The Tyrolean ice mummy known as Ötzi presents some of the earliest direct evidence of tattooing in the human past. Despite decades of study, it remains unclear how the Iceman's tattoos were created and what tools and methods were used. Popular discussions of the Iceman describe his tattoos as having been made by incision, first cutting the skin and then rubbing in pigment from the surface. The authors review the scholarly literature on the Iceman's tattoos and summarize ethnographic, historic, and anthropological research on global patterns of tattooing to contextualize the Iceman's marks within pre-electric tattooing traditions. The results of recent experimental tattooing studies are then compared to the physical signature of the Iceman's marks to evaluate existing claims and provide informed hypotheses as to how those tattoos were created.

A quantitative analysis of 150 Mesolithic dwellings in Norway, dated to between 9500 and 4000 cal bc, forms the core of a chronological and regional study based on fifteen variables, including floor size and shape, floor modifications and wall features, internal hearths, numbers and distribution of artefacts, traces of maintenance or reuse, and the number of dwellings per site. The study identifies a distinct change in dwelling traditions between the Early and Middle Mesolithic, around 8000 cal bc. Tents are typical of the Early Mesolithic, whereas remains of pit houses dominate in all later phases of the Mesolithic. The study also sheds light on variability in dwelling traditions after 8000 cal bc, which appears to relate to changes in social structure, growing territoriality, and regional differences.

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.

Research concerning transactions in the early first millennium bc in the westernmost Mediterranean has tended to focus on colonial coastlands occupied by scattered Levantine outposts, whereas cross-cultural interactions in hinterland regions have remained ill-defined. This article presents an assemblage of Egyptian vitreous artefacts, namely beads, a Hathor amulet, and further items from the seventh-century bc rural village of Cerro de San Vicente (Salamanca) in the interior of Spain. Macroscopic and chemical analyses demonstrate their likely manufacture in Egypt during the Middle and New Kingdom (second millennium bc), attesting to a far-reaching Phoenician maritime network that connected both ends of the Mediterranean. The authors interpret the items as liturgical objects, rather than mere high-status trinkets, that formed part of a widely shared Mediterranean world view and associated ritual mores. They consider the impact of cultural syncretism, which reached even remote and allegedly isolated peripheral settings in Iberia.

Reductions in the cost of transporting manufactured goods have been an important element in economic development in the recent past, and previous research suggests that the Roman period in Britain also saw substantial reductions in such costs. The authors investigate how far it is possible to measure changes in transport costs by considering the spatial distributions of pottery from known Roman production locations over time. Their analysis of an extensive database of pottery assemblages is designed to evaluate a series of expectations concerning how reductions in transport costs may have affected such assemblages and their distribution. Results suggest that costs were reduced by a factor of about two, leading to related changes in pottery production, distribution, and consumption over time. The ability to quantify changes in transport costs opens new perspectives for investigating the general determinants of economic development using archaeological data.

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 author explores the cooperative aspects of mound construction in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. Arguing against the outdated but widely held view that only centralized rule could organize monument construction, he investigates how participation in mound construction affected the people of Sør-Fron in south-eastern Norway. He contends, first, that repeated participation in mound construction helped create a sense of belonging and shared identity, which was maintained through centuries of major environmental and political turmoil. Second, mound construction was part of an active and conscious strategy to limit aggrandizement and prevent centralization and concentration of power. Rejection of Christianity arguably worked in similar ways. The author concludes with considerations of approaches to Iron Age monuments, emphasizing the importance of consensus and community-building and the role of communal opposition to centralized rule.

Defensive infrastructure in the hinterland of the late Roman province of Germania Secunda hinged upon the widespread use of burgi. These defended settlements played a role in transforming villa estates, depopulated zones, and the expansion of the military footprint. They are common in the late third- and fourth-century landscape, spread throughout the loess belt of Belgium, Dutch Limburg, and the Rhineland, yet little has been done to quantify them. This article is dedicated to the chronology, morphology, and functional aspects of burgi, primarily in the loess plain of the Lower Rhine region. The author assembles data from a wide variety of burgi, to characterize them and reach meaningful conclusions about what they represent within the landscape, in the hope that it will act as a pilot project for future work in the field.

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.

