At Supraśl 3 in north-eastern Poland, four Bell Beaker features contained small quantities of burnt and highly fragmented human and animal bones and various, mostly fragmented, artefacts. These assemblages included twenty-four flint arrowheads, most of which bore traces of grinding, though not all were ground to the same extent. A comprehensive macroscopic and microscopic analysis was undertaken to determine the process of shaping these arrowheads and the possible reasons for grinding them, especially as no local flint working was recorded at the site. The authors suggest that the grinding of arrowheads reflects both practical and ritual concerns, possibly originating in emulation of techniques used by the Rzucewo culture and signalling contacts with the wider Bell Beaker milieu.

In this article, the authors examine radiocarbon, histo-taphonomic, and contextual evidence for the deliberate curation, manipulation, and redeposition of human bone in British Bronze Age mortuary contexts. New radiocarbon dates and histological analyses are combined with existing data to explore the processes and practices that resulted in the incorporation of ‘relic’ fragments of bone in later graves, including evidence for the deliberate re-opening of previous burials and for funerary treatments such as excarnation and mummification. In some cases, fragments of human bone were curated outside the mortuary context. The authors consider what the treatment of human remains reveals about mortuary complexity in the Bronze Age, about relations between the living and the dead, and about attitudes to the body and concepts of the self.

This article presents current research on cooking stone pits in northern Germany and southern Scandinavia and examines their function and interpretation. It focuses on recent findings at the site of Mang de Bargen in northern Germany, which contained pit arrangements in various configurations, including a new circular one. The latest 14C dates from Mang de Bargen suggest that the circular formations constitute the earliest evidence of cooking stone pits known so far. A supra-regional comparison, concentrating on the distribution and dating of cooking stone pits in northern Europe, and an analysis of their content, arrangement, and topographic location allows the author to propose how they may have been used.

The authors set a relatively small and little-known corpus of human remains recovered from Iron Age wetland contexts in Norway in a wider theoretical framework of sacrifice and personhood. The material studied, fragmentary skeletal remains in wetland contexts, juxtaposed with the better-known bog body tradition of northern Europe, offers a base from which to query constructions and perceptions of personhood. Situating the discussion in a contextual framework and relational underpinnings of ways of being, the authors examine whether or not the assumption that personhood rests in a human body can be implicitly inferred when confronted with ancient human remains, and what this may imply for interpretations of human bodies in votive settings.

The Iron Age shipwrecks of Agde K (Brescou Island, France) and Cabrera B (Balearic Islands), discovered in the 1960s, together yielded seven lead ingots cast in the large shells of Pinna nobilis molluscs. Lead isotope analysis later traced the ingots to lead sources in south-eastern Iberia. These ingots are reassessed here as evidence for the integration of coastal production strategies in Iron Age south-eastern Iberia, revealing material connections between metallurgy and coastal industries linked to the exploitation of Pinna nobilis, such as sea silk manufacture. This compelling example of reuse of materials from one industry in another attests to a circular economic activity that is likely to have had practical and environmental motivations. The author aims to promote the recognition of Pinna nobilis shell casting and similar reuse phenomena elsewhere in the Mediterranean basin.

During the first millennium ad, Europe saw much socio-environmental change, which is reflected in the archaeological and palaeoecological evidence. Using published and new isotope data from across western Europe, the author examines changing resource use from c. ad 350 to 1200. The geographical limits of millet and substantial marine consumption are identified and comparisons between childhood and adult diets made across regions. Cross-cultural interaction at a broad scale is emphasized and patterns within early medieval England form the subject of an in-depth case study. While doubt is cast onto the uptake of marine resource consumption in England following the Fish Event Horizon, changes in agricultural practices, the impact of Christianization, and the role of freshwater fish in diets are explored. The author's hierarchical meta-analytical approach enables identification of human–environment interactions, with significant implications for changing foodways in Europe during the first millennium ad.