Globally, rock art is one of the most widely distributed manifestations of past human activity. Previous research, however, has tended to focus on the art rather than artists. Understanding which members of society participated in creating such art is crucial to interpreting its social implications and that of the sites at which it is found. This article presents the first application of a method—palaeodermatoglyphics—for the estimation of the sex and age of two later prehistoric individuals who left their fingerprints at the Los Machos rockshelter in southern Iberia. The method has the potential to illuminate the complex socio-cultural dimensions of rock art sites worldwide.

Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan became an iconic Palaeolithic site following Ralph Solecki's mid twentieth-century discovery of Neanderthal remains. Solecki argued that some of these individuals had died in rockfalls and—controversially—that others were interred with formal burial rites, including one with flowers. Recent excavations have revealed the articulated upper body of an adult Neanderthal located close to the ‘flower burial’ location—the first articulated Neanderthal discovered in over 25 years. Stratigraphic evidence suggests that the individual was intentionally buried. This new find offers the rare opportunity to investigate Neanderthal mortuary practices utilising modern archaeological techniques.

Around 8150 BP, the Storegga tsunami struck North-west Europe. The size of this wave has led many to assume that it had a devastating impact upon contemporaneous Mesolithic communities, including the final inundation of Doggerland, the now submerged Mesolithic North Sea landscape. Here, the authors present the first evidence of the tsunami from the southern North Sea, and suggest that traditional notions of a catastrophically destructive event may need rethinking. In providing a more nuanced interpretation by incorporating the role of local topographic variation within the study of the Storegga event, we are better placed to understand the impact of such dramatic occurrences and their larger significance in settlement studies.

Antiquity—the past—has been fundamental to archaeology from the very beginnings of the discipline, and it remains the central concept around which archaeological research is developed. Over the years, however, alternative ways of doing and thinking archaeology have come forth to challenge this orientation on the past. Despite their growth in scope and sophistication, these alternatives remain at the margins of our community. In this article, the authors argue that it is in the best interests of archaeology—both as a community and as a discipline—to not brush aside these alternatives but rather to afford them serious attention.

The Pleistocene archaeological record of South Asia is important for addressing questions relating to the origin and evolution of Palaeolithic cultures, continuity or change in lithic technologies, and population dispersals across Asia. Here, the authors report on intensive regional studies to investigate variability within this record, employing field survey, lithic analysis and experimental knapping. They examine Palaeolithic hominin behavioural change in the Wainganga Basin, central India, focusing on variability in spatial distribution, stratigraphy and lithic reduction strategies in Acheulian to Late Palaeolithic sites. This emphasises the diversity of cultural sequences in South Asia and contributes to questions of transition and change based on cultural preferences, raw materials and lithic strategies in different regions.

The hyperarid climate of the central Sahara precludes permanent agriculture, although occasional temporary ponds, or etaghas, as a result of rain-fed flooding of wadi beds in the Tadrart Acacus Mountains of the Libyan Sahara allow the pastoral Kel Tadrart Tuareg to cultivate cereals. Geoarchaeological and archaeological data, along with radiocarbon dating and evidence from rock art, however, suggest a much greater antiquity for the exploitation of these etaghas. The authors propose that the present-day cultivation of etaghas mirrors attempts at flood-recession or rain-fed cultivation by late prehistoric Pastoral Neolithic groups, who first exploited residual water resources to supplement their pastoral subsistence practices.

According to the ‘farming/dispersal’ hypothesis, the Early and Mid-Holocene spread of Neolithic material culture in East Asia would have arisen from dispersals of established farming populations. The authors test this hypothesis by considering the Beixin Culture that appeared in the south-west Haidai region of northern China c. 5000 BC, before spreading north and east to the coast over the subsequent millennium. While this culture had architecture, elaborate pottery and other forms of Neolithic material culture, analysis of archaeobotanical evidence from Guanqiaocunnan (4340–3970 BC) suggests an economic base of hunting, gathering and cultivating, rather than a reliance on farming.

