The authors examine claims that the sole surviving example of relief sculpture from the Middle Bronze of Italy or Sicily, discovered in the excavations on the island of Ustica in 1991, is a forgery that was deliberately planted on the site. Their refutation is based on examination of the photographic evidence that has been published in support of these claims.

The transition from Palaeoindian to Archaic societies in North America is often viewed as a linear progression over a brief but time-transgressive period. New evidence from the Wilson-Leonard site in Texas suggests social experimentation by Palaeoindians over a 2500-year period eventually resulted in Archaic societies. The process was neither short nor linear, and the evidence shows that different but contemporaneous lifeways existed in a variety of locales in the south-central US in the Early Holocene.

A GIS intra-site application for the taphonomic interpretation of the Developed Oldowan site of Garba IV (Melka Kunture, Ethiopia) allowed the automatic data processing of more than 12,000 lithic artefacts and faunal remains lying on a 100-sq. m excavated palaeosurface dating to about 1,500,000 years ago.

Pre-Bronze Age human impacts on the East Mediterranean environment have been hard to detect in pollen diagrams and other off-site contexts. New evidence shows that despite a relatively rapid post-glacial wetting-up of the climate, the re-advance of oak woodland across Southwest Asia was slow. Among the factors likely to have contributed to the apparent disjunction between climate and vegetation is Neolithic landscape management, particularly through regular use of late-season ground fires to encourage grasses at the expense of trees and shrubs.

The implications of new evidence are presented for the generally high level of marine diet in the coastal Mesolithic populations of Wales. Within these generally high levels, some variations may point to seasonal movement. These data provide a strong contrast with the mainland terrestrial diet of early Neolithic populations in the same area.

This paper employs new evidence—including new AMS dates—to support a reinterpretation of the stratigraphic and architectural phasing of Lepenski Vir, and links this new evidence with the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in the region by critiquing dominant models.

During extended biographies, some artefact types may have functioned at times as heirlooms or relics. It is possible to illustrate this process by studying fragmentation, and two case-studies involving British Beaker pottery and amber spacer plate beads are presented. Wider social and chronological implications are also considered.