Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the Haram al-Sharif, is one of the most iconic archaeological sites in the world. The author relates its functions to that of other local prehistoric high places, and in tracing its history up to the present day draws a distinction between state-sponsored and popular shrines.

The authors present a new procedure for discovering where stone artefacts come from without having to cut a slice through them. The method is tested on axes of spotted dolerite bluestone from Preseli in Wales, source of monoliths at Stonehenge.

Hawaiian temple sites of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries have diverse orientations previously thought to be random. Using precise measurements and nineteenth-century native Hawaiian sources, the author shows that the temples cluster into groups whose orientation was deliberate and likely to relate to a particular god.

Investigation of a partially waterlogged Neolithic site, on an islet in a Scottish Hebridean loch, showed that early strategies of exploitation were already environmentally damaging. Loss of soil fertility through intensive ploughing is well-documented, but stripping the turf can be equally damaging to the environment. Working on the lake settlement of Eilean Domhnuill in North Uist, the authors show that turf was cut for building material and used as fuel and that this practice contributed to a rapid degradation of the land surface through erosion.

This interdisciplinary project, initiated by the National Heritage Board in Sweden, was undertaken to determine the environmental factors affecting the deterioration of archaeological bronzes in Scandinavia – while they still lie underground. The possible influence of soil acidification was obviously of special interest. The method was to examine 3200 prehistoric bronze artefacts from different museum collections in Sweden and Norway and compare the condition of specimens dug up in different areas at different times. The results showed that the condition of excavated bronzes had greatly deteriorated during the last 50–60 years, particularly along the North West Coast of Sweden, where the soil is very sensitive to pollutants. The archaeological context, e.g. the burial rite, was also among the factors influencing the preservation of the artefacts.

Ochre is well-known as a substance used in Stone Age symbolism, but it can be shown to have had practical functions too. The authors used microscopic examination of Middle Stone Age tools to show they had been hafted, making use of an adhesive compound which included ochre in its recipe.

The authors report a reconstruction of the palaeogeography around the Harappan town of Lothal, major port of the Indus civilisation, using multispectral satellite imagery and environmental analysis. Key results include the identification of a broad tidally influenced palaeochannel adjoining the western part of Lothal and a former estuary towards the east. Micropalaeontological analyses show that Lothal developed over a tidal salt marsh and was subsequently left high and dry as the sea level dropped.

Depictions on rock in south-east Colorado show mounted warriors with horses clad in leather armour. This was the military strategy adopted by Comanche and Apache peoples between 1650 and 1750 – after the arrival of the horse and before the availability of firearms.

The innovative and gregarious Viking scholar and former director of the British Museum contemplates his travels in the changing landscape of early medieval Europe.

Satellite photographs, such as the CORONA series, are proving valuable instruments of archaeological reconnaissance, especially for landscapes that are relatively unknown or unprotected. Moreover, satellite imagery can be used for detailed mapping of remote areas, so that a topographic map or Digital Elevation Model can form the background for the archaeological information. However, images seen on the photographs may not be immediately recognisable as sites, and sites on the ground may escape detection from a satellite. In a current project in south Siberia the authors test the visibility of the one against the other.

Stable isotopes present in local ground water get into people's teeth before they are 12 years old, and act as a signature to the area where they grew up (and drank the water). In a review of recent work in Britain the authors show the huge potential of this method for detecting population movement – and thus ultimately for investigating questions of migration, exogamy and slavery.

The whipworm, Trichuris trichiura L., is one of the most common human intestinal parasites worldwide, yet little is known of its origin and global spread. Archaeological records for this nematode have all been of Neolithic or later date, suggesting a possible association between the spread of pastoral farming and human acquisition of whipworm. This paper reports the discovery of eggs of the genus Trichuris in late Mesolithic deposits from south Wales, indicating that whipworm was present in Europe before the arrival of agriculture. This raises the possibility that human infection by Trichuris arose through contact with wild animals in parts of the landscape frequented by both human and animal groups.

Two exhibitions, in England and France, are showing different ways to promote interest in archaeology and history from regions afar. Sudan: ancient treasures is a lavish and elegant show at the British Museum, London. In Auch, Le crépuscule des dieux, on the Americas, is imaginative but penurious. The first raises an ethical worry, the second a couple of technical principles.

Sudan displays some 350 exhibits, from an Acheulian handaxe to Medieval inscriptions, all from the Sudan National Museum, celebrating its centenary. Most are clearly arranged in chronological sections, and amplifying the narrative are an effective introduction and sections on goldwork, pottery and burials. The exhibition is completed by photographs of the multinational Meroe Dam Archaeological Salvage Project, which (it is claimed) has enhanced knowledge of the Sudan’s northern Nile. My visit was amidst a steady flow of highly attentive visitors from the world over and an excited but also attentive school party.

The editor’s question “who do human skeletons belong to?” (Antiquity 78: 5) can be answered positively, but it must be answered in context. The question was prompted by reports from the Working Group on Human Remains established by the British government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in 2001 to review the current legal status of human remains held in all publicly funded museums and galleries, and to consider and review submissions on the issue of the return of non-UK human remains to their descendent communities (DCMS 2003: 1-8). In effect, the report was primarily concerned with human remains from Indigenous communities, using a definition which follows the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as “distinct cultural groups having a historical continuity with pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories” (DCMS 2003:7). Consequently, the report deals primarily with the Indigenous communities of Australia, New Zealand and North America.

Discovering what was cooked in a pot by identifying lipids trapped in the potsherds has been a highly successful method developed in recent years. Here the authors identify a compound which shows the pots had been used to process maize – probably the most important foodstuff in later prehistoric North America. The uptake of maize is confirmed as coincident with the Mississippian fluorescence.

This study compares the results of space syntax analysis of houses in Babylonian Ur with similar analyses on modern households in Baghdad and among the Ashanti. The social organisations identified were then compared with the written evidence for Ur surviving on site in cuneiform tablets. This opportunity to examine spatial, ethnographic and documentary evidence together offers a deep reading of Ur society.

Ancient art cut into rock is difficult to research and manage off-site without precise three-dimensional records. Experiments with photographic modelling by the authors led to a relatively accessible and economical way of making them.

A team of Elders and community officials from the island of Mua in the Torres Straits got together with archaeologists from Australia to study an episode which occurred on the island before the coming of Christianity in 1871. Oral tradition located the burial place of the father of an ancestral islander named Goba, and the investigation of a rock shelter nearby gave a dated sequence of occupation and a fresh sighting of rock paintings, all relating to the period. Each type of evidence gave context to the other, and the project offered a vivid example of how history is fashioned.

When Davis and Thurman produced in 1865 their massive volume on aspects of the ancient skeletons excavated from British tombs and cemeteries, they had no interest in Victorian colonialism or establishing which early population was the most ‘primitive’ or ‘savage’ or ‘inferior’, although they did recognise differences in cultural dynamics (with the Romans getting top marks). The term “race” was used for long barrow people, Romans, Saxons and others, simply to refer to populations in a time and cultural frame. I say this to dispatch the idea, common in archaeology and the media, that these early scholars were only interested in establishing hierarchies of inferiority by reference to skeletal material. If anything, Victorian science was disadvantaged by the ever present class consciousness of the times, but these early scientists did try to avoid such influences.