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Funder: Daphne Jackson Trust; doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000643, Funder: National Environment Research Council, While remote sensing data have long been widely used in archaeological prospection over large areas, the task of examining such data is time consuming and requires experienced and specialist analysts. However, recent technological advances in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), and in particular deep learning methods, open possibilities for the automated analysis of large areas of remote sensing data. This paper examines the applicability and potential of supervised deep learning methods for the detection and mapping of different kinds of archaeological sites comprising features such as walls and linear or curvilinear structures of different dimensions, spectral and geometrical properties. Our work deliberately uses open-source imagery to demonstrate the accessibility of these tools. One of the main challenges facing AI approaches has been that they require large amounts of labeled data to achieve high levels of accuracy so that the training stage requires significant computational resources. Our results show, however, that even with relatively limited amounts of data, simple eight-layer, fully convolutional network can be trained efficiently using minimal computational resources, to identify and classify archaeological sites and successfully distinguish them from features with similar characteristics. By increasing the number of training sets and switching to the use of high-performance computing the accuracy of the identified areas increases. We conclude by discussing the future directions and potential of such methods in archaeological research.

Government and commercial forecasts indicate global ambitions for 2000 GW of installed offshore wind (OW) by 2050 to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement. Set against a current global installed capacity of 56 GW offshore wind, which has taken over 30 years to achieve, the challenge of installing 35 times that capacity in the coming 30 years is considerable. Aside from the issue of the necessary pace of OW installation, another challenge is scale: Where in the ocean could and should this new infrastructure be placed? This paper presents a spatial analysis approach for assessing the location of future offshore wind that collates and integrates, metocean, geoscience, ecological and anthropogenic features and intersects with engineering requirements. A new contribution to the field is made through calibration in relation to current ocean ‘crowdedness’, which leads to a suitability ranking of new sea regions. A case study is presented to illustrate the workflow and methodology of this approach based on the United Kingdom (UK)-Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ). The UK has been selected as an exemplar due to its well-developed offshore wind sector, having the greatest installed capacity globally until the close of 2021, and as a region with ambitious and legislated offshore wind targets to meet net zero. The modelling and analysis quantify the need to eliminate the water depth barrier through floating OW technology, open up new sea regions and the associated port and grid infrastructure, as well as to assess the potential impact of increased utilisation of ocean space for OW.

This article brings to light small-scale and everyday maritime activities through the consolidation of Early Bronze Age maritime-related material culture from the coastal Levant. By doing so, the research provides an alternative perspective on Early Bronze Age maritime activities, away from broad accounts of connectivity that neglect small-scale rhythms of coastal life. The application of temporally imbued spatial analyses serves to contextualize the material record for maritime activities in a wider sphere of coastal dynamics and interaction. Through an analysis of the whole Levantine coast, this article transcends the separation between the southern, central, and northern Levant. In this way, the sea acts as a unifying agent, a common denominator. By shifting perspectives toward the sea, emphasis is placed on the importance of maritime activities without which our understanding of Early Bronze Age coastal communities and broader Early Bronze Age developments, such as social complexity, is limited.

Environmental reconstructions from pollen records collected within archaeological landscapes have traditionally taken a broadly narrative approach, with few attempts made at hypothesis testing or formal assessment of uncertainty. This disjuncture between the traditional interpretive approach to palynological data and the requirement for detailed, locally specific reconstructions of the landscapes in which people lived has arguably hindered closer integration of palaeoecological and archaeological datasets in recent decades. Here we implement a fundamentally different method for reconstructing past land cover from pollen records to the landscapes of and around the Somerset Levels and Moors—the Multiple Scenario Approach (MSA)—to reconstruct land cover for a series of 200-year timeslices covering the period 4200–2000 cal BC. Modelling of both archaeological and sediment chronologies enables the integration of reconstructed changes in land cover with archaeological evidence of contemporary Neolithic human activity. The MSA reconstructions are presented as a series of land cover maps and as graphs of quantitative measures of woodland clearance tracked over time. Our reconstructions provide a more nuanced understanding of the scale and timing of Neolithic clearance than has previously been available from narrative-based interpretations of pollen data. While the archaeological record tends to promote a view of long-term continuity in terms of the persistent building of wooden structures in the wetlands, our new interpretation of the palynological data contributes a more dynamic and varying narrative. Our case study demonstrates the potential for further integration of archaeological and palynological datasets, enabling us to get closer to the landscapes in which people lived.

