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.

Anthracological studies of preserved wooden building materials can help reveal ancient networks of resource mobilisation. Here, the authors report on the analysis of 657 charred timbers from four ancillary pits at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. The frequent use of dark coniferous wood (fir, spruce and hemlock) indicates sophisticated logistical planning and labour organisation—matching historic records of Qin administrative ascendency—because these species required sourcing from across many kilometres of rugged terrain. Identification of a temporal shift towards the use of higher-elevation species points to the ecological impact of large-scale timber harvesting.

The Scytho-Siberian ‘animal style’ encapsulates a broad artistic tradition, which was widespread across the Eurasian Steppe in the first millennium BC, but the scarcity of secure contexts limits the exploration of temporal and regional trends. Here, the authors present animal-style items excavated from a late-ninth-century BC kurgan, Tunnug 1, in Tuva Republic. The limited range of animals and the utilitarian associations of the artefacts suggest a narrow symbolic focus for early Scythian art, yet stylistic diversity evidences the co-operation of multiple social groups in the construction and funerary ritual activities of monumental burial mounds in the Siberian Valley of the Kings.

Roman amphitheatres were centres of public entertainment, hosting various spectacles that often included wild animals. Excavation of a building near the Viminacium amphitheatre in Serbia in 2016 uncovered the fragmentary cranium of a bear. Multistranded analysis, presented here, reveals that the six-year-old male brown bear (Ursus arctos) suffered an impact fracture to the frontal bone, the healing of which was impaired by a secondary infection. Excessive wear to the canine teeth further indicates cage chewing and thus a prolonged period of captivity that makes it likely this bear participated in more than one spectacle at the Viminacium amphitheatre.

Despite being almost 4000m above sea level, cereal crops have been grown in the Ngari Prefecture on the Tibetan Plateau for thousands of years. Where and when domestic crop species adapted to high-altitude growing conditions is a matter of ongoing debate. Here, the authors present a new radiocarbon date from the Gepa serul cemetery, providing the earliest evidence of naked six-rowed barley in Tibet (c. 3500 BP). Evaluating the available evidence for barley cultivation and interregional connections in central Asia at this time, two hypotheses are considered—a generational advance with farmers migrating up river valleys or rapid, long-distance trade through mountain corridors.

Cuneiform tablets indicate the importance of textile manufacturing in the Bronze Age Old Assyrian Colony Period and Hittite Empire, yet the organic traces of this industry rarely survive. Two burnt textile fragments found at Beycesultan offer an unexpected insight into the Bronze Age textile industry in Anatolia. Here, the authors present the results of chromatographic and microscopic analyses that indicate one fragment was made from hemp using the nålbinding, or single-needle knitting, technique and was dyed with the woad or indigo plant, while the other was a natural tabby weave. Both add to our understanding of the diversity of textile production in the Bronze Age.

The abandonment of collective tombs in Middle Bronze Age Crete testifies to substantial transformations in funerary, ritual and social practices on the island. Yet, the processes and timing of this abandonment were not uniform, and each cemetery can potentially offer new insights. While some collective tombs fell gradually into disuse, others were deliberately and ritually terminated. Here, the authors explore the cemetery at Sissi, where gradual abandonment in some areas contrasts with the ultimate demolition and burial of tombs in Zone 9 during a ceremony that marked a major shift in the social history of the associated community.

Despite a notable increase during recent decades in the application of anthropological approaches and archaeometric analyses in Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeology in China, studies relating to the post-Qin period of Chinese history (after 221 BC) continue to focus on social centres and elite tombs, and to rely on historical texts to validate archaeological discoveries. This article examines the extent to which archaeometric analyses might be applied more beneficially in post-Qin contexts and explores current barriers to the wider undertaking of these methods within Chinese archaeology.

The statuary of Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty, is believed to have been targeted for violent destruction by Thutmose III, her successor. Yet the condition of the statues recovered in the vicinity of Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri varies considerably and many survive with their faces virtually intact. Through the examination of archival material from the original excavations, the author offers an alternative, more utilitarian, explanation of the treatment of these statues. Rather than outright hostility, much of the damage may instead derive from the ‘deactivation’ of the statues and their reuse as raw material.

Widening and diversifying trade networks are often cited among the boom and bust of Bronze and Iron Age worlds. The great distances that goods could travel during these periods are exemplified here as the authors describe the spectroscopic identification of Baltic amber beads in an Iron Age cremation grave at Hama in Syria. Yet these beads are not unique in the Near Eastern record; as the authors show, comparable finds and references to amber or amber hues in contemporaneous texts illustrate the high social and economic value of resinous substances—a value based on perceptions of their distant origin.

The Darband Wall in southern Uzbekistan marks an important political border in the Classical world, yet the dating of its construction is largely relative and contested. Presenting 10 new radiocarbon dates from the wall, the authors argue that construction began in the early or middle third century BC, likely under Seleucid or early Greco-Bactrian rule, while later reconstruction efforts coincide with Kushan expansion around the first and second centuries AD. Early Hellenistic-style fortifications reveal a defensive, and possibly an orientational, shift during Kushan rule that underscores both the strategic significance of the wall and the need for more extensive investigation.

