Cemeteries are a primary source of evidence for the late prehistoric and early historical periods in Sicily. An abundance of tomb goods is available for study from modern republications of ‘legacy data’, especially for the southeast of the island, which was a focal point of Greek colonization in the central Mediterranean. This area also contains an unusual concentration of Final Bronze and Iron Age sites, which permits an extended view of indigenous cultural development over six centuries or more. Adopting an empirical approach, the article compares dress items, tools, weapons and pottery from four key sites—Pantalica, Cassibile, Monte Finocchito and Monte Casasia—which were major centres of indigenous population at various times between ca. 1200 and ca. 550 BC. Several trends and patterns are identified that enhance our understanding of continuity and change, interaction and ritual practices in relation to cultural identity over a period that also encompassed Greek and Phoenician colonization. Comparisons between burials at Finocchito, Syracuse and mainland Greece from the eighth and seventh centuries BC highlight bilateral and asymmetrical aspects of cultural interaction between indigenous people and Greek settlers in Sicily.

Excavations at Žukovica Cave (Korčula Island, Croatia) have yielded evidence of Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic occupations. A layer dated to 6400–5900 cal BC contained commingled lithics, potsherds, wild and domesticated animal bones, mollusk shells, personal ornaments and human remains attributable to the latest hunter-gatherers and the earliest farmers in the region. We argue that people who practiced these different subsistence strategies occasionally came into contact and that the people buried at Žukovica led lives fed by hunting, gathering and fishing but that also featured certain cultural behaviors adopted from newly arrived farmers.

The use of anthropomorphic ossuaries, so-called ‘canopic urns’, is a burial custom documented during the seventh and sixth centuries BC in the territory of the Etruscan city-state of Clevsi/Clusium, modern Chiusi (Tuscany, Central Italy). This particular type of ossuary represents a human body and serves as an ideal portrait of the deceased after the destructive act of cremation. The necropolis of Tolle, located in the western part of this territory, has yielded 136 of these canopic urns, which is the largest collection on record from undisturbed contexts. In this study, we present an integrated analysis of the canopic urns, a wide range of associated archaeological data and osteological data of cremated human and faunal remains. Our aim was to test the correspondence between gender attributions on the basis of the iconography of the urns, grave goods and the biological profile of the deceased, according particular emphasis to the relationship between sex and gender. The resulting 95.6% correspondence is not only remarkably high but also allows us to describe funerary behaviour, gendered roles and identities in this Etruscan community. Online Supplementary MaterialsSupplement 1Supplement 2

Neolithization is one of a handful of major social and economic processes that affected the entire Mediterranean, even if in quite different ways across different periods and regions. Everywhere, however, its impact was substantial, affecting also other parts of Europe and West Asia. It is therefore with good reason that the study of Neolithization has a long and distinguished track-record going back, at least, to the work of Childe, who first characterized Neolithization as a revolution (Childe 1925: 15). He would eventually go on to describe it more fully (Childe 1942: 48) as an ‘economic and scientific revolution’, even using the term ‘revolutionaries’ to refer to the people involved—whom we would now call ‘social actors’ (Gamble 2007: 10-26). In Childe’s understanding, migration and agriculture were the cornerstones of the Neolithic revolution, and these two phenomena have remained central to academic debates about Neolithization to this day.

This paper investigates the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the northern Adriatic by testing theoretical models of Neolithization through a review of the available radiocarbon evidence. While our understanding of the spread of farming in Europe has improved significantly in recent years, especially due to an increasing body of ancient DNA evidence, this does not seem to be the case for the northern Adriatic. Here, not only is there a lack of ancient genetic material, but significant changes in landscape configuration caused by postglacial sea-level rise have affected archaeological visibility. Unresolved aspects of the transition include the scarcity of Late Mesolithic sites, the debated role of hunter-gatherers, and the swift establishment of a fully developed farming economy. In this paper, chronological data obtained from radiocarbon dating is used to argue for a ‘spectrum of possibilities’, with different dynamics in different subregions and different lines of evidence supporting distinct mechanisms of Neolithization, often with an equifinal outcome. It is shown that the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the northern Adriatic occurred over the entirety of the sixth millennium BC, but also that different readings of the data suggest leapfrog colonization and frontier mobility occurring in different areas, or even in a single subregion. Online Supplementary MaterialSupplement 1

Northwest Africa has long been portrayed as passive and peripheral within broader narratives of exchange, mobility and transformation in later Mediterranean prehistory. Drawing on archaeological, radiocarbon and genetic data, this paper reconsiders the region between ca. 3800 and 500 bc as an active and dynamic crossroads bridging the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Sahara. It traces long-term changes in the social landscape, settlement patterns, material culture, architecture and agricultural practices. From the emergence of large open-air farming settlements during the Final Neolithic (ca. 3800–2900 BC) to northwest Africa’s integration into Atlantic Beaker exchange networks in the Copper Age (ca. 2900–2200 BC), the study challenges older diffusionist models by highlighting local agency and innovation. The Bronze Age (ca. 2200–800 BC) is shown to be characterised by a mosaic of burial traditions, metal use and mobility, while the Mauretanian 1 period (ca. 800–500 BC) witnessed sustained interactions with Phoenician communities. Yet rather than a narrative of cultural imposition, the evidence points to selective adaptation and hybridisation, revealing how local communities actively shaped the region’s socioeconomic and cultural dynamics. Supplementary Materials can be found appended to the online version of this article.