Time has consistently been regarded as the missing dimension from our renderings of space, having a significant impact on how we interpret and represent past interaction. Nowhere is this more keenly felt than in discussion of maritime mobility. This paper outlines an innovative approach to mapping maritime spaces by taking into account the performance of Bronze Age sailing ships in different weather conditions and the subsequent time of sailing journeys. The use of cartograms is demonstrated to be invaluable for reconceptualisation of maritime space and rethinking maritime connectivity in the past. This marks a step-change in approach, which has implications for regions beyond the case study area (eastern Mediterranean). The results presented in this paper foreground meaningful differences in maritime connectivity between Egypt and the Levant during the earlier Bronze Age than are easily realised through traditional static representations. This demonstrates the significance of developing alternative representations of space/time for archaeology.

Fil: Beresford-Jones, David G. University of Cambridge; Reino Unido. Fil: Beresford-Jones, David G. University of Bonn; Alemania Fil: Friesem, David E. University of Haifa; Israel Fil: Fraser, Sturt. University of Southampton; Reino Unido Fil: Pullen, Alexander. Pre-construct Archaeology; Reino Unido Fil: Chauca, George. Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos; Perú Fil: Moat, Justin. Royal Botanic Gardens; Reino Unido Fil: Gorriti, Manuel. Proyecto Especial Arqueológico Caral-Supe; Perú Fil: Maita, Patricia K. Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú; Perú Fil: Joly, Delphine. University of York; Reino Unido Fil: Huaman Oros, Oliver. Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos; Perú Fil: Lane, Kevin John. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Instituto de las Culturas; Argentina Fil: French, Charles. University of Cambridge; Reino Unido Shell middens are conspicuous manifestations of the exploitation of rich, sustainable, easily seen and harvested marine resources that, worldwide, enabled hunter-gatherers to reduce mobility and increase population and social complexity. Globally, known sites tend to cluster chronologically around 6 k BP, after slowing eustatic sea-level rise, although the Pacific coast of South America offers some rare earlier exceptions. We report investigations of La Yerba II, a Middle Preceramic shell matrix site on the Río Ica estuary, south coast Peru. These show how, beginning around 7000 Cal BP, over 4.5 m of stratigraphy accumulated in less than 500 years. Consisting of prepared surfaces, indurated floors and the ashy interiors of wind shelters and their associated midden deposits, alternating with phases of abandonment, this was the outcome of an intense rhythm of repeated occupations by logistically mobile marine hunter-gatherers. Final phases, dominated by Mesodesma surf clams, mark change towards more task-specific activities. La Yerba II's topographic position and well-preserved cultural and environmental markers provide insight into the local history of relative sea level change and changing marine hunter-gatherer lifestyles during a period critical to the transition to sedentism and the formation of new estuarine and beach habitats following the stabilisation of eustatic sea-levels. Beresford-Jones, D. G, Friesem, D. E., Fraser, S., Pullen, A., Chauca, G., Moat, J., Gorriti, M., Maita, P, K., Joly, D., Oliver, H., Lane, K. J. y French, C. (2022). Insights into changing coastlines, environments and marine hunter-gatherer lifestyles on the Pacific coast of South America from the La Yerba II shell midden, Río Ica estuary, Peru. Quaternary Science Reviews, 285, 107509.

The role environmental change may have played at the dawn of Egyptian history has been overlooked in comparison with other periods. Natural landscape changes taking place in the Nile Delta are argued here to have been a facilitating factor allowing, and possibly stimulating, socioeconomic changes leading to the ‘Lower Egyptian – Naqada Transition’ (LE-NT, c. 3350 BC). In this context, the LE-NT may be understood in terms of regional elites using newly agrarian delta lands as an agricultural resource and trade route, with the emerging capital, Memphis, ideally situated. We argue (almost counter-intuitively) that a natural reduction in overall landscape productivity led to agricultural intensification through a positive feedback loop. This may have laid the foundations for the emergence of a more unified Egyptian state beginning c. 3100 BC. Through this analysis, we argue for the incorporation of the environment as an integral component of change narratives of Predynastic Egypt.