Increasing interdisciplinary analysis of geoarchaeological records, including sediment and ice cores, permits finer-scale contextual interpretation of the history of anthropogenic environmental impacts. In an interdisciplinary approach to economic history, the authors examine metal pollutants in a sediment core from the Roman metal-producing centre of Aldborough, North Yorkshire, combining this record with textual and archaeological evidence from the region. Finding that fluctuations in pollution correspond with sociopolitical events, pandemics and recorded trends in British metal production c. AD 1100–1700, the authors extend the analysis to earlier periods that lack written records, providing a new post-Roman economic narrative for northern England.

First minted by polities in north-central Myanmar as early as the fourth century AD, silver coins bearing Rising Sun and Srivatsa motifs have been found in numerous archaeological contexts across Southeast Asia from Vietnam to Bangladesh. Strong standardisation in the design of these coins highlights patterns of trade and cultural interaction across this region that are otherwise underexplored. Here, the authors draw on a dataset of 245 coins from museums in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar, identifying die links that support trade routes between widely disparate areas, and illuminating the utility of die studies in counteracting the illicit trafficking of antiquities.

Textual sources from the Egyptian New Kingdom highlight a societal desire to preserve tombs for life after death, yet extensive architectural renovations and tomb robbing often followed the interment of elite individuals. Rather than posing a threat to conceptions of the afterlife, the author argues that these post-mortem activities were conducted with respect and the intention of forming connections. Using the identification of an unusual ritual structure from the Third Intermediate Period inside the reused Nineteenth Dynasty tomb of Paenmuaset (TT362) at Thebes (Luxor) as a basis, the author explores respect in ever-changing burial spaces as a key feature of tomb reuse.

Recent research on the organisation and growth of large settlements (both urban and non-urban) has prompted a reassessment of factors driving population aggregation. Systematic aerial and ground survey of the South Caucasus mega-fortress Dmanisis Gora, described here, contributes to the understanding of large fortress settlements in the South Caucasus (c. 1500–500 BC) as part of this wider debate. Substantial defensive walls and stone architecture in the outer settlement contrast with low-intensity occupation, possibly by a seasonally mobile segment of the population. The exceptional size of Dmanisis Gora helps add new dimensions to population aggregation models in Eurasia and beyond.

The development of runic writing (the early Germanic alphabetic script) and the practice of inscribing runes on stone are difficult to trace, particularly as rune-stone inscriptions are rarely found in original and/or datable contexts. The discovery of several inscribed sandstone fragments at the grave field at Svingerud, Norway, with associated radiocarbon dates of 50 BC–AD 275, now provide the earliest known context for a runestone. An unusual mixture of runes and other markings are revealed as the fragments are reconstructed into a single standing stone, suggesting multiple episodes of inscription and providing insight into early runic writing practices in Iron Age Scandinavia.

The Romans were among the first societies to extensively exploit fish resources, establishing large-scale salting and preservation plants where small pelagic fish were fermented to produce sauces such as garum. Here, the authors demonstrate that, despite being crushed and exposed to acidic conditions, usable DNA can be recovered from ichthyological residues at the bottom of fish-salting vats. At third-century AD Adro Vello (O Grove), Galicia, they confirm the use of European sardines (Sardina pilchardus) and move beyond morphology to explore population range and admixture and reveal the potential of this overlooked archaeological resource.

Oasis communities across Central Asia were key to the emergence and maintenance of the ancient Silk Roads that spanned Eurasia from the late second century BC, yet our understanding of early interaction networks in this region is limited. Multi-isotopic analysis of human teeth from the Zaghunluq Cemetery, southern Xinjiang (sixth century BC to first century AD) now suggests that oasis communities established intricate exchange networks, forming strong ties with other nearby oases and mountain pastoralists and weak ties, facilitated through in migration, with more distant regions. These diverse connections, the authors argue, made possible cultural exchange across the challenging geography of eastern Central Asia.

Archaeogenetics, the study of ancient DNA, can reveal powerful insights into kinship and the movement of individuals in (pre)history. Here, the authors report on the identification of two individuals with genetic profiles consistent with recent sub-Saharan African ancestry, both of whom were buried in early-medieval cemeteries in southern Britain. Focusing primarily on a sub-adult female from Updown in Kent, the authors explore the societal and cultural contexts in which these individuals lived and died, and the widening geographic links indicated by their presence, pointing back to the Byzantine reconquest of North Africa in AD 533–534.

Mountains figure prominently in Mesoamerican cosmogeny, and a deep history of pilgrimage and worship surrounds many, though few have been systematically investigated using modern archaeological methods. Here, the authors present results from the lidar mapping and surface survey of a plateau at the summit of Cerro Patlachique, located at the southern limit of the Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico. While ceramic typology establishes Cerro Patlachique as a site of pilgrimage before, during and after the occupation of Teotihuacan, the documentation of 34 carved monuments substantially expands the existing corpus and identifies the summit as a place of convocation with water deities.