Derek Hamilton

1. The northern limits of the Roman Empire in Britain are a long-standing research area, although approaches have traditionally been marked by both administrative and academic divides. These divisi...

Prior to the formation of the present-day North Sea during the mid-Holocene, North-Western Europe was connected through the Doggerland landmass. While it has been known for the past century that Doggerland was forested, it has not been clear when the onset of forestation occurred or whether the environment was more habitable for humans than surrounding European areas. In this study, we reconstruct the paleoecology of a river system, the Southern River, from the late Late Pleistocene to the late Holocene using sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) from 252 sediment samples from 41 cores spanning the length of the river system and headwater area. We identify secure and insecure sedaDNA signals by integrating sedimentological and sedaDNA data into a taphonomic model. Secure sedaDNA signals are found in silty and fine sand deposits where 95 to 98% originates from local deposition, but coarse sands and gravels are insecure with 60 to 70% of the sedaDNA associated with mixed ecosystem signals from reworked and influxed sediments. Secure sediments reveal the presence of several temperate tree genera such as Quercus , Ulmus, and Corylus over 16,000 y ago in the Late Pleniglacial, and thermal indicator genus Tilia several thousand years earlier than has been recorded for surrounding European areas. In this area, we also detect an anomalous signal of the genus Pterocarya , considered extinct in the region since the Hoxnian Stage (~400 ka). These observations are consistent with colonization from nearby northern glacial refugia, suggesting a favorable environment in which the cultural Mesolithic could develop.

This paper examines the temporal dynamics of Linearbandkeramik (LBK) mortuary practices in south-eastern Czechia and western Slovakia, focusing on the emergence and development of funerary traditions. New radiocarbon dating of Moravian sites, including Vedrovice (with the large cemetery Široká u lesa , the settlement graves at Sídliště, and the small cluster of burials at Za dvorem ), Brno-Starý/Nový Lískovec , Těšetice-Kyjovice-Sutny , as well as the Slovakian cemeteries of Nitra-Horné Krškany and Nitra - Mlynárce are presented and modelled. Our findings reveal that LBK mortuary practices were largely contemporaneous, beginning with the establishment of cemeteries, closely followed by settlement graves, and culminating in secondary deposition of bones and the transition to later Neolithic mortuary practices. The chronological framework aligns with existing models, indicating continuous LBK funerary practices in the timespan 5315–5035 cal BC, which underscores the influence of cultural exchange and migration from the Balkan–Anatolian area. Additionally, we identified temporal trends among individuals’ lifeways and mortuary treatments, as well as significant patterns concerning the foundational burials of non-adults in settlement graves. This revised chronology provides a more reliable basis for future interpretative work based on accurate chronological attributions.

Cemeteries of the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik culture (LBK, 5500–4900 BC) evoke a sense of emerging permanence of place as agricultural subsistence spread westward through Central Europe. Yet assumptions about the sequence of senescence and longevity of cemetery use are based on limited data. Here, the authors challenge the view that cemetery burial was a long-lasting Neolithic practice, modelling 50 new radiocarbon dates from the cemetery of Schwetzingen alongside published dates from eight other LBK mortuary contexts. The results, they argue, indicate a short-lived, largely contemporaneous cemetery horizon across Central Europe, forcing a re-evaluation of Early Neolithic social history.

Human treponemal infections are caused by a family