This article explores the use of context in relation to the articulation and understanding of gender. Context can be regarded as gendered practice. Focusing on mortuary settings in the early Bronze Age of the Upper Thames Valley, it examines ways that people took gender into account in complex decisions involved in burial and the construction of difference. Here, men and women were conceptualized in distinct ways that were not necessarily equivalent. Difference was expressed in terms of degrees of complexity of intersections between sex and other social categories. Beaker burial contexts were active and engendered material media for social relations.

Mortuary practice can be interpreted as a system of rituals based on people's perceptions of life and death. There is a great deal to suggest the prehistoric find sites we usually call cemeteries also had an important function as ritual sites. Several types of structure occurring at cemeteries from the late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age in southern Scandinavia favour a broader interpretation of these sites. This article is based on the results of the excavated ritual and burial site at Ringeby in Kvillinge parish, Östergötland, an excavation which was undertaken with the express purpose of studying the archaeology of religion. The article also includes a general discussion of the concept of ‘grave’ and different types of structure which can be interpreted as places for cults.

This paper attempts a consideration of possible combinations of Neolithic and Eneolithic miniatures, their locations and disbibution in space, taking account of respective precise contexts and discovery associations, when available. Neolithic and Eneolithic miniatures (figurines and models) have usually been found in domestic contexts, either in large sets, small groups or isolated. It is further attempted an examination of possible situations, meaning displaying or concealing figurines and models, occasionally or permanently. Vehicles through which and ways and locations in which these alternatives could take place are mentioned. Evidence tends eventually towards alternating restricted access and common display, as periodic occurrences, as well as definite concealment under particular conditions. The range of possible alternative interpretations regarding these combinations of chosen concealed or displayed symbols in different locations and under various circumstances, in specific contexts, extends from public communication, such as narration or transmission of common knowledge, including initiation, to use as apotropaïc tokens, play and eventual performance of rites of sympathetic magic. Examples are taken from Greece, mostly its northern part, as well as from adjacent areas.

‘European archaeology’ is an ambiguous and contested rubric. Rooted in the political histories of European archaeology, it potentially unites an academic field and provides a basis for international collaboration and inclusion, but also creates essentialized identities and exclusionary discourses. This discussion article presents a range of views on what European archaeology is, where it comes from, and what it could be.

Isotope ratios of tooth enamel from ten Early Neolithic individuals buried in a long cairn at Whitwell in central England were measured to determine where they sourced their childhood diet. Five individuals have low Sr concentrations (11–66 ppm) and high 87Sr/86Sr ratios (0.7164–0.7212). Three individuals have relatively low 87Sr/86Sr ratios (0.712–0.711) and Sr concentrations ranging between 54 and 109 ppm. Two individuals have strontium isotope values that bridge the gap between the isotope compositions of these two groups. The high 87Sr/86Sr values are rare in human enamel and exclude sources within the biosphere of central England. Oxygen isotope values are comparable to those found within human archaeological populations buried in temperate regions of Europe. The strontium isotope results should be interpreted in the context of other evidence for migration from northern France to Britain during the Early Neolithic.

Kent's Cavern is one of Britain's most important Palaeolithic sites. The Torquay Natural History Society excavations in the Vestibule (1926–1928 and 1932–1938) yielded Middle and Early Upper Palaeolithic deposits as well as a fragment of human jaw (KC4). Higham et al. (2011) recently identified it as the oldest modern human fossil known from North West Europe, with a date estimated, using Bayesian modelling, at 44,200–41,500 cal bp (at 95.4% probability). However, White and Pettitt (2012) and Zilhão (2013) have claimed that the poor quality of the excavations and lack of stratigraphic integrity cast doubt on the archaeological and dating evidence from the site. Here, we present a thorough re-analysis of the excavations and show that they were in fact conducted to a reasonable standard. We also carefully examine the stratigraphic and sedimentological sequence and present twelve new AMS determinations from key contexts to test the previous model and chronology. We find that, while Trench C has good stratigraphic integrity, there is some evidence of post-depositional disruption of certain parts; some post-depositional movement is also shown by a limited number of artefact refits. There are two outlying AMS determinations dating to c. 32,000 bp. We therefore cannot exclude completely the possibility that the maxilla's age could be younger than the published probability distribution function (PDF). Our analysis lends support to the assessment by Higham et al. (2011) of the site and KC4 and shows that it offers considerable potential for future study.

