During the late 1970s when the results of theoretical analyses of prehistoric settlement to the north and south of the Polish Carpathians became available along with new methods of field research (Rydlewski & Valde-Nowak 19791, they set in motion a process of systematic discovery of archaeological sites in the region. Rich Palaeolithic assemblages were recovered which have yet to be published in full in Polish periodicals (e.g. Rydlewski & Valde-Nowak 1980a; 1980b).

Before this the existence of traces of Pleistocene settlement was not seriously considered. Sporadic surveys found nothing and the Polish Carpathians were believed to have been either unsettled in the Pleistocene or, at most, a transit zone for human groups. This contrasted with the neighbouring Cracow-Częstochowa Upland to the north (the Ojców and Mników Valleys), and the Slovakian Carpathians where Palaeolithic sites had been discovered more than a century ago.

Over the last five years, excavation of a large, stone, fortified site at Shimao, on the northern edge of the Loess Plateau in Shaanxi Province, China, has radically changed our understanding of the events that precipitated the development of the first bronze casting in central China at Erlitou (Figure 1). An international conference on the Shimao site, held at Shenmu in August 2016, explored many aspects of this major discovery.

As Mesolithic people living on the Baltic coast began to adopt farming in the later fifth millennium BC, imports of a new type and quality started to reach them from the south — highly decorated pots and then copper axes from the Hungary-Serbia area. With new excavations at the site of Dąbki 9 in northern Poland, the authors are able to show how high quality thin-walled shiny black vessels are travelling over 1000km in the early fourth millennium BC, bringing prestige cups and jugs to the Baltic shore.

Excarnation – the exposure of a corpse for stripping and possible dispersal by birds and animals – is a burial rite known from ethnographic analogy. Detecting its occurrence in the past is another matter. Here the author proposes the marking of bones by dogs and other canids as evidence of excarnation, using a British Neolithic case study.

The extraordinary rapidity of the Arab conquest (FIG. 1) of the north African coastlands between Alexandria and Tripoli has often evoked comment, even in an age which has seen modern armies advancing still more rapidly over the same route. One recent writer, exceptionally well qualified to discuss Arab warfare, has affirmed that ‘the welcome offered to the Arabs in the Western Desert and Barqa seems to suggest that the people in this area were themselves partly Arab’.

A Late Palaeolithic amber figurine has been skilfully recovered and reassembled from a ploughed open site in northern Germany. Dated between 11 800 and 11 680 cal BC it occupies a key point between the Magdalenian and the Mesolithic. The authors show that the figurine represents a female elk which was probably carried on the top of a wooden staff. They argue for continuity of art but change of belief in this crucial transition period.

In the rough and rugged country of the Lesotho highlands, rock-paintings and archaeological deposits in the rock-shelters record hunter-gatherer life-ways; at Sehonghong, a long sequence runs from recent times to and through the Last Glacial Maximum. Survey of the region's Middle and Later Stone Age sites shows a pattern of concentrations that likely applies to other parts of the Lesotho highlands.

Direct dating, using the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) 14C method, indicates that some petroglyphs (rock art) at El-Hosh in Upper Egypt pre-date the early 7th millennium BP (mid 6th millennium cal BC), making it the oldest graphic activity recorded in the Nile Valley.

International exhibitions in the 19th century were used as showcases for scientific and technological advances, but also often included exhibits of objects from the past, including prehistoric times. Three Expositions Universelles held in Paris in 1867, 1878 and 1889 are examined to see how archaeological artefacts were presented to the public and how they influenced the development of the subject of prehistoric archaeology at that period.

According to current thinking, the peopling of South America involved a coastal as well as an inland exploitation. Here the authors describe a camp that may denote a transition between the two. As indicated by bifacial tools, the investigation shows that people began to move inland and hunt mammals around 8500 cal BP, perhaps in association with a change in the climate.

We asked Sarah Colley, who teaches Aboriginal archaeology and heritage management at the University of Sydney, Australia, to give an account of the 3rd World Archaeological Congress, held at New Delhi, India, 4–11 December 1994, as she experienced it.

The essence of historical research is the search for the cause of a major event. The same applies to prehistoric research, except that the documents cited in evidence lack written records and may require greater speculation.

One of the major events in the history of Greece was the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, which occurred about 1200-1100 BC and ushered in the Greek Dark Ages, when populations in the former Mycenaean lands were small and political organization dispersed. Although falling, strictly, within the historic period, thanks to the recent decipherment of Mycenaean written documents, the available records merely illustrate some of the business transactions of several flourishing kingdoms they give no clues to the cause for the abrupt demise of the culture.

It is on this subject, with its paucity of direct evidence, that Professor Rhys Carpenter introduces some speculations drawn from natural science-the notion that climatic change in southern Greece caused repeated failure of crops and the consequent breakdown of the Mycenaean economy.

The concept of ‘Celtic’ is fittingly ambiguous, ambivalent and disputed in its archaeological definition: ‘fittingly’ because later prehistoric and Roman iconography in temperate Europe is ambiguous and ambivalent. And ambiguous and ambivalent things are hard to understand unambiguously!

Background

The Mesolithic occupation of Scotland began soon after the end of the last glaciation, between 10,000 and 9000 years ago. Considerablc research has been undertaken in the past two decades (Mithen 2000; Pollard & Morrison 1996; Woodman 1989; Young 2000); much has been published, more is awaited, and work continues apace. Mesolithic sites occur throughout Scotland, though recent archaeological activity has been concentrated on the western seaboard.

The coastal nature of much of the Scottish Mesolithic has long been recognized, although the contribution of inland sites is becoming more apparent. The relationship between shell middens and lithic scatters and the nature of the midden sites themselves are slowly becoming clearer (Bonsall 1996; Finlayson 1998), though the make-up of the material culture remains vague, as known early sites with preservation of organic materials are few and far between and specialists remain divided over their interpretation. More widely, it is generally recognized that the Mesolithic occurred during a time of dynamic enviromnental change although the impact on the human population remains to be documented.

An important step in our knowledge of the British Lower Palaeolithic has been the finding that its two recognized components, ‘Clactonian’ and ‘Acheulean’, are not ranged into a simple sequence; the exact relationship between the two is the subject of much debate. What does this do to interpretations of Swanscombe, classic site of the Lower Thames Valley, which has been studied in terms of stratigraphic succession?

Roman Sicily has long been known from classical sources for its agricultural fertility, but little archaeological research has been conducted on the rural economy. The Campanaio project is uncovering a wealth of information about a small (3 ha) hellenistic and Roman rural settlement and its economy, 25 km west of Agrigento. Excavations (1994-95,1997-98) have revealed seven principal phases. Activity started c. 200 BC, and was intensive for two centuries in the central part of the site. A complex of buildings underwent two complete reconstructions between 200 BC and AD 25; in its last phase (c. 50 BC) it comprised an Lshaped building some 17 m long and 8.40 m wide, with dry-stone walls, earth floors and mud-brick superstructure (FIGUR1E