After St James the Apostle, Bishop Teodomiro of Iria-Flavia is the most important figure associated with the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. He supposedly discovered the apostolic tomb after a divine revelation between AD 820 and 830 yet, until the discovery, in 1955, of a tombstone inscribed with his name, his very existence was a matter of some debate. Here, the authors employ a multi-stranded analytical approach, combining osteoarchaeology, radiocarbon dating, stable isotope and ancient DNA analyses to demonstrate that human bones associated with the tombstone, in all likelihood, represent the earthly remains of Bishop Teodomiro.

Innovations in horse equipment during the early Middle Ages provided advantages to societies from the steppes, reshaping the social landscape of Eurasia. Comparatively little is known about the precise origin of these crucial advances, although the available evidence points to early adoption in East Asia. The authors present new archaeological discoveries from western and northern Mongolia, dating to the fourth and fifth centuries AD, including a wooden frame saddle with horse hide components from Urd Ulaan Uneet and an iron stirrup from Khukh Nuur. Together, these finds suggest that Mongolian groups were early adopters of stirrups and saddles, facilitating the expansion of nomadic hegemony across Eurasia and shaping the conduct of medieval mounted warfare.

Durable architecture is a hallmark of Polynesian chiefdoms, associated with centralised control of residential and agricultural land. Previous work in West Polynesia has indicated a relatively late date for the onset of such construction activity—after AD 1000—suggesting that political development was influenced by events such as post-colonisation migration. The authors report new dating evidence from the excavation of a large earth mound on the island of Tongatapu. Its construction 1500 years ago indicates that, in contrast to previous findings, well-developed chiefdoms and field monuments probably dominated the landscapes of West Polynesia substantially prior to the colonisation of more easterly island nations.

Throughout the medieval period, thousands of ships plied their trade around England's coasts. History documents numerous lost ships, and more would have sunk without record, yet very few wrecks dating between the tenth and fifteenth centuries AD have previously been discovered in English waters. The author reports on one of the first of such finds—the wreck of a clinker-built sailing vessel, dated to c. AD 1250, that was carrying a cargo of Purbeck stone. Examination of the ship and its cargo reveals new insights into shipping and the Purbeck stone trade in the thirteenth century.

The Roman army was a vast military machine that demanded huge amounts of material and complex supply mechanisms. A 14kg hoard of mail armour from near the Roman legionary fortress of Bonn, Germany, offers insight into the organisation of recycling and repair on Rome's northern frontier. Computed tomography reveals there are at least four garments and suggests a likely date. The authors explore the hoard's context and motivations for its deposition and non-retrieval, arguing it formed a collection of ‘donor’ mail for repairing other mail garments. Its discovery in a settlement outside the military fortress indicates the involvement of local craftworkers. The settlement was abandoned in the mid-third century AD.

The deposition of intentionally damaged metal artefacts within burials and hoards is a phenomenon attested in areas as disparate as Ireland and the Caucasus during the Bronze and Iron Ages. While ritual significance is often attributed to such damage in burial contexts, the intentions behind the inclusion of damaged objects in hoards remain enigmatic. This article synthesises evidence for the intentional destruction of metal artefacts from 70 sites in the territory of modern Georgia and analyses patterns of deliberate damage over time and space. The study of these damaged artefacts enhances our understanding of ritual practice at a local level and locates the south Caucasus within the wider networks of this phenomenon.

Classical archaeological chronologies are steeped in relative dating, but the application of absolute methods does not always support such clear-cut seriation. Here, the authors consider the significance of a Macedonian vase in reconciling the conventional and absolute chronologies of Early Iron Age Greece. Decorated with compass-drawn concentric circles and found in a Late Bronze Age context at ancient Eleon, Boeotia, the authors argue that this vessel establishes a chronological anchor and supports a twelfth-century BC emergence of the Protogeometric style in central Macedonia. A model for the indigenous development and dispersal of the Macedonian Protogeometric style is presented for future elaboration.

Despite significant research, the direct and indirect causes of a population decline in the eponymous foragers of the Late Jōmon period (c. 4500–2300 BP) in Japan remains undetermined. Here, the authors examine the impact of nutritional stress, using scurvy as a case study, on Middle and a Late/Final Jōmon populations. While an increase in the prevalence of scurvy between the time periods is apparent, no associated change in age at death was observed. The authors argue that the Late Jōmon adapted their food-sharing practices in times of ecological stress, and they highlight the need to consider morbidity and mortality together in palaeopathological assessments and the growing evidence for a non-nutritional cause in the Late Jōmon population decline.

Rock art of the Middle and Upper Orinoco River in South America is characterised by some of the largest and most enigmatic engravings in the world, including snakes exceeding 40m in length. Here, the authors map the geographic distribution of giant snake motifs and assess the visibility of this serpentine imagery within the Orinoco landscape and Indigenous myths. Occupying prominent outcrops that were visible from great distances, the authors argue that the rock art provided physical reference points for cosmogonic myths, acting as border agents that structured the environment and were central to Indigenous placemaking along the rivers of lowland South America.

Comparative studies of inequality based on archaeological data rely on universal notions of status or prestige that are not always meaningful across diverse cultural contexts. Here, the authors evaluate three broadly contemporaneous urban communities (Marothodi, Molokwane and Kaditshwene) in the southern African interior in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries AD. The study combines a statistical measure of inequality, the Gini coefficient, with insights from the rich ethnohistorical archives of African knowledge systems. The results suggest markedly different levels of inequality, but contextualisation points to divergent social strategies for settlement organisation and for managing sociopolitical insecurity. The findings raise important questions about cross-cultural indices of social inequality.

