Gender has long been recognized as an important structuring agent in Bronze Age communities across Europe. A strong impression of binary gender emerges from some Early Bronze Age cemeteries, and models of social organization developed from this evidence have greatly influenced understandings of gender across the continent. This article focuses on two regions with more equivocal evidence: Ireland and Scotland, where idiosyncratic practices characterize individual cemeteries alongside wider trends. Expressions of gender varied in radical ways between different communities, and this cannot be captured or explained by the current grand narratives for the European Bronze Age. Instead, the author argues that gender could be subtle, contextual, and of varying importance to individual communities at different times, not necessarily a common feature unifying the European Bronze Age.

Recently rediscovered photographs of the remains of thirteen individuals buried in the Sado Valley Mesolithic shell middens of Poças de S. Bento and Arapouco, excavated in 1960 and 1962, show the potential of revisiting excavation archives with new methods. The analysis, which applies the principles of archaeothanatology and is enriched by experimental taphonomic research, confirmed details concerning the treatment of the dead body and provided new insights into the use of burial spaces. Some bodies may have been mummified prior to burial, a phenomenon possibly linked to their curation and transport, highlighting the significance of both the body and the burial place in Mesolithic south-western Portugal.

Neolithic bodies are not only manifestations of subjective principles. Social and symbolic norms are also incorporated within the bodies of both actual and represented individuals. These norms often relate to economic and religious notions of society, as well as to effigies. Owing to high population densities in Neolithic villages, only a select group of the inhabitants were buried within settlements or represented in images. This generated a category of privileged individuals and body features, which were related to symbolic principles rather than social hierarchy. Such practices among Neolithic societies in the Balkans are evident within burials and human representations. Individuals buried inside settlements, anthropomorphic house models, and figurines from several sites in Ovče Pole, Pelagonia, and the Skopje Valley are used as case studies in this paper. Placing these sites into a wider geographical context, it is argued that gender, age and body parts were significant criteria in funerary practices and features of corporeality.

This paper seeks to explore how prayer and praying practice are reflected in archaeological sources. Apart from objects directly involved in the personal act of praying, such as rosaries and praying books, churches and religious foundations played a major role in the medieval system of intercession. At death, an individual's corpse and burial primarily reflect the social act of representation during the funeral. The position of the arms, which have incorrectly been used as a chronological tool in Scandinavia, may indicate an evolution from a more collective act of prayer up to the eleventh century AD to a more individual way of praying in the late and post-medieval periods.

This paper focusses on animal remains associated with archaeological contexts dated to the middle and later phases of the Scandinavian Iron Age, which corresponds to the first millennium AD. The main question to be addressed is whether this record can be used for identifying human impact on certain animal populations for modelling faunal exploitation and interregional trade. In the first part of the paper, we undertake a detailed inventory of animal finds recorded in published excavation reports, research catalogues, and in existing databases maintained primarily by the Historical Museum in Stockholm. We compare the chronological pattern identified in the burial assemblages with a chronological sequence retrieved from pitfall hunting systems located in the Scandinavian inland region. The chronologies of the animal finds from burials and the pitfall systems are then compared with dated pollen-analytical sequences retrieved in the inland region and additional archaeological assemblages, such as graves and hoards of Roman coins. In our discussion, we outline an interregional model of faunal exploitation between AD 300 and 1200, including the possible location of hunting grounds and end-distribution areas for animal products. The paper provides deeper insights into the burial record of the middle Iron Age, arguing for the need for broader interregional approaches, and focussed archaeological research in the inland regions of Scandinavia.