ABSTRACT Published faunal assemblage analyses of medieval and early modern contexts from Portuguese archaeological sites remain infrequent. Nevertheless, the attention given to these materials has grown in the last decades, allowing us to identify consumption trends throughout the Iberian Peninsula. This paper presents the results of a faunal assemblage analysis from Vila Franca de Xira (Portugal), ascribed to the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries. In this context, the predominance of domestic mammals can be observed, mainly sheep/goat, cattle and pig. Birds, fish and molluscs, beyond other mammals like leporids and, possibly, cervids, would have complemented this population’s diet. Although most identified species belong to domestic animals, the presence of wild species was detected, attesting to the practice of hunting and fishing. These results can be compared to other Portuguese faunal assemblages from the same period.

ABSTRACT The archaeological sequence at western Lake Constance is famous for the high-density of Late Neolithic lakeshore settlements. Recent excavations uncovered Middle Neolithic (MN) sites near the prehistoric lakeshore, with the site Reichenau-B33 providing a bioarchaeological assemblage. Anthracological, carpological, and archaeozoological results from Reichenau-B33, embedded in the analysis of a large bioarchaeological dataset, covering Early Neolithic (Linearbandkeramik) and MN (Hinkelstein, Grossgartach, Rössen) assemblages from southwest Germany allow elucidating subsistence adaptations of these first farmers. Wood exploitation targeted the site’s hinterland, relying mainly on oak, beech and ash. The charred carpological assemblage reveals typical MN crops with naked barley, emmer, and einkorn, while pulses and oil crops are very rare. Two Chenopodium album seeds concentrations reflect the routine exploitation of wild plants also mirrored at several other MN sites. The faunal assemblage of Reichenau-B33 is dominated by red deer (>70%) and includes low proportions of domestic pig and sheep/goat. Thus, the first farmers at Lake Constance adapted to a forested landscape, in which clearings for settlements and fields likely attracted wild herbivores that were routinely hunted. This focus on red deer hunting may have been an opportunistic response, allowing obtaining animal resources while conserving the small herds of livestock and protecting crop fields.

ABSTRACT This study explores Palaeolithic human occupation at thermal springs in Europe and Asia Minor by reconstructing palaeoecological conditions for 12 thermal spring sites and 97 control Palaeolithic sites using machine learning and dimensionality reduction techniques. K-nearest neighbours analysis indicates that thermal spring sites were occupied under hot, dry Mediterranean, oceanic, or humid continental climates. Age-specific δ18O data suggest these sites were mostly used during cold or moderately cold global climatic conditions.Principal Component Analysis revealed that thermal spring sites experienced drier climates with higher diurnal and annual temperature ranges than control sites. Two distinct clusters emerged based on reconstructed palaeoenvironmental conditions: a temperate cluster, subdivided into Mediterranean and oceanic subclusters, and a humid continental cluster. Linear Discriminant Analysis clearly separated thermal spring sites from non-thermal ones.Ensemble algorithms identified temperature annual range, annual precipitation, and clothing coverage as key differentiators between thermal spring and control sites, depending on paleoclimate. This analysis highlights the varied motivations for Palaeolithic occupations at thermal springs across diverse European and Asia Minor environments.

ABSTRACT This article discusses the archaeological, geoarchaeogical and chronological finds of our 2020–2022 fieldwork south of Caesarea, along with several archaeological and geomorphological surveys of altogether three innovative agroecosystems in the coastal sand bodies of the southeastern Mediterranean coast in Israel. The finds are hypothesised to be the first of its kind and the first major attempt to cultivate inert aeolian sand. These Early Islamic Plot-and-Berm agroecosystems perhaps heralded similar types of later traditional groundwater harvesting agrotechnologies in aeolian sand that existed along the southeastern Mediterranean coast, in Saharan Algeria, Iran and in the Atlantic coast of Iberia. The finds, combined with ongoing physical studies of the agroecosystems and their traditional analogues are anticipated to yield better understanding of the function of the agroecosystems that in turn, will provide new insights on a variety of research subjects stimulated by the database accumulated during and after our fieldwork.

ABSTRACT This special issue is the result of the publication of papers presented at ArchaeOrganics: the 1st Italian Workshop on the Analysis of Archaeological Organics Remains held in 2019 at Sapienza University in Rome. The concept behind the workshop was to discuss the state of the art of bioarchaeological investigations carried out by Italian researchers. This resulted in a heterogeneous assemblage of papers, of which some were selected for the special issue. The common theme that brings together the different contributions is food, investigated in a variety of contexts, from mostly the Western-central Mediterranean area, and different chronological periods. In particular, the issue provides examples of investigation on production (including herding strategies) and transportation of food, the differential consumption of commodities due to social status, milk intake in children, the differentiation between congenital and acquired metabolic stress, as well as methodological applications aimed at testing methods or providing better insights into data interpretation. The publication of this issue aims to precede the next Archaeorganics meeting to be held again in Rome in 2025/2026, and act as a basis upon which new developments in the discipline to be discussed.