Excavations at the vicarage yard (prästgården) at the famous Late Iron Age magnate centre of Gamla Uppsala, Sweden, have yielded six Viking Age (c. ad 750–1100) boat burials, several containing the remains of domestic dogs. The present study is an osteological examination of the remains of three of these dogs, one each from three boat graves, with a primary goal of morphological reconstruction and a secondary focus on identifying sex, age, and pathology. Two dogs were large, slender sight hounds, while the third was somewhat smaller and of indeterminate type. The preference for sight hounds in high-status graves is consistent with previous results from the contemporaneous nearby boat cemeteries of Vendel and Valsgärde, adding weight to the hypothesis of a shared funerary culture between these sites in the Late Iron Age.

Lynchets, often the defining component of historic agricultural landscapes in northern Europe, are generally associated with soft-limestone geologies and are particularly well developed on loess-mantled landscapes. To understand their formation and chronology, the authors present their geoarchaeological analyses of lynchet soils and loess deposits at Blick Mead and Charlton Forest in southern England, and Sint Martens-Voeren in Belgium. The lynchets date from the late prehistoric to the medieval periods and were constructed by plough action at the English sites, and by both cut-and-fill and ploughing in Belgium. This has resulted in the preservation of highly fertile loessic soils across chalk slopes, lost elsewhere. Although each example is associated with local/regional agricultural histories, the lynchets’ effective soil-retention capacities allowed them to survive as important heritage features with environmental benefits over millennia.

In 2016, a rescue excavation at the Jičín Natural Sciences Centre and Observatory uncovered a mass grave containing multiple commingled individuals buried in several layers. Zinc buttons and clothing remnants possibly related to eighteenth–nineteenth-century military uniforms found in the grave suggest that these individuals were soldiers. During this period, the Jičín region experienced numerous battles and was the location of several military barracks, hospitals, and transport routes, in addition to supporting civilian populations. To contextualize this burial site, bioarchaeological analyses including assessments of age-at-death, sex, and stature, and recording the presence of injury or medical intervention were conducted. A high frequency of young adult males suggests that the grave was related to military activity. The presence of infants, limited evidence of perimortem trauma, and absence of signs of medical treatment could indicate that this mass grave was related to military encampments rather than battlefield contexts.

Deer hunting was heavily ritualized in medieval Europe, as indicated by historical and archaeological evidence; it also emphasized social differentiation. The butchery of a deer carcass (‘unmaking’) was integral to the ritual and led to different body parts being destined for individuals of differing status. Archaeologically, the practice is particularly visible in high-status sites in Britain, but documentary and archaeological sources are consistent in pinpointing its earliest occurrence in twelfth-century France. In Italy, late medieval evidence for such ‘unmaking’ is present but is not supported by any known historical sources. Red and fallow deer were butchered in a formalized manner, whereas the data for roe deer are unclear. Although the Normans contributed to the diffusion of the ‘unmaking’ practice, in France it is also found outside the core area of Norman influence. The extensive spread of the practice demonstrates the connectedness of the medieval hunting culture in Europe.

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.

Hobby metal detecting in Norway has grown since 2014. In the Norwegian recording system, all finds are catalogued by professionals at five regional museums. The examination of the dataset thus created allows the authors to look at regional and national patterns and discuss the inherently messy and ‘human’ nature of a seemingly quantitative material. Their study suggests that both archaeologists and detectorists influence the quality of the evidence and how representative the data are. They argue that metal detecting patterns are primarily the result of modern activities, such as management practices and the endeavours of a few very prolific detectorists in certain areas. Understanding these biases and systematically recording the activities of the actors involved is crucial if we are to make full use of the metal-detected material.

In many areas of the world, archaeological research relies on workers without formal training in archaeology or apparent direct input into archaeological knowledge production. While these workers may appear to have little agency within the excavation process, and no direct participation in research outcomes, their role is more complex. Examples of local and international archaeological teams working in Türkiye in the mid-twentieth century and today are used here to explore the articulation of worker roles in field archaeology, as portrayed in field reports. The author assesses the language associated with team members in acknowledgements of their presence and status and examines how relationships are developed and maintained. Awareness of knowledge accumulation among local archaeological workers was articulated in the 1960s and proved advantageous to both workers and directors. Recent reports show little acknowledgement of worker presence, showing that multivocality has had no significant impact in this area of archaeological knowledge production.