Strontium isotope analysis offers a powerful tool for investigating mobility and provenance in prehistoric contexts, yet its application to archaeobotanical finds remains limited. This study applies ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr analysis to charred cereal grains from Molino Casarotto, an Italian Middle Neolithic wetland site characterised by a foraging-oriented subsistence strategy and unusually limited cereal use compared to contemporary Neolithic farming sites. A locally defined bioavailable ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr baseline was established through systematic sampling of modern plants across distinct lithological units surrounding the site. The isotope ratios of the archaeological cereals reveal a non-local and heterogeneous supply pattern, with values consistent with both regional fluvial units and more radiogenic extra-regional sources. These results provide direct evidence for a spatial decoupling between crop production and consumption and demonstrate the methodological viability of strontium isotopes for tracing cereal provenance. By extending isotopic provenancing to plant remains, this study contributes a new analytical framework for investigating crop circulation and provisioning systems in prehistoric societies. More broadly, it highlights the potential of archaeobotanical isotopic data to address fundamental questions concerning surplus, exchange, and the organisation of economic networks in non-state contexts.
Estimating bioavailable strontium isotope baselines is a critical step in archaeological mobility studies. Conventional proxy-based approaches, which rely on environmental samples, such as soils, fauna, plants, or waters, are not always feasible and may be affected by environmental, taphonomic, or sampling-related biases. Here, we introduce MobSr, a machine-learning-based model designed to estimate probable local 87Sr/86Sr baselines directly from human enamel isotope data. The model combines four first-layer classifiers—Naïve Bayes, k-nearest neighbours, support vector machine, and Random Forest—with a Bayesian ensemble layer that integrates classifier outputs and refines local/non-local probability estimates. MobSr was trained on a dataset of approximately 3000 human enamel samples from 86 archaeological sites, using published expert-derived local/non-local classifications. Local isotopic ranges are estimated by analysing posterior probabilities assigned to individual observations. Model performance was evaluated through general cross-validation and through site-specific case studies, including a La Tène period cemetery from the Czech Republic, an Early Medieval cemetery from Finland, and multi-period burial assemblages from Bahrain in the Arabian Peninsula. The results show 87–95
Traditionally, grassland archaeological sites pose challenges to surface survey because, without ploughing, buried cultural materials are not brought to the surface and remain invisible. Due to the burrowing behaviour of the mole, molehill survey (also known as the archaeology of molehills or moleology) is often the only noninvasive method to gain insight into the material culture under this landcover. This is particularly relevant for the study of Late Medieval rural moated sites, artificially raised platforms of deserted farmsteads, which are poorly studied but highly threatened by modern arable agriculture. The last remaining examples now survive mainly beneath never-ploughed pastures in protected nature reserves, creating an urgent need for documentation before ongoing agricultural practices permanently remove these sites from the landscape. By evaluating and combining previously applied approaches, the molehill survey method is refined and, for the first time combined with historical cartographic sources, geophysical survey and coring investigations, as well as remote sensing data (drone images and aerial orthophotographs) at a moated site near the town of Damme, the former outer harbour of Bruges at the end of the Zwin tidal inlet (Belgium). Molehill archaeology offers a low-cost yet effective prospection method that enables the identification and localization of buildings and provides insights into their material culture and chronology at grassland sites such as moated sites. By placing moleology at the core of the research design, this study demonstrates its value for rapidly recording vulnerable Medieval rural landscapes that are inaccessible to invasive field surveys.
