Since aDNA research suggested a marked gene influx from Eastern into Central Europe in the 3rd millennium bc, outdated, simplistic narratives of massive migrations of closed populations have re-appeared in archaeological discussions. A more sophisticated model of migration from the steppes was proposed recently by Kristiansen et al. As a reaction to that proposal, this paper aims to contribute to this ongoing debate by refining the latter model, better integrating archaeological data and anthropological knowledge. It is argued that a polythetic classification of the archaeological material in Central Europe in the 3rd millennium reveals the presence of a new complex of single grave burial rituals which transcends the traditional culture labels. Genetic steppe ancestry is mainly connected to this new kind of burials, rather than to Corded Ware or Bell Beaker materials. Here it is argued that a polythetic view on the archaeological record suggests more complicated histories of migration, population mixtures and interaction than assumed by earlier models, and ways to better integrate detailed studies of archaeological materials with a deeper exploration of anthropological models of mobility and social group composition and the molecular biological data are explored.

The nature of landscape use and residence patterns during the British earlier Neolithic has often been debated. Here we use strontium and oxygen isotope analysis of tooth enamel, from individuals buried at the Hambledon Hill causewayed enclosure monument complex in Dorset, England to evaluate patterns of landscape use during the earlier Neolithic. Previous analysis suggests that a significant proportion of the artefacts found at the site may originate from lithology of Eocene and Upper to Middle Jurassic age that the enclosures overlook to the immediate west and south. The excavators therefore argued that the sector of landscape visible from Hambledon Hill provides an approximate index for the catchment occupied by the communities that it served. Most of the burial population exhibit isotope ratios that could be consistent with this argument. Connections between Hambledon Hill and regions much further afield are also hypothesised, based on the presence of artefacts within the assemblage that could have been sourced from lithology in Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall in south-west England. However, few of the sampled individuals have strontium isotope ratios consistent with having obtained the majority of their diet from such areas during childhood. The individuals who exhibit the highest strontium isotope ratios are all adult males, whom the excavators suggest to have died during one or more episodes of conflict, following the burning and destruction of surrounding defensive outworks built during the 36th century bc. At least one of these individuals, who was found with an arrowhead amongst his ribs, did not obtain his childhood diet locally and has 87Sr/86Sr values that could be comparable to those bioavailable in the south-west peninsula.

This paper provides a contextual summary of a diachronic analysis of ceramic vessels and hunter-gatherer societies from the final Pleistocene to the later Holocene in a remote corner of the Vitim Basin in Eastern Siberia. An integrated programme of ceramic analysis, raw materials survey, and archaeological investigation is drawn into new models of group mobility and social behaviour. The results challenge widespread assumptions about the relationship between ceramics, sedentarisation, and social complexity. Evidence of these transformations, though potentially identifiable in the archaeological record, could not be associated with the adoption of pottery.

The western seaways – an arc of sea stretching from the Channel Islands in the south, up through the Isles of Scilly, the Isle of Man, and the Outer Hebrides to Orkney in the north – have long been seen as crucial to our understanding of the processes which led to the arrival of the Neolithic in Britain and Ireland in the centuries around 4000 cal bc. The western seaways have not, however, been considered in detail within any of the recent studies addressing the radiocarbon chronology of the earliest Neolithic in that wider region. This paper presents a synthesis of all existing 5th and 4th millennia cal bc radiocarbon dates from islands within the western seaways, including 50 new results obtained specifically for this study. While the focus here is insular in a literal sense, the project’s results have far reaching implications for our understanding of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Britain and Ireland and beyond. The findings broadly fit well with the Gathering Time model of Whittle et al., suggesting that the earliest dated Neolithic in this zone falls into the c. 3900–3700 cal bc bracket. However, it is also noted that our current chronological understanding is based on comparatively few dates spread across a large area. Consequently, it is suggested that both further targeted work and an approach that incorporates an element of typo-chronology (as well as absolute dating) is necessary if we are to move forward our understanding of the processes associated with the appearance of the first Neolithic material culture and practices in this key region.

The Scandinavian landscape is littered with postglacial outcrops, many of which carry engraved motifs. Although drawings of ships are most often discussed, this paper focuses on representations of feet. In Northern Europe ship motifs are often associated with cosmologies based on the movement of the sun. This paper investigates whether drawings of feet could have been associated with the same worldview. A number of interpretations are offered of the images at two sites in different parts of Sweden: Järrestad 13:1 and Boglösa 138:1.

