The Iron Age in north-eastern Thailand is marked by the appearance of multivallate ‘moated sites’ some of them up to 50ha in extent. Current evidence for their date and function shows them to be contemporary with other developments – expansion into new agricultural land, increases of ranking in burial and the arrival of regional pottery industries. In interpreting the reasons for these changes, the author draws on analogies from the Bronze/Iron transition in Britain, where forts are also seen as instruments of socio-economic change.

The rock-shelter of Jinmium in the Northern Territory of Australia hit the headlines a year-and-a-half ago when TL dates suggested human occupation might date from 116,000 years ago. Such dates were much earlier than any previously obtained for Australia, and thus suggested the continent was colonized at a very early stage in human dispersal around the Pacific. However, some TL dating is notoriously difficult to interpret, and here Nigel Spooner has re-assessed one of the later dates in the Jinmium sequence. His interpretation calls into doubt some of the earlier claims.

The colonisation of the Pacific islands represents one of the major achievements of early human societies and has attracted much attention from archaeologists and historical linguists. Determining the pattern and chronology of colonisation remains a challenge, as new discoveries continue to push back dates of earliest settlement. The length and direction of the colonising voyages has also led to lively debate seeking to trace languages and artefactual techniques and traditions to presumed places of origin. Seafaring simulation models provide one way of resolving these controversies. One of the most remote of these island groups, the Marianas, is shown here to have been settled not from Taiwan or the Philippines, as has been argued in Antiquity by Hung et al. (2011) and Winter et al. (2012), but from New Guinea or Island Southeast Asia to the south. It represents an incredible feat of early navigation over an ocean distance of some 2000km.

Recent prehistoric and palaeoanthropological debate is focusing new interest on the peopling of the Americas — an old and difficult research-case. Proponents of new sites need to submit their putative 'new and revolutionary' discoveries to a wider judgement, mainly contra sceptics and partisans of more conservative theories. Such a review is helpful, and we are grateful to our colleagues for their considered assessment of the evidence proposed in our Brazilian research. Nevertheless their view of the Pedra Furada evidence has gaps, misunderstandings and ambiguities.

More on whether evidence of prehistoric environment on the Pacific island of Mangaia does or does not demonstrate an early human presence there.

This paper presents the recent discovery of extensive and intensive middle Bronze Age exploitation of the marshland along the northeastern bank of the River Thames and its tributaries within a wider regional context. It also develops a site location model, and explores reasons for the presence of these sites.

The astronomical significance of Stone- henge has been the subject of intermittent debate and speculation ever since 1740, when Stukeley [I] first observed that the axis of the sarsen structure and of the Avenue pointed at least approximately to the sunrise at the summer solstice. Apart from Sir Norman Lockyer [z], however, few professional astronomers concerned themselves with this question, until the appearance in,Nature of the two articles by Gerald S. Hawkins, Professor of Astronomy at Boston University, in 1963 and 1964 [3]. The first of these claimed the discovery of a number of additional alignments of astronomical significance, marked by pairs of stones and other features of the site; and the second suggested that the Aubrey Holes had been used as a neolithic 'computer' for the prediction of movements of the moon and of eclipses. Subsequently these theories received much wider publicity, in Britain as well as in the United States, through a CBS television programme, The Mystery of Stonehenge, which provided a superb example of partiality and tendentiousness in the presentation of an academic controversy.

Professor Hawkins has now elaborated his ideas in a book whose title, Stonehenge Decoded, leaves no doubt of his confidence in the rightness of his conclusions-a confidence explicity echoed in his text. 'There can be no doubt that Stonehenge was an observatory; the impartial mathematics of probability and the celestial sphere are on my side' (p. vii). 'I think I have demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the monument was deliberately, accurately, skilfully oriented to the sun and the moon' (pp. 146-7). 'I think I have put forward the best theory to account for the otherwise unexplained holes' (p. 147). 'I think there is little else in these areas that can be discovered at Stonehenge'(p. 147).

The author presents new radiocarbon dates for chariot burials found in the region between Europe and the Urals, showing them to belong to the twentieth-eighteenth centuries BCE. These early dates, which pre-empt the appearance of the war chariot in the Near East, are transforming the ancient history of Eurasia and the early Mediterranean civilisations, pointing to the Volga-Ural area as an important centre of innovation for early Europe.

The site of Doel lies beside the Schelde, close to Antwerp. Excavations have uncovered the remains of two prehistoric zones, one from the Final Mesolithic and one from the Neolithic. Preliminary study suggests that current theories of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in northern Belgium require revision.

Using a new approach that combines high-quality coring with AMS dating, the authors are mapping the start of the Neolithic in Aegean Thrace – a missing link in the arrival of agriculture in Europe. The method also revealed the edge of the marine transgression dating to some 2900 years ago, implying that sites located near the coast in early Neolithic times have in all likelihood been lost to the sea.

Textiles are powerful indicators of technology and contact, as the authors show for the peoples of the Bronze Age central Asian steppes. In this case the textiles are mainly missing, but have left their imprints on the surface of the inside of pots, captured when otherwise redundant cloths were used to paddle or jacket the clay before hardening and firing. A good supply of old cloths seems to have been part of a potters' equipment and some were used several times. The authors analyse and date the fibres and weaves to give an indication of changing cultural context through the Bronze Age.

The earthquake that struck Japan on 11 March 2011, named the Great East Japan Earthquake by the Japanese government, was one of the largest seismic events the world has seen for generations. Akira Matsui reported his experience of visiting the areas devastated by the earthquake and tsunami soon afterwards, outlining the initial assessment of damage caused to museums and cultural heritage assets, and the plans for their rescue (Kaner et a/ 2011; Matsui 201 I a). The present contribution reports how far the implementation of these plans has been successful, the prospects for the future, and situates all of this in a broader context of archaeological response to earthquakes.

During the war and in the immediate post-war period the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force undertook a considerable air survey programme covering Burma, Siam and French Indo-China. In Siam the initial cover was restricted to large-scale (1:15,000 and better) photographs of towns, airfields and communications. Later a more ambitious programme of survey cover (scales 1 : 50,000 and 1 : 25,000 with a few towns and beaches at larger scale) was undertaken, and practically the whole of the country has been covered by air photographs of one scale or another.

It has been my privilege to serve with the R.A.F. in Siam on both ground and flying duties and, more recently, to be in a position to examine most of the photographs taken. A very considerable number of archaeological sites have come to light, many being noted for the first time ; and it is my intention in this initial paper to comment briefly on one particular type of earthwork which appears to have a limited distribution in eastern Siam. The air photographs are reproduced with the sanction of the Air Ministry.

It must be emphasized that although Siam, the meeting place of Indian and Chinese cultures, is rich in archaeological sites very little systematic work has yet been undertaken. On the one side the natural reluctance of the Siamese to disturb ancient sites and, on the other, comparative absence of trained archaeological research workers have been contributory factors. Detailed ground information generally is lacking and it follows that these notes are based on air photographic evidence, in most cases without ground checking, an impropriety of which the writer is only too well aware.

This study explores bedrock geology, topographic setting, compass orientation, soil profile and plant cover at 84 temples of Classical (480-338 BC) mainland Greece, several Aegean islands and Cyprus. A striking pattern emerges: the soil and vegetation matches the dedications to particular deities, suggesting an economic basis for particular cults.