ABSTRACT Thulamela was the centre of an African kingdom that flourished during the mid-second millennium AD. Research carried out in the 1990s, however, is incomplete and under-reported, and knowledge of the settlement is largely assumed or based on published scraps of information and borrows heavily and uncritically from research at what are thought to be similar state centres. Thulamela remains an enigma. In this paper, we present the story of Thulamela, and how we aim to redress the dominant narratives of the site and its history. Our study reviews the work carried out during the 1990s at the walled complex and revisits the original collection of finds, most of which remains underanalysed and unpublished. We lay the groundwork for future in-depth inter-disciplinary research that aims to shed new light on this neglected kingdom and the history of southern Africa.

Abstract The Fremont archaeological complex of the northern Colorado Plateau represents a mixed subsistence economy based on small-scale farming and foraging. However, the role of maize within the Fremont diet and its temporal span are poorly understood in northwestern Colorado, which is an eastern periphery of the broader Fremont tradition. Previous estimates in the region suggest that Fremont lifeways began early in the first millennium AD and persisted late into the 1600s. In this study, we examine 53 radiocarbon dates of maize macrofossils and short-lived wood/plant fragments from granary features from 33 sheltered and open-air sites in the study area. Based on our Bayesian modeling efforts, small-scale corn farming most likely began around cal AD 740–815 and ended between cal AD 1270 and 1320 , with a modeled duration of 515 years. Several peaks are apparent within the summed probability distribution (cal AD 970–1050 and cal AD 1090–1130), suggesting that the most intensive era for maize farming is coeval with social and subsistence trends evident across the broader Uinta Basin. We provide evidence of a restricted maize chronology throughout the study area, but further work is needed to understand the proportional contribution of maize to the Fremont diet.

An open area excavation was undertaken at Loak Farm, Bankfoot, Perth and Kinross in 2019 in advance of a borrow pit being opened to supply stone for work on the A9 dualling project. The excavation uncovered seven roundhouses, eight four-post structures, two six-post structures, two ring ditches, an oval post-built structure, a lightweight post-built structure, a post- and post-trench structure, and numerous isolated pits and groups of pits. Radiocarbon dating places the majority of these features in the Late Bronze Age and IronAge, indicating that the site was a fairly extensive settlement of later prehistoric date. A small assemblage of pottery and coarse stone tools was recovered; the stone tools indicated some limited craftworking activities were taking place at the site.Several features, including a corn-drying kiln and possible field oven, and pits containing ironsmithing evidence, returned dates in the very early medieval period, indicating some reuse of the settlement into the second half of the first millennium AD.

This article presents a cultural-chronological interpretation of archaeological materials recovered from mound No. 3, excavated by M.P. Gryaznov in 1939 at the Yakonur site. This multi-temporal burial and memorial complex is situ-ated near the eponymous village in the Ust-Kan District of the Altai Republic. The mound in question is a substantial structure containing two graves. Of these, burial 1 proved to be the most informative, featuring the remains of an individual interred alongside a horse. An analysis of the associated inventory (including ornaments and horse equipment) made it possible to date burial mound No. 3 to the period spanning the second half of the 9th century to the first half of the 10th century AD. The burial is attributed to the cultural tradition of the early medieval Turks. The revealed peculiarities in the funerary ritual suggest a possible decline in the traditional practices of the local commu-nity, potentially influenced by other nomadic groups. Furthermore, the materials of the Yakonur complex and the presence of contemporaneous burials conducted according to the cremation rite may indicate cultural interaction between the Turks and the Kyrgyz during the late 1st millennium AD. Additionally, it is plausible to hypothesize con-tacts between the population of the Western Altai and the bearers of the Srostki culture, as well as with the Kimeks.

In Tassili n’Ajjer, a UNESCO World Heritage property, and the Hoggar Mountains prehistoric rupestrian (rock) art reveals a critical narrative of environmental transformation. Dating from 10,000 BC to approximately the first millennium AD, these paintings document a once-verdant Sahara, contrasting sharply with today’s arid landscape. These archaeological treasures now face an existential threat from contemporary climate change. Unpredictable rainfall, increased humidity and temperature fluctuations are systematically degrading the delicate art. As climate change intensifies, the study emphasizes the need for integrated conservation approaches that combine advanced monitoring, community-based stewardship and international collaboration.

ABSTRACT Archaeology often adheres to established periodisations, sometimes overlooking long-term societal transformations. One such shift in Northern Britain during the first millennium AD was the emergence of naturalistic stone carving. Traditionally seen as an ‘early medieval’ phenomenon, recent dating suggests this tradition began in the Roman Iron Age. However, the deeper cognitive and material changes driving this transformation remain underexplored. Why did stone carvers, after millennia of generally abstract mark-making, begin carving naturalistic forms? This article argues that this shift was underpinned by a fundamental change in religious cognition, enacted after a period of contact with the Roman world. In this important horizon of change the materiality of stone was harnessed to enhance the efficacy of a new canon of images produced during a period where new social hierarchies were consolidated at the northern frontier.

