The earliest peopling of South America remains a contentious issue. Despite the growing amount of new evidence becoming available, and improved excavation and dating techniques, few sites have yet to be securely assigned to a period earlier than 12000 BP. The Santa Elina shelter in Brazil, located at the convergence of two major river basins, is one of them. The excavations at the site, including the results of various dating programmes, are described here along with reflections on the unique insights offered by Santa Elina into early migration routes into the Southern Cone.

Recent excavations at the protohistoric (5200–4600 cal BC) site of Tel Tsaf in the Jordan Valley (Israel) revealed an unusual clay model, found in a room surrounded by several large grain-storage silos. It provides the first insight into the manner in which the superstructures of the silos at Tel Tsaf may have been constructed. More importantly, this find adds a new dimension to understanding the link between large-scale storage and the symbolism related to grain storage, burial and the regeneration of life. It also illustrates the early appearance of distinct strategies for controlling the means of production and for accumulating wealth—factors that led to the creation of social hierarchies in the ancient Near East.

Unique among its kind in the Atacama Desert, the temple of Tulán-54 is a key site of the Early Formative period. Evidence of ceremonies and ritual activities, such as feasts and offerings, demonstrates that Tulán-54 was the scene of important cultural and economic transformation, from hunter-gatherers to early pastoralist communities. Recent investigations have provided new data that enriches and challenges interpretations of the site, the association of its ceremonial architecture with its material culture, and its carved motifs and inhumations. This evidence expands our understanding of the social and cultural complexity of Chilean Early Formative societies at both a local and regional scale.

A remarkable stela from Montoro, southern Spain, is unique in its morphology, epigraphic traits and landscape context. A programme of chemical characterisation, digital imaging, and geo-lithological and epigraphic analyses were conducted to determine its age and significance, and the results were integrated with data from archaeological investigations of the surrounding area. This multi-faceted approach allowed the stela to be interpreted within the context of early interactions between literate Mediterranean societies of the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age and non-literate Iberian societies. A key outcome of this research is a wider understanding of the complex patterns in the use and perception of early scripts.

The discovery of a small portable grinding stone at Rach Nui in southern Vietnam provides significant new insights into regional Neolithic trade networks and ground stone technologies. Previous research held that the manufacture of stone tools took place near stone sources in the interior, along the Dong Nai and Be River basins, but the Rach Nui grinding stone comes from a Neolithic site in the Mekong Delta, approximately 80km to the south-east. This suggests that some manufacturing occurred away from raw material sources. Technological analysis indicates that the artefact was a portable tool for the polishing, maintenance and repair of ground stone adzes. Its discovery at Rach Nui may indicate the presence of specialist tool makers or itinerant traders. This research illustrates the complexity of Neolithic trading networks, and highlights the technological expertise that circulated alongside finished and incomplete objects.

Recent archaeological investigations and technological applications have increased our appreciation of the intricacies of pre-Angkorian societal development. The results reveal a transformative period characterised by increasing socio-political complexity, exchange and technological transfer, differences in burial wealth, growing levels of conflict and variation in site morphology. Among the excavated Iron Age sites in Cambodia, Lovea, near the heart of Angkor, is well placed to provide a greater understanding of these changes in this region. Excavation and remote sensing confirm that the two moats surrounding Lovea are testimony to the early adoption of water-management strategies. These strategies grew in complexity, culminating in the vast network of canals, reservoirs and tanks that are the hallmarks of the hydraulic society of Angkor.

Despite decades of research into the Terracotta Army of the First Emperor of China, many questions remain about how, where and by whom the figures were made. This new study compares the results of microscopic analysis of the life-sized clay statues to other ceramic artefacts recovered from the mausoleum. By focusing on their original raw materials and clay paste recipes, it proves that the terracotta warriors were made near the site. Compositional, technological and spatial links between different artefacts suggest that clay was processed centrally before being distributed to different local workshops in a highly organised system of labour and craft specialisation that laid the foundation for imperial China.

The Classic Maya village of Joya de Cerén is extraordinary in that it was preserved by volcanic ash following the Loma Caldera volcanic eruption. The excellent preservation conditions offer a unique opportunity to understand plants in their primary use contexts, and to examine geospatial relationships between plants—both living and curated—in gardens, fields and households. The geospatial analysis of ‘plantscapes’ at Cerén presented here provides a template for interpreting botanical resource use and management at other contemporaneous Maya sites, and can contribute to a broader understanding of the use of space, plants and agriculture in the past.

The city of Jerash in northern Jordan was badly damaged by an earthquake in AD 749. As a result of this, many parts of the city, including the Northwest Quarter, were abandoned and further construction ceased. Archaeological excavations in those parts of the city therefore reveal snapshots in time from the moment at which disaster hit. Of particular interest is the so-called ‘House of the Tesserae’, where archaeologists discovered a trough for the storage of pieces to be used in the construction of mosaics. The find, reported here for the first time, provides a unique insight into the practice of mosaic-laying during the Early Islamic Period.

The church of Santa Comba de Bande in north-west Spain has long been considered a model for regional Late Antique and early medieval architecture. Controversy, however, has recently emerged concerning its construction date. Is it a ‘Visigothic’ (seventh century) or ‘Mozarabic’ (ninth to tenth centuries) church? The combination of stratigraphic data with absolute dating methods has now provided a date of AD 751–789 for construction of the church. This result has historical and architectural implications: Santa Comba de Bande represents an extremely early example of Mozarabic architecture, and demonstrates the dynamic circulation of influences between the Islamic south and Christian north in eighth-century Iberia.

A massive tenth-century AD ring fortress was recently identified at Borgring, south of Copenhagen in Denmark. The combination of high-resolution LiDAR mapping, geophysical survey and targeted small-scale excavation has demonstrated that the site belongs to a rare class of monuments—the Trelleborg-type ring fortress. Borgring is the first such monument to be found in Denmark in over six decades, and provides an opportunity to investigate a type-site of Viking Age military organisation and conflict. The authors argue that Borgring complements a varied group of fortification structures in late Viking Age Denmark, part of a military network close to contemporaneous European ideas of military kingship and defence.

Although the rock art of southern Africa is overwhelmingly concerned with ritual, there are few depictions of the initiation rites so important to hunter-gatherer identity. This study presents the first definitive evidence of women's initiation based on evidence from rock art and archaeological features at the site of /Ui-//aes in Namibia. The evidence reveals multiple links between initiation, women's work in gathering wild grass seed, and the importance of the female kudu as a metaphor of positive social values. These links show that the beliefs underlying ritual practice also form part of everyday subsistence activity, extending the same precepts from mundane artefacts such as grindstones, to the habits of desert antelope.