Mesolithic hunter-gatherer settlements generally leave ephemeral archaeological traces and are notoriously difficult to detect. Nowhere is this more so than on the northern coast of Spain, despite a long tradition of Mesolithic research. In this project, evidence of Mesolithic activity together with the geomorphological and topographical suitability of particular locations were used to select areas for large-scale geophysical survey. The results demonstrate the potential of the new methodology: magnetometry survey at El Alloru revealed the very first Asturian open-air settlement site to be discovered.

The west European Neolithic is famed for its funerary and ceremonial monuments, but the evidence for houses is sparse. Can this be explained by the materials of which they were built? On the northern coast of Brittany, the site of Lillemer rises from the surrounding marshes and presents abundant evidence of Middle Neolithic occupation, contemporary with the passage graves of the region. Surprisingly, their evidence includes the remains of collapsed earthen-walled structures, providing the northernmost example of this type of architecture in a Neolithic context and a possible explanation for the invisibility of much Neolithic domestic architecture.

The centuries from the Late Naqada period to the Second Dynasty saw significant changes in Egyptian society. Elite seizures of power and a shift towards a centralised economy changed the way that objects were traded and valued. It is over a century since the discovery of a large flint assemblage in the tomb of Khasekhemwy, the last Second Dynasty ruler, in ‘Cemetery B’ at Abydos. New analysis of these lithic artefacts has revealed that the presence of debitage among the grave goods was more than simply a by-product of manufacture. Such changes in funerary materiality demonstrate a move towards royal control of a prestige goods economy.

Rice has been an important cultivated crop in Korea since c. 1500 BC, but in historical times it was a luxury food too valuable for consumption by the farmers who produced it. It was widely used as a form of currency and for tax payments. Analysis of plant remains from Sangdong-dong and Songguk-ri, two Bronze Age settlements of the early first millennium BC, however, reveals that rice was not the preserve of elites in that period. The situation changed with the state formation during the first three centuries AD, when rice consumption became increasingly restricted. Thus in Korea rice was not initially cultivated as a luxury food, but became so through social and political change.

The adoption of the horse for chariots, wagons and riding had a major impact on human societies, but it has proved difficult to reliably identify early domesticated horses in the archaeological record. This comparative study of equine palaeopathology addresses the problem by analysing wild and domestic horses used for traction or riding. Osteological changes to the skull appear to be the result of mechanical and physiological stress from the use of horses for transport. The results are applied to archaeological examples from the Deer Stone-Khirigsuur Complex of Bronze Age Mongolia (1300–700 BC) and show that those horses were probably bridled and used for transport.

The pictograph discovered at Black Dragon Canyon, Utah, in the late 1920s, is a classic example of the Barrier Canyon style, dating probably to AD 1–1100. Creationists, however, have argued, from the incomplete preservation of the motifs, that it depicts a winged monster or pterosaur. A new study using portable X-ray fluorescence refutes this ill-founded interpretation and reveals a scene characteristic of Barrier Canyon style, featuring an anthropomorphic figure. By removing interpretational bias, the new technology finally lays to rest the Black Dragon Canyon pterosaur.

The strategic significance of the Dariali Gorge, the main pass across the central Caucasus, has long been recognised. It forms a border today as it has done for much of the past 2000 years. But how was an effective military force sustained in an isolated Alpine environment? Excavations, osteoarchaeology and landscape survey have revealed that the Early Middle Ages saw as much investment in controlling this key route as there was in Antiquity. Guarded by the same Muslim-led garrison for at least a quarter of a millennium, its survival in a harsh environment was made possible through military effort and long-distance food supplies.

The medicinal use of narcotics has a long history, extending back thousands of years, but installations for the ingestion of such substances are rarely preserved. One such installation was found in the Ottoman (fifteenth–seventeenth centuries) levels at Kaman-Kalehöyük, a multi-period settlement mound in central Turkey. Excavations of an Ottoman tandır or ventilated earth-oven have revealed a concentration of charred henbane seeds that suggest the hearth had been used for medicinal fumigation. Henbane smoke was a traditional treatment for relieving toothache and other maladies, but this is the first archaeological evidence for the practice in Asia.

The archaeology of Atlantic slavery has been widely studied in recent years, but less attention has been paid to the post-slavery system of indenture that transported contract labourers from South Asia, China and Africa to new lands. Colonial Mauritius has left abundant archaeological remains, not least the cemetery for slaves and freed slaves established at Le Morne in the nineteenth century. Analysis of aDNA has demonstrated that individuals buried at Le Morne were of Madagascan and East African (probably Mozambican) origin, testifying to the long-distance movement of slave labour.

Ethnohistorical and ethnographic observations from around the world indicate that projectiles were often made differently for warfare and hunting. Using experiential archaeology and analysis of a thousand years’ worth of data from the middle Gila River in Arizona, the authors argue that side notched arrow points were produced for hunting large animals and were designed to be retrieved and reused, while unnotched points were intended for single use and for another purpose: to kill people. The data suggests furthermore that the region witnessed a steady increase in levels of violence during the period under study.

Once Britain had become separated from the European mainland in the seventh millennium BC, Mesolithic stone tool traditions on opposite sides of the newly formed Channel embarked upon different directions of development. Patterns of cross-Channel contact have been difficult to decipher in this material, prior to the expansion of farming (and possibly farmers) from northern France at the beginning of the fourth millennium BC. Hence the discovery of Late Mesolithic microliths of apparently Belgian affinity at the western extremity of southern Britain—in the Isles of Scilly—comes as something of a surprise. The find is described here in detail, along with alternative scenarios that might explain it. The article is followed by a series of comments, with a closing reply from the authors.