This paper outlines some basic trends of social evolution and devolution that occurred in Central Eurasia mostly in the second and first millennia BC. These main long-term, cyclical regularities were characteristic for the whole Eurasian territory and comprised the alternation between complex social structures and simple, extensive lifeways. The factors stimulating social development were ecological and technological crises, which conditioned a search for the most effective forms of social adaptation. The social landscape of the temperate zone in the second millennium BC was represented by a variety of simple chiefdoms interacting with forest-zone tribes and steppe zone hunter-gatherers. These groups were succeeded by an extensive spread of population, including the colonisation of new landscapes and the discovery of new mineral resources. The transition to the Iron Age is marked by the disintegration of these chiefdoms, which stimulated a chain of recurrent westward migration, disrupting social developments in Central Eurasia. During the first millennium, the process of social stratification and élite military development resulted from the growth of the Eurasian ‘world system’.

This paper focusses on a set of anthropomorphic figurines. It suggests that realistic human proportion and canonical body posture were pursued in the carving of these objects as a means of expressing ideology, in a context of diversified forms of manipulation of bodies in funerary practices. It is argued that, against a background of predominantly schematic art, the more realistic and canonical anthropomorphic representation of the human body was used to communicate a set of ideological statements in a more controlled and immediate way, in a period of ontological and cosmological transition.

This study examines some assumptions related to Late Bronze Age interaction between the Aegean world and central Mediterranean societies. It asserts that, contrary to what is often assumed, this relationship was extremely important and had considerable social consequences. It is argued that such an importance can be appreciated only by acknowledging that interaction is constituted by real-world social encounters. On the basis of this insight, the contextual evidence from the site of Roca in Apulia is analysed. It is proposed that archaeological remains here represent a series of public events—i.e. large feasts—possibly entailing the participation of people of different cultural backgrounds and in which a subtle strategy of representation of relative distance and closeness was adopted to promote interests within Roca's community. Such interests are interpreted with reference to the increasing connections between the eastern and western portions of the Mediterranean, substantiated in the circulation of metal and pottery models and types.

This paper argues that, if we are to understand the intrinsic nature of archaeology as a social practice, we have to situate the way in which we are conducting archaeological practices in both local and global contexts for considering a way forward. This contention is supported by a critical account of the current crisis situation in which Japanese archaeology operates. It is argued that this crisis situation has resulted from changes which have been taking place in both macro- and microlevels of Japanese social reality. A Marxist tradition, which had kept theory and practice of Japanese archaeology integrated with a certain sense of reality, collapsed from changes which took place in the international political climate and in domestic social conditions. Those changes had significant effects not only upon the discursive level of the consciousness of the archaeologist but also upon the non-discursive level of the consciousness of the archaeologist. The current condition of the non-discursive consciousness of the archaeologist makes it almost impossible to grasp the causes of the crisis and to consider a possible way out.

It is argued that the creation of a critical ontology, enabling us discursively to grasp the causes of the crisis, is badly needed to improve the situation. It is proposed that such a critical ontology should enable us to grasp the mechanism of the formation of non-discursive/practical consciousness of ourselves which, together with the experience of the material conditions, constitutes the subjective conditions under which we conduct our archaeological practice.

Poggio Civitate has made an important contribution to the understanding of domestic architecture in pre-Roman central Italy since excavations commenced in 1966 uncovering two phases of monumental architecture. Interpretations of the site have been varied, with suggestions that it was the seat of a north Etruscan league or the base of a local élite family. This study argues that it was the latter, based upon an analysis of the famous ‘cowboy’ statue acroteria from the Archaic period complex. It is argued that the statues, as ancestral figures of the élite inhabitants, personified their wealth and power. The complex, and acroteria more generally, had a powerful psychological effect on those living within it, but more importantly those living in the surrounding territory. In addition the building is placed within its physical and socio-political landscape of north inland Etruria

The Neolithic court tombs of Ireland display variation in the ways that their component parts – concave courts, linear galleries and individual cells – were combined and arranged. This variation has been interpreted in the past in terms of both the diffusion of ideas and the design requirements of their builders. In this article it is suggested that the analysis of these formalized components points to central themes of the social and ritual discourse that accompanied the tombs' construction and use, the symbolism of the tombs expressing alleged lineage relationships between the living community, its ancestors and the land. It is suggested that these communities were based on one or more corporate descent groups, in some cases combining with other social units to appropriate and exploit territory, the relationships between them being symbolized and idealized in the spatial layout of the tombs' orthostatic structures.

