The first contacts between the prehistoric cultures of the Canary Islands and western civilization occurred in the European expansion of the late Middle Ages. Their ultimate colonization was intimately related to this expansion, driven by new economic forms, including ‘commercial capitalism’ or ‘pre-capitalism’, which affected economic and intellectual structures throughout Europe, the economic characterized from then on by innovation, risk and increasing turnover; and the intellectual by the concept of ‘profit’ in place of ‘service’.

The practical transition can be seen in the technology that supported expansion: transport (new types of ships, cartography, systems of navigation, etc.); financial systems (nonmonetary payment, insurance, commercial credit, etc.); and mercantile institutions (commercial societies, consulates, postal services, etc.).

In 2013, Hardy et al. offered a broad behavioural context for the hypothesis that the ingestion of non-nutritional plants (yarrow and camomile) by Neanderthals was for the purpose of self-medication. Chemical traces of these plants had been detected in samples of dental calculus from Neanderthals at the site of El Sidrón, Spain, along with traces of bitumen and wood smoke, as well as starch granules that showed evidence of roasting (Hardy et al.2012). Subsequently, the presence of traces of resin and a piece of non-edible conifer wood were also identified from these samples (Radini et al.2016). Although not rejecting our interpretation for the presence of these two non-edible plants as evidence of medicinal plant use, two recent articles offer alternative scenarios for why and how those plants may have reached the mouth and, eventually, the dental calculus of the individual concerned. Buck and Stringer (2014) suggest that the plants were not deliberately ingested, and that the traces of yarrow and camomile were in fact embedded in the chyme, or stomach contents, of herbivore prey. Krief et al. (2015) propose two hypotheses: first, they suggest that the plants could have been used to flavour meat; second, while not ruling out the possibility that they could be medicinal, they argue on a technical point that the plants were not self-administered but were provided by a caregiver. Here, we examine these suggestions and consider their probability and feasibility as alternatives to our original proposal of self-medication.

As the temperature rises each year, the assemblages of prehistoric hunters emerge from the ice. Archaeologists in Norway are now conducting regular surveys in the mountains to record the new finds. A recent example presented here consists of a whole tunic, made of warm wool and woven in diamond twill. The owner, who lived in the late Iron Age (third–fourth centuries AD), was wearing well-worn outdoor clothing, originally of high quality.

Intensive research on the Mesolithic of western Central Asia began in the mid twentieth century, when the discovery of key sites allowed for the formulation of the main regional cultural-chronological schemes (Figure 1).

Sir John Beazley (1885-1970), founder of the modern and archaeological study of Classical vases, was a master of method. Is the Beazley method just that, a well-judged method fitting to the material under study? Or does that considered method in truth amount to a considered theory, held and used by a consciously most untheoretical archaeologist?

Professor Paolo Graziosi is Professor of Anthropology in the University of Florence, and also Director of the Istituto di Paletnologia in that University. He here describes new discoveries of rock paintings which he saw in Ethiopia in 1961, and relates these discoveries and earlier ones from that country to prehistoric European and African art in general. In order to allow space to illustrate this article as fully as possible, it is being published in two parts. The rock art of the Adi Caieh and Karora regions will be described in the September number of ANTIQUITY, together with Professor Graxiosi’s discussion of Ethiopian rock art as a whole.

Issue is taken with the arguments offered by Neeley & Barton to explain interassemblage variability in the Epipalaeolithic. The techno-typological attributes they discuss do, indeed, mark cultural/temporal traditions and there are no grounds for viewing them as representing stages within a reduction sequence.

Is ecology or agency the principal imperative of the formation of complex societies? Using new survey data, the author shows how both interest in the development of the riverside settlement area of the American Bottom and how the different modern histories of the northern (industrial) and the southern (agricultural) American Bottom, have affected the survival of evidence and how this in turn has favoured a different emphasis in interpretation for each.