Abstract Urbanism shaped social, ideological, and environmental transformations on the tropical eastern African Swahili Coast from the end of the first millennium AD onward. However, it is unclear how settlement trajectories in this region compare with recently expanded understandings of urbanism within the contexts of tropical ecology globally. To address this question, I consider the biogeographical and sociopolitical conditions of urban growth in the region from AD 1000 to 1900, drawing from archaeological research around the city of Zanzibar Stone Town. Unlike other parts of the tropics, Swahili urbanization did not involve extensive landscape engineering, distributed urban networks, or low-density sprawl. Rather, mercantile, communal, and ritual activities drew people into dense, compact towns and cities that persisted through significant social and environmental transformations. I argue that the ethnographically derived model of the Swahili townland is a suitable framework for characterizing tropical Swahili urbanism. It featured compact, high-density settlement forms, managed tropical resource landscapes, and long-distance mobility and connectivity enabled by open, bilateral kinship systems. In the 19th century, however, globalizing forces drove deforestation and expansion into rural countrysides for cash cropping, setting certain Swahili cities like Zanzibar Stone Town on a trajectory toward their present-day sprawling, peri-urban form. Townland dynamics, featuring concentrated urban functions but widely distributed resource acquisition practices enabled by distributed social networks, may help explain urban growth in other parts of the tropics where dense, compact settlement systems emerged.

ABSTRACT From the 6th century AD, documentary records suggest that Tiree became home to several monastic communities, including St. Columba’s Mag-Luinge. It is unclear whether these were still present at the start of Norse occupation in the 9th century, or whether the island experienced the sort of Viking attacks that were documented on Iona between the 8th and 10th centuries. This paper provides new insight into the cultural transitions impacting Tiree between the 7th and 10th centuries using a high-resolution palaeoenvironmental sampling strategy. Findings include a strong agricultural economy during the 7th century (close to Soroby, one of the proposed locations of Mag-Luinge); a brief period of agricultural collapse (cereals) during the 8th century (possible causes: Viking/other raids, disease, or environmental change?); and arable intensification, burning, heathland and arboreal decline between the 9th and 10th centuries, potentially linked to Norse occupation. A similar collapse-recovery has been found on Iona.

The article addresses two main issues. The first concerns the reconstruction of the distribution boundaries of archaeological sites associated with the Smolensk- Polack Long Barrow Culture and the East Lithuanian Barrow Culture in the interfluve of the Western Dvina (Daugava) and Neman during the last centuries of the first millennium AD (9th–10th centuries, up until the early 11th century). The second issue explores the nature of relations among the population of this frontier: whether these relations can be characterised as peaceful coexistence or as conflict involving different groups of frontier dwellers competing over territory and resources. Both issues are examined based on archaeological evidence. Pobierz artykuł Cytuj artykuł Udostępnij

This article examines the discovery of tweezers at Slavic sites and archaeological complexes in the southern part of Eastern Europe, dated to the second half of the 1st millennium AD. Data were collected from 13 Slavic sites. According to cultural affiliation, the finds are distributed as follows: Upper Voronezh group (2), Kolochyn culture (3), Prague culture (1), Kolochyn culture/Sakhnivka horizon (1), Sakhnivka horizon (1), Sakhnivka horizon/Volyntsevo/Romny culture (1), Prague/Raikovetska culture (1), Borshevska culture (1), Volyntsevo culture (1), and Romny culture (1). Eight of the sites are represented by hillforts, while five are settlements. Seven sites yielded one find each, and five sites produced two finds. Three fragments come from a single settlement, though the total number of items at that location cannot be determined. In total, 17 complete or nearly complete tweezers and three fragments have been documented. The majority of these finds date to the third quarter of the 1st millennium AD. Three sites belong to the last quarter of the millennium. Two finds from Plisnesk and one from Khodosivka cannot be precisely dated. Tweezers from the craft settlement of Staevo 5 and from the 1991 goldsmith’s hoard at the Pastyrske hillfort may be associated with jewelry-making. The functional purpose of the remaining items remains uncertain. Slavic tweezers were made of iron and bronze. Overall, all finds can be divided into three types based on the shape of their ends: Type 1: with thin, straight ends; Type 2: with gradually widening trapezoidal ends; Type 3: with sharply widening triangular ends. Type 3 is mainly found in the forested zone, while Type 2 predominates on the Right Bank of Ukraine. Interestingly, tweezers first appeared among the Slavs as imported items during the Roman period, within the context of the Late Zarubyntsi culture type and Kyiv culture. By the early Middle Ages, tweezers were known across vast territories, and Slavic regions in Eastern Europe were, in fact, almost “encircled” by areas where such items were widespread.

