Abstract: Abstract Mesolithic groups in Mediterranean Iberia lived during a period of bioclimatic and cultural changes. Thus, their economic behaviour and the availability of plant and animal resources show some interesting variation compared to previous periods that indicate changes in mobility patterns and social connectivity networks. This paper presents information on patterns of animal exploitation of the last hunter-gatherers in this region through zooarchaeological and taphonomic analyses of faunal remains from one of the key sites of the Iberian Peninsular Mesolithic, Cocina cave. This site is located in a mountainous woodland region with a rich Late Mesolithic archaeological record. Results indicate that Iberian ibex, red deer, and rabbits were the most hunted species, but that a diversity of other taxa were also present. The comparison to other Mediterranean sites suggests that Late Mesolithic foragers had common animal exploitation patterns with an increased taxonomic diversification and a clear connection to coastal areas. We suggest these foragers practiced a logistic pattern of food procurement, combining long-term with short-term camps including hunting spots, and in some cases evidence for broad scale social interactions. We hypothesize that Cocina cave may have served as a nexus of social and subsistence activities.

Abstract: The article presents weapons from the upper Mesolithic layer of the Alimovskiy rockshelter excavated by A. D. Stolyar in 1955. The collection is kept in the State Hermitage museum. The trench excavated in 2022 by M. G. Zhilin confirmed the stratigraphy exposed in the eastern part of the 1955 trench and enriched the archaeological collection. The site contains four Mesolithic layers dated to the Early, Middle, Late and Final Mesolithic. About one hundred trapezes and several segments were found in the upper Mesolithic layer. The faunal collection is dominated by red deer and wild boar bones. Weapons from this layer were identified by the authors on the basis of use-wear and experimental analyses for the first time. Transverse arrowheads are numerous. Trapezes and segments were used for this purpose. No other weapons were found. Despite good preservation of bone and careful excavations, no bone weapons were found in 1955 and 1922, though several small bone awls were discovered. Flint inserts of composite weapons are absent too. Such inserts are normally met at sites where such weapons were used. These facts lead to the conclusion that bow and arrows with transversal arrowheads were the universal weapons of the population which left the upper Mesolithic layer of the Alimovskiy rockshelter site.

Abstract: Recent discoveries of several Mesolithic sites within the Dagsmosse basin, south-central Sweden, offer an opportunity to study lifeways and skillsets of Mesolithic hunter-gatherer-fishers operating in wetland environments. Archaeological research examining the relation between wetlands and humans during the Mesolithic is incomplete without detailed knowledge of wetland formation processes and landscape composition history at both local and regional scales. This study presents a combined archaeological and palaeoecological analysis of a Mesolithic fenland environment using Repetitive-Proxy Pollen Analysis (RPPA) of early Holocene sequences from two stratigraphic profiles. Comparing two cores from one basin, their variance in pollen composition and anthropogenic signals reflect variability in human/vegetation interaction patterns in the fenland, at different distances to the basin’s main dwelling location Jussberg (9,000–8,200 cal BP). The study details socio-environmental relations within the wetland and adjacent dryland areas, providing a basis for tracking changes in foragers’ interactions with their surroundings during the Mesolithic. The pollen analysis supports the previously established sequence of settlement phases and extent as well as provide new data on Mesolithic encounters with plant communities co-inhabiting the wetland—including use, reuse, management and valuation through the selecting and promoting of particular taxa. Correlations between palaeoecological and archaeological data demonstrate that forager communities (i) prevailed in the open fenland landscape between the 9.3 and 8.2 ka cal BP stadial, (ii) actively altered taxa composition through small-scale clearings of pine (Pinus), birch (Betula) and sedges (Cyperaceae) and (iii) opened canopy cover, plausibly to intentionally encourage the growth of taxa such as hazel (Corylus), but that also promoted the establishment of pioneer plants such as mugwort (Artemisia) and bracken (Pteridium).

