Vikings with artificially modified teeth have previously been documented in the south-eastern parts of Scandinavia and in England. In a project dealing with life in the Mälaren Valley in Sweden during the period AD 750–1100, new cases of people with modified maxillary teeth were observed. The hypothesis that the practice was entirely associated with adult men dating to the Viking Age was tested. The new cases demonstrate that the habit extended to eastern-central Sweden, including the proto-town of Birka, perhaps as early as in the middle of the eighth century. Additionally, cases from Sigtuna show that the practice may have ended as late as the beginning of the twelfth century. A microanalysis, using a scanning electron microscope, showed the heterogeneous character of the modifications. The affected individuals were all adult men, similar to previously published cases. Some of the men are associated with weapons and violent acts and the cases from Sigtuna were all from cemeteries with a possible association with lower social strata. However, discrepancies in archaeological contexts and in the characteristics of the modifications suggest temporal and spatial variation in the social meaning of the modifications.

There was a period of reduced mobility, increased population density, and social complexity among hunter–gatherers in northern Bothnian prehistory between about 4050 and 2050 cal BC. We argue that this was made possible by a combination of physical and social factors that include the shortening of the coastline due to isostatic land uplift, the reduction of distances between major river mouths along the Bothnian coast, and the local variability in rate of shoreline displacement at individual river mouths.

In this article we present an experimental approach focused on bipolar core technology. The main goal is to define the major constraints and parameters faced when identifying the bipolar component of the Early Pleistocene site of Vallparadís (Spain). For these experiments we have used the same varieties of raw materials and blanks as those documented in the archaeological record. The methodological framework applied in the study of the experimental sample is largely based on the most diagnostic parameters recurrently cited in bipolar-related literature: double striking platforms and opposite battering damage. This information has been encoded by grouping blanks, cores and detached elements in morphotechnical types. The results suggest that the reduction process is conditioned by the morphology and fracture consistency of the knapped nodules. Although blank morphology does not categorically determine the final shape of the cores and flakes, there is a clear correlation between them. The most diagnostic parameter for identifying bipolar objects in statistical terms is the presence of opposite battering damage. However, there are many non-diagnostic pieces generated throughout the bipolar knapping process. Hence we consider it pertinent to analyse the archaeological assemblage of Vallparadís according to alternative methodological approaches (e.g. morphotechnical types).

In this article I address the relationship between European archaeologists and the European Union and argue that the dominant attitude of non-involvement that archaeologists have embraced over the past decades cannot be justified given recent political developments. The European project finds itself in a state of deep crisis, under siege from populist and far-right leaders within and around Europe. We cannot afford to watch from the sidelines when the future of hundreds of millions of people is at stake. As archaeologists we can make a positive contribution by harnessing the political dimension of our work, which we need to stop seeing in a negative light. We should deploy the past to help tackle the challenges of our society. European archaeologists should particularly focus on developing grand narratives of a shared past in Europe, to act as a foundation for a European identity.

This article addresses the potential of oral tradition (folklore) in the archaeological study of the past. It deals with oral traditions concerning landscape features in the area of the prehistoric and Roman site of Ajdovščina above Rodik, Slovenia. The palimpsest nature of modern landscapes can be regarded as a syncretic sum of past ways of life, land use, religious practices, and cults. In oral tradition concerning the ancient inhabitants of Ajdovščina, it is possible to discern the obscured memory of historical process. Certain sites, referred to in local oral tradition, mainly in the form of memories of religious practices performed there and of superstitions related to them, may well prove to be the remains of ancient sacred places. Methodological problems include identification of the generic and specific in oral tradition, the recognition of Christian intervention and/or censorship of ancient cults and beliefs, and the transposition and/or survival of elements of old ritual practices in popular beliefs. The aim of this article is to discuss the role of oral tradition linked to the landscape in the persistence of collective memory concerning historical circumstances and the survival and/or transformation of ancient cult or ritual sites and beliefs.