Significance Proponents of the altered states of consciousness (ASC) model have argued that hallucinogens have influenced the prehistoric making of images in caves and rock shelters. However, the lack of direct evidence for the consumption of hallucinogens at any global rock art site has undermined the ASC model. We present the first clear evidence for the ingestion of hallucinogens at a rock art site, in this case, from Pinwheel Cave, California. Quids in the cave ceiling are shown to be Datura wrightii, a Native Californian entheogen, indicating that, rather than illustrating visual phenomena caused by the Datura, the rock paintings instead likely represent the plant and its pollinator, calling into question long-held assumptions about rock art and the ASC model., While debates have raged over the relationship between trance and rock art, unambiguous evidence of the consumption of hallucinogens has not been reported from any rock art site in the world. A painting possibly representing the flowers of Datura on the ceiling of a Californian rock art site called Pinwheel Cave was discovered alongside fibrous quids in the same ceiling. Even though Native Californians are historically documented to have used Datura to enter trance states, little evidence exists to associate it with rock art. A multianalytical approach to the rock art, the quids, and the archaeological context of this site was undertaken. Liquid chromatography−mass spectrometry (LC-MS) results found hallucinogenic alkaloids scopolamine and atropine in the quids, while scanning electron microscope analysis confirms most to be Datura wrightii. Three-dimensional (3D) analyses of the quids indicate the quids were likely masticated and thus consumed in the cave under the paintings. Archaeological evidence and chronological dating shows the site was well utilized as a temporary residence for a range of activities from Late Prehistory through Colonial Periods. This indicates that Datura was ingested in the cave and that the rock painting represents the plant itself, serving to codify communal rituals involving this powerful entheogen. These results confirm the use of hallucinogens at a rock art site while calling into question previous assumptions concerning trance and rock art imagery.

Cereal cultivation in Britain dates back to ca. 4000 BCE, probably introduced by migrant farmers from continental Europe. Widespread evidence for livestock appears in the archaeozoological record, also reflected by ubiquitous dairy lipids in pottery organic residues. However, despite archaeobotanical evidence for domesticated plants (such as cereals), organic residue evidence has been near-absent. Our approach, targeting low-abundance cereal-specific markers, has now revealed evidence for cereals (indicating wheat) in Neolithic pottery from Scottish ‘crannogs’, dating to ca. 3600 – 3300 BCE. Their association with dairy products suggests cereals may have been regularly prepared together as a milk-based gruel. We also observed a strong association between the occurrence of dairy products and smaller-mouthed vessels. Here, we demonstrate that cereal-specific markers can survive in cooking pots for millennia, revealing the consumption of specific cereals (wheat) that are virtually absent from the archaeobotanical record for this region and illuminating culinary traditions among early farming communities.

The North Sea and Atlantic margins of Europe encompass a vast area of seabed and coastline, and a correspondingly large area of potential submerged landscape. This once-seamless landscape has been divided by modern political geography, leading to different research traditions, management regimes and, consequently, necessitating division into national summary chapters. This chapter presents a synthesis of the national summaries that follow by focusing on four common themes. Within each, we explore the variability and commonalities between countries. Firstly, we assess the overall archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence base. It is clear that the evidence is temporally deep, incorporates material ranging from in situ human footprints and wooden structures to derived and isolated lithic finds, contains indications of both aquatic and terrestrial activity, and can be found across the study area, albeit unevenly distributed, with a bias to the North Sea. Secondly, we examine preservation and discovery conditions. In addition to spatially variable taphonomy caused by regional geological, palaeoenvironmental (e.g. sea-level change, glaciation) and hydrodynamic conditions, there are also national differences in methods of investigation, notably the role of systematic investigation versus chance finds. Based on work done in the North Sea, thoughts are suggested as to possible methodological ways forward. Thirdly, we address the research potential of the wider region. Extant research frameworks have identified numerous common themes, but sub-regional themes also exist. In both cases, these may cross-cut existing borders and require transnational collaboration. Research potential also extends to a range of evidence types, including derived as well as in situ archaeology and palaeoenvironmental records. Finally, we look at the management context, highlighting the key role played by historic environment management and offshore industry in data collection and methodological advances. Overall, this synthesis demonstrates that much progress has been made, though concentrated in certain areas (e.g. the North Sea). Still more remains to be done, in terms of extending approaches to less-studied parts of the Atlantic margin but also in improving the quality of data collected.