ABSTRACT The highly perishable nature of earthen architecture in the Bronze Age Aegean, where walls were largely built of sundried mudbricks set on a stone socle, has hindered an accurate perception of buildings in this period and region. The recent proliferation of research on mudbricks is slowly recognising their systematic use in construction, but primary evidence is still difficult to collect. Here, we explore the potential of marine shells to generate data for the reconstruction of architecture in the Bronze Age Aegean, especially on Crete. We argue that tiny molluscan shells were inadvertently incorporated along the seagrasses used as vegetal temper in the mudbricks matrix. Seagrasses offer an ideal environment for specific molluscan taxa; the latter are considered by geological and archaeomalacological studies as indirect indicators for marine plants in the fossil and in the archaeological record respectively. Relying on archaeomalacological material from Early and Middle Bronze Age (3rd and early 2nd millennium BCE) contexts in the Minoan settlement at Malia and setting it in perspective against broader ethnographic, historical and archaeological evidence, the aim of this paper is to showcase the potential of specific molluscan taxa to serve as an indirect proxy for identifying the presence of disintegrated mudbrick walls.

ABSTRACT Significant changes to subsistence economy and hunting habits have occurred in hunter-gatherer societies in the Levant, starting as early as the late Epi-Palaeolithic. Among the observed changes were the increase in the frequencies of gazelles and small sized animals, including small carnivore species, primarily foxes and felids. The role of the red fox in Late Natufian and early Neolithic economies in the southern Lavant has been examined in previous studies, though rarely in detail, while the role of wildcats has been largely neglected. We studied fox and wildcat remains from EPPNB Aḥihud (Israel), in order to elucidate their role in the economy of the site. We found relatively high frequencies of fox and wildcat remains and an abundance of burn signs and cut marks, which enabled us to conduct a detailed study of these small carnivore remains in their archaeological context. Our study demonstrates that foxes and wildcats were hunted and exploited intensively, both for their fur and for their meat. Hence, we suggest that they should be considered as game animals in future studies of animal exploitation in the Early Neolithic.

ABSTRACT This article presents the findings of a developer-funded, geoarchaeological study at Brackenway, Formby, Merseyside. The study comprised the extraction of borehole cores, which were subjected to deposit modelling, radiocarbon dating, and palaeoenvironmental assessment that considered a range of environmental proxies (pollen, plant macrofossils, diatoms, microfauna and insects). The study identified two terrestrial (peat) layers, separated by a perimarine deposit (the Downholland Silt), and these provide important data on the chronology of sea-level change in Merseyside, the formation of the Irish Sea, and of potential hunter-gatherer activity during the mid-late ninth and eighth millennia cal BC. It therefore highlights the way in which comparatively small-scale developer-funded investigations can produce important records of environmental change, which can be used to supplement and refine pre-existing models of sea-level and landscape change relevant to both the locale and wider regions.

ABSTRACT Archaeobotanical material from excavations at Tel Bet Yerah (Khirbet el-Kerak) provides insight into Early Bronze Age urbanisation in the Southern Levant and differences in food choices between Levantine and diasporic Early Transcaucasian communities. In the pre-urban period of the Early Bronze 1B (3350-3100 BC), comparative analysis of cereals and crop processing by-products indicates that food production was managed by individual households in a village type economy. The site dramatically changed in the Early Bronze II urbanisation period (3100–2850 BC). Household food production appeared stable throughout, however, there is evidence for beginnings of centralised storage of agricultural resources in the urban period at Tel Bet Yerah. During the Early Bronze III (2850–2500 BC), the site’s urban organisation collapsed and migrant settlers bearing Khirbet Kerak Ware occupied abandoned sections of the site alongside local inhabitants. Comparison of crops and weed flora identifies that the two groups potentially cultivated and processed some of their crops separately and that the crop choices of the Khirbet Kerak Ware community maintained connections to northern Early Transcaucasian Culture culinary traditions.

ABSTRACT Previous work at the Xishanping site, located in the upper Wei River basin in eastern Gansu Province, NW China, has identified the earliest archaeological evidence for agricultural diversification for the period 5200–4300 cal. yr BP. This study presents the first integrated archaeobotanical and isotopic research on charred crop remains at Xishanping site. Our essay suggests that late Yangshao populations at Xishanping not only implemented a wider mixed-crop millet-based agricultural regime, but to some extent intensified cultivation from around 5200–4800 cal. yr BP. This study enriches current understandings of the spatial and temporal changes in agricultural practices in the late Neolithic Wei River Basin at the dawn of complex society in northern China.