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ABSTRACT Landscape‐scale LiDAR‐based studies are becoming increasingly prevalent in archaeology, mainly focusing on detecting archaeological sites to create datasets for spatial analysis. However, the representativeness of these datasets in accurately reflecting the surviving distributions of archaeological sites has often been overlooked. This paper discusses issues of sampling and representativeness in LiDAR‐derived datasets, particularly within the scope of large‐scale landscape studies in Mediterranean contexts. Drawing insights from the Ancient Hillforts Survey, which analysed 15 296 km2 in south‐central Italy, the study examines the variability in the visibility of different site typologies in open‐source but low‐resolution LiDAR data. Through an examination of hillforts, platform farms, settlements, field systems, traces of Roman centuriation, and transhumance routes, the paper highlights significant variability in the identification and mapping within and across different site types. Recognizing the need to account for this variability in the development of spatial analysis, the paper discusses the use of sampling areas to address this variability. This approach aims to effectively mitigate potential biases in analysis, emphasizing the necessity for nuanced methodologies in interpreting LiDAR data for archaeological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using west-central Sardinia as a case study, this article explores how multi-scalar survey archaeology can be used to address questions of the intensity, nature, and scale of interaction in the Iron Age central Mediterranean. This large island played an important role in Mediterranean trade networks and was frequented and settled by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Romans, among others over the course of the first millennium BCE. These foreign groups interacted with local Nuragic people through trade, the exchange of ideas, and genetic admixing, which led to increasing connectivity over time. Large excavations at major colonial sites and genetic studies have reinforced the perception that interactions were felt most strongly in coastal regions, while inland communities remained more isolated. Our multi-scalar survey data, drawn from site-based survey at the inland nuraghe S’Urachi and regional survey in its surrounding territory (the Sinis Archaeological Project), supply information concerning how Iron Age interactions impacted inland rural communities. These data show how interaction transformed over time, as trade increased and agriculture intensified in response to external demands. Ultimately, we suggest that survey archaeology is an important tool for illuminating multi-scalar interaction in Sardinia and elsewhere.

The Journal has served in its primary role of a platform for presenting the annual input of new archaeological data from Polish excavations in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East for the better part of 30 years. Nothing can stay what it is too long and the journal has also undergone an evolution and transformation in an effort to rise to new challenges while sustaining the best of a long-standing and successful tradition. This is about the changing face of the Journal, the newest of which readers now hold in their hands.

The NeoNet dataset aims to provide a new research tool for the study of the pioneer farming front (i.e. Neolithisation) in the North Central and North Western Mediterranean basin by focusing on the period of transition from a foraging to a farming economy (ca. 7000 to 3500 cal BC). The complete dataset is formed by the elencoc14.tsv file, a dataframe with tab-separated values, and a connex dataframe: thesaurus.tsv. The dataset contains 2,506 radiocarbon dates from 526 archaeological sites and 1,769 different archaeological records (stratigraphic units, structures, negative features, hearths, etc.). To ensure and facilitate the reuse of the radiocarbon dates, NeoNet’s data structure is based on the Euroevol database layout. Among other fields, particular attention has been paid to homogenisation of the laboratory code, the archaeological context, and the references, in order to facilitate further data extractions. Indeed, the dataset is linked to an opensource R Shiny interactive web app (NeoNet app), and a getter function (R package c14bazAAr, R function get_neonet).

The resolution of bioarchaeological analyses has improved dramatically in recent years, and bioarchaeology is increasingly employed in areas of the world where preservation issues and disciplinary traditions had previously hindered its application. One such area is the Mediterranean region. Bioarchaeological analyses arguably are the most direct indicator of human behavior in the past, and as a result the full integration of bioarchaeology and archaeology into Mediterranean research shows much promise. However, several methodological, theoretical and practical challenges have emerged: (1) discrepancies between cultural and biological variability; (2) discrepancies in the dating of skeletal samples and of migration events in the two subdisciplines; (3) diverging interpretations of (collective) identities; and (4) the fostering of effective crossdisciplinary communication and collaboration. While the first two points are especially salient for Mediterranean research, the third and fourth are relevant for the archaeological discipline more generally. In this paper, we discuss each challenge in turn, focusing on the first millennium bc Greek diaspora in the Mediterranean. We believe that both disciplines would benefit from open discussion of these issues, which we hope might spur more collaborative efforts towards their resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances into the origins of monetisation in the Mediterranean have shown that even with state-controlled currency circulating, (coinage-less) credit economies existed in parallel, using written documents for transactions, well into the Roman period. The current paper documents that a credit economy facilitated the Phoenician commercial expansion in the Mediterranean (9th-7thc. BCE), becoming the vehicle by which the west Semitic abjad, the Phoenician ‘alphabet’, was rapidly adopted and adapted into various phonetic and syllabic scripts in the Mediterranean. This led to the rapid spread of literacy in societies that had been fully illiterate by then, as the Greeks, or that had never developed literacy. In contrast with previous explanations that saw the spread of literacy in the Mediterranean as a corollary to international trade, the present study postulates that literacy played a functional role within the credit economies that grew with international commerce, thereby providing the impetus for the spread of literacy, providing documentation that substantiates this hypothesis. The study links the rapid spread of literacy to the institutional role of the script within the context of monetised commercial transactions, utilizing archaeological evidence from both ends of the Mediterranean, and interpreting it within its historical context.

