The Tupí linguistic group is one of the most widespread in South America, indicating a deep history of population movement, yet the ancestral homeland and migration routes of descendant groups remain the subject of debate due to the fragmentary nature of the Amazonian archaeological record. Using a database of more than 660 georeferenced dates from sites of the Tupinambá and Guaraní peoples, the authors deploy a mobility model to investigate the timing of population movements, viable routes and the distances achieved. The results create a more nuanced understanding of the rhythms of migration through an ecologically and socially complex landscape.

As a means for both the construction and communication of social identity in diverse human groups worldwide, objects of personal adornment can help to explain some prehistoric lifeways and beliefs. This study examines the materials and manufacture traces of whole and fragmentary pendants found in association with human burials at the Early Period (c. 4200 cal BC–cal AD 250) Ortiz site in south-western Puerto Rico. Using data from microscopy, elemental analysis and petrography, the authors propose that these pendants were a tangible manifestation of group identity, rooted in a sense of localised belonging, which persisted over almost a millennium.

The River Thames, winding through the English capital of London, is the source of a substantial archaeological assemblage that includes hundreds of human bones, but the lack of a robust chronology for these finds limits interpretation. Here, 30 new radiocarbon dates are reported for the human remains. In combination with other available dates (some of which are also published here for the first time), this improved chronological framework demonstrates a predominance of Bronze and Iron Age dates and emphasises the need to explore the Thames assemblage in the broader context of watery deposition practices of later prehistoric north-west Europe.

During the fourth millennium BC, public institutions developed at several large settlements across greater Mesopotamia. These are widely acknowledged as the first cities and states, yet surprisingly little is known about their emergence, functioning and demise. Here, the authors present new evidence of public institutions at the site of Shakhi Kora in the lower Sirwan/upper Diyala river valley of north-east Iraq. A sequence of four Late Chalcolithic institutional households precedes population dispersal and the apparent regional rejection of centralised social forms of organisation that were not then revisited for almost 1500 years.

The emergence, on the Loess Plateau of Central China, of settlements enclosed by circular ditches has engendered lively debate about the function of these (often extensive) ditch systems. Here, the authors report on a suite of new dates and sedimentological analyses from the late Yangshao (5300–4800 BP) triple-ditch system at the Shuanghuaishu site, Henan Province. Exploitation of natural topographic variations, and evidence for ditch maintenance and varied water flows, suggests a key function in hydrological management, while temporal overlap in the use of these three ditches reveals the large scale of this endeavour to adapt to the pressures of the natural environment.

Administrative innovations in South-west Asia during the fourth millennium BC, including the cylinder seals that were rolled on the earliest clay tablets, laid the foundations for proto-cuneiform script, one of the first writing systems. Seals were rich in iconography, but little research has focused on the potential influence of specific motifs on the development of the sign-based proto-cuneiform script. Here, the authors identify symbolic precursors to fundamental proto-cuneiform signs among late pre-literate seal motifs that describe the transportation of vessels and textiles, highlighting the synergy of early systems of clay-based communication.

The discovery of more than 600 whole and fragmentary engraved stone plaques in the early third millennium BC infill from the ditches of a causewayed enclosure at Vasagård, on the Danish island of Bornholm, represents a unique find in Neolithic miniature art. Termed ‘sun stones’ in reference to the rayed images that characterise many of the plaques, the stones were deposited en masse over a short period. This article offers a fundamental classification of the rich imagery captured in the engravings and examines its potential function at a time of possible climatic crisis that impacted not just Bornholm but the wider northern hemisphere.

Recent genomic analysis of a skull fragment from Newgrange, Ireland, revealed a rare case of incest. Together with a wider network of distantly related passage tomb interments, this has bolstered claims of a social elite in later Neolithic Ireland. Here, the authors evaluate this social evolutionary interpretation, drawing on insecurities in context and the relative rarity of engendered status or resource restrictions in the archaeological record of prehistoric Ireland to argue that the status of individuals during this period is better understood through unstable identity negotiations. Inclusion in a passage tomb, while ‘special’, need not equate to a perpetual elite.

Multidisciplinary research is deepening our understanding of high-altitude pastoralism on the Tibetan Plateau, but such studies also highlight a strong riverine bias in the location of excavated sites. In a move to address this skewing of the dataset, the authors propose the exploration of modern highland corrals with shovel testing and test excavations as a labour-efficient survey method, streamlined through the identification of potential sites from satellite imagery. Three prehistoric sites were successfully located using this method, the earliest dating to the first millennium BC, encouraging the reconsideration of current survey strategies in Tibet and other mountainous regions.

With the eastward expansion of the Western Zhou c. 1050 BC, the Jiaodong Peninsula on the north-east coast of modern-day China became part of a large polity. Excavations at Qianzhongzitou, located on this peninsula, are revealing how political control over local populations took place. Here, the authors focus on a sequence of Zhou-period, non-residential platforms, the construction of which signifies new forms of ritual spaces. These types of spaces, also found elsewhere in the region, arguably aided in the state assimilation of local deities, illustrating the critical role that ritual played in political unification of early Chinese states and dynasties.