Lithic cores preserve the most direct evidence of past reduction strategies, yet their analysis still relies largely on typological classifications that are subjective and difficult to reproduce. Recent 3D methods quantify core attributes more precisely, but morphology and scar organization are handled in separate mathematical frameworks, precluding joint analysis of how the two relate. Here we present a unified framework based on spherical harmonics that encodes both core morphology (M-SPHARM) and scar patterning (SP-SPHARM) within a single rotation-invariant, landmark-free space, the latter being the first application of spherical harmonics to scar orientation data. Co-inertia analysis examines their covariation, and harmonic reconstruction renders statistical axes back into interpretable three-dimensional forms. While the methods are complementary, validation on ideal models and experimental cores shows that the scar pattern descriptor resolves finer distinctions among core types than existing metrics, most clearly the radial subtypes others cannot separate. The exploratory analysis on experimental and archaeological assemblages reveals no detectable covariation between morphology and scar organization. We identify core type as the principal factor structuring variation at Sandinggai (Hunan, China). The methods are released as an open-source R package (spharmlithic) with a fully reproducible workflow. More broadly, the framework supports understanding core variability as a continuous techno-morphological space rather than a set of discrete types.
The identification of intentional burnishing on prehistoric osseous artifacts remains a persistent methodological challenge. Bone surfaces are highly reactive and readily record microwear traces but are susceptible to taphonomic alteration. This study investigates how the use of different burnishing materials affects the morphology of bone surfaces and the formation of diagnostic microwear traces to develop a methodologically grounded classification for identifying intentionally burnished surfaces on archeological osseous artifacts. Experimental observations are evaluated in relation to existing knowledge of use-related, manufacturing, and postdepositional surface modifications. The analysis is based on a microwear framework that integrates multiscalar observations (low- and high-magnification microscopy and scanning electron microscopy) with quantitative three-dimensional surface texture analysis. Both microscopy and quantitative data derived from confocal microscopy reveal clear differences among bones burnished with different agents, highlighting agent-specific topographic patterns. The experimentally derived reference dataset was subsequently applied during microwear analysis of selected prehistoric bone points from Lake Lubāns (Latvia) and the Wiele 33 site (Poland) to assess the analytical applicability of the proposed protocol. The results of our study demonstrate the diagnostic potential of the created classification of wear traces to distinguish intentional burnishing on archaeological osseous artifacts and to discriminate between intentional, use-related, and taphonomic surface modifications.
Understanding the complex interplay between external climatic forcing and internal socioecological dynamics remains a major challenge in the study of early sedentary societies. While unilinear frameworks frequently link systemic shifts to external climate triggers, these perspectives tend to neglect the internal dynamics and non-linear feedback loops of complex socioecological systems (SES). This research sheds new light on established narratives by investigating the 1000-year coevolution of agropastoral practices and landscape dynamics at Çatalhöyük East (ca. 9100–8100 BP). We employ a high-resolution agent-based model (ABM), integrating the MedLanD (MML) platform with the Macrophysical Climate Model (MCM) via an original sequential simulation design. This methodological novelty allows us to quantify how cumulative land-use legacies and their environmental costs shaped the community’s later options. Our results indicate that while the agricultural strategy effectively sustained high population density, it simultaneously pushed the system toward a rigidity trap. The model demonstrates how short-term adaptive successes generate structural limits in landscape capacity. These findings suggest that the settlement’s eventual reorganization was not a simple response to external climatic forcing but rather an emergent outcome of internal socioecological stress. By reframing the trajectory of Çatalhöyük through a complex systems lens, this study emphasizes that resilience must be understood as a dynamic process shaped by the long-term interaction of human agency and landscape evolution.
Aurignacian ivory beads provide valuable insights into ivory-working techniques, labour investment, production organisation, and the symbolic behaviour of Early Upper Palaeolithic people. Although decades of research have led to a detailed understanding of the chaîne opératoire of these iconic beads, systematic approaches for identifying and interpreting manufacturing- and use-related traces remain limited. Using 74 double perforated ivory beads (DPIBs) from Archaeological Horizon IV at Hohle Fels Cave as a case study, we integrate taphonomic, typological, morphometric, and traceological analyses with experimental replication to develop an analytical framework for reconstructing the manufacture and use of archaeological ivory beads. Our results suggest that DPIB production followed a broadly shared production sequence while allowing flexibility in the order and execution of individual manufacturing steps. The archaeological evidence indicates that the beads were produced, used, and discarded on site. Experimental replication further provides a basis for evaluating labour investment and identifying surface modifications associated with manufacture and use. The observed morphological variability may reflect differences in production practices related to variation in skill, individual behaviour, and the involvement of multiple craftspeople. The analytical approach presented here is transferable and can be applied to other archaeological ivory bead assemblages.