Thousands of structures are currently installed in our oceans to help meet our global energy needs. This number is set to increase with the transition to renewable energy, due to lower energy yield per structure, growing energy demand and greater and more diverse use of ocean space (e.g. for food, industrial or scientific activity). A clear and comprehensive picture of the spatial and temporal distribution of ocean energy assets is crucial to inform marine spatial planning, sustainable design of ocean infrastructure and end-of-engineered-life management, to prevent an exponentially increasing asset base becoming an economic and environmental burden. Here we define the spatial and temporal dimensions of the challenge that lies before us through creation of a comprehensive global dataset of past, current and forecast ocean energy infrastructure and offshore energy resources, both hydrocarbon and wind, for the period 1960–2040. The data is collected together for the first time and made available in the public domain through an interactive online map. The resulting oceanscape provides insight into the type, quantity, density and geographic centres of the accumulating asset base, which in turn enables informed consideration of how marine space alongside design and end-of-engineered-life of ocean infrastructure can be managed responsibly and sustainably.

The evolution of the Nile Delta, the largest delta system in the Mediterranean Sea, has both high palaeoenvironmental and archaeological significance. A dynamic model of the landscape evolution of this delta system is presented for the period c.8000–4500 cal BP. Analysis of sedimentary data and chronostratigraphic information contained within 1640 borehole records has allowed for a redefinition of the internal stratigraphy of the Holocene delta, and the construction of a four-dimensional landscape model for the delta's evolution through time. The mid-Holocene environmental evolution is characterised by a transition from an earlier set of spatially varied landscapes dominated by swampy marshland, to better-drained, more uniform floodplain environments. Archaeologically important Pleistocene inliers in the form of sandy hills protruding above the delta plain surface (known as “turtlebacks”), also became smaller as the delta plain continued to aggrade, while the shoreline and coastal zone prograded north. These changes were forced by a decrease in the rate of relative sea-level rise under high rates of sediment-supply. This dynamic environmental evolution needs to be integrated within any discussion of the contemporary developments in the social sphere, which culminated in the emergence of the Ancient Egyptian State c.5050 cal BP.

This paper investigates the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the Channel Islands. It presents a new synthesis of all known evidence from the islands c. 5000-4300 BC, including several new excavations as well as find spot sites that have not previously been collated. It also summarises – in English – a large body of contemporary material from north-west France. The paper presents a new high-resolution sea level model for the region, shedding light on the formation of the Channel Islands from 9000-4000 BC. Through comparison with contemporary sites in mainland France, an argument is made suggesting that incoming migrants from the mainland and the small indigenous population of the islands were both involved in the transition. It is also argued that, as a result of the fact the Channel Islands witnessed a very different trajectory of change to that seen in Britain and Ireland c. 5000-3500 BC, this small group of islands has a great deal to tell us about the arrival of the Neolithic more widely.

This paper outlines work on a group of newly-identified Neolithic crannogs in the Outer Hebrides. Methods employed included underwater/aerial photogrammetry, geophysics, diver surveys and terrestrial excavation. Our results demonstrate conclusively, for the first time, that artificial islets were a widespread feature of the Neolithic in this region; they appear to have been special purpose locations which saw significant deposition of material culture into the water. Our findings challenge current conceptualisations of Neolithic settlement, monumentality and depositional practice more widely. They also suggest the possibility that other ‘undated’ crannogs across Scotland and Ireland could potentially have Neolithic origins as well.

It is widely accepted that between the beginning of the Early Neolithic period and the end of the Early Bronze Age different regions of Britain were connected to one another by sea, but little is known about the nature of maritime contacts before plank-built boats developed during the 2nd millenniumbc. This paper considers a series of coastal sites, some of which were first settled from Mesolithic times. From the early 4th millennium they were also associated with artefact production and the use of imported objects and raw materials. Their distribution focuses on the region of isostatic uplift in northern Britain where the ancient shoreline still survives. It is considered in relation to a new model of coastal change which suggests that these locations were characterised by natural havens sheltered behind islands or bars. The sites can be compared with the ‘landing places’ and ‘beach markets’ discussed by historical archaeologists in recent years.