It is widely accepted that between the beginning of the Early Neolithic period and the end of the Early Bronze Age different regions of Britain were connected to one another by sea, but little is known about the nature of maritime contacts before plank-built boats developed during the 2nd millennium bc. This paper considers a series of coastal sites, some of which were first settled from Mesolithic times. From the early 4th millennium they were also associated with artefact production and the use of imported objects and raw materials. Their distribution focuses on the region of isostatic uplift in northern Britain where the ancient shoreline still survives. It is considered in relation to a new model of coastal change which suggests that these locations were characterised by natural havens sheltered behind islands or bars. The sites can be compared with the ‘landing places’ and ‘beach markets’ discussed by historical archaeologists in recent years.

The Bronze Age was the first epoch in which societies became irreversibly linked in their co-dependence on ores and metallurgical skills that were unevenly distributed in geographical space. Access to these critical resources was secured not only via long-distance physical trade routes, making use of landscape features such as river networks, as well as built roads, but also by creating immaterial social networks, consisting of interpersonal relations and diplomatic alliances, established and maintained through the exchange of extraordinary objects (gifts). In this article, we reason about Bronze Age communication networks and apply the results of use-wear analysis to create robust indicators of the rise and fall of political and commercial networks. In conclusion, we discuss some of the historical forces behind the phenomena and processes observable in the archaeological record of the Bronze Age in Europe and beyond.

As a result of the exclusive use of extremely small megaliths (miniliths), the prehistoric stone settings of Exmoor, south-west England, challenge current approaches to the interpretation of monumental stone architecture during the later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Whilst the broader context of the practice of erecting tiny upright stones (a seemingly diverse and widespread phenomenon) and the reasons why this diminutive architecture has tended to escape sustained critical comment have been explored (smaller stone elements being relegated to a generalised background or subsidiary role such as ‘packing’), attempts to explain the settings have been remarkably few. Drawing upon the results of ten years of piecemeal fieldwork on the moor the present paper seeks to rectify this, arguing that far from being generalised ritual structures or metaphorical expressions of hunting groups, the tiny stones were, instead, an integral part of a dynamic human–animal landscape of movement and pause.

Excavations in 2008 on the site of a proposed new prison at Belmarsh West, London Borough of Greenwich, found the heavily decayed remains of two superimposed Early Neolithic trackways. These structures, which are radiocarbon dated to the first quarter of the 4th millennium cal BC comprise some of the earliest structures yet encountered in the London Basin. The trackways were found towards the base of a peat sequence, immediately above the underlying Devensian gravels. The associated palaeoenvironmental record suggests that they were constructed in response to rising base levels, within a local floodplain environment dominated by alder carr, in order to maintain mobility across an expanding wetland landscape. The archaeological and geomorphological background to the excavations and a description of the results of the excavations are presented, with a particular emphasis on the Neolithic structures. The significance and wider context of the structures are examined through a consideration of their construction, wider palaeoenvironmental context, and the ways in which the structures can shed light on the nature of Early Neolithic subsistence strategies and land-use within the Thames floodplain.

‘Corded Ware’ in central and eastern Europe is an archaeological phenomenon that has generated multiple ideas and myths about the origins of the Indo-European language, large scale migrations from the eastern Steppes and radical ideological turnovers after 3000 bc. These ideas have been fostered in large part by the over-emphasis placed by successive generations of archaeologists on its extraordinarily large geographical extent and on the seemingly uniform pattern of Corded Ware material culture. The traditional model is characterised by the presence of an early phase, the so-called A-horizon, showing pan-European unity in material culture, and a successive phase characterised by increasing regional variability. However, over the last 15 years, a number of new studies, especially those focusing on the rigorous radiocarbon dating of Corded Ware contexts, bring into question several of the fundamental aspects of this old model. New results strongly suggest that the different components of the Corded Ware A-horizon emerged in several different regions, and that the previously claimed cultural uniformity is instead due to the co-occurrence of some special elements, while regional variability stands out as being much more prominent than hitherto assumed throughout all Corded Ware phases. Here, a new interpretation built on the diversity and regional variability of material culture and burial practices is proposed, one that challenges the view of Corded Ware as an expression of a social totality. This new model argues that several interlinked networks facilitated the flow of new practices and symbols into very diverse regional settings. Rather than viewing the Corded Ware phenomenon as representing a singular identity, ideology, or tradition, it may be more appropriate to regard it as a set of symbols and practices that were selectively incorporated into, and transformed by, local societies; it is this which produced the diversity attested for in the archaeological record

