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.

Çatalhöyük is one of the most well-known and important Neolithic/Chalcolithic sites in the Middle East. Settlement at the site encompasses two separate tell mounds known as Çatalhöyük East and West, with the focus of attention having traditionally been upon what is often regarded as the main site, the earlier East Mound. Limitations of dating evidence have, however, rendered the nature of the relationship between the settlements on these mounds unclear. Traditional models favoured a hiatus between their occupation, or, alternatively, a rapid shift from one site to the other, often invoking changes in natural conditions by way of an explanation. New dates challenge these theories, and indicate a potentially significant overlap between the occupation of the mounds, starting in the late seventh millennium BC.

Tells famously capture the historical sequences of the earliest farmers—but digging them is not easy. With a depth of strata of 17m at Dikili Tash, the earliest occupation was out of reach of a trench. But our researchers got there by coring, extending the date of the first occupation back 1000 years, and deducing, from small samples, the changing environment and possible connections with Anatolia.