The ability to compare finds assemblages quantitatively underlies many problems in archaeology, such as whether surface or subsurface assemblages reflect one another in landscape archaeology, or whether two or more sets of contexts saw the same distributional patterns of artifact use and deposition. This paper advances a statistically informed approach that relies on the Cressie-Read power-divergence statistic, which generalizes Pearson’s chi-squared and G tests. This approach also advocates for a focus on effect size. By basing the evaluation of what are “homogenous” distributions of artifacts on a partition of pairs of contexts within a project, measures of the similarity of assemblages are attained for both count and presence/absence data, whose robustness can be assessed with a leave-one-out resampling routine. Rather than using arbitrary benchmarks for what constitutes “large” or “small” effect sizes, the magnitude of similarity for related assemblages is expressed directly via comparison with unrelated assemblages.
Technological complexity has been a continuous trope in archaeological research from its beginnings in the nineteenth century. Based on a concept of unidirectional cultural evolution, archaeological material was ordered along a linear progression from simple to complex. While creating hierarchies of extant populations based on the complexity of their tools is not overtly practiced in archaeology anymore, the same is not true for the deep past. The concept of behavioural modernity and research on human cognitive evolution is still partly founded on technological complexity. The turn away from technological complexity to symbolic behaviour in pursuing questions surrounding behavioural modernity and humanness was less a reaction to criticisms of the concept but served to maintain the hierarchical ranking between modern humans and extinct hominins. Here, we propose an alternative view on technological complexity that attempts to overcome linear hierarchies and lingering progressivist notions. By reviewing several measures of complexity alongside their analytical units and underlying definitions, we show that technological complexity is not suitable for creating a single hierarchy of artefacts, assemblages, or hominin species. The multitude of existing definitions, methods, and measures does not imply a fundamental flaw in these approaches but exemplifies the multidimensionality of technological complexity. We propose a new way of understanding multiple, justified measures for technological complexity through a heterarchical structure that allows various kinds of ranking to exist depending on context, need, scale, or function, including the potential for competing or even contradictory hierarchies. A heterarchical perspective on technological complexity asks ‘How were technologies or hominins complex?’ rather than ‘How complex were technologies and hominins relative to another?’ This approach can shed persistent historical bias and overcome simplistic dichotomies such as ‘us’ and ‘them’ in deep-time archaeology that hinder our ability to engage with questions about the becoming of humans in a meaningful way.
The aim of this paper is to demonstrate a method for exploring the conditions inherent to mobility within a landscape, as a means of broadening our understanding of the role of human movement in archaeology. Specifically, it is based on the application of a tool, Omniscape, developed in the field of ecology, which to date has barely been utilised in archaeology. As we shall attempt to demonstrate, it holds great potential to overcome some of the common limitations in the digital modelling of mobility in archaeology. After briefly reviewing these limitations, we outline the operating principles of Omniscape and illustrate the type of results it produces using three ideal control surfaces. Finally, an archaeological case study regarding the distribution of burial mounds in an area of NW Iberia is presented, to illustrate possible ways of utilising the results for tackling specific archaeological questions.
