Textile research has become an important field of archaeology. Although the established analytical methods are often viewed as specialized, their integration with other interdisciplinary approaches allows us to deal with broader archaeological issues and provides the interpretational base for a much more comprehensive investigation of textiles in ancient times. Analyses of fibres, dyes, archaeobotanical and archaeozoological remains, as well as palaeoenvironmental and geochemical investigations, provide information about available resources, while tool studies, experimental testing, and visual grouping are approaches that explore the technology and techniques. Together, these approaches can provide new knowledge about textile production and consumption and, thereby, about people and society in ancient times.

Chronology remains a problematic area in prehistoric archaeology but the increasing number and precision of radiometric dates begin to suggest patterns that can be resolved down to the scale of individual lifetimes. The study of megalithic monuments has benefited from these developments but remains hampered by the indirect relationship between the materials that are dated and the structures themselves. Drawing on evidence from France, Scandinavia, and Iberia, it is nonetheless arguable that available patterns of dates suggest an event-like tempo to the construction of megalithic monuments, with large numbers being built within relatively short periods of time. This has implications for typological models and for the social context in which such monuments were designed and built.

The mining complex of Braçal and Malhada was the chief lead exploration site in Portugal in Roman times. This article outlines the type of mining conducted on site and discusses the associated findings, which point to a date in the mid-first century AD. Some aspects of the findings offer a new perspective on the relationship between mining sites and places of entertainment, in other words, the likelihood of temporary amphitheatres for gladiator games. This relationship may also apply to other locations in northern Portugal where gold was mined.

The major production centres of lustreware in Renaissance Italy (Deruta and Cafaggiolo) have been chosen as a case study to prove the importance of combining archaeological and written evidence, with production in Montelupo and Faenza also taken into account. The focus is on the relationship between different production centres and the movement of potters from one centre to the next as a unique means of transmitting technical knowledge. Written sources such as ‘recipes’ were not created by potters, but were usually collected by others decades after the actual transmission of skills occurred. In this respect the influence of models in the form of ‘fashionable’ objects circulating in the Mediterranean area, together with the movements of people, prove vital. The first appearance and transmission of lustreware are summarized, underlining the importance of the contacts with Spain. If the Italian tin-glazed pottery known as italo-moresca can be regarded as the result of imitated models, lustreware production requires skills that could not have been acquired by chance.