The Natufian culture (c. 15–11.5 ka cal BP) marks a pivotal step in the transition from hunting and gathering to sedentism and farming in the Near East. Although conventionally divided into Early and Late phases, this internal chronology lacks support from reliable absolute dates. This is now addressed by new AMS dating from two neighbouring Natufian sites at Mount Carmel in Israel: Raqefet Cave, conventionally assigned to the Late phase of the Natufian; and el-Wad Terrace, spanning the entire Natufian sequence. Results indicate that these two sites were in fact contemporaneous at some point, but with distinct lunate assemblages. Distinguishing between Natufian phases is, therefore, more complex than previously thought; the social implications of diverse but co-existing cultural manifestations must be considered in any future reconstruction of the Natufian.

During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), much of the familiar insect fauna of Northern Europe today was confined to the warmer areas south of the Alps. Chemical and microscopic analysis of hafting residues on a Final Palaeolithic barbed point from Westphalia in Germany has, for the first time, yielded evidence for the use of beeswax as a major component of adhesive during the later stages of the LGM. Analysis also confirmed that the beeswax was tempered with crushed charcoal. AMS dating of the Bergkamen barbed point suggests direct association with the Final Pleistocene Federmessergruppen, approximately 13000 years ago. Furthermore, the adhesive provides the first direct evidence of the honeybee, Apis mellifera, in Europe following the LGM.

Orkney is internationally recognised for its exceptionally well-preserved Neolithic archaeology. The chronology of the Orcadian Neolithic is, however, relatively poorly defined. The authors analysed a large body of radiocarbon and luminescence dates, formally modelled in a Bayesian framework, to address the timescape of Orkney's Late Neolithic. The resultant chronology for the period suggests differences in the trajectory of social change between the ‘core’ (defined broadly as the World Heritage site) and the ‘periphery’ beyond. Activity in the core appears to have declined markedly from c. 2800 cal BC, which, the authors suggest, resulted from unsustainable local political tensions and social concerns.

The relationship of statues to the deities they represent is reflected in the special treatments they were often accorded during and after their primary use and display. In 2014 an unusual favissa—an intentionally hidden cache of religious objects—was discovered in the temple of Ptah at Karnak in Egypt. Such caches are generally poorly documented and difficult to date. The favissa contained numerous fragmentary statuettes and figurines, including 14 representing Osiris, carefully arranged around a larger central statue of Ptah. By comparing this cache with evidence from other Egyptian favissae, a hypothesis is proposed to explain the creation of such caches: the Osirian burial of an artefact, in this case the deposition of the ‘deceased’ statue of the god Ptah and its assimilation with Osiris, the god of rebirth.

Archaeological textiles are relatively rare finds in Mediterranean Europe, but many fragments survive in a mineralised form. Recent analysis of Iron Age textiles from Italy and Greece indicates that, despite the use of similar textile technologies at this time, Italy shared the textile culture of Central Europe, while Greece largely followed the Near Eastern traditions of textile production. This research greatly expands our current understanding of the regional circulation of textile technological knowledge and the role of textiles in ancient societies.

The Emptyscapes project is an interdisciplinary programme designed to stimulate new developments in Italian landscape archaeology. It achieves this through the integration of traditional approaches with multidisciplinary studies, to which are added the relatively new techniques of large-scale geophysical survey, airborne laser scanning and geo-environmental analysis. The effectiveness of such an approach has been borne out by results from central Italy. These show that the underlying ‘archaeological continuum’ can be detected even in an area where archaeological evidence was previously thought to be absent.

The trade networks of the Roman Empire are among the most intensively researched large-scale market systems in antiquity, yet there is no consensus on the economic structure behind this vast network. The difficulty arises from data fragmentation and the lack of formal analytical methods. Here, the authors present a Bayesian analysis quantifying the extent to which four previously proposed hypotheses match the evidence for the market system in Roman olive oil. Results suggest that the size of economic agents involved in this network followed a power-law distribution, strongly indicating the presence of free market structures supplying olive oil to Rome. This new analysis offers an important tool to researchers exploring the impact of trade on the dynamics of past societies.