Abstract: The Mesolithic period along the coast of the Cantabrian Region (Spain), known as the “Asturian,” is distinguished by the presence of shell middens and a particular lithic tool, the Asturian pick. Despite the tool’s archaeological significance, its technological and functional aspects have not been fully understood, resulting in ambiguous interpretations of its morphological relationships and utilitarian purposes. Our research aims to quantify and analyse the technological processes that have influenced the Asturian pick's form and investigate the selection criteria governing its morphology and choice of raw materials. A novel aspect of our approach is the use of digital methods, including photogrammetry and three-dimensional geometric morphometric analysis. We analysed a sample of Asturian picks, compared against a control group of different elements and raw material specimens. The findings corroborate the homogeneity and standardisation of the Asturian pick's design and unveil regional shape variations that correspond with the distinct raw materials available in each locality.

Abstract: [This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299512.].

Abstract: Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by Barratt Homes, Exeter to undertake an archaeological excavation on land off Lyde Road in Yeovil, Somerset in advance of housing development. The excavations were undertaken over a ten year period between 2009 to 2018 and the results reported in a series of interim assessments (Wessex Archaeology 2010a; 2011b and c; 2015a). Finds of Mesolithic flintwork indicate intermittent, perhaps seasonal activity on the higher ground overlooking the River Yeo. Several Neolithic pits some containing pottery, flintwork and charred plant remains, a 'working hollow' with in situ knapping evidence were also identified and point to wider use of the landscape during this period. A few features and residual finds of Beaker and Early Bronze Age date were found. The most significant features include a Beaker pit and two Collard Urn cremations burials. More permanent settlement of the hillside followed during the Middle to Late Bronze Age, characterised by settlement enclosures, landscape boundaries, field systems, trackways, post-built roundhouses and funerary activity. The evidence demonstrates the significance of land tenure during this period and the finds and environmental assemblages provide evidence of the associated domestic and agricultural activities. Most of the archaeological remains revealed within the development area relate to occupation during the Iron Age and Romano-British periods. The overall assemblage of site-components includes ditched enclosures, field systems, roundhouses and features associated with the processing (grain dryers and ovens) and storage (four-post structures) of cereal crops. There is also some evidence of funerary activity in the form or isolated cremation burials and inhumation graves, although only the burnt bone survives. The finds and environmental assemblages proved evidence for a range of domestic, industrial and agricultural activities that sustained the economic growth and development of the farmstead.

Abstract: Archaeological excavation Albion Archaeology carried out an archaeological excavation in advance of residential development of the site known as Land off St Andrew's Way, Langford, Bedfordshire (TL 1877 4151). The work had been requested by the Central Bedfordshire Council Archaeological Officer, following the results of a trial-trench evaluation in 2017. Albion Archaeology was commissioned by Croudace Homes Group to undertake the archaeological excavation. The excavated area was c. 1ha in extent and contained features dating from the Bronze Age to the modern era, primarily dating to the mid- to late Iron Age. Residual finds of worked flints and a potential aurochs astragalus may indicate Mesolithic activity, although no features could be reliably dated to this period. Evidence for Bronze Age activity within the excavation area was limited. Only two features could be reliably dated to this period: a small pit and an un-urned cremation burial. A further eight pits were dated to the late Bronze Age to early Iron Age. Although no direct evidence of settlement (e.g. the remains of buildings or structures) was recorded, these features are certainly indicative of some level of early prehistoric settlement activity either within the site or in its immediate environs. The majority of the remains related to a mid- to late Iron Age settlement. They comprised boundary ditches, two enclosures, a roundhouse, storage pits, and a four-post structure. The boundary ditches likely represent field systems south of the settlement. The large number of recuts of both enclosure ditches attest to a lengthy period of usage. Whilst the domestic features may be part of a larger settlement extending beyond the north and east limits of the excavation area, they are more likely to represent a small farmstead. An iron dagger recovered from the base of a storage pit may represent ritual deposition. Evidence for Roman activity was limited to a WNW-ESE trackway with a parallel boundary ditch. A line of postholes along the boundary ditch may represent a fence line. Several pits and postholes (both medieval and post-medieval) along the west limit of the excavation area likely represent backyard activity associated with properties along Church Street, although no function could be determined for these features. Whilst an isolated horse burial only produced one sherd of medieval pottery, the animal's size was comparable to horses identified at medieval sites. Its estimated age at death at eight years is consistent with the age horses were commonly put down during this period - after they had become less effective as working animals

