We are pleased to present here a preliminary account of the first discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in Britain.

On 14 April 2003 we made the first discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in Britain. Since portable art of the period has long been known in this country (Sieveking 1972; Campbell 1977: vol. 2, figs 102, 105, 143), it has always seemed probable that parietal art must also have existed. We knew that we were most unlikely to discover paintings, since these are generally quite visible; but as far as we knew, nobody with a trained eye and advantageous lighting had combed the British caves in search of engravings, which are often extremely difficult to see. Such was the purpose of our initial survey and, sure enough, we rapidly encountered engraved marks in a number of caves, which we will be investigating more fully and systematically in the near future. At the well-known sites of Creswell Crags, in Derbyshire, we found both figurative and non-figurative engravings of the period. What follows is a brief, preliminary announcement of a discovery soon to be further amplified in print following systematic investigation.

How and when was northern Europe reoccupied at the end of the last Ice Age? Radiocarbon dates from the earliest post-glacial contexts provide one answer: they offer a sequence in which the regions of Europe, from the Upper Rhine to Britain, saw the return of humans. The authors use Bayesian methods to model a chronology and thus arrive at a sequence with clear assessments of uncertainty.

The authors explore the use of land in Neolithic south Italy, showing how the new territories combined arable farming with hunting and foraging wild resources from the hinterland.

The authors consider the impact that trees would have had on the visibility of the landscape from and around Neolithic monuments. It is suggested that woodland may have been an integral part of the way monuments were experienced.

From their research in Jordan, the authors show that the appearance of early farming and herding communities in western Asia coincided with a large expansion in stone bead production. This reflects a new social role for personal ornament.

The author shows how technical studies of beads made of agate and carnelian are informative indicators of social conditions and contacts between regions. The beads in question throw new light on the relations between India and South-east Asia in the first millennium BC.

This new view of Iron Age society in Kazakhstan breaks away from the old documentary and ethnic framework and offers an independent archaeological chronology. Excavated house types and new environmental data show that nomadism and cultivation were practised side by side. Scholars had previously tended to emphasise the ability of documented Saka leaders to plunder and collect tribute from sedentary agriculture groups through military aggression. But what really gave them a political and economic edge over other steppe groups was a dual economy based upon farming and herding.

A meteorite impact crater in the Sirente mountains, central Abruzzo has recently been dated to the four/fifth century AD. The author shows that this catastrophic event can be equated with a locally preserved legend which describes how local people saw a new star fall to earth during a pagan festival. Their conversion to Christianity was expeditiously effected … .

How did enslaved African people in North America use material culture to create and signal their own identity? In a paper that has much significance for many other periods and places, the authors draw on archaeological and documentary evidence to show how African spiritual spaces were created in houses and gardens in the form of coded landscapes that were often hidden – though in view.

Flints scattered in the earliest stratum of Mandrin, a rock shelter in the Rhône valley, were clustered by k-means and Principal Component Analysis to reveal areas dominated by particular tools or waste products. These areas suggest the way in which Palaeolithic people managed their domestic space.

The sudden conflagration of an Early Bronze Age room at Tell es-Sa'idiyeh in the Jordan valley resulted in the preservation of a remarkable assemblage of plant remains. Using microscopy and experiment, the author was able to detect fruits previously sun dried for preservation. Grapes, figs, pomegranate, olives, cereals, legumes and capers provided the most conclusive evidence for the drying and preservation of food.

A recent workshop on ‘dark earth’, the homogeneous soil layer that often separates Roman from Early Medieval and Medieval strata in towns, prompted the authors to show how this concept, which developed in England, became altered when employed in mainland Europe. They present new research on what is actually a widespread phenomenon, and warn that uncritical assumptions about such layers made on the ground are losing important information.

Multi-spectral imaging (MSI), which was developed to explore the surface of the earth and other planets from space, has been adapted to read and record faded or burnt manuscripts. The authors show how MSI achieved new readings from carbonised and damaged fragments of papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum, Petra and the Judean Desert. The method has potential for investigating the degraded ornamental surfaces of other artefacts.

One of the most important techniques to be applied in medieval archaeology is access analysis, in which the spaces inside a structure are categorised by their relative ease of access and interpreted in terms of privilege and privacy. The author demonstrates the method, taking buildings from Salisbury town and Cathedral Close as a case study.

Phenomenology is the modern theoretical archaeologist's word for the appreciation of how a prehistoric monument relates to its landscape. The author shows how the one of the earliest antiquaries, William Stukeley, pre-echoed some of its principles methods and thinking.