In a recent critique published in this journal (Ben-Dor, M. R. Barkai, 2026, Paleolithic dietary flexibility? Methodological considerations in analogy-based reconstructions of Paleolithic energetic returns, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 33, article 47, pp. 1–27), the authors characterize behavioral ecology approaches to the study of foraging efficiency as being fundamentally constrained by their reliance on conventional analogy-based reasoning. This characterization, however, misrepresents the aims and theoretical and methodological foundations of these approaches. Rather than relying on simple analogies, behavioral ecology models evaluate how interactions among variables such as prey behavior, encounter rates and contexts, seasonal variation in the macronutrient composition of game tissues, technology, pursuit success rates, opportunity costs, and other ecological and economic factors influence foraging efficiency across diverse habitats and among a wide range of societies. By explicitly identifying and testing the mechanisms that generate variation in economic returns, these approaches provide a rigorous and theory-driven alternative to conventional analogy-based interpretations. We also identify several problems with Ben-Dor and Barkai’s claim that proboscideans constituted high-ranked prey during the Lower and Middle Pleistocene. These include a selective use of relevant data, assumptions that lack sufficient empirical support, methodological shortcomings in the treatment and interpretation of the available evidence, and reliance on inadequately controlled archaeological datasets. Given these limitations, we find little support for their claim that proboscideans represented a frequent and easily acquired prey resource during the Pleistocene.
Interpretations of Palaeolithic landscapes have frequently relied upon a priori site typologies, functional classifications, and environmentally deterministic frameworks that risk circular reasoning, typological reification, and underdetermined behavioural inference. This study develops and applies an explicitly inductive framework for identifying behavioural landscape structure without imposing pre-defined functional or categorical assumptions. Using a multivariate dataset of 158 georeferenced open-air Palaeolithic occurrences from the Vidarbha region of eastern Maharashtra, India, the analysis integrates topographic, hydrological, and raw-material accessibility variables alongside a kernel-derived archaeological persistence measure within an unsupervised spatial learning workflow. Unsupervised spatial learning refers here to the application of clustering algorithms requiring no predefined class labels to spatially referenced archaeological datasets, distinguishing this exploratory inferential mode from confirmatory supervised prediction. Cluster robustness was evaluated through multiple internal validation diagnostics, including elbow analysis, silhouette optimisation, gap statistic assessment, sensitivity testing, and cross-algorithm comparison. Results reveal reproducible multivariate landscape configurations best understood as probabilistic behavioural landscape systems rather than discrete functional site types or deterministic settlement categories. These findings demonstrate that coherent archaeological landscape organisation can be detected inductively prior to typological assignment, while clarifying persistent zones of temporal palimpsest formation, proxy limitation, and interpretive ambiguity inherent to open-air records. The study argues that unsupervised spatial learning is most productive when positioned as an epistemic support framework that formalises pattern discovery, stabilises inductive reasoning, and preserves the interpretive centrality of archaeological expertise, contributing to a more transparent and methodologically accountable approach to behavioural inference in Palaeolithic landscape research.
Inequality has received increased attention in the social sciences since the 1990s, in part because of the harm it causes and because massive inequality is avoidable. Bolstered by the Gini coefficient, a quantitative measure of unevenness in a distribution that enhances comparative studies across time and space, archaeologists have expanded the study of inequality in recent years. Many of these investigations use multiple variables to assess inequality. A challenge of such multi-proxy studies is that simply averaging Gini coefficients for multiple variables can over-represent inequality in societies where variables for inequality are not correlated. This paper provides an experimental measure—the Domain Sensitivity Gini (DSG)—and applies it to a sample of Maya archaeological case studies with extensive domestic excavations. The DSG helps disambiguate societies where wealth variables are aligned from societies where such variables are not aligned. In cases where variables do not align, different forms of wealth are not strongly correlated: a household that is poor in one domain might be wealthy in other domains. The DSG also suggests that inequality is lower than estimates based on averaged variables. This finding is valuable when set within a broader comparative context because it shows that high inequality seen today is not natural and that ancient case studies are relevant.