Abstract: Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by Halsall Construction Ltd to carry out a programme of archaeological mitigation on land off West Camel Road, Queen Camel, Somerset, centred on NGR 359289 124466. This report sets out and assesses the results of the fieldwork, which comprised an archaeological strip, map and sample excavation, carried out from April to June 2014. The excavation was preceded by several geophysical surveys and evaluation trenching, both within the Site and immediately to the north where a Roman villa has recently been discovered and subject to limited investigation. In keeping with the results of this preliminary work, the excavation revealed archaeological remains to be concentrated in the central and northern parts of the Site, with most of Bronze Age and Roman date. See Post-Excavation Assessment Report for further details of findings. Following further analysis of the stratigraphic sequence and the finds and environmental assemblages, it is proposed to publish the results of the investigations as an article in the county journal, the Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society. There is a small quantity of residual Mesolithic and Neolithic worked flint, but the earliest occupation on the Site can be assigned to the Middle Bronze Age. Several substantial curvilinear ditches containing relatively large amounts of Middle Bronze Age pottery, including an important assemblage of Trevisker type Ware, animal bone, loomweights and charred cereal remains indicate settlement in the vicinity, probably immediately to the east, extending beyond the limit of excavation. The curvilinear ditches may have defined part of an enclosure, though apart from other ditches, the only broadly contemporary feature was a possible well, and no structures were identified within the area investigated. At least two less well dated ditches in the north of the Site may have been part of the same complex. The evidence for Romano-British occupation consisted of a sequence of two or three phases of middle-late Roman ditches and gullies, mainly on an east-west alignment, as well as a corn drying oven, all associated with the villa to the north. The enclosure or field boundary ditches were certainly still partly open when the villa was abandoned, and contained moderately large quantities of building material derived from the villa or associated ancillary buildings. After the abandonment of the villa in probably the later 4th century AD, no further occupation seems to have taken place. The Site was later given over to arable agriculture, the well-preserved remains of a medieval ridge and furrow still being evident on the Site up to the time of the excavation.

Abstract: Excavations revealed: Mesolithic and Neolithic flint scatters evidenced by residual finds and debitage found across the siteand contained within the backfill of structural features. During this period, land clearance took place. Amidthe PRIA-Roman period,a series of extensive ditched structures were constructed including a trackway, rectilinear enclosure and a series of windbreaks and livestock pens. During this period, jet was being manufactured on site. Modern activity includes a hedge boundary pre-dating the enclosures map of 1802 and a set of parallel post holes dating to the 20th century. Mesolithic and Neolithic flint scatters. Amid the PRIA-Roman period, pottery and jet.