The technique of depletion gilding is well evidenced in pre-Columbian Andean gold work. Artefacts from the Nahuange period in Colombia (c. AD 100–1000) were subject to metallographic, chemical and microscopic analyses to provide regional comparative data on metalworking traditions. Results suggest that depletion gilding may have been an accidental discovery and, contrary to widespread assumptions, not always a desirable feature. This research illustrates how technological innovation may not always be immediately adopted, and considers how the life-history of gold artefacts may affect their appearance and microstructure. It also offers directions for future studies of depletion gilding elsewhere.

New investigations at the coastal settlement of Unguja Ukuu in Zanzibar have demonstrated the effectiveness of magnetometry as a survey method. The early occupation of this Swahili port, from the sixth century AD, presents a unique opportunity to develop our understanding of the growth and development in settlement and trade along the East African coast. The geophysical survey has allowed the size of this important site to be reassessed and an industrial component to be identified. It also offers an insight into the role that early Islamicisation may have played in helping to establish the settlement as a key port during the growth of the Indian Ocean trade network.

Recent archaeological investigations at Tipan Chen Uitz, Belize, yielded two remarkable Classic Maya ballplayer panels. Iconographic and glyphic analysis of these panels within a regional context provides new insights into large-scale socio-political relationships, demonstrating that the ballgame was an important means and mechanism for macro-political affiliation in the Maya Lowlands. The panels suggest that Tipan was part of a wider system of vassalage that tied it to other Maya centres, including Naranjo, a regional capital under the dominion of Calakmul where the Snake-Head dynasty held sway. The data presented here underpin a more general discussion of archaeological approaches to ancient interaction spheres.

The archaeological sequence at Kasteelberg B, in the Western Cape of South Africa, spans a millennium and covers several distinct occupational phases in the early pastoralist settlement history of the region. Attempts to understand that history through coordinating archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence have proved problematic. The refined programme of radiocarbon dating presented here sheds further light on the different phases of occupation. More remarkably, it suggests, despite changes in material culture, the persistence of a single population over time, rather than population replacement as has been previously conjectured.

The Pigorini cemí is an icon of Caribbean colonial history, reflecting early trans-Atlantic cross-cultural exchanges. Although well documented, the piece has received surprisingly little systematic study. We present the first structural analysis and radiocarbon dating of the sculpture (modelled at AD 1492–1524), and a brief discussion of the materials from which it is comprised. These include indigenous shell and European glass beads, newly identified feather and hair fibres, and the enigmatic rhinoceros-horn mask carved as a human face. We also address the sculpture's hidden internal wooden base, which is shown to be a non-indigenous display mount made of European willow (Salix sp.).

The European colonisation of South America had different effects on the indigenous peoples, particularly on mobile hunter-gatherer societies such as those that inhabited mainland southern continental Patagonia and the island of Tierra del Fuego. The combination of archaeological data with ethnographic and historical accounts shows contrasting contexts for the manufacture of scrapers and projectile points with new raw materials such as glass and stoneware within these two distinct geographic areas. These differences are explained by a number of key factors: the introduction of the horse, the role of guanaco in a newly imposed capitalist economic framework, demographic patterns, bio-geographic barriers and the establishment of ‘reservations’ and missions.

High-resolution satellite imagery has proved to be a powerful tool for calculating the extent of looting at heritage sites in conflict zones around the world. Monitoring damage over time, however, has been largely dependent upon laborious and error-prone manual comparisons of satellite imagery taken at different dates. The semi-automated detection process presented here offers a more expedient and accurate method for monitoring looting activities over time, as evidenced at the site of Ai Khanoum in Afghanistan. It is hoped that this method, which relies upon multispectral imagery and principal component analysis, may be adapted to great effect for use in other areas where heritage loss is of significant concern.