A comparative approach allowed the debate on different realities of migration and colonization, both in space as in time. Thus, this dossier shall be an interesting asset to those who need to compare bibliographies, sources, usages of concepts and opinions in order to put in perspective their own perceptions of the same phenomenon.

Maltese earthenware makers produced a range of utilitarian wares that formed a crucial part of the islanders' foodways for much of the seventeenth to early twentieth centuries. Despite the industry's social significance, archaeologists have hitherto refrained from giving these mundane items any serious consideration. In this paper I present the first detailed account of post-medieval Maltese earthenware, providing a categorization of fabrics and vessel typology, as well as considering the potters and the scale of their domestic industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the use of non-destructive portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) to distinguish sources of variation in 8th Century BC Greek and Sicilian ceramics. The project comprises an element of my PhD study through La Trobe University, concerning Hellenic colonies established from the eighth century BC in the south of Italy, and on Sicily in particular. This specific case study looks at the relationships established between the indigenous site of Monte Finocchito and the Greek settlement of Heloros, both located in south-eastern Sicily. The results demonstrate the usefulness of the pXRF technique for detecting material variations which are not readily apparent using traditional visual analysis during fieldwork.

To our knowledge, the dataset described in this paper represents the largest existing repository of archaeological settlement (7,383 sites) and radiocarbon data (816 samples) for central Italy, spanning the period from the Late Mesolithic (ca. 8,000 BC) to the fall of the Roman Empire (500 AD). This dataset is also one of the six case studies in a Leverhulme Trust funded project called 'Changing the Face of the Mediterranean: Land Cover and Population Since the Advent of Farming' (Grant Ref. RPG-2015-031), a Plymouth-UCL collaboration which aims to reconstruct regional demographic trends and change in land cover/vegetation over the longue 'durée'.

This article reviews key data and debates focused on relative sea-level changes since the Last Interglacial (approximately the last 132,000 years) in the Mediterranean Basin, and their implications for past human populations. Geological and geomorphological landscape studies are critical to archaeology. Coastal regions provide a wide range of resources to the populations that inhabit them. Coastal landscapes are increasingly the focus of scholarly discussions from the earliest exploitation of littoral resources and early hominin cognition, to the inundation of the earliest permanently settled fishing villages and eventually, formative centres of urbanisation. In the Mediterranean, these would become hubs of maritime transportation that gave rise to the roots of modern seaborne trade. As such, this article represents an original review of both the geo-scientific and archaeological data that specifically relate to sea-level changes and resulting impacts on both physical and cultural landscapes from the Palaeolithic until the emergence of the Classical periods. Our review highlights that the interdisciplinary links between coastal archaeology, geomorphology and sea-level changes are important to explain environmental impacts on coastal human societies and human migration. We review geological indicators of sea level and outline how archaeological features are commonly used as proxies for measuring past sea levels, both gradual changes and catastrophic events. We argue that coastal archaeologists should, as a part of their analyses, incorporate important sea-level concepts, such as indicative meaning. The interpretation of the indicative meaning of Roman fishtanks, for example, plays a critical role in reconstructions of late Holocene Mediterranean sea levels. We identify avenues for future work, which include the consideration of glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) in addition to coastal tectonics to explain vertical movements of coastlines, more research on Palaeolithic island colonisation, broadening of Palaeolithic studies to include materials from the entire coastal landscape and not just coastal resources, a focus on rescue of archaeological sites under threat by coastal change, and expansion of underwater archaeological explorations in combination with submarine geomorphology. This article presents a collaborative synthesis of data, some of which have been collected and analysed by the authors, as the MEDFLOOD (MEDiterranean sea-level change and projection for future FLOODing) community, and highlights key sites, data, concepts and ongoing debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]