This paper is based on the 2009 Europa lecture which concentrated on the issues surrounding the Early Holocene colonisation of Ireland and placed it both in a broader European context as well as asking why the initial settlement of Ireland should take place so late. It also reconsidered the reasons why there was a significant change in technology within the Irish Mesolithic. This paper suggests that over-emphasis has been placed on the Irish ‘Early’–Later Mesolithic change which had been thought to take place at a very specific point in time. Instead it is suggested that changes began to take place soon after settlement began in Ireland and that many of the classic Mesolithic type fossils, most notably microliths, began to vanish, perhaps around or just after 9000 years cal bp. It seems preferable to redefine the chronology of the Irish Mesolithic into two main phases the EARLIER and LATER Mesolithic with an, as yet undefined, chronological boundary between 8800 and 8600 cal bp. At the same time it recognises that there are significant changes (facies) within each of the major phases, some of which could even be regional. It should also be noted that not all of the facies need necessarily be associated with a distinct range of obvious type fossils.

This paper presents the results of excavations at an Upper Palaeolithic site that was discovered at Rookery Farm, Great Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire in 2002. Diagnostic lithic material – three penknife points – indicates that the site was probably occupied between 12,000 and 11,000 BP, a time of deteriorating climatic conditions. Excavations discovered a small task site, located to take advantage of water and a lithic raw material source. The paper discusses Rookery Farm in relation to other sites of this date and patterns of mobility and settlement across north-west Europe.

This paper seeks to re-examine the long-held view that the Celtic language developed somewhere in west central Europe and was carried westwards to the Atlantic zone, eventually reaching Ireland. An overview of the archaeological evidence for Atlantic connectivity illustrates the longue durée of community interactions along the seaways, beginning around 9000 BC, to the second quarter of the 3rd millennium. At this time mobility increased dramatically and it has been shown clearly that the Maritime Bell Beaker package spread eastwards to impact on and interact with the Battle Axe/Corded Ware tradition. Connectivity was at its most intense during the subsequent Atlantic Bronze Age until, from the 8th century BC, what had been a unified zone began to fragment into a series of regional systems. This broad archaeological scenario, with its firm chronological framework, receives more support from recent DNA studies than does the previous view, which drew heavily on ancient and (now) antiquarian views of Celticness and invasion hypotheses. It is posited that the Celtic language could in fact have emerged in the Atlantic zone and spread eastwards.

This paper aims to offer a new analysis of the social dimensions of seafaring in the 2nd millennium BC and a consideration of the role of seafaring in (re)creating the social order at the time through its economic, sociopolitical and ritual significance. It revisits the sewn-plank boats from Ferriby, Kilnsea, Dover, Calidcot, Testwood Lakes, Goldcliff and Brigg, and aspects of the way in which seafarers signified themselves and their world through their imagined relationship with the environment are illuminated. The study argues that in the Early Bronze Age, sewn-plank boats were used for directional, long-distance journeys, aimed at the ‘cosmological acquisition’ of exotic goods, and the contexts of these boats link the overseas journeys to the ancestors. In the Middle and Late Bronze Age, sewn-plank boats were used for down-the-line exchange, and fragments of sewn-plank boats were included in structured deposits, within or near river crossings, reflecting the idioms of transformation and regeneration which are well established for this period. Through the reconstruction of the boats' crews, it is suggested that the development of a retinue was a prerequisite for the successful completion of the long-distance journeys, and the social identities that were cultivated during these voyages are recognised as a potentially important element in the rise of elite groups in the Early Bronze Age.

Britain's geographical status has fluctuated between an island and a peninsula of Europe several times over the past 500 kya, as sea-levels rose and fell in response to global climate change. In this paper, we outline the currently available lithological and biological evidence for these fluctuations and use it to help construct an heuristic biogeographical framework of human colonisation, settlement, and abandonment, proposing mechanisms that are coupled with both regional palaeogeographical evolution and global climatic change. When used as a means of interpreting the archaeological record, the implications of this framework suggests not only that large-scale socio-culturally relevant patterns may indeed exist in the lithic record, but that these may possibly be understood as part of the ebb and flow of different regional populations, measured against the backdrop of changing climates and landscapes. It is suggested that the Clactonian and Acheulean may represent separate pulses of colonisation, possibly by different European populations, following abandonment during the height of glacial periods: the Clactonian reflecting an early recolonisation event during climatic amelioration, the Acheulean representing a second wave during the main interglacial. This phenomenon is recurrent, being observable during the first two post-Anglian inter glacials. Other patterns in the lithic record are argued to reflect specific endemic technological developments among insular hominid populations during periods of isolation from mainland Europe. These represent some of the few patterns in the British Acheulean that cannot be interpreted more parsimoniously in terms of raw materials.

