Landscape archaeologies that pay attention to cultural importance of place have become increasingly common in recent years in many parts of the world. However, these approaches have largely failed to make inroads into Pleistocene European hunter–gatherer archaeology. This is partly due to a focus on economics, survival, and neo-liberal assumptions of ‘efficiency’ in early modern human behaviour. With evidence of lithic use drawn from cave sites, survey, and open-air excavation, I argue that Upper Paleolithic hunter–gatherers left clues to the importance of certain places in the landscape. Lithic tools in particular have been undervalued for their symbolic meaning, which goes well beyond style and ethnicity models. Raw material has been seen as evidence of mobility and trade, but possible cultural motives behind material choices have been downplayed or ignored.

This article focuses on the production of bone tools during the seventh millennium cal BC. A large number of fishhooks and waste from fishhook production have been found at the sites of Sævarhelleren and Viste cave, in western Norway. The data have been studied by means of the chaîne opératoire concept, meaning that the artefacts are described and analysed in order to identify the different steps in the production process and to characterize the technology in a comparative northern European perspective. The result shows that bone tools and fishhooks were crafted in a similar way at these two sites, with techniques that were mastered by all makers, and in close relation to stone tool production. When compared to other contemporaneous sites, the technology resembles the Mesolithic bone technology of north-eastern Europe. It thus contradicts the hypothesis of a strong connection between western Norway and the Maglemose cultural group in southern Scandinavia and northern Germany.

Cutmarks on the bones of ten individuals from Körtik Tepe, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in Southeastern Anatolia, were analysed using a bioarchaeological approach. Half of the ten individuals possess cutmarks on their crania only while the other five have cutmarks on both their cranial and postcranial bones. Diagnoses of these cutmarks suggest they were made on fresh cadavers, while skeletal data and burial customs reveal that the individuals with cutmarks were subject to human intervention in the decomposition process, understood as post-burial practices rather than secondary burials. This conclusion is supported by the application of plaster and paint as part of the burial customs. The process of defleshing is interpreted as an attempt to purify the corpse and to separate death from life.

Bioarchaeological studies have found that, in general, the adoption of agriculture is associated with deteriorating oral health, most frequently manifested as an increase in the prevalence of dental caries. However, compared to other regions of the world, bioarchaeological studies focusing on prehistoric Europe have produced more variable results, with different populations experiencing deteriorations, improvements, and stasis in oral health. This study assesses the oral health of individuals of the Tripolye culture buried in Verteba Cave, Ukraine, within the context of the transition to agriculture in Eastern Europe. We compare the rates of dental caries between Tripolye farmers with earlier hunter-fisher-gatherers from Ukraine. The Tripolye were found to have carious lesions on 9.5 per cent of teeth, while the hunter-fisher-gatherers were found to be universally free of carious lesions. A Fisher's exact test demonstrates that this difference is statistically significant, supporting the model that the transition to agriculture was detrimental to oral health in prehistoric Ukraine. This could be related to the manner in which grain was processed by the Tripolye and the needs of their relatively population-dense society.

This paper provides a critical review of Smith's (1989) typological discussion of the antler ‘mattocks’ of the British Mesolithic. The evidence for use of the term ‘mattock’ is assessed in relation to a new technological analysis of antler tools from Britain. In the light of the data presented here and developments in the study of Mesolithic osseous technologies from elsewhere in northwest Europe, a redefinition of the terminology and typology used to study these artefacts is presented. The potential for this redefinition to shape research across Mesolithic Europe is demonstrated through a discussion of the earliest occurrence of antler T-axes around the North Sea basin.

One hundred and sixty hypogea have been discovered in the Paris Basin, concentrated in the south-west part of the Marne department. Radiocarbon dates and archaeological artefacts indicate their construction and use were a phenomenon limited to the Late Neolithic 2, currently estimated as 3350–3000 cal BC. Re-examination of the human skeletal remains, notably those from Les Mournouards II, enables us to improve our understanding of the practices involved in these collective burials, particularly aspects of individual selection and distribution. Age, sex, and social status determined the burial location between and within the artificial caves. Burial positions characterized two groups of hypogea. However, in both groups, most female individuals were buried along the left wall of the monuments, on the same side as the collective grave goods and carved female figures sometimes discovered in the anterooms. The nature and distribution of personal material reflect the existence of particular statuses for some individuals. The burial principles reveal a relative conservatism guaranteeing distinction between individuals of different lifetime statuses. Several competing strategies sought to preserve, in death, this social order. The mortuary practices, then, reflect a codified social organization for a Paris Basin group of the later fourth millennium BC and a burial practice that was less ‘collective’ than might have been imagined.

The polycentric nature of Neolithic developments in the Middle East has prompted several discussions related to the processes driving regional diversification in the emergence of agglomerate societies. Archaeologists have recognized how diverse social, environmental, and material landscapes shaped various communities, resulting in a heterogenous Neolithic world. In this paper, we use portable x-ray fluorescence analysis to determine the use of different chert resources at the site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey, and question how their consumption affected, and was affected by, different social and material practices enacted within the community. We adopt a network perspective to examine the range of behaviours that consumed particular resources, and trace how alterations in these networks impacted the social fabric of Çatalhöyük. Ultimately, we conclude that different investments involved in the consumption of each resource either promoted or restricted their use through time. A more complete picture of Neolithic life, we suggest, takes note of the varied relationships that communities developed with nearby social and environmental landscapes, including nuances in the ways in which resources were incorporated into different facets of each community.