Submerged prehistory has emerged as a key topic within archaeology over the last decade. During this period the broader academic community has become aware of its potential for revolutionising our understanding of the past. With recent technological and scientific developments has come an opportunity to investigate larger areas and learn more than previously thought possible. When charting the future of the subject, however, it is also necessary to consider its historical trajectory. This sense of opportunity and optimism has been experienced before, but not sustained. As such, our greatest challenge lies not in adopting technological developments, but in maintaining momentum.

Within arid regions allochthonous rivers as a main source of fresh water play a significant role in the spatial organisation of human occupation.This study aims at a comprehensive view on changes in the prehistoric occupation patterns within the Río Ica catchment on the southern coast of Peru. Results of different research projects are integrated. The heterogeneous character of the catchment allows us to define three sub-sections which differ greatly in terms of vegetation, relief and water regime.Based on quantitative geo-statistical methods we analyse spatio-temporal changes in human occupation from the Early Horizon (c. 1000–200 BC) through to the Inca Late Horizon (AD 1450–1532) in the context of environmental conditions, as well as socio-economic processes. Examining known archaeological sites we are able to assess the significance of environmental location factors for pre-Hispanic settlements. In addition, areas of high human interaction are identified on the basis of a classification of archaeological sites according to their function (craft/industry, cult, cooperation and trade). We thereby transfer the concept of central place theory to the spatial distribution of archaeological remains, introducing a novel approach to identifying central functions in a spatially explicit way.Our results crystallise the changing character of occupation in the study area over more than two millennia. They contribute to the ongoing debate on the decline of the Nasca culture, endorsing a complex combination of natural and socio-economic reasons. Furthermore, the results support the concept of a more widespread exchange and cooperation during ‘Horizon’ periods in the study area and likewise indicate that the disappearance of a supra-regional administrative polity during ‘Intermediate’ periods might have led to higher human activity in smaller scale societies, as reflected in a more diverse spatial organisation in terms of geomorphometric units and central areas.

Evidence from the Severn Estuary demonstrates that this region was exploited by Mesolithic hunter-gatherer-fishers (Bell 2007). The potential for future archaeological discoveries (Bell 2007; Webster 2007, 273; Bell and Warren 2013, 39), and the well-preserved palaeoenvironmental evidence in the fine-grained and organic sediments of the Somerset, Avon and Gwent Levels (Hosfield et al., 2007a, 40) makes the area of importance for archaeological study. Small quantities of worked flint have been recovered from the foreshore around Stolford, Porlock and Minehead Bay (Mullin et al., 2009; Canti et al., 1995) implying human activity in the present intertidal zone, which is further enhanced by the suggestion of possible deliberate burning of reed swamps (Jones et al., 2005) similar to that postulated in the Severn Estuary (Brown 2005; Timpany 2005; Bell 2007). While considerable research has been carried out within terrestrial and intertidal contexts, remarkably little archaeological work has been undertaken below the mean low water mark (Webster 2007, 273). The Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary has seen considerable change in sea-level since the Last Glacial Maximum (Long et al., 2002; Philips and Crips 2010). Extending our knowledge beyond the intertidal zone is therefore of key importance for understanding the Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic palaeogeography of the region (Hosfield et al., 2007b). Developments in the recovery of offshore Holocene peat and sediment sequences now permit the production of multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental datasets and landscape reconstructions from submerged sample sites. This paper uses evidence from three cores, recovered from submarine peat deposits at Hinkley Point, Bristol Channel, UK, to explore the issues and challenges associated with producing radiocarbon chronologies from deeply submerged peat sequences within a marine environment. We emphasise the importance of analysis of multiple sequences to construct robust chronologies for local hydrological change and landscape reconstruction (Edwards 2006). The need for local evidence is critical if we are to move beyond generalised and potentially misleading models of human-environment interaction (Scaife 2011), because as this case study demonstrates, complex processes and landscape variability might have been features of even highly-localised palaeoenvironments.