Understanding of the nature and significance of connections between Armorica and southern Britain in the Early Bronze Age has been inhibited by poorly refined chronologies. The Armorican grave series is now believed to span seven to eight centuries (c. 2300/2200–1500 BC) and association patterns are used to suggest five assemblages (series 1–5). In the absence of many skeletal remains, structural and organisational evidence is gleaned to suggest that some tombs were not immutably sealed and were used more than once. It is suggested that the accumulation of successive grave groups, primarily in series 2 and 4, is one factor blurring signs of chronological progression, whilst added complexity derives from regional shifts.

A review of specific artefact types and burial rites on the two sides of the western Channel gives little credence to the migration of more than occasional individuals. On the contrary, an essential autonomy in the way that materials and artefacts are employed by elites comes through, yet this is set against some important material connections. The conundrum is resolved by suggesting that inter-dependence was actually limited and that the procurement of exotic materials/goods was driven by ‘cosmological acquisition’ needs which, if anything, maintained real differences between distant participating societies. In Wessex, however, the growth of this mode of extracting ideological capital from long-range contacts was to have profound consequences for superordinate centres based around Late Neolithic ceremonial complexes – their ultimate transformation and eclipse.

The interpretation of prehistoric rock art has posed some intractable problems, but recent studies have sought to integrate it within a more broadly based landscape archaeology. They emphasise the special character of this material, not only as a system of distinctive motifs, but also as a source of information employed by people engaged in a mobile pattern of settlement. This paper investigates the character of the rock art of south-west Scotland, comparing the positions of the petroglyphs with two series of control samples in the surrounding landscape. The carvings seem to have been situated at viewpoints. They may have been directed towards the coastline and the Galloway hills and commanded a significantly wider field of vision than locations in the surrounding area. There is some evidence that differences in the size and complexity of the motifs are related to their placing in the local topography, with the simpler carvings around the edges of lowland ‘territories’ near to the shoreline, and the more complex compositions in upland areas, especially around shallow basins and waterholes. The changing character of the designs may reflect differences in the composition of the audience who viewed them.

The general nature of explanations for the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Britain and the current support for the notion of indigenous change are noted. The need for a more regionalized view of the transition is argued with reference to the upper Kennet valley and surrounding chalk downland in north Wiltshire. Problems in the recovery and presentation of later Mesolithic settlement are discussed. A model of later Mesolithic exploitation of the area from camps or bases outside it leads to the view that, whatever the cultural identity of those involved, there was a genuine agricultural colonization of the valley, involving new adaptations and new skills. Such infill is unlikely to have belonged to the primary phase of the establishment of agricultural settlement, and other possible cases of secondary infill in southern England and western Europe are noted.

This paper examines the distribution of stone and flint axes in Wales and the mid-west of England based on systematically collected data. Typological variations within the category of implements generally known as axes are discussed, and the distribution of the largest group, true axes, analysed. Three types of distribution are identified: regional distribution, local distribution and waterborne distribution. Proximity of source is shown to play a major role in the frequency and range of axes present in any given area.

This paper is derived from chapters of a PhD dissertation by Keith Muckelroy which was partially completed at the time of his death in September 1980. Publication of sections relating to work on two Bronze Age wreck sites was thought appropriate since the maritime context of the material and Muckelroy's assessment of its significance related to Bronze Age studies in general as well as the more specific focus of Middle Bronze Age maritime archaeology which formed the core of the research. In these chapters Muckelroy discussed the individual artefact types and their continental relationship and assessed the implications of the Langdon Bay and Moor Sand cargoes in terms of Bronze Age seafaring and the seaborne transportation of goods. His detailed discussion of the bronze forms has been summarized here; and it is upon the maritime aspect that this paper concentrates, this being the area in which Muckelroy's work at the two sites was making its unique contribution.

The two sites under examination, Langdon Bay and Moor Sand, are well-enough known through various interim statements (Baker and Brannigan 1978; Coombs 1976; Muckelroy and Baker 1979; Muckelroy 1980) to require little detailed introduction other than a short description here. Both are important not so much for the particular objects found, but for the implications of the associations and contexts and as a result of the briefest consideration it can be asserted that in the later second millennium BC there existed vessels of size and quality sufficient to transport bulk materials across the channel, probably at regular intervals, and certainly guaranteed of receptions which warranted the organization of Bronze Age shipping by a community or segment of a community.