Ugarit was a highly cosmopolitan, multilingual and multiscript city at the intersection of several major Late Bronze Age political and cultural spheres of influence. In the thirteenth century bc, the city adopted a new alphabetic cuneiform writing system in the local language for certain uses alongside the Akkadian language, script and scribal practices that were standard throughout the Near East. Previous research has seen this as ‘vernacularization’, in response to the city's encounter with Mesopotamian culture. Recent improvements in our understanding of the date of Ugarit's adoption of alphabetic cuneiform render this unlikely, and this paper instead argues that we should see this vernacularization as part of Ugarit's negotiation of, and resistance to, their encounter with Hittite imperialism. Furthermore, it stands as a specific, Ugaritian, manifestation of similar trends apparent across a number of East Mediterranean societies in response to the economic and political globalism of Late Bronze Age élite culture. As such, these changes in Ugaritian scribal practice have implications for our wider understanding of the end of the Late Bronze Age.

Although it is sometimes suggested that modern-day chimpanzee nut-cracking behaviour is cognitively similar to early stone-tool-knapping behaviour, few systematic comparative studies have tested this assumption. Recently, two further techno-behaviours were reported that could both represent intermediary phases in hominin cognitive evolution pertaining to our ultimate technological astuteness. These behaviours are that of bearded capuchin monkeys pounding rocks and very early stone-tool knapping from Lomekwi 3. Here we use a multi-model approach to directly compare cognitive aspects required for 11 techno-behaviours, ranging from the simplest capuchin pounding behaviour to the most complex chimpanzee nut-cracking and Lomekwi 3 knapping behaviours. We demonstrate a marked difference in broad-spectrum cognitive requirements between capuchin pounding on the one hand and Lomekwian bipolar knapping on the other. Whereas the contrast is less pronounced between chimpanzee nut-cracking scenarios and basic passive-hammer knapping at Lomekwi 3, the escalation in cognitive requirement between nut cracking and bipolar knapping is a good indication that early hominin flaking techniques are cognitively more taxing than chimpanzee nut-cracking behaviour today.

The origin of record keeping is a key question in the development of social complexity and specialized economies, representing the first step towards the emergence of written communication. Yet the precursors of the world's earliest writing and its initial stages of development remain little understood. Small, geometric clay objects (‘tokens’) appear in the tenth millennium cal. bc, the start of the Neolithic in West Asia, prevailing into the first millennium. It is largely assumed that from their inception clay objects played a crucial role in record keeping, directly evolving into the world's earliest known writing. Utilizing new and previously unpublished Neolithic data comprising almost individually studied 3000 objects, accompanied by information from 56 further Neolithic sites, this article investigates the meaning of Neolithic ‘tokens’. Analysis proves the basis of their predominant interpretation to be incorrect; clay objects appear earlier than previously recognized and are not a necessary component of Neolithic agro-pastoral villages. ‘Tokens’ were multi-functional artefacts; even within a single site clay objects performed multiple roles. Though likely used in simple counting activities, this was not limited to the accounting of agricultural produce. Nor was counting the sole function of clay objects in the Neolithic. Clay objects were not created to administer agricultural produce and there is no evidence to suggest that in the Neolithic they formed part of a unified symbolic system.

In the archaeology of death and burial, the premise that the dead were buried ritually and not simply disposed of seems to be accepted without argument. Where graves were reopened and reused for subsequent burials, however, the post-funeral manipulation of ‘older’ depositions is often regarded as having been primarily pragmatic and circumstantial. Countering this interpretative imbalance, we argue that the reuse of tombs was a highly complex procedure that forced communities into negotiating and formalizing, or even ritualizing, the way in which bodies and objects were acted on and engaged with. Taking the necropolis Giarnera Piccola/Ascoli Satriano in pre-Roman northern Apulia as a case study, and employing a microarchaeological-archaeothanatological perspective, we discuss the diverse and sometimes conflicting practices used to deal with pre-existing graves, objects and human remains, identifying tensions between maintaining or reconstructing the integrity of the body and intentionally manipulating and fragmenting it. We argue that repeatedly reused tombs constituted a socially and symbolically charged arena for a prolonged, active relationship with the deceased and for mobilizing, mediating and maintaining inter-generational memories.

The paper aims at providing theoretical models and data interpretation applied to multiple burials. Challenging the current fuzzy definition of multiple burials in ancient societies, the paper proposes a more accurate classification of multiple burials, with particular reference to ancient Egypt funerary culture, based on two main parameters, which may have influenced the association of bodies: p1) architecture; p2) time span, and three flexible sub-parameters that may be used to customize different scenarios, on occasion: sp1) number of deceased; sp2) age of deceased; sp3) nature of death/deposition. The body has been often considered the real ontological centre of the burial itself with all of the other countable objects intended as radiating projections supporting the body-nucleus. The practice of multiple burials disrupts such a perception as it juxtaposes horizontal, multidirectional perspectives: the role of a new body entering among older bodies and objects, and of the multiple bodies and objects themselves. The study of multiple burials, if correctly framed, can lead to insights into different religious, social, and economic reasons behind the mortuary programmes within a society. For instance, sequential multiple burials reinforce the transformation of dead bodies into part of the burial equipment itself, reducing the centrality of the body and disrupting the narrative tied to individual biographies, increasing an ‘artefactual’ perception.

Whaling was a central aspect of Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht and Makah culture on the northwest coast of North America. Not only was it economically important, it was vital to chiefly prestige. Art and ceremonial life were dominated by themes related to whaling. Thunderbird, the great supernatural whaler, was the source of hereditary prerogatives held by chiefs, including names, dances, regalia and rights to display images of thunderbird and whale. This paper argues that human observations of predatory behaviour by orcas (or killer whales) led to these animals also being perceived as non-human whalers from which chiefly prerogatives could be obtained. Wolves, the main figures in Nuu-chah-nulth ceremonial life, had the power to transform into orcas, explaining their frequent presence in the art with thunderbirds and whales. This paper presents archaeological evidence for orca in the context of whaling and offers interpretations based on the extensive ethnographic and oral historical records. It also places perceptions of animals, the role of the hunter's wife and beliefs about orca in a broader context involving hunting societies in northwestern North America.

Research on the Neolithic monuments and dwellings of Atlantic Europe has shown that plays of light and colour were tools for the social and symbolic construction of the world. The integration of the architectures into the surrounding landscape and the incorporation of the surrounding landscape into the architectures were an essential part of this logic. In this context, recent research in the megalithic passage grave of Dombate has evidenced an unusual physical manifestation of sunlight, which interacts with the decorated back stone. The light-and-shadow phenomenon occurs at sunrise during the period of winter solstice. In this paper we discuss the particulars of this phenomenon and we argue that sunlight when it penetrates the passage and chamber at sunrise on these dates may have dictated how the art was located and applied to the structural stone. Such differentiation seems to have had important cultural and ritual significance and encoded/embedded meaning for the tomb builders and may have implications for the consideration of the symbolic dimension of similar architectures in Atlantic Europe.

This paper proposes that the organization of crafts may be a key catalyst in the emergence of urban communities. This is argued through a reassessment of finds from a non-ferrous metal workshop from the eighth century excavated in Ribe, Denmark. We analyse 3D laser scans in order to classify previously unidentified mould fragments, which show that the workshop produced a range of metal parts for composite products like wooden chests, belts and horse harnesses. Such production required an operational network, or réseau opératoire, to combine the necessary skills and expertise of several artisanal specializations. The need for collaboration between specialized craftspeople would have been a decisive incentive for the formation of permanent communities of an urban character. These observations point to a neglected bottom-up driver for the development of early urbanization.