The ‘western seaways’ are an arc of sea extending from the Channel Islands in the south, through the Isles of Scilly around to Orkney in the north. This maritime zone has long been seen as a crucial corridor of interaction during later prehistory. Connections across it potentially led, for example, to the eventual arrival of the Neolithic in Britain, almost 1000 years after it arrived on the near continent. This book’s primary focus is Early Neolithic settlement on islands within the ‘western seaways’ – sites that offer significant insight into the character of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in this particular maritime zone. It also explores a series of directly related, wider themes: the nature and effects of ‘island-ness’ in later prehistory; the visibility of material connections across the sea; the extent of Neolithic settlement variability across Britain; and the consequences of geographical biases in research for our understanding of the prehistoric past. At the heart of the book lie the results of three substantial excavations at L’Eree, Guernsey; Old Quay, St Martin’s (Isles of Scilly); and An Doirlinn, South Uist. Key findings include: the first major Mesolithic flint assemblage recovered from Scilly; one of the most extensively excavated and long-lasting Neolithic/Bronze Age occupation sites in the Channel Islands; the first substantial Neolithic settlement on Scilly; and the longest sequence of Neolithic/Early Bronze Age occupation on a single site from the Outer Hebrides. In order to contextualise the significance of these findings, we also present an extended discussion and broad synthesis of Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeology on each island group.

We would like to thank all four authors for their thoughtful responses to our paper and the assemblage it describes. In some cases those comments confirmed things we had thought already, but in others they surprised us, confronting us with ideas that we had never previously considered. Collectively this has made us think hard about future research possibilities.

It has been proposed that a strong relationship exists between the population size and density of Pleistocene hominins and their competence in making stone tools. Here we focus on the first ‘Out of Africa’ dispersal, 1.8 Ma ago, and the idea that it might have featured lower population density and the fragmentation of hominin groups in areas furthest away from the point of origin. As a result, these distant populations in Central and East Asia and Europe would not be able to sustain sophisticated technological knowledge and reverted to a pattern of simpler stone-knapping techniques. This process could have led to the establishment of the ‘Movius Line’ and other long-lasting continental-scale patterns in the spatial distribution of Lower Palaeolithic stone technology. Here we report on a simulation developed to evaluate if, and under what conditions, the early ‘Out of Africa’ dispersal could lead to such a demographic pattern. The model comprises a dynamic environmental reconstruction of Old World vegetation in the timeframe 2.5–0.25 Ma coupled with a standard biological model of population growth and dispersal. The spatial distribution of population density is recorded over the course of the simulation. We demonstrate that, under a wide sweep of both environmental and behavioural parameter values, and across a range of scenarios that vary the role of disease and the availability of alternative crossing points between Africa, Europe and Asia, the demographic consequence of dispersal is not a gradual attenuation of the population size away from the point of origin but a pattern of ecologically driven local variation in population density. The methodology presented opens a new route to understand the phenomenon of the Movius Line and other large-scale spatio-temporal patterns in the archaeological record and provides a new insight into the debate on the relationship between demographics and cultural complexity. This study also highlights the potential of simulation studies for testing complex conceptual models and the importance of building reference frameworks based on known proxies in order to achieve more rigorous model development in Palaeolithic archaeology and beyond.

Careful examination of the probable natural conditions for travel in the North Sea and Irish Sea during the late Mesolithic are here combined with the latest radiocarbon dates to present a new picture of the transition to the Neolithic in the British Isles. The islands of the west were already connected by Mesolithic traffic and did not all go Neolithic at the same time. The introduction of the Neolithic package neither depended on seaborne incomers nor on proximity to the continent. More interesting forces were probably operating on an already busy seaway.

Este artículo presenta los resultados de análisis arqueobotánicos y malacológicos realizados en los materiales de un basural fechado hacia las fases Ocucaje 3 a 4 (c. 750 a.C.), con asociación estratigráfica segura debajo de los contextos de una sección de canal del Periodo Nasca Temprano en la cuenca de Ullujaya, en el valle bajo de Ica, costa sur del Perú. Semejante conservación de contextos de ocupación tempranos es poco común al interior del paisaje de esta zona, cuya topografía está determinada, en la actualidad, por los prolongados efectos de la erosión eólica sobre la que tenía en el pasado. Estos antiguos restos de basura no contienen vestigios de plantas domesticadas, con excepción del algodón, además de restos de erizos de mar y otros recursos en forma de mariscos marinos y terrestres recolectados de las lomas y el océano Pacífico, distante 25 kilómetros. Sin embargo, sí contienen algunos restos de plantas, entre las que están alimentos silvestres como semillas de huarango y otras plantas típicas de bosques ripícolas. Se presentan estos resultados en el contexto de otros datos procedentes de las cuencas de Samaca y Ullujaya —como, por ejemplo, los restos de basurales de épocas posteriores y una secuencia palinológica— con el objeto de mostrar, en conjunto, la sostenida intensificación de la agricultura en estas zonas durante el subsiguiente Periodo Intermedio Temprano, lo que desembocó en el colapso de la producción agrícola y el retorno a la recolección de recursos marinos y vegetales durante el Horizonte Medio.