Surface changes on bone can be indicative of a range of different processes affecting an individual, from palaeopathology and taphonomy to cultural modification. Mapping these changes is essential to understanding bioarchaeological context and compare the changes across an individual and between them. This paper presents a new method for mapping surface features on bone (e.g. erosion/abrasion, surface cuts and scratches, pathologies, modifications). It is an accessible and quantifiable alternative to photogrammetry or three-dimensional scanning. It breaks each bone down into a number of two-dimensional geometric faces that can be utilised in statistical analyses. The number of faces differs depending on the skeletal development of the individual. The recording method allows faces to be grouped by anatomical plane, bone type, side, and region of the body. These selective groupings facilitate flexible categories for hypothesis testing. The technique was developed to enable a detailed recording of taphonomic staining on human skeletal remains from Khok Phanom Di, Thailand. While the technique was developed for recording bone surface staining, it could also be used to map other variations on bone surfaces, such as in palaeopathological, forensic, or taphonomic contexts.
The Acheulean, a key Lower Palaeolithic technocomplex characterised by iconic large cutting tools (LCTs), is one of the most extensively studied phenomena in prehistoric archaeology. Yet its vast chrono-spatial distribution, together with the persistent tension between technological homogeneity and variability, has hindered the construction of robust cultural phylogenetic scenarios for its evolution and dispersal. One way to address this challenge is to develop regional- and continental-scale syntheses of industrial traits based on standardised analytical protocols. Such protocols can help overcome differences in site context, artifact recovery, chronology and publication standards that reflect diverse geographic, chronological and academic traditions. In tune with this we integrate technological and computational archaeological analyses under open science principles to conduct a comparative study of Acheulean variability and cultural phylogeny at the Eurasian crossroads of the Aegean and the southern Levant. Our point of departure is Rodafnidia, a Middle Pleistocene locality on the island of Lesvos, Greece, where excavations have revealed stratified Acheulean knapped stone tool assemblages. We present a comprehensive morpho-technological analysis of an LCT assemblage composed of handaxes and cleavers from Rodafnidia. The analysis evaluates contextual integrity and examines the relationship between technological procedures and morphological features across well-provenanced stratified artifacts and surface finds. Given the scarcity of Acheulean assemblages in the Balkan Peninsula and western Anatolia, we compare the Rodafnidia material with five handaxe assemblages from ‘Ubeidiya, Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY), Ma’ayan Barukh, Holon, and Nahal Hesi, as well as with nine cleaver assemblages from GBY. Together, these reference assemblages span different chrono-cultural stages of the Levantine Acheulean. The results reveal a high degree of homogeneity within the Rodafnidia assemblage, indicating consistent technological preferences and recurrent morphological outcomes. At the same time, the morpho-technological configuration identified at Rodafnidia differs from any pattern recognised among the studied Levantine assemblages. Our research protocol underscores the value of integrated comparative morpho-technological analyses for investigating the complex evolutionary and cultural dynamics of Acheulean hominin populations. More broadly, our findings contribute to a nuanced understanding of Middle Pleistocene Acheulean variability and cultural phylogeny in this part of the Mediterranean, while demonstrating a scalable approach that can be applied across the Acheulean world.
Models of terminal Pleistocene (Early Paleoindian) land-use in North America explore the interplay of residential and logistical mobility. Researchers often structure interpretations using simple site categories, like residential camp or kill site. Excavations in several components reveal terminal Pleistocene groups occasionally tethered residential and logistical choices, forming kill-camp sites characterized by hunting activities, animal butchery, and residential downtime. A popular rule-of-thumb method for distinguishing camping from hunting activities involves comparing the types and quantities of projectile point fragments between localities. Researchers have classified entire sites as camps, kills, or kill-camps using this metric. However, much of the Early Paleoindian record is dominated by surface scatters which exhibit continuous and diffuse artifact distributions, lacking discrete localities. Some lithic scatters far exceed the normal sizes of single component sites and better reflect a lithic landscape, making it difficult to define site categories or analyze spatial relationships between artifacts. In this paper, I first define a spatially explicit framework for projectile point fragment discard in kills and camps, addressing behavioral inferences for discrete occupations and surface scatters. I then use computational techniques to characterize the spatial covariance of projectile fragments at the Reddin site, which is the largest Folsom lithic scatter in North America. I address a long-standing hypothesis which suggests Folsom groups segregated hunting activities away from campsites on the landscape. Results of the analysis do not support this hypothesis, but suggest Folsom groups formed kill-camp deposits across the site surface.