The article presents the results of new exploratory research conducted in the vicinity of the village of Selyshche in the Dnistrovskyi district of the Chernivtsi region – an area located between two well-studied centers of the Chernyakhiv culture near Komariv and Buzovytsia. Based on archival data, topographic observations, and fieldwork carried out in 2023, three settlements dating to the first half of the 1st millennium AD were localized: Selyshche–Obyinyk, Selyshche–Burdyuhy (Burdyuk), and the newly identified Selyshche–1–2023. For the first two sites, boundaries and internal structure were clarified, individual concentrations of surface finds were identified, and differences in the density of archaeological material across separate zones were recorded. The collected assemblages include wheel-thrown Chernyakhiv pottery, handmade ceramics of the Early Iron Age, isolated Trypillian fragments, and imported amphorae. Particular attention is given to amphora fragments, which serve as key indicators for chronological refinement and the reconstruction of interregional connections. Amphorae of the Forlimpopoli type, produced in Northern Italy in the late 1st–3rd centuries AD, have direct analogies in the Komariv assemblage and allow several finds to be dated to the mid-3rd century. Fragments of narrow-necked vessels of the Shelov D/F group span the period from the early 3rd to the second half of the 4th century AD and indicate stable contacts with the Danube–Black Sea region in the late Roman period. Other amphora fragments, although not typologically defined, correspond to the Roman–Early Byzantine ceramic tradition and reflect broader involvement of local communities in long-distance exchange. Spatial and topographic analysis using GIS suggests that settlement in the area may have developed along small watercourses in a linear, chain-like pattern. Within such settlements, distinct functional zones – residential, economic, and possibly craft-related – were likely present. The combined results allow us to regard the Selyshche area as an important component of the settlement system of the Middle Dnister region during the Roman period, playing a notable role in regional cultural and economic networks.

The article is devoted to the question of the place and time of the earthly life and martyrdom of Saint Anthusa the Younger. This problem is considered in the context of the main hagiographic sources of the first millennium AD, involving the opinions of leading Western hagiographers. The author comes to the conclusion that Saint Anthusa supposedly suffered for Christ in the period from the end of the 6th up to the 10th century in Persia. Additionally, the article describes the hymnography and iconography of the martyress.

This article examines combs dated to the 3rd–12th centuries AD from the present-day territory of Lithuania. Based on typologies developed by foreign researchers, the combs are classified into groups, subgroups, and types. Their distribution, the chronological range of specific types, and the materials used in their manufacture are analyzed. Currently, 35 combs, including fragments and one unfinished blank, are known from Lithuania. All major comb groups characteristic of other regions of Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe are represented—both simple and composite types, including single-sided and double-sided variants. In terms of manufacturing techniques and decorative features, the Lithuanian finds largely correspond to those of neighboring regions. Two local types are distinguished: simple combs with a semicircular back and outward-curving teeth, dated to the 2nd half of the 1st millennium AD and found in parts of the Daugava River basin; and singlesided composite combs with a copper alloy handle and sheath, dated the 6th century AD and localized in the lower Nemunas region. Chronologically, the majority of combs from the Lithuanian territory date to the 9th–12th centuries AD. During this period, short, single-sided composite combs predominated. Laboratory analysis of 15 combs revealed that most were made of antler rather than bone, and two wooden combs were also identified.

ABSTRACT The Hausa city-states of northern Nigeria appear abruptly in written records only around the latter half of the second millennium AD when Islam linked them to a global network and a tradition of literacy but almost nothing is known about their various stages of growth. Surame, in the Kebbi River Valley and linked to the kingdom of Kebbi, is a key site that has excellent survival of both archaeological monuments and occupation layers corresponding to pre-and post-fifteenth-century phases. A new phase of work has used the plan of Surame as it existed in the sixteenth century and correlated this with the surviving traces that can be seen today. A total of thirteen test pits were dug across the site, while two that yielded the most cultural materials were chosen for more detailed excavation. The research reported here focuses on the changing characters of the ceramics, baked clay beads and subsistence economy from one occupational phase to the next. The Surame site was clearly settled before the foundation of the Kebbi kingdom in the sixteenth century and economic activity in terms of food production, storage, processing and consumption, as well as craft production, was well developed much earlier than previously thought. Archaeological evidence indicates that there is more continuity than change between the two settlement phases.