Despite almost a century and a half of excavation, the dynamic landscape into which the temple complex of Karnak was embedded is not well understood. Presenting the results of the first comprehensive geoarchaeological survey of the area, the authors show that Karnak was built upon a fluvial terrace segment surrounded by river channels in an island configuration potentially recalling the ‘primeval mound’ of Egyptian creation myths. Permanent occupation of the site became possible after 2520 BC ±420 years, likely during the Old Kingdom. Subsequent landscape changes were dramatic, with the occupants of the island responding both opportunistically and proactively.

The recent identification of an outlying cemetery at the Maya ceremonial centre of Ceibal, Guatemala, is providing new insights into the Preceramic to Middle Preclassic transition in the Maya lowlands, c. 1000 BC. Identified within the Amoch Group complex and dating to c. 1100–800 BC, the use of a dedicated area for the dead is not previously documented in this region for this period. Here, the authors argue that the emergence and subsequent disappearance of this practice was likely interwoven with social change, involving the adoption of ceramics, increasingly sedentary lifeways and, ultimately, the creation of monumental ceremonial centres.

The tattoos of the Pazyryk ice mummies are of paramount importance for the archaeology of Iron Age Siberia and are often discussed from a broad stylistic and symbolic perspective. However, deeper investigations into this cultural practice were hindered by the inaccessibility of quality data. Here, the authors use high-resolution, near-infrared data in conjunction with experimental evidence to re-examine the tools and techniques employed in Early Iron Age tattooing. The high-quality data allow for the previously unfeasible distinction of artist hands and enable us to put the individual back into the picture of a widespread but rarely preserved prehistoric practice.

Monumental constructions are often associated with developed power structures, exploiting unequal access to resources to control large labour forces. Yet archaeological research worldwide increasingly shows that this model is not only an oversimplification, but often is also wrong. Here, the authors explore the burial mounds at Kaillachuro in the Peruvian Andes, and present new radiocarbon dates that position these mounds as the earliest evidence of monumental architecture in the Titicaca Basin. Built over 2000 years through recurring acts of communal memorialisation, this novel architectural tradition forces us to reflect on the role of ritual in socioeconomic transformations of highland Andes communities.

The emergence of early cities required new agricultural practices and archaeobotanical crop-processing models have been used to investigate the social and economic organisation of urban ‘consumer’ and non-urban ‘producer’ sites. Archaeobotanical work on the Indus Valley has previously identified various interpretations of labour and subsistence practices. Here, the authors analyse a large archaeobotanical assemblage from Harappa, Pakistan (3700–1300 BC), questioning some of the assumptions of traditional crop-processing models. The ubiquity of small weed seeds, typically removed during the early stages of crop processing, is argued to result from dung burning. This additional taphonomic consideration adds nuance to the understanding of Harappa's labour organisation and food supply with implications for crop-processing models in other contexts.

The European shores of the Mediterranean are characterised by well-known sociocultural and economic dynamics during the Bronze and Early Iron Ages (2200–550 BC), but our understanding of the African shores is comparatively vague. Here, the authors present results from excavations at Kach Kouch, Morocco, revealing an occupation phase from 2200–2000 cal BC, followed by a stable settlement from c. 1300–600 BC characterised by wattle and daub architecture, a farming economy, distinctive cultural practices and extensive connections. Kach Kouch underscores the agency of local communities, challenging the notion of north-western Africa as terra nullius prior to Phoenician arrival.

The dynamic nature and vast distances of exchange networks in the European Bronze Age are gradually being revealed through an increasing array of provenance studies. Here, the authors report the results of elemental and lead and copper isotope analyses of eight copper-based artefacts from a Middle to early Late Bronze Age settlement in Möriken-Wildegg (Switzerland’s Canton of Aargau). Diverse origins for the copper are identified, including the eastern and southern Alps and, potentially, Cyprus. Given their inconspicuous archaeological context, the authors argue that the objects from Möriken could suggest an influx of Cypriot copper into Central Europe around 1400 BC.

Connectivity and trade dominate discussions of the Mediterranean Bronze and Iron Ages, where artefacts travelled increasing distances by land and sea. Much of the evidence for the means through which such networks operated is necessarily indirect, but shipwrecks offer direct insights into the movement of goods. Here, the authors explore three Iron Age cargoes recently excavated at Tel Dor on the Carmel Coast, the first from this period found in the context of an Iron Age port city in Israel. Spanning the eleventh–seventh centuries BC, these cargoes illuminate cycles of expansion and contraction in Iron Age Mediterranean connectivity and integration.

Direct physical evidence for violent interpersonal conflict is seen only sporadically in the archaeological record for prehistoric Britain. Human remains from Charterhouse Warren, south-west England, therefore present a unique opportunity for the study of mass violence in the Early Bronze Age. At least 37 men, women and children were killed and butchered, their disarticulated remains thrown into a 15m-deep natural shaft in what is, most plausibly, interpreted as a single event. The authors examine the physical remains and debate the societal tensions that could motivate a level and scale of violence that is unprecedented in British prehistory.

Bronze Age–Early Iron Age tin ingots recovered from four Mediterranean shipwrecks off the coasts of Israel and southern France can now be provenanced to tin ores in south-west Britain. These exceptionally rich and accessible ores played a fundamental role in the transition from copper to full tin-bronze metallurgy across Europe and the Mediterranean during the second millennium BC. The authors’ application of a novel combination of three independent analyses (trace element, lead and tin isotopes) to tin ores and artefacts from Western and Central Europe also provides the foundation for future analyses of the pan-continental tin trade in later periods.