Angkor (800–1435 CE) is considered the type site for “low-density agrarian urbanism”, a loosely defined archaeological label used to describe settlements with urban traits but dispersed spatial structure. Angkor’s abandonment from the fifteenth century has fueled concerns that low-density cities, now common globally, may be inherently unstable. The spatial distinctiveness of Angkor relative to other premodern rural–urban systems, however, has never been quantitatively tested. Using ChronoCluster, a Python package for novel spatiotemporal archaeological analysis, we compared Angkor’s spatial structure to that of Anglo-Saxon Hampshire as recorded in the Domesday survey (mid-eleventh century CE), a rural–urban system not described as low-density agrarian urbanism. Surprisingly, both cases showed similar multiscale spatial clustering. Despite their different appearances, they may reflect scaled variants of the same underlying urban–rural dynamics. This targeted comparison between the “low-density” type site and a non-low-density comparator challenges the idea that low-density cities like Angkor form a distinct type, raises questions about what drives variation in urban form across time and space, and opens new questions about the impact of spatial structure on urban sustainability.
The potential for combining elements of the adaptive cycle and assemblage thought to develop a novel approach to change in historical urban contexts is developed. It is proposed that the “adaptive cycle” model common in studies of resilience provides a valuable comparative tool for understanding change, but is limited by its conceptualization of the system as a homogeneous whole and its linear approach to temporality. This is particularly problematic given the fragmentary nature of archaeological data. To address these issues, the model is drawn into dialog with assemblage theory, an approach well attuned to these kinds of incoherent data. It is argued that correlating stages in the “adaptive cycle” with phases of assemblage formation and dissolution provides a means to engage with change as multitemporal and to better understand the material relations through which continuity and change emerge. The argument is developed through reference to evidence for boundary features, building materials and cultivation in 5 towns in Northwest England (Carlisle, Cockermouth, Kendal, Appleby, and Penrith) between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, a period characterized by multiple crises.
Personal ornaments constitute one of the most informative forms of archaeological evidence for investigating identity, social interaction and how technical knowledge was learned, transmitted and transformed within prehistoric communities. Previous research has demonstrated their value for reconstructing cultural affiliations, exchange networks, technological choices and practices of use. However, identifying technological traditions and forms of craft organisation from ornament assemblages remains methodologically challenging, because formal recurrence, manufacturing traces and use-wear evidence do not in themselves demonstrate shared technical practice unless assessed in relation to operational sequences and archaeological context. This paper addresses this issue through the integrated analysis of 383 steatite ornaments and production-related artefacts from Neolithic and Copper Age contexts in central-northern Italy. By combining techno-typometric analysis, traceology, experimental replication and non-destructive archaeometric characterisation within a chaîne opératoire framework, the study formalises an integrated and transferable analytical approach to evaluate technical convergence and divergence, and to identify learning processes through manufacturing errors and variability in technical execution. The results show that steatite ornament production relied on multiple coexisting chaînes opératoires rather than on a single linear trajectory of standardisation or diversification. Comparable morphologies were produced through different operational sequences, while the integration of compositional and technological data highlights the limits of provenance attribution based solely on raw-material characterisation. Manufacturing anomalies, such as incomplete perforations, repeated drilling attempts and reworked fractures, indicate the coexistence of different levels of skill, from exploratory or learning-related gestures to highly controlled procedures. Together with the distribution of preforms, production waste and unfinished artefacts, this evidence suggests a polycentric organisation of production in which shared technical principles coexisted with local routines and community-specific practices. The case study contributes to broader archaeological discussions on standardisation, communities of practice, craft organisation and the transmission of technical knowledge.
