The production of abstract engravings is considered an indicator of modern human cognition and a means for the long-term recording and transmission of information. This article reports the discovery of two engraved bones from the Lingjing site in Henan Province, China, dated to 105–125 kya. The carefully engraved nature of the incisions, made on weathered rib fragments, precludes the possibility of unintentional or utilitarian origins. Residue analysis demonstrates the presence of ochre within the incised lines on one specimen. This research provides the first evidence for the deliberate use of ochred engravings for symbolic purposes by East Asian Late Pleistocene hominins.

Shifts in ceramic technology are often assumed to reflect wider social changes. Closer attention, however, needs to be directed to the fundamental issue of production. Shifts in the ceramic record of the Tao River Valley in north-western China (c. 2100 BC) are no exception and the relationships between ceramic form, clay recipes and communities of practice have not been previously investigated for this region. Here, petrographic analysis demonstrates that, despite major shifts in ceramic form and surface treatment, production techniques, raw materials and exchange relationships show surprising continuity through time.

Archaeobotanical studies tend to concentrate on the evidence for specialised agricultural food production, with less attention directed towards the use of plant foods within hunter-gatherer contexts. Here, the authors present evidence for the exploitation of Canarium nuts from four late hunter-gatherer sites in southern China. Canarium nuts contributed to the inhabitants’ diets from as early as 9000 cal BP. They also identify new uses of Canarium, c. 4500–4400 cal BP, as ritual offerings in the context of the introduction of rice and millet farming. The results are examined in the context of Canarium use across the wider Asia-Pacific region.

Around 5000 BC, affluent village communities emerged along the South China Coast. Although traditionally regarded as ancestors of Austronesian migrants, whose farming economies expanded into the Asia-Pacific region, the new synthesis presented here shows that these coastal groups actually lived as hunter-gatherers and fishers, with evidence of socio-cultural complexity. Around c. 3000–2500 BC, this ‘first layer’ of hunter-gatherers witnessed the arrival of a ‘second layer’, associated with rice farming and Austronesian assemblages. This new synthesis positions global coastlines as centres of socio-economic and political complexity, long-distance contact and technological advancement.

In 2015, a domed oven from the late fifth millennium cal BC was excavated near Kortrijk, northern Belgium. In terms of its size, tripartite structure, stone flooring and well-preserved domed combustion chamber, the oven is unique in Neolithic Western Europe, although mostly smaller, less well-preserved parallels are known in northern France. Such features are thought to have appeared in Western Europe in the Early to Middle Neolithic periods (post-Linearbandkeramik Culture). Their appearance and possible use for drying cereals may be related to a change from individual (household) to communal processing of cereals, and/or indicate adaptation to a wetter climate by newly settled agro-pastoralist communities.

While the technological, morphological and stylistic features of Egyptian predynastic ceramic material culture have been studied extensively, the driving forces behind change and continuity in this material record have received little direct attention. This article presents a reanalysis of a ceramic assemblage from stratified contexts at Nekhen, Hierakonpolis, in Upper Egypt, focusing on factors that may explain the variation and homogeneity observed. The study aims to enhance our understanding of the processes that generated change in the material culture of early Egypt and to provide a further test case with which to address analogous debates within studies of other early societies.

Prehistoric population decline is often associated with social collapse, migration and environmental change. Many scholars have assumed that the abandonment of the fortified tell sites of the Great Hungarian Plain c. 1500–1450 BC led to significant regional depopulation. The authors investigate the veracity of this assumption by dating graves from Békés 103—a recently excavated Bronze Age cemetery in eastern Hungary. Using decorative motifs and radiocarbon dates to measure changing ceramic styles over more than 1300 years, they consider the implications for non-tell sites known only through surface survey. The results suggest that, even though people abandoned tell sites, regional populations were maintained.

Following a mid twelfth-century BC demographic crisis, Frattesina, in northern Italy, arose as a prominent hub linking continental Europe and the Mediterranean, as evidenced by the remarkable variety of exotic materials and commodities discovered at the site. Debate persists, however, about the extent to which migrants influenced the foundation and development of Frattesina. The authors present the results of strontium isotope analyses, which suggest significant migration to the site, particularly of elites, mostly from within a 50km radius. Among these non-indigenous people, the authors identify a ‘warrior-chief’, whom they interpret as representing a new, more hierarchical society.

The Bubog-1 rockshelter on Ilin Island has provided important evidence for Late Pleistocene to Mid-Holocene (c. 33 000–4000 cal BP) human habitation, yet little is known about the contemporaneous transmission of material culture, technology and mortuary practices across Island Southeast Asia. Recent archaeological research at Bubog-1 has revealed a tightly flexed inhumation dating to c. 5000 cal BP—a type representative of a widespread, contemporaneous burial practice observed across the region. The emergence of diverse burial practices and their spread across Island Southeast Asia coincides with evidence for technological innovation and increasing long-distance interaction between island communities.

The Great Orme Bronze Age copper mine in Wales is one of Europe's largest, although its size has been attributed to a small-scale, seasonal labour force working for nearly a millennium. Here, the authors report the results of interdisciplinary research that provides evidence that Great Orme was the focus of Britain's first mining boom, c. 1600–1400 BC, probably involving a full-time mining community and the wide distribution of metalwork from Brittany to Sweden. This new interpretation suggests greater integration than previously suspected of Great Orme metal into the European Bronze Age trade/exchange networks, as well as more complex local and regional socio-economic interactions.