Raw materials from aquatic environments were systematically used for domestic activities even before the appearance of modern humans. Here, the authors analyse the possible use of freshwater mussel valves of the Unio species, whose surfaces preserve marks resulting from their use. They consider the ways in which wear develops on these valves, starting from the comparison between archaeological exemplars and experimental pieces. An experimental programme was developed to record variables such as the procurement of the raw material, the processing of various materials, and the time needed for each operation. Experimental pieces were assessed to document how use-wear develops. The archaeological assemblage from the site of Cheia in Romania (Hamangia culture, fifth millennium cal bc) served as a case study to illustrate the relevance of the results.

In this article we present the fragments of a crucible and a possible tuyère that provide evidence of early copper metallurgy in Scandinavia at least 1500 years earlier than previously thought. The technical ceramics were found in a cultural layer containing Early Neolithic Funnel Beaker pottery dating to around 3800–3500 bc beneath a long barrow dating to 3300–3100 bc. The presence of a copper alloy in the crucible is confirmed by three independent X-ray fluorescence analyses using both a hand-held and a stationary instrument, SEM-EDS analysis of a cross-section, as well as a Bruker Tornado μ-X-Ray-fluorescence scanner (μ-XRF). The transmission of metallurgy to southern Scandinavia coincided with the introduction of long barrows, causewayed enclosures, two-aisled houses, and certain types of artefacts. Thus, metallurgy seems to be part of the new networks that enabled the establishment of a fully Neolithic society.

This paper summarises the present state of research concerning late-Iron-Age rectilinear enclosures of central Europe known as ‘Viereckschanzen’. For several decades these large earthen enclosures were believed to be Celtic temples or sanctuaries. In the context of recent excavations, multiple social, political, and religious functions have been suggested, but these arguments are rarely linked to detailed study of archaeological materials and features at the enclosures. Critical analysis of presumed ‘cultic’ features and objects at thirty-six excavated Viereckschanzen reveals little support for the suggestion that all enclosures were religious sanctuaries. A functional study of ceramic finds indicates important differences in pottery assemblages between the enclosures and contemporary settlements. The enclosures are then examined within a dialectical landscape context, and it is suggested that they may have functioned as feasting places that often made reference to traditional forms of socio-political organisation represented at earlier cemetery sites.

This article discusses the production, distribution and consumption of stone and copper during the Bronze Age in La Mancha. It reviews the archaeological record regarding commodity exchange within this territory in relation to other regions of the Iberian Peninsula. It discusses the results of the analyses of grindstones and metal objects collected along the north-eastern edge of La Mancha, close to the Tagus valley. The materials analysed were obtained from museum collections and recent excavations carried out in this area. We propose a new regionally-based economic model for these resource exploitation activities.

In Anglo-Saxon and Viking literature swords form part of a hero's identity. In addition to being weapons, they represent a material agent for the individual's actions, a physical expression of identity. In this article we bring together the evidence from literature and archaeology concerning Anglo-Saxon and Viking-age swords and argue that these strands of evidence converge on the construction of mortuary identities and particular personhoods. The placement of the sword in funerary contexts is important. Swords were not just objects; they were worn close to the body, intermingling with the physical person. This is reflected in the mortuary context where they were displayed within an emotive aesthetic. Typically, swords were embraced, placed next to the head and shoulders, more like a companion than an object. However, there are exceptions: graves like Birka 581 and Prittlewell show sword locations that contrast with the normal placement, locations which would have jarred with an observer's experience, suggesting unconventional or nuanced identities. By drawing on literary evidence, we aim to use the words of the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings to illuminate the significance of swords in mortuary contexts and their wider cultural associations.

The province of Van in north-eastern Turkey served as a land bridge between Africa and Eurasia during the Palaeolithic. The region is of particular relevance for understanding the movement of hominins between these continents. This study concerns the lithic remains from a locality at Gürgürbaba Hill, named Locality 010, north of the village of Ulupamir (Erciş district). Locality 010 was dated to 311±32 kya by terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides method, which coincides with Marine Isotope Stage 9 (MIS 9), a Middle Pleistocene interglacial period. The assemblage from this site is attributed to the Late Acheulean and resembles that of the southern Caucasus. This similarity indicates that the artefacts from Locality 010 were probably produced by late Lower Palaeolithic technology in a broad sense. These findings suggest local adaptations of late Middle Pleistocene hominins to high plateau environments.

