Connections between northern Iberia and western France around the Bay of Biscay during the Chalcolithic, Early Bronze Age, and Middle Bronze Age are addressed in this article through a multivariate cluster analysis of a dataset of 1273 metal finds, comprising 4554 metal artefacts grouped into five multiregional clusters with distinctive distributions, chronologies, content, and contexts. Changes in distribution and chronology show that metalwork from faraway regions was deposited in similar ways, reflecting changing patterns of interregional connectivity. Changes in context and content suggest social transformations. The clustering method known as Latent Class Analysis is presented here in the hope that it will be applicable to other datasets elsewhere in the world.

The iconic Dupljaja chariot model from the Carpathian Basin informs us on cosmologies and technologies of Bronze Age societies in Europe between 1600 and 1200 BC. It communicates key elements of religious imagery and ritual practice alongside technical features of working chariots. Through a detailed reappraisal employing use-wear, compositional, and iconographic analyses as well as 3D modelling of the chariot model, the authors explore the social context of its creation and use. Integrating functional wheels with four spokes and iconographic depictions of the similar cross-in-circle symbol, the Dupljaja chariot combines and cross-references motifs with pan-European relevance in the Bronze Age. The study aims to better understand the interplay between the local and regional context of the Dupljaja chariot and how its distinct features arose from the material and ideological networks defining later Bronze Age Europe.

In this article, the authors present the salient archaeological results of a diachronic, interdisciplinary research project on rural settlement and land use in a region of low mountains in southern Germany. Despite clear locational disadvantages, in particular great distances to drinking water sources, archaeological excavations and an extensive dating programme document an unexpectedly long continuity of prehistoric settlement in the area.

Archaeologists in the Canary Islands have gathered substantial quantitative data from radiocarbon measurements and aDNA analyses. While undeniably helpful and necessary for apprehending past human activity, their interpretation, based on theories underpinning models developed for island chains, has lagged, leaving a gap in our understanding of processes of occupation and social network systems. The decontextualized nature of the archaeological landscape of the Canaries and a lack of consensus about proper radiocarbon methodologies are some of the factors contributing to heated scholarly debate. Here, for the Canary Islands, the author reviews the current literature on aDNA and discusses settlement theories, the chronological evidence used for occupation models, and how such perspectives align with current thinking on island colonization.

In Old Norse poetic literature, the smiðr was a master of the arts, able to control and shape multiple materials into various kinds of objects. While the mythological smiðr has been regarded as separate from the real-world blacksmiths and metalworkers of gold, silver, and copper alloys, the archaeological evidence recovered in towns and workshops of the Viking Age, as well as medieval written sources, provide a different perspective. In 2015, a hitherto unknown, well-preserved workshop was excavated in the Viking town of Kaupang in Norway, containing evidence of complex metalworking requiring the skills of blacksmiths and workers of soft metals. In this article, the authors venture beyond the Old Norse myths, into the world of the proficient smiths as multi-crafters and their tools of the trade.

This article traces characterizations of the Cupbearer fresco, named after the large vessel the figure holds and uncovered at the site of Knossos in 1900, in light of the research agendas about the ‘races’ of the prehistoric Aegean and traditions of racial science current in late Victorian Britain. The head of the Cupbearer was compared to Classical Greek art, modern Cretan populations, and cranial remains from prehistoric contexts. Drawing from academic publications, articles in the press, and reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the author situates the discourse surrounding the Cupbearer in the context of scholars seeking the origins of ‘European’ civilization in prehistory, and the creation of racial typologies, especially using cranial measurements and photography. The Cupbearer gained a dual status as a racial portrait comparable to past and present human populations, but also as a work of art that prefigured the later achievements of Classical Greece.