Antiquity

The Magdalenian stage of the Upper Palaeolithic is renowned for its 'art', both in the form of portable objects and of motifs and depictions on cave walls. Many of these portray animals, with human imagery playing a relatively minor role. Systematic analysis of human images from three separate zones of south-western France demonstrates that different styles of image were chosen by different communities. The evocative power of the human form, and the conceptual importance of the human image as a depiction of the self, highlights the significance of these Magdalenian representations. Particular attention is drawn to the realistic styles of portrayal employed in some parts of the region. This, it is argued, betokens the arrival of the individual, and the regional styles illustrate the presence of separate Magdalenian territories, occupied by communities that were in contact with one another but that chose different approaches to the human form as expressions of group identity.

Stable isotope analysis has provided crucial new insights into dietary change at the Neolithic transition in north-west Europe, indicating an unexpectedly sudden and radical shift from marine to terrestrial resources in coastal and island locations. Investigations of early Neolithic skeletal material from Sumburgh on Shetland, at the far-flung margins of the Neolithic world, suggest that this general pattern may mask significant subtle detail. Analysis of juvenile dentine reveals the consumption of marine foods on an occasional basis. This suggests that marine foods may have been consumed as a crucial supplementary resource in times of famine, when the newly introduced cereal crops failed to cope with the demanding climate of Shetland. This isotopic evidence is consistent with the presence of marine food debris in contemporary middens. The occasional and contingent nature of marine food consumption underlines how, even on Shetland, the shift from marine to terrestrial diet was a key element in the Neolithic transition.

Calculating the volume of ceramic vessels found whole or in fragments on archaeological sites is a key analytical endeavour that can have implications for economic and social activity, including storage and feasting. Established methods for estimating volumes are mostly based on the assumption that vessel shapes approximate to a circular form in plan-view. This new study shows that such an assumption may not be warranted and that methods that assume circularity produce less accurate volumetric estimates than approaches which accept that a less regular elliptical shape may be closer to reality. Statistical analysis allows the accuracy of the different methods to be compared and evaluated.