This paper concerns a unique imported item found in one of the burial mounds of the Gnezdovo archaeological complex – a bronze lamp depicting a female head. This find has been known since 1874. The last reasoned attribution of the lamp as an Iranian lamp of the 9th–10th centuries was made in 1902 by V. I. Sizov and has remained unquestioned to date. However, neither in Iran nor in the territory of the Arab Caliphate as a whole have any finds of bronze lamps from the early Middle Ages (9th–10th centuries) with depictions of human heads (“face lamps”) been discovered to this day. Nevertheless, it is precisely this attribution – a 10th-century Iranian lamp – that has become generally accepted in contemporary Rus-sian archaeology. An analysis of previous arguments, fully accepted in modern Russian ar-chaeology, allows us to reopen the question of the dating and origin of this find. This lamp most likely belongs to the late Roman tradition: it was made in the first half to mid-1st Mil-lennium AD and came to Rus’, probably, from Byzantine Crimea, possibly from Chersonesos.

Teotihuacan, one of the most significant urban and ceremonial centers of ancient Mesoamerica, was abruptly abandoned in the mid-1st millennium AD. The cause and timing of its collapse—commonly placed between 600 and 650 AD—remain major questions in Mesoamerican archaeology. In this study, we present a new archaeomagnetic investigation of six burned structures distributed along the Street of the Dead, including sites at the Square of the Moon, the Room of Columns, the Northwest Complex of the San Juan River, the Superimposed Buildings, and the West Plaza. Magnetic analyses revealed pseudo-single-domain magnetite as the main remanence carrier and produced well-grouped paleodirections (site-mean declinations ranging from 341.1° to 1.7°, α95 ≤ 3.6°) and reliable absolute paleointensities (ranging from 39.4 ± 3.4 μT to 52.5 ± 5.4 μT), obtained using the Thellier-type double-heating method. Archaeomagnetic dating using both global geomagnetic models (SHAWQ.2k) and regional secular variation curves suggests that the last heating events at these sites occurred between ~400 and 500 AD—well before the traditionally cited Metepec phase (550–650 AD) and the so-called “Great Fire.” These findings challenge the prevailing chronological framework and provide compelling evidence that major episodes of destruction and depopulation may have begun earlier than previously recognized.

Pre-construction archaeology in West Africa presents new avenues for understanding historic urban development. Excavation of two building plots for the Museum of West African Art, Benin City, Nigeria, provides new perspectives on the Kingdom of Benin, a significant polity in the West African forest zone during the second millennium AD.

An increase in knowledge is usually beneficial but can also highlight misapprehensions of existing data. Such is the case for the Pictish-Norse transition in Northern Scotland in the later first millennium AD. New radiocarbon dates from the key ‘transitional’ settlement of Buckquoy, Orkney, reveal that traits previously published as indicative of incoming Norse influence pre-date the start of the Viking Age, suggesting a greater level of endogenous change than hitherto has been appreciated. Here, the authors underscore the need for a re-evaluation of other settlement sequences across the later Pictish and early Norse periods, reopening many questions about the transition.

The prehistoric Okhotsk culture was distributed along the southern coastal regions of the Sea of Okhotsk during the late first millennium AD. A previous study that performed whole-genome sequencing of a late Okhotsk individual suggested two migration waves from the Russian Far East to northern Japan. The first wave is estimated to have originated from the Kamchatka Peninsula around 2000 years before present (BP), and the second from the Amur Basin around 1600 BP. These findings suggest the past existence of an admixed hypothetical population between the Kamchatka and indigenous Jomon lineages in northern Japan between 2000 and 1600 BP, although direct genetic evidence has not yet been obtained. Here, we present the genome data of an early Okhotsk individual (NAT004) excavated from northern Japan. Admixture modelling reveals that the genome can be explained as a mixture of Kamchatka and Jomon ancestries, providing direct support for the existence of the previously hypothesized hypothetical population. This result offers new insights into the prehistoric population dynamics of northern Japan and contributes to the broader understanding of its archaeological and anthropological history.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-025-21522-4.

We propose that trace levels of gold found in early Chinese bronze objects derived from the added tin, and that tin minerals in north-east China, probably from placer deposits containing gold and cassiterite (SnO2), were the sources of tin throughout the Chinese Bronze Age. We investigate compositional data from over 300 unprovenanced ritual bronzes attributed to the Shang and Zhou dynasties and 138 bronzes unearthed in Anhui, Henan, Sichuan and Shaanxi from the Shang dynasty (c. 1500–1046 BC) to the Warring States period (475–221 BC). We consider that early bronze has low concentrations of gold because gold had been intentionally removed from cassiterite prior to smelting. We suggest that this time- and labour-intensive practice was generally highly developed during the Chinese Bronze Age, and perhaps any bronze age. Recognising that tin and gold can be found in the same metalliferous provinces, and that there was demand for both metals but not necessarily from the same groups of people, we propose a mechanism based on a symbiotic relationship between gold and tin that was maintained until placer deposits became exhausted and primary gold ores were mined in the first millennium AD. With evidence of early tin smelting and increases in the numbers of settlements, we propose that north-east China, with its rich deposits of tin and gold, is an increasingly viable candidate for the source of tin throughout the Chinese Bronze Age.