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Abstract Virtual Reality (VR) has vast potential for developing systematic, interdisciplinary studies to understand ephemeral behaviours in the archaeological record, such as the emergence and development of visual culture. Upper Palaeolithic cave art forms the most robust record for investigating this and the methods of its production, themes, and temporal and spatial changes have been researched extensively, but without consensus over its functions or meanings. More compelling arguments draw from visual psychology and posit that the immersive, dark conditions of caves elicited particular psychological responses, resulting in the perception—and depiction—of animals on suggestive features of cave walls. Our research developed and piloted a novel VR experiment that allowed participants to perceive 3D models of cave walls, with the Palaeolithic art digitally removed, from El Castillo cave (Cantabria, Spain). Results indicate that modern participants’ visual attention corresponded to the same topographic features of cave walls utilised by Palaeolithic artists, and that they perceived such features as resembling animals. Although preliminary, our results support the hypothesis that pareidolia—a product of our cognitive evolution—was a key mechanism in Palaeolithic art making, and demonstrates the potential of interdisciplinary VR research for understanding the evolution of art, and demonstrate the potential efficacy of the methodology.

The lower part of a sediment core taken from the Ezero lake, next to Tell Ezero, in the Thracian Plain, Bulgaria, covers the period 15500–13500 calBP (Greenland Ice Core Stages G1-1c–1e). The recovery of plant macrofossils as well as pollen grains indicated that, far from a largely treeless grassy steppe vegetation, there were stands of trees and bushes as well as a rich wetland flora. Archaeological, ethnographic and ethnohistoric investigations of over 70 plant taxa showed that 20 taxa had documented use exclusively for food, 14 for exclusively medicinal use and 14 for both uses; moreover, several taxa were utilised or present in coeval sites such as the Franchthi Cave and in southwest Germany. The presumption is that Final Palaeolithic communities in the Thracian Plain would have made good use of such a rich supply of food and medicinal plants. However, there is a variety of reasons – whether taphonomic, research led or pedagogical – for the current absence of any Final Palaeolithic sites in the Thracian Plain. A hypothetical mating network centred on Ezero puts this problem in spatial context.

Chronometric attention in the Late Glacial of Western Europe is turning from the dating of archaeological cultures to studying how the continent was re-populated at the end of the last ice age. We present results from a survey of all available radiocarbon determinations (the S2AGES database) which show that when calibrated, and compared to the GRIP stratotype of climatic events, the data can be interpreted as five population events in the 15ka prior to the onset of the Holocene. The fine-grained climate record provides an opportunity to study the impact of environmental factors on a human dispersal process that not only shaped subsequent European prehistory, but also the genetic makeup of modern Europeans. The population events have implications for archaeologists and molecular geneticists concerning the timing, direction, speed and scale of processes in Western European demographic history. The results also bear on the role of climatic forcing on the expansion and contraction of human populations and in particular the correlation of ice core and terrestrial records for the onset of warming in the North Atlantic.

It is quite ironic that, as an archaeologist concerned with ancient (lithic) technology, I should be so ignorant about recent advances in modern technology, particularly in the field of information technology which is having such a profound effect on the nature of academic disciplines. It was therefore with some trepidation that I undertook to review the CD-Rom companion to a recent publication in Palaeolithic archaeology (Dibble, H. L. and Lenoir, M. 1996), and user-friendliness, I thought, would be the primary criterion on which, for me, the CD would stand or fall.