The deer stone and khirgisuur (DSK) monumental complexes are iconic elements of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1200–700 BC) ceremonial mortuary landscape of the Eastern Eurasian Steppe. A precise chronological framework of these monuments is crucial for understanding their ritual and funerary roles, as well as their wider social functions. The authors establish the first high-precision chronology for a large DSK complex in central Mongolia using 100 new radiocarbon dates. Their chronology suggests that the construction of this DSK complex extended over approximately 50 years, perhaps requiring only locally available human and animal resources, without the need to draw on those of wider regional networks.

The identification of weights and weight-regulated artefacts is of primary importance for confirming the existence of European Bronze Age value ratios and exchange systems. Until recently, however, no such Bronze Age artefacts had been identified in Britain. Here, statistical analysis identifies—for the first time—Middle and Late Bronze Age balance weights and weight-regulated gold objects from Britain, Ireland and Atlantic France. These finds allow for new interpretations concerning modes of exchange and their significance in Atlantic Europe, further underlining a Continental—and possibly Mediterranean—influence on Britain during the late second and early first millennia BC.

The Avebury henge is one of the famous megalithic monuments of the European Neolithic, yet much remains unknown about the detail and chronology of its construction. Here, the results of a new geophysical survey and re-examination of earlier excavation records illuminate the earliest beginnings of the monument. The authors suggest that Avebury's Southern Inner Circle was constructed to memorialise and monumentalise the site of a much earlier ‘foundational’ house. The significance here resides in the way that traces of habitation may take on special social and historical value, leading to their marking and commemoration through major acts of monument building.

The Neolithisation of Europe involved socio-economic and biological adaptations to new environments. The use of seaweed as livestock fodder, for example, was key to the introduction of animal husbandry to the Orkney archipelago, c. 3500 cal BC. Using stable isotope analysis of faunal remains from Skara Brae, this study provides new evidence for, and clarifies the chronology of, the adoption of seaweed consumption by sheep. The results show that sheep consumed moderate amounts of seaweed from the moment of their introduction to Orkney—a practice that facilitated the successful spread of the farming lifeways to the most remote areas of Europe.

The spread and persistence of early forms of mobile food production throughout Africa depended on the ability of herding communities to adapt to novel social and environmental challenges. This article presents the first quantitative technological analysis of lithic assemblages from the earliest eastern African pastoralist sites, located in the Lake Turkana Basin of northern Kenya. In this region, transitions to pastoralism involved the adoption of a new, regionally homogeneous technological strategy, which emphasised utility and flexibility. This research provides new insights into how early herders were able to spread through sub-Saharan Africa during a period of extreme climate change.

The Must Farm pile-dwelling site is an extraordinarily well-preserved Late Bronze Age settlement in Cambridgeshire, UK. The authors present the site's contextual setting, from its construction, occupation and subsequent destruction by fire in relatively quick succession. A slow-flowing watercourse beneath the pile-dwellings provided a benign burial environment for preserving the debris of construction, use and collapse, while the catastrophic manner of destruction introduced a definitive timeframe. The scale of its occupation speaks to the site's exceptional nature, enabling the authors to deduce the everyday flow and use of things in a prehistoric domestic setting.

A decade ago, archaeologists discovered the site of a Bronze Age battlefield in the Tollense Valley in north-eastern Germany. Dated to the early thirteenth century BC, the remains of over 140 individuals have been documented, along with many associated bronze objects. Here, the authors present a new assemblage of 31 objects from the site, including three bronze cylinders that may be the fastenings of an organic container. The objects are similar to those found in Bronze Age burials of southern Central Europe, and may represent the personal equipment of a warrior from that region who died on the battlefield in Northern Europe.

Images of ancient Egyptians wearing distinctive, cone-shaped objects on their heads have, in the absence of physical examples, long elicited scholarly debate. Did people wear these cones, or were they a purely iconographic device? What was their function and meaning? Recent excavations at the Amarna cemeteries now provide the first material examples of head cones. Spectroscopic analyses indicate that their primary constituent is a biological wax, and not fat or incense, as sometimes speculated. The authors tentatively suggest that the Amarna cones were symbols meant to enhance the rebirth or personal fertility of the deceased in the afterlife.

Artificial islets, or crannogs, are widespread across Scotland. Traditionally considered to date to no earlier than the Iron Age, recent research has now identified several Outer Hebridean Neolithic crannogs. Survey and excavation of these sites has demonstrated—for the first time—that crannogs were a widespread feature of the Neolithic and that they may have been special locations, as evidenced by the deposition of material culture into the surrounding water. These findings challenge current conceptualisations of Neolithic settlement, monumentality and depositional practice, while suggesting that other ‘undated’ crannogs across Scotland and Ireland could potentially have Neolithic origins.

The fifth-century BC site of Casas del Turuñuelo in south-western Spain provides unique information on the production and ritual consumption of textiles in Iron Age Iberia. Casas del Turuñuelo was a rural estate centre that was intentionally burned following a banquet and the sacrifice of over 50 domestic animals. Among the offerings are the earliest-known wool textiles and twill weaves on the Iberian Peninsula. This assemblage represents the most diverse textile collection found in the region to date, and provides the first glimpse of the role of textiles in the sacrificial economy of Iberia, and in prehistoric Europe more widely.