Abstract: The Mesolithic period and its transition to the Neolithic period in Western Asia is one of the most important stages of human cultural evolution during which. humans gradually changed their way of life and cultural behavior. After millennia of living as mobile hunter-gatherers, these changes in human lifestyle were so significant that some scientists consider them to have triggered the Anthropocene (Smith and Zeder, 2013). Therefore, the study of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer way of life and its transformation into a Neolithic society is crucial for investigating the first steps and possible triggers of this fundamental change. A small number of important archaeological sites in the southeastern edge of the Caspian Sea coast provide rich sequences of hunter-gatherers dating from about 15,000 to 10,000 years ago with abundant cultural materials. One of those, Hotu Cave located nearby the modern Iranian city Behshahr, was firstly described by the American anthropologist Carlton Coon in 1949 and then excavated by him in 1951. Due to various reasons, a proper report on this cave was never presented. Our new activities at the site after 70 years aim to establish a secure chronology from the Mesolithic to the Parthian period and to link obvious gaps in the cave sequence to climatic and environmental changes during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. The new excavation at Hotu Cave is not only useful to contextualize the data from the Coon excavations, but has also helped us to generate additional data to propose a regional chronology from the Mesolithic onwards. In this paper we present not only the current data on the chronology of the cave, but also all the chronological schemes attempted by scholars, which we have brought together. Our project not only includes activities in Hotu Cave, but also carried out excavations in 2022 and 2023 at the two other key sites of the relevant Mesolithic-Neolithic transitional horizon, Kamarband Cave and Komishani Tappe, which lies in front of Komishani Cave. The material culture from the recent excavations is very important in proposing a new model of the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic for the Iranian highlands that goes beyond the Zagros region, which – until now – has been considered an independent core region of early domestication and Neolithization.

Abstract: The site of Khor Shambat 1 (KSH1) is located on the west bank of the Nile, in Omdurman, approximately 5 km north of Tuti Island. The first surveys there started in 2012, to be followed by an expedition of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, which began four years later. A series of radiocarbon dates show that Mesolithic hunter-fisher-gatherers inhabited the site between 7000 and 5200 calBC, while Neolithic pastoralists settled there between 5000 and 3800 calBC. The research, carried out in nine trenches with a total area of nearly 180 m², yielded 66 human burials. While most of them were Neolithic and post-Meroitic, two graves found in the central part of the site contained remains of hunter-fisher-gatherers. The paper presents the results of archaeological, anthropological, and bioarchaeological research on the skeletons of the two Mesolithic men. The analyses are presented against a broader background of Early Holocene settlement in Central Sudan.

Abstract: This projects is an investigation of the potential for archaeological remains on land to the south of Highworth Road, Faringdon, Oxfordshire (NGR SU 27903 94777). Historically Faringdon was located in Berkshire, and is an ancient parish. Mesolithic to Bronze Age archaeology occurs sporadically in the search area, it is considered to be a low to moderate possibility that any features or finds of this date are recovered on our present knowledge. There is a moderate to high chance of Iron Age or Roman archaeology being detected as features of this date, including a Roman shrine, have been located to the southeast of the proposal site. Such sites are important heritage and cultural sites. The activity appears to be located along the spine of a ridge, which runs through the proposal site from the southeast to the northwest. There is a low chance of there being any medieval or post-medieval archaeology other than agricultural furrows.

Abstract: Different cultural and research traditions have led to distinctively different approaches to lithics analysis.An integration of different approaches can often give new 'ways of seeing' artefact assemblages and distribution patterns and provide valuable insights into past activities.Here we present the preliminary results of a project integrating detailed analytical techniques, focused on processes of production and consumption and social dynamics in ethnarchaeological contexts in Tierra del Fuego with existing detailed lithic analysis at Mesolithic sites in the Central Pennines.Such methods, taken from Argentina (Álvarez) and Spain (Briz), that were developed in ethnoarchaeological contexts employed detailed edge morphological analysis and use wear.When applied to site A at March Hill, these techniques yielded interesting new insights about activities at the site, and provided a test case for such techniques.

Abstract: Trial Trench A test pit and trial trench investigation was undertaken on land immediately to the south of Farm, Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire. It comprised of 1 machine-excavated trench 30m long and three topsoil test pits within its footprint prior to trench excavation. The test pits were machine-excavated and the arisings dry-sieved. The Site comprises three land parcels with the area to be evaluated being targeted within a single land parcel measuring c. 0.27 ha. The majority of the flint debitage comprised flakes of broadly Prehistoric date, with an additional blade-like flake of possible Mesolithic date. All the flakes displayed edge damage and wear, consistent with an assemblage derived largely from plough soil. Dating flakes with confidence is not generally possible, particularly in an unstratified assemblage where material from more than one period may be present. The single blade-like flake is potentially indicative of activity as early as the Mesolithic period. The test pit sieving also recovered a small assemblage of post-medieval and modern material of no significance, including window glass and CBM. No archaeological features were recorded during the trial trench evaluation.

