A new review of the geoglyphs of the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile has allowed the author to define a vocabulary of forms and show how these relate to particular groups of people crossing the desert from the mountains to the sea in the prehispanic period. Geometric, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic symbols mark routes, destinations and usage by particular llama caravans. The travellers were key players in society and were winning prominence in their region from AD 800.

For modern communities, she is the moon goddess and protectress of Maya culture and women; for scholars she is one of a number of deities with different roles in the Postclassic period. Which is the real Ixchel? The author excavates the story of the Maya goddess and her re-invention by myth-makers – including archaeologists.

The system of exchange known as the Kula ring practised in recent times by the Trobriand Islanders has provided a powerful model for anthropology, but its roots in prehistory have remained elusive. Focusing on the island of Woodlark, the author and his team have surveyed the stone monuments which characterise the region and here assign them a date and social context. In them, they see evidence for prehistoric chiefdoms anticipating those studied by Malinowski.

Archaeological excavations in Kuwait have revealed the earliest remains anywhere of sea-going boats. The author explains these remains and the distribution of Ubaid pottery as evidence for a system of maritime exchange in the Arabian Neolithic driven by status and ceremony.

Variation in the frequency and severity of porotic hyperostosis [porous defects], seen in the skulls of individuals buried at two First Dynasty cemeteries at Abydos, suggested differences in health and social conditions. Those buried near the kings had suffered from childhood deficiencies, while those associated with funerary enclosures in a second cemetery further to the north seemed to have benefited from occupational or social advantages. The author speculates on the possible factors which gave rise to this difference.

Long characterised as merchants in pursuit of metals, the Phoenician settlers on the Iberian peninsula are here given an alternative profile. The author shows that a new aristocracy, visible in the archaeology of both cemeteries and settlements, was engaged in winning a social advancement denied it at home in the east. In particular, the Egyptian alabaster vases found in Spain, far from being the products of pillage or trade, were appreciated as prestige objects which often ended their days as receptacles for high status cremations.

The famous stelae from the Tartessos region of southern Iberia are compared with new discoveries from the Levant. Similarities of theme and iconography endorse the Phoenician connection, but show it to be more a cultural dialogue between east and west than an imposition by colonists.

One way to understand how a landscape captures memories is to study places where documents have also preserved them. The author does this to remarkable effect in the island of Rarotonga, showing how the great road Ara Metua and its monuments and land boundaries were structured and restructured through time to reflect what was to be remembered. Students of the pre- and proto-histories of all continents will find much inspiration in the pages that follow.

The boat-grave cemetery at Abydos has provided the world's oldest sewn planked hulls, and vivid evidence for the way early Egyptian wooden boats were built. As well as sailing on the Nile, they were designed to be dismantled for carriage over land to the Red Sea. By the mid-fourth millennium BC the ship was a major technical force in the Egyptian political economy as well as an iconic force in ceremonial burial.

The colonisation of the North Atlantic from the eighth century AD was the earliest expansion of European populations to the west. Norse and Celtic voyagers are recorded as reaching and settling in Iceland, Greenland and easternmost North America between c. AD 750 and 1000, but the date of these events and the homeland of the colonists are subjects of some debate. In this project, the birthplaces of 90 early burials from Iceland were sought using strontium isotope analysis. At least nine, and probably thirteen, of these individuals can be distinguished as migrants to Iceland from other places. In addition, there are clear differences to be seen in the diets of the local Icelandic peoples, ranging from largely terrestrial to largely marine consumption.

With ever more inhibited programmes of excavation, new methods of site survey are always welcome. Here a soil geomorphologist joins forces with archaeologists to read the history of limestone blocks exposed on the surface at sites in southern Greece. Rillenkarren for example are vertical grooves caused by rainfall on stones that remained for long periods in the same place. These and other observations showed that what looked like clearance cairns had in fact been piled up in the Early Bronze Age and led in turn to the definition of a new type of settlement.

The First World War left its mark on the ground surface of Europe as perhaps no other human catastrophe before or since. The author applies modern digital mapping technology to the aerial photographs taken by the intrepid early pilots, and creates a landscape of military works that would not have been known in detail to either historians or generals at the time. The GIS inventory has great potential for historians of the war and is a vital instrument for the management of this increasingly important heritage.

Social groupings create material cultures and material objects reflect and maintain group identities. The author explores the role of psychoanalysis in examining and explaining the origins and the need for these identities — and their material symbols — in the mind. He then shows that modern archaeology itself needs psychoanalysing: as a purveyor of culture, it is in the business of creating or reinforcing modern identities.

The author detects a new undisciplined movement in academic writing. (though we still apply all the strictures here. Ed.).