The possibility of exploring ethnic identities in past societies constitutes one of the most controversial fields of archaeological research. However, the reassessment of the conceptualization of ethnicity in the human sciences and the increasing transference of these theories to archaeological research is helping to develop new analytical frameworks for the study of this problematic subject. From this perspective, the aim of this paper is to attempt a theoretical and methodological approach to the complex relationships between ethnic identity and material remains from the standpoint of Iron Age studies, showing both the possibilities and difficulties of archaeological research on ethnicity. For this period, the incipient availability of written evidence allows the development of new interdisciplinary research strategies. Finally, an introduction to practical work in this field is presented, specifically focusing on two case studies: Ruiz Zapatero and Álvarez-Sanchís' approach to the identity of the Vettones of the central Iberian Peninsula, and the author's own work on the Late Iron Age sanctuaries of the Middle Rhine-Moselle region.

Heathlands are unique cultural landscapes that once existed across vast stretches of northern Europe. Their deep-time persistence has formed an intrinsic part of economic and cultural practices. Such a complex interaction requires interdisciplinary approaches, including archaeology, across multiple regions to fully grasp all its aspects. The authors of this article review how research has been conducted in prehistoric heathlands across six nations in north-western Europe and outline the heaths’ general characteristics. They discuss the major issues in that research, namely recurring narratives derived from history, an overall absence of consideration of the cultural aspects of heathlands, and a paucity of cross-regional initiatives. They suggest a series of theoretical and methodological approaches to improve this situation across expanded geographical and temporal scales.

Forty years ago, Fritz Saxl (1957:73) pointed out that ‘we cannot fully understand our own times unless we pay heed to its unscientific tendencies.’ The Russian historian Bitsilli (1928:351-52) demonstrated that the birth of a nation is always accompanied by some sort of mythology. The idea became especially useful recently with the current development of ethnonationalism, combined with a shift of the international community's sympathy with groups' rights, resulting in an unexpected phenomenon which I call an ‘alternative prehistory’. This alternative prehistory is an explicitly ethnocentric vision of the past, namely, a glorification of the great ancestors of the given people, who are treated as if they made the most valuable contribution to the culture of all humanity. This obviously odd vision of the past flourishes especially at crucial moments of ethnic history: (1) when forceful assimilation and acculturation endanger an ethnic group with cultural and language losses, (2) when particular minorities are fighting against racial discrimination or its consequences, (3) when the people struggle for political liberation, (4) when new states are being built from the ruins of a fonner empire, (5) when a fonner imperial people suffers political, social, and other losses because of unfavourable changes in its status, (6) when two peoples claim rights over the same territory which they have inhabited for years, (7) when a new ethnic group is formed in a given territory out of newcomers of various ethnic origins, and (8) when a formerly united people finds itself under conditions of a diaspora. In all these cases, the myth of the past is aimed at inspiring self-esteem in order to withstand hardship and to mobilise people for decisive social and political action. At the same time, as Wailes and Zoll (1995:24-25) point out quite reasonably, the myth of the past results in an explicit or implicit discourse about who has civilised whom which tends towards the construction of a hierarchy of groups headed by one of them as an ‘elder brother’ (Shnirelman 1996b:60). That is not just an intellectual game since quite often there are real political, social, and economic interests at stake. lbis paper is a result of my comparative studies made during the last few years dealing with contemporary ethno-nationalist myths of the past based on the idea of ethnogenesis. In other words I have tried to investigate how contemporary ethno-nationalists manipulate materials (true, fictitious, or even consciously falsified) on the origins of peoples, how they invent ancestors and their glorious deeds, and why they do it. My analysis is based mainly on data from the former USSR and contemporary Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), but information from some other countries was also considered (Shnirelman 1993a; 1993c; 1994b; 1995b; 1995c; 1995d; 1996a; 1996b; 1996c; in press a and bi Shnirelman and Komarova 1995). Here, I shall discuss the general features of this sort of mythology and its consequences. A problem is that, in order to make its claims for political rights and ambitions much stronger, a group has to demonstrate the deep roots of its culture, the distinctiveness of its language, and all its outstanding cultural achievements. Keeping these ends in mind, the cultural activists occupy themselves with what Eric Hobsbawm (1983) called ‘an invention of traditions’ (see also Gellner 1983; Anderson 1991). But the main strategy nowadays is the use and abuse of history and, in many cases, prehistory or proto-history.