This paper explores the points of contact and divergence between education, training and experience in maritime archaeology. In particular, it is proposed that whilst it is worth developing McGrail’s (Studies in maritime archaeology. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford, 1997) discussion of what should be included when we teach Maritime archaeology, more might be gained from moving beyond individual opinions of instructors. As such, this paper includes an exploration of both my own answers to the questions offered in the call for papers and those of past and present Southampton students. What emerges from this comparison is that by focusing too closely on the specifics of what is (or should be) taught, we miss out on what students actually gain from courses and more broadly what we gain as a community.

Lomas – ephemeral seasonal oases sustained by ocean fogs – were critical to ancient human ecology on the desert Pacific coast of Peru: one of humanity's few independent hearths of agriculture and “pristine” civilisation. The role of climate change since the Late Pleistocene in determining productivity and extent of past lomas ecosystems has been much debated.Here we reassess the resource potential of the poorly studied lomas of the south coast of Peru during the long Middle Pre-ceramic period (c. 8000–4500 BP): a period critical in the transition to agriculture, the onset of modern El Niño Southern Oscillation (‘ENSO’) conditions, and eustatic sea-level rise and stabilisation and beach progradation.Our method combines vegetation survey and herbarium collection with archaeological survey and excavation to make inferences about both Preceramic hunter–gatherer ecology and the changed palaeoenvironments in which it took place. Our analysis of newly discovered archaeological sites – and their resource context – show how lomas formations defined human ecology until the end of the Middle Preceramic Period, thereby corroborating recent reconstructions of ENSO history based on other data.Together, these suggest that a five millennia period of significantly colder seas on the south coast induced conditions of abundance and seasonal predictability in lomas and maritime ecosystems, that enabled Middle Preceramic hunter–gatherers to reduce mobility by settling in strategic locations at the confluence of multiple eco-zones at the river estuaries. Here the foundations of agriculture lay in a Broad Spectrum Revolution that unfolded, not through population pressure in deteriorating environments, but rather as an outcome of resource abundance

This is a paper about blurring the boundaries between people, land and water in the past and of appreciating the importance of the wider environment in our accounts of prehistory. Maritime approaches to time/space are shown to offer new ways of looking at how people engage with the world around them. Informed by these approaches, and building on Lefebvre’s concepts of lived space and rhythm, current tensions within archaeology between cartesian and phenomenological approaches to the past will be shown to be unconstructive. These issues are all addressed in relation the late Mesolithic and early Neolithic of the East Anglian Fenland. Here a rhythmical, maritime approach will be shown to offer us a subtly different view of life during this period.

There is an increasing demand for high-resolution recording of in situ underwater cultural heritage. Reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) has a proven track record in terrestrial contexts for acquiring high-resolution diagnostic data at small scales. The research presented here documents the first adaptation of RTI protocols to the subaquatic environment, with a scuba-deployable method designed around affordable off-the-shelf technologies. Underwater RTI (URTI) was used to capture detail from historic shipwrecks in both the Solent and the western Mediterranean. Results show that URTI can capture submillimeter levels of qualitative diagnostic detail from in situ archaeological material. In addition, this paper presents the results of experiments to explore the impact of turbidity on URTI. For this purpose, a prototype fixed-lighting semisubmersible RTI photography dome was constructed to allow collection of data under controlled conditions. The signal-to-noise data generated reveals that the RGB channels of underwater digital images captured in progressive turbidity degraded faster than URTI object geometry calculated from them. URTI is shown to be capable of providing analytically useful object-level detail in conditions that would render ordinary underwater photography of limited use.

This paper presents new 500 year interval palaeogeographic models for Britain, Ireland and the North West French coast from 11000 cal. BP to present. These models are used to calculate the varying rates of inundation for different geographical zones over the study period. This allows for consideration of the differential impact that Holocene sea-level rise had across space and time, and on past societies. In turn, consideration of the limitations of the models helps to foreground profitable areas for future research.