The past decade has witnessed an intensification of research into the use of pottery by hunter-gatherers. Long viewed by Western scholars as a marginal practice among these groups, pottery production is now known to have been widespread among prehistoric hunter-gatherers, many of whom practised no other activities associated with agriculture. In emphasising the centrality of ceramics to these communities, however, we risk marginalising those who did not adopt pottery. Here, the authors critically examine a series of different models proposed for hunter-gatherer pottery innovation and adoption within the context of the aceramic communities who inhabited Britain and Ireland during the fifth millennium cal BC.

Prehistoric stone structures are prominent and well-studied in the Levantine desert margins. In northern Arabia, however, such structures have received less attention. This article presents the results of investigations of a 35m-long stone platform, first constructed in the mid sixth millennium BC, overlooking the oasis of Dûmat al-Jandal in northern Saudi Arabia. Excavation of the platform has yielded bioarchaeological and cultural remains, along with evidence for several phases of construction and intermittent use down to the first millennium BC. Analysis of the platform and nearby tombs highlights the persistent funerary and ritual use of this area over millennia, illuminating nomadic pastoralist lifeways in prehistoric Arabia.

Animal domestication represents one of the most important advances in human history. Pigs (Sus scrofa) were domesticated multiple times in prehistory and are therefore ideal for examining how geography and culture shape the domestication process. The authors integrate zooarchaeological and isotopic data from Neolithic (c. 10 000–2000 BP) pigs from central China and the Lower Yangtze Valley to demonstrate two dominant domestication trajectories. In central China, pig husbandry intensified following domestication, corresponding with population growth and a shift in socio-economic organisation. In the Lower Yangtze Valley, however, increasing urbanism was associated with a preference for wild resources supplemented by the limited exploitation of domestic pigs.

Northern Spain has a high density of Upper Palaeolithic cave art sites. Until recently, however, few such sites have been reported from the Basque Country, which has been considered to be a ‘void’ in the distribution of parietal art. Now, new discoveries at Danbolinzulo Cave reveal a different situation. The graphic homogeneity of the motifs, which comprise five ibex, two horses and a possible anthropomorph, along with several unidentified figures, strongly suggests a pre-Magdalenian (>20 000 cal BP) date for the art. Here, Danbolinzulo is interpreted in its wider context as occupying a pivotal position between Cantabrian-Iberian and French/continental art traditions.

Circular features made from mammoth bone are known from across Upper Palaeolithic Eastern Europe, and are widely identified as dwellings. The first systematic flotation programme of samples from a recently discovered feature at Kostenki 11 in Russia has yielded assemblages of charcoal, burnt bone and microlithic debitage. New radiocarbon dates provide the first coherent chronology for the site, revealing it to be one of the oldest such features on the Russian Plain. The authors discuss the implications for understanding the function of circular mammoth-bone features during the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum.

South-west Transylvania was an important source of metal and other natural resources for Bronze Age Europe, helping to facilitate the development of increasingly hierarchical societies. The absence of a radiocarbon-based chronology for Transylvania, however, has impeded understanding of the region's role within broader socioeconomic networks. Here, the presentation of the first radiocarbon chronology for the Wietenberg Culture in south-west Transylvania allows the authors to highlight the importance of interregional exchange and reliable access to metal for Bronze Age European societies, and emphasise that resource-procurement zones follow unique trajectories of socioeconomic organisation.

Human influence on ecological niches can drive rapid changes in the diet, behaviour and evolutionary trajectories of small mammals. Archaeological evidence from the Late Neolithic Loess Plateau of northern China suggests that the expansion of millet cultivation created new selective pressures, attracting small mammals to fields and settlements. Here, the authors present direct evidence for commensal behaviour in desert hares (Lepus capensis), dating to c. 4900 years ago. Stable isotope ratio analysis of hare bones from the Neolithic site at Yangjiesha shows a diachronic increase in a C4 (millet-based) diet, revealing, for the first time, the expansion of ancient human-hare interactions beyond the predator-prey relationship.