Malta's Neolithic megalithic ‘temples’, unique in the Mediterranean, provide a striking challenge to the archaeological imagination. Most explanations have employed a simple functionalism: the temples resulted from Malta's insularity. Such explanations lack the theoretical grounding provided by studies of agency and meaning, and they do not sufficiently account for Malta's pattern of integration into and differentiation from a central Mediterranean regional culture. I argue that: (a) contextual evidence suggests that the temples created settings for rites emphasizing local origins and identity; (b) even in periods of greatest cultural difference, the Maltese had contacts with nearby societies, and Maltese travellers probably recognized cultural differences in important ritual practices; and (c) when ritual practitioners began reinterpreting a common heritage of meanings to create the temple rites, they also created a new island identity based on these rites. In effect, after two millennia of cultural similarity to their neighbours, the Neolithic Maltese created a cultural island, perhaps in reaction to changes in the constitution of society sweeping Europe in the fourth millennium BC. The result was an island of cultural difference similar in scale and, perhaps, origin to many other archaeologically unique settings such as Val Camonica, the Morbihan, Stonehenge, and Chaco Canyon.

The paper attempts to integrate the results of chemical analyses, which are seriously underused in archaeological discourse, with other classes of information in order to try to interpret ancient metal working behaviour and knowledge within a semiotic framework, adopting the modernist premise that ancient metalworking was both rational and deliberate. A number of case studies from northern Italy is discussed. In the first it is noted that in the Copper Age Remedello culture arsenical copper was used for halberds and daggers while purer copper was used for flat axes; it is suggested that this distinction reflects deliberate choice and explanations are offered for it. The second case study regards the interpretation of the Pieve Albignola early Bronze Age axe hoard; evidence for the workshop practices of ancient bronzesmiths and for the use of axe preforms as ingots is discussed. The third case study concerns the swords and daggers of the middle and recent Bronze Age; finds context (tombs and wetlands) are discussed and it is suggested that metal analyses may indicate that sometimes these artefacts are not primarily functional.

The last decades have seen a renewed interest in the study of argumentation in archaeology, particularly in response to the overproduction of weak and unreliable interpretations and explanations. Concurrently, recent appeals for scientific transparency and efficiency in the management of archaeological information in digital form have stressed the necessity of explicitly showing the processes followed. A growing body of literature has identified inference to the best explanation (IBE) as the most adequate way of interpreting archaeological data, although it has quietly existed for over a century. Despite this, the investigation of IBE-based models for recording archaeological reasoning remains a largely under-researched topic. The author concludes with a novel IBE-based model for recording archaeological argumentation.

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.

Palaeoenvironmental data and vegetation histories derived from local datasets are examined in the light of Early Neolithic agro-pastoral activities and resource exploitation in the southeastern Adriatic Sea. Palynological evidence is summarized from three locations within the study area and compared to contemporaneous archaeological evidence. Coastal marine archaeological assemblages in the study area indicate that Early Neolithic inhabitants expended significant energy on terrestrial and marine hunting and gathering, and long distance maritime travel, well after the regional introduction of agro-pastoralism.

Coastal distributions such as that of the Neolithic chambered tombs of Brittany raise important questions about prehistoric beliefs and understandings relating to sea and shoreline. Concepts of liminality come particularly to the fore where headlands and islands are selected as places for the disposal of human remains. The density of chambered tombs recorded by Du Châtellier on the islands of the Molène archipelago, with its rocks, inlets and small islands exposed and covered by the tides, provides a prominent example of this coastal emphasis. The analysis presented here includes assessment of the reliability of the Du Châtellier inventory and of the topographic changes resulting from sea-level rise. It is argued that the dramatic transformative effect of the tides on the shallow waters of this archipelago will have enhanced the liminality of the setting and may have endowed the islands with special mythological or symbolic associations that may explain the density of the monuments. Ethnographic accounts of coastal beliefs from North America and northern Europe provide additional indications of the likely symbolic importance of such shoreline settings for Breton Neolithic communities.