Increasing research in western Anatolia since the 1990s onwards shows that the Neolithic way of life in this region emerged in the first half of the seventh millennium BC and evolved rapidly in the same millennium. Current data indicate western Anatolia, which is located alongside the primary zone of Neolithization in the Near East, has a complex constitution rather than being a bridge or barrier between east and west. In this article, data from past and current excavations in western Anatolia are discussed over time and space. In this context, eastern Thrace, where there are strong connections with west Anatolia, is also included.

For a long time, assessments and evaluations of the western Anatolian Early Bronze Age (EBA) have only been based on the excavation results of Tarsus, Karataş-Semayük, Beycesultan, Demircihüyük, and Troy. However, excavations and surface surveys carried out in the last two decades have increased our knowledge enormously. In particular, the excavations of Liman Tepe, Küllüoba, and Seyitömer have made an immense contribution to the establishment of a reliable West Anatolian EBA chronology. The surface surveys have also made it possible to define better the borders of the cultural areas and pottery zones of the region. Based on these new data, new theories are presented here on the cultural and socio-political development of the region, as well as on regional and inter-regional relationships during the EBA.

This paper discusses recent data on, and approaches to, the Neolithization of the Iberian Peninsula. A brief outline is given of new discoveries and archaeological evidence, together with an analysis of the main sites and their contexts, with special emphasis on Neolithic pioneer communities and the role of the hunters–gatherers in the Neolithization process. The analysis concentrates mainly on pottery, as it accounts for most of the archaeological evidence, although other components of the ‘Neolithic package’ are also considered, such as evidence of agriculture, animal husbandry and other materials. A hypothesis on the Neolithization of Iberia is proposed, as well as a brief summary of alternative ideas and models. This hypothesis explains the Neolithisation of this territory in a specific chronological framework (between 5700–5600 and 5400–5300 BC), where one can assume the existence of Neolithic pioneer communities and the important role played in the spread of the Neolithic across this area by both local Mesolithic groups and colonization processes (leapfrog phenomena).

This paper considers the shift from the practice of collective burials to individual (or double) burials in western Europe at the end of the Neolithic/Copper Age, around 2500–2000 BC, through the lens of a particular mortuary site—the artificial cave of Bolores (Torres Vedras, Portugal). It suggests that the practices involved in making and using collective burials played an important role in this transformation towards increasing social differentiation. It explores how a focus on materiality at different scales, both temporal and spatial, might contribute new insights into geographically widespread and relatively co-synchronous social change.

This paper considers the early copper and copper-alloy metallurgy of the entire Alpine region. It introduces a new approach to the interpretation of chemical composition data sets, which has been applied to a comprehensive regional database for the first time. The Alpine Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age each have distinctive patterns of metal use, which can be interpreted through changes in mining, social choice, and major landscape features such as watersheds and river systems. Interestingly, the Alpine range does not act as a north-south barrier, as major differences in composition tend to appear on an east-west axis. Central among these is the prevalence of tin-bronze in the western Alps compared to the east. This ‘tin-line’ is discussed in terms of metal flow through the region and evidence for a deeply rooted geographical division that runs through much of Alpine prehistory.

This paper is concerned with the impact of ancient DNA data on our models of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in central Europe. Beginning with a brief overview of how genetic data have been received by archaeologists working in this area, it outlines the potential and remaining problems of this kind of evidence. As a migration around the beginning of the Neolithic now seems certain, new research foci are then suggested. One is renewed attention to the motivations and modalities of the migration process. The second is a fundamental change in attitude towards the capabilities of immigrant Neolithic populations to behave in novel and creative ways, abilities which in our transition models were long exclusively associated with hunter-gatherers.

The Hittite state was founded c. 1650 BC and developed thereafter. The Hittites were able to establish their rule in Anatolia's hostile landscape and overcome the difficulties it presented to create an empire—an objective that they achieved with the aid of their remarkable organizational skills. Despite the frequent occurrence of geographical names in the state archives, only a small number of them can be safely localized and, although Hittitology is a 100-year-old field, the regional names have only recently been determined. This article serves as a general introduction to the Hittites as well as a review of the problem of geographical names, revealing the complexity it presents.

In the second millennium cal BC, a new metal conquered Europe: the alloy of copper and tin that improved the quality of tools and weapons. This development, we argue, initiated a framework for a new political economy. We explore how a political economy approach may help understand the European Bronze Age by focussing on regional comparative advantages in long-distance trade and resulting bottlenecks in commodity flows. Links existed in commodity chains, where obligated labour and ownership of resources helped mobilize surpluses, thus creating potential for social segments to control the production and flows of critical goods. The political economy of Bronze Age Europe would thus represent a transformation in how would-be leaders mobilized resources to support their political ends. The long-distance trade in metals and other commodities created a shift from local group ownership towards increasingly individual strategies to obtain wealth from macro-regional trade. We construct our argument to make sense of available data, but recognize that our model's primary purpose is to structure future research to test the model.

This study examines some assumptions related to Late Bronze Age interaction between the Aegean world and central Mediterranean societies. It asserts that, contrary to what is often assumed, this relationship was extremely important and had considerable social consequences. It is argued that such an importance can be appreciated only by acknowledging that interaction is constituted by real-world social encounters. On the basis of this insight, the contextual evidence from the site of Roca in Apulia is analysed. It is proposed that archaeological remains here represent a series of public events—i.e. large feasts—possibly entailing the participation of people of different cultural backgrounds and in which a subtle strategy of representation of relative distance and closeness was adopted to promote interests within Roca's community. Such interests are interpreted with reference to the increasing connections between the eastern and western portions of the Mediterranean, substantiated in the circulation of metal and pottery models and types.