The settlement of Ban Non Wat charts the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in north-eastern Thailand. Examination of grave inclusions and mortuary treatment at this important site allows insights into social change during this key period. Increasing complexity and the inclusion of exotic items in the mortuary treatment of some individuals early in the Bronze Age is suggested to show the rise of a lineage of aggrandisers who controlled access to these symbolic articles. But, the author argues, their elevated status was ephemeral, forfeited as local bronze casting became established.

In the absence of written records, disease and parasite loads are often used as indicators of sanitation in past populations. Here, the authors adopt the novel approach of integrating the bioarchaeological analysis of cesspits in an area of medieval Leiden (the Netherlands) with historical property records to explore living conditions. Using light microscopy and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) they identify evidence of parasites associated with ineffective sanitation (whipworm, roundworm and the protozoan Giardia duodenalis)—at residences of all social levels—and the consumption of infected livestock and freshwater fish (Diphyllobothriidae, cf. Echinostoma sp., cf. Fasciola hepatica and Dicrocoelium sp.).

Rice agriculture was brought to Japan during the first millennium BC by migrant communities of farmers from the Korean peninsula. Substantial geographic variation is observed in the uptake of this new subsistence economy, reflecting different forms of interaction between farmers and foragers. Here, the authors analyse a combination of settlement and radiocarbon data to determine the extent to which these different forms of interaction led to regional variations in population growth rate. Their results confirm the presence of different trajectories of growth, providing new insights into the diversity of demographic processes during the earliest stages of farming in Japan.

Substantial debate surrounds the relative lack of formal burials in Britain during the fifth century AD, which was a key period of social and economic transition following the withdrawal of the Roman army. Here, the authors argue that the ‘missing fifth century’ may be explained, in part, by the continuation of archaeologically invisible mortuary treatments practised in the preceding Iron Age and Roman period. Compilation of published radiocarbon dates from human remains found in cave and riverine contexts demonstrates that a variety of methods for the disposal of the dead—outside of formal cemeteries—existed in the first millennium AD.

The origins of Iron Age urbanism in temperate Europe were long assumed to lie in Archaic Greece. Recent studies, however, argue for an independent development of Hallstatt mega-sites. This article focuses on developments in Western Thessaly in mainland Greece. The author characterises the Archaic settlement system of the region as one of lowland villages and fortified hilltop sites, the latter identified not as settlements but refuges. It is argued that cities were rare in Greece prior to the Hellenistic period so its settlements could not have served as the model for urban temperate Europe. Consequently, the social and political development of Greece and temperate Europe followed different trajectories.

Crafting is often assumed to have been a ‘dirty’ and hence low-status activity: elites managed the supply of materials or distribution of the products, lower-status workers undertook the hard graft. Here, the authors present an in situ stoneworking toolkit from El Perú-Waka’ in the central Maya lowlands of Guatemala. Recovered from a high-status neighbourhood, the tools indicate the involvement of elite crafters in the working of various types of stone and greenstone. The assemblage is discussed with reference to ontological understandings of raw materials in the Maya world and the importance of specialised and ritual knowledge. The results encourage greater consideration of the involvement of elites in craft production across Mesoamerica and beyond.

Paquimé (also known as Casas Grandes), situated in northern Chihuahua between Mesoamerican and Ancestral Puebloan groups, was a vibrant multicultural centre during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries AD. Substantial debate surrounds the social organisation of Paquimé's inhabitants. Here, the authors report on the analysis of ancient DNA from a unique child burial beneath a central support post of a room in the House of the Well. They argue that the close genetic relationship of the child's parents, revealed through this analysis, and the special depositional context of the burial reflect one family's attempts to consolidate and legitimise their social standing in this ancient community.

In this article, the authors present an analysis of radiocarbon dates from a stratified deposit at the Greek Geometric period settlement of Zagora on the island of Andros, which are among the few absolute dates measured from the period in Greece. The dates assigned to Greek Geometric ceramics are based on historical and literary evidence and are found to contradict absolute dates from the central Mediterranean which suggest that the traditional dates are too young. The results indicate the final period at Zagora, the Late Geometric, should be seen as starting at least a century earlier than the traditional date of 760 BC.

Imagery-based survey is capable of producing archaeological datasets that complement those collected through field-based survey methods, widening the scope of analysis beyond regions. The Geospatial Platform for Andean Culture, History and Archaeology (GeoPACHA) enables systematic registry of imagery survey data through a ‘federated’ approach. Using GeoPACHA, teams pursue problem-specific research questions through a common data schema and interface that allows for inter-project comparisons, analyses and syntheses. The authors present an overview of the platform's rationale and functionality, as well as a summary of results from the first survey campaign, which was carried out by six projects distributed across the central Andes, five of which are represented here.

Looting and plough damage to the eighth–fifth centuries BC tumulus of Creney-le-Paradis, France, hinders interpretation of this potentially significant site. Nevertheless, application of novel microtomographic techniques in combination with optical and scanning electron microscopy allows the first detailed examination of 99 textile fragments recovered from the central pit. The authors argue that the diversity of textiles revealed—at least 16 different items—and the quality of weaving involved confirm earlier interpretations of the high status of this burial, which is comparable, at least in terms of textiles and metal urns, with other ‘aristocratic’ tombs of the European Iron Age.