Abstract: Abstract Hazelnuts ( Corylus avellana ) are considered as a staple in Mesolithic subsistence, decisive for early Holocene land use strategies. According to pollen analyses, ethnographic and historic accounts hazelnuts provided high return harvests. Roasting structures potentially served for the processing of nuts into large scale staples and therefore had an important economic role. As yet, the related nut technologies remain poorly understood and could not be replicated successfully. By controlled experiments we provide detailed data on the roasting process, its efforts and implications. Roasting in hot sand proved as a most efficient technology, capable of processing large amounts of nuts loss-free in a short time. These data help to quantitatively substantiate early Holocene nut economy and related land use strategies. Experiments on cracking and grinding of roasted nuts and analyses of resulting use wear supply references for future investigations in nut processing sites and their equipment. A significant improvement of flavour and processability were the most important advantages of roasting. However, shelf life could not be prolonged by roasting, neither for ripe nor for green nuts. Based on these results we discuss, if nuts served as a fat storage or were roasted for immediate consumption during feasting.

Abstract: <p>The paper presents a unique find of a T-shaped antler axe from site no. 9 in Dąbki. T-shaped antler axes are characteristic tools used by the Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic communities of the Central European Plain, including the shores of the Baltic Sea. The artefact is the only such tool made of elk antler within a large collection of axes recorded at the Dąbki site. The paper contains the history and stratigraphic context of that discovery, a morphological and technological analysis of the artefact, comparing its results against the standard method of T-shaped axes production. Results of radiocarbon dating of the axe are also included.</p>

Abstract: The ‘Jászság Mesolithic’ is almost iconic in Hungarian research on prehistory because of the abundance of the sites associated with early Holocene hunter-gatherers discovered there since the late 1980s. At these sites, lithic industries unequivocally connected with the Mesolithic and characterised by geometric microliths were found, refuting the ‘Mesolithic hiatus’ theory. Unfortunately, the wave of successful research slowed down after the 2000s. Recently, the Hungarian National Museum National Institute of Archaeology and the Hungarian Research Network Institute of Archaeology in cooperation with county museums such as the Damjanich János Museum in Szolnok and the Jász Museum in Jászberény, embraced the topic and started new research on the Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites of the Jászság. The cooperation is based on the surface find collections gleaned by Gyula Kerékgyártó. In this paper, we present the preliminary results and methodology of our research, which hopefully provides a new basis for a better understanding of the Mesolithic of the Jászság and the early Holocene prehistory of the Carpathian Basin.

Abstract: Twenty-two trial-trenches were laid out across the development site. The trenches were 20m-30m long by 1.8m wide (totalling 1,170m�), providing a 5% sample of the site. There was sufficient excavation to give evidence for the period, depth and nature of all archaeological deposits. For linear features 1m wide sections were excavated across their width to a total of 10% of the overall length. Discrete features, such as pits, were 50% excavated. There were no complex archaeological structures. The aims of the archaeological evaluation were to record the extent of any surviving archaeological deposits and to assess the archaeological potential of the site to allow the CBCAA to determine if further investigation is required. An archaeological evaluation (22 trial-trenches) was carried out at Waldegraves Holiday Park, Waldegraves Lane, West Mersea, Essex in advance of the conversion of an area from caravan pitches to static caravans. There are few known archaeological remains in the vicinity of the site, although a series of post-medieval cropmarks lie to the north, and artefacts ranging from Paleolithic to post-medieval in date have been recovered from the coastline and the foreshore nearby. Excavations at this site revealed parts of a prehistoric settlement likely dating to the Bronze Age, along with evidence of more limited activity during the Mesolithic or Neolithic periods, the Iron Age, the Roman period and the post-medieval or modern periods.