The Iron Age tumuli around ancient Gordion provide a unique window into coalescing processes of craft specialization, elite self-definition, monumentality, and intercommunity social interactions in central Anatolia between ca. 850 and 525 BC. This paper examines the use of timber in the construction of tomb chambers at Gordion through the lenses of social value and social capital and a quantitative comparison of tomb chamber dimensions. It finds a close relationship between monumental architecture, tumulus construction, and the creation of an elite, aristocratic class based on the accumulation of social capital, enacted through the acquisition and display of timber during the ninth century bc, the Early Phrygian period. The transportation of timber from beyond the immediate hinterland, the skillful crafting employed for tomb chamber construction, the element of enchantment imparted by the scale and concentration of timber as used in a chamber, and the transformative processes of the funerary rite all establish that timber was a socially valued good at Iron Age Gordion. Groups burying in tumuli appear to have competed for its acquisition and use in mortuary architecture, evident in the close correlation between tumulus size, chamber size, and maximum timber size, in particular during the ninth century BC when compared with the roughly 300-year-long period of inhumation-tumulus construction that followed. Access to and competition over this socially valued good were important processes in the development of new elite ideologies, which included attempts at the establishment of hereditary aristocratic status, a valuation of social capital. As a specialized craft tied to this social and ideological change, carpentry appears to have operated within an aristocratic mode of production; that is, it was shaped by an ethos of distinction and legitimation. Supplementary Materials can be found appended to the online version of this article.

The intensification of agricultural production in the Fertile Cresent during the Early Bronze Age (EBA) is reflected in two farming tools: Canaanean blades, which were thinner than Neolithic blades; and the threshing sledge, into which some of these blades were inserted. In northern Mesopotamia, most Canaanean blades were long and wide, made by pressure using a lever and copper point, although some were narrower and produced by indirect percussion or by pressure with a crutch. In the Levant, however, although some wide examples have been recovered, narrow forms predominated. Controlled experiments have revealed that microwear on blade segments used in sledge inserts is different from microwear on segments used as sickles. This paper analyses samples of Canaanean blades and blade segments from Tell ʿAtij in northern Mesopotamia and Ein Zippori in the Levant to examine (1) whether wider and narrower Canaanean blade segments were used for different tasks, (2) whether some Canaanean blade segments were designed specifically to be inserted into sickle handles and used for harvesting and (3) whether sickle inserts were recycled and used in threshing sledges. We also discuss how production and use of Canaanean blades is related to EBA agricultural intensification.

This article explores personhood in so-called Argaric society, which existed in the southeastern Iberian Peninsula during the Early and Middle Bronze Ages (2220–1550 BC). The first part of the article reviews how personhood has been studied archaeologically, paying particular attention to the work of the Spanish theoretical archaeologist Hernando, and emphasising how personhood is structurally connected to other aspects of society. The second part then examines key aspects of Argaric funerary evidence, to explore how particular objects and processes would have contributed towards the creation and maintenance of specific notions of personhood. The article argues that while the Argaric world would have presented a fundamentally relational notion of personhood, it is also possible to identify the existence of alternative conceptions such as individuality and collective individuality, as well as a permeable notion of personhood.

The end of the Iron Age in Mallorca, known as the Post-Talayotic period (ca. 550–123 BC), was a time of significant change among the island’s indigenous population, including in their funerary world. The topic of funerary practices most usually has been examined through studies that focus predominantly on burial types, grave goods and funerary spaces. With this article, however, I suggest a new direction: sensory archaeology, here used to explore individual experiences and to identify the activities surrounding the death of a group member. Sixteen burial sites across Mallorca show that Post-Talayotic funerary practices extend beyond variations in body treatment to include a series of activities shaped by multisensory experiences that have hitherto been overlooked or underexamined. These activities comprise body ornamentation, ritual consumption, funerary music and ritual movement, and encounters between different groups likely played a pivotal role in shaping changes and continuities of funerary practices at this time. The nuanced perspective of sensory archaeology offers valuable insights into understanding the social dynamics of the period, with broad implications for our comprehension of this transformative era. The research reevaluates the archaeological narrative of the Post-Talayotic funerary world, emphasizing a groundbreaking, dynamic and multisensory approach that moves beyond static archaeological documentation.