber, mound and enclosure also presents evidence for complicated rituals. It is provisionally interpreted as the tomb of a client king who died in the years immediately following the Roman invasion of AD 43.

Software for computer graphics is rapidly growing in power. Here is an application which enables a complex three-dimensional assemblage to be recorded and explored in its full spatial order. ANTIQUITY's illustrations – stationary in monochrome two dimensions – can so little show what the technique offers as to underline Ms Fukasawa's point.

Evidence from the Channel Islands supports the view that long-distance transport of megaliths in the European Neolithic cannot be substantiated. Analysis of the stones at La Hougue Bie, however, shows that megaliths were regularly moved over shorter distances, and suggests that the distribution of megalithic sites within a region cannot be explained simply as a function of the availability of building materials. This view modifies the purely materialistic conclusions of Thorpe & Williams-Thorpe in their recent demolition of the Stonehenge bluestones myth (ANTIQUITY 65: 64–73).

Work last summer in the Ukok Plateau of western Siberia has made a significant contribution to the establishment of a chronology for this forbidding region. This note reports some of the more important discoveries.

The remarkable find of Iron Age gold torques from Snettisham (see ANTIQUITY 65: 447–65) was interpreted by the excavator, Ian Stead, as representing a treasury, ‘assigned to the earth for safe-keeping’, rather than a votive deposit. This article argues that these are not mutually exclusive categories, since no clear distinction was made in Iron Age Europe between sacred and profane.

The preparation of an archive of all 20th-century excavations at Stonehenge and the re-analysis of these records has been commissioned by English Heritage. This note reviews the development of ideas on the phased construction of the monument and reveals the potential for the publication of a full account of the excavations.

Excavation of a Neolithic settlement of the Altheim culture and analysis of the finds demonstrated that its inhabitants made optimal use of raw materials available in the immediate vicinity and supplemented these with selected material from distances usually not more than 40 km away. Some contact with Switzerland and Austria is also indicated. Survey of other sites in the area indicate that there was dense occupation of the river flood plain, possibly linked with upland settlements.

A suite of radiocarbon dates for a regional group of the earlier Bronze Age in Hungary provides a valuable underpinning to the absolute chronology of a key region and period.