In this article, the author analyses a group of articles discussing the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic in South Scandinavia from the standpoint of their rhetorical and narrative structure. She uses Hayden White's categories of emplotment, the time-orientation of the articles and their attitudes to centre-periphery to characterise the articles. In this way, the attitudes to modern ideological and rhetorical themes buried in each article is elucidated. In a final section, a debate is opened up on the relationship between agricultural origins and post-processualism.

It has long been claimed that the coaxial stone boundaries of Céide Fields, County Mayo, are a phenomenon of the Irish Early Neolithic — analogous to later prehistoric ‘Celtic’ fields in all but age. This study argues that the age disparity is an artefact of the research methods, and that the age of the main Céide Fields complex has been overestimated by as much as two-and-a-half millennia.

This article presents the results of a 2021 international online survey of 419 early career researchers in archaeology. Respondents were passionate about pursuing an academic career, but pessimistic about job and career prospects. Statistics highlight specific obstacles, especially for women, from unstable employment to inequitable practices, and a chronic lack of support. Over 180 open-ended comments reveal worrying levels of workplace bullying and discrimination, particularly targeting women and minorities. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on early career researchers is also examined. The survey's findings are analysed and contextualized within the international higher education sector. A communal effort is necessary to create sustained change, but early career researchers remain hopeful that change can be implemented.

An attempt to demonstrate the importance of a contextual approach in the interpretation of prehistoric ritual is made through a critique of Ruth Whitehouse's recent work, Underground Religion. Cult and culture in prehistoric Italy, and through a re-examination of the spatial, material, historical, and social context of the ritual use of caves in south-eastern Italy, with special reference to Grotta di Porto Badisco and other Neolithic and early-Copper-Age sites in the Salento peninsula. Alternative interpretations are offered which focus upon: variations over space and time in the use of caves for different activities; a notion of complementarity and mutuality in Neolithic gender relations; and the existence of a degree of male-bias in the archaeological evidence of the symbolic construction of gender in Grotta di Porto Badisco.

The following paper aims to take a critical look at the role that can be played within the broad context of landscape based archaeological research by Geographical Information Systems (GIS). It will be argued that the rapid acceptance of GIS by archaeologists has not been without its problems, with a number of archaeologists wondering whether, despite the hype, any new approaches have been introduced at all. This, it will be argued, is a direct result of GIS-based applications tending to work within a largely inherited theoretical framework and, more importantly, lacking at present a critical theory of practice.

The aim of the paper is move beyond critique to suggest how GIS can provide not only an efficient means of generating simple distribution maps, but a flexible environment within which to bridge developments in theory and practice. Using an on-going case-study centred upon flood events in the palaeo-flood plain of the river Tisza, the implications of using GIS to welcome uncertainty into the analytical environment are explored and a number of approaches advocated. The significance these developments have in expanding our interpretive frameworks is explored through the fore-grounding and challenging of a number of dualistic modes of thought in that area actively encouraged and reinforced by the use of traditional GIS.

A Germanic settlement at Heeten, which was only partly excavated, produced evidence for large-scale iron production. Combining several research methods, an attempt was made to gain insight into the operation, scale, and structure of this production. The research was not only focussed on the excavation area itself, but also on the surrounding area. Apart from X-ray combined with sieve-residue analysis of soil-samples (taken primarily for archaeo-botanical purposes), core sampling and geoprospective explorations were carried out. The aims of these investigations were not only of scientific relevance, but can also contribute to the protection and management of the remaining part of the site.

Models of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Britain in recent years have tended to downplay the role of changes in the subsistence economy, emphasizing a very gradual adoption of new domesticated resources. This view has been particularly pervasive for the west coast of Scotland, which in the context of Britain presents a relatively marginal environment for farming. In this article, we challenge this too-quickly emerging orthodoxy through the presentation and discussion of both new and previously published stable isotope data and AMS dates. The palaeodietary information, while limited, strongly suggests a very rapid and complete change in the subsistence economy coincident with the earliest manifestations of the Neolithic on the west coast of Scotland early in the fourth millennium cal. BC. Whatever explanation is invoked to account for the transition needs to engage with the isotopic data. The possibility of colonization at some level needs to be seriously reconsidered.

This paper discusses a group of modified human remains from Iron Age and Norse sites in Atlantic Scotland, several of which have been discovered or rediscovered over the past decade, and all of which have recently been radiocarbon dated. It investigates the ways in which these remains seem to have been recovered, used, modified and deposited by living communities, and what this may reveal about past attitudes towards the bodies of the dead. These practices are placed within a wider European later prehistoric and early historic context, to highlight how this group of evidence may add to current debates surrounding social memory, the ritualization of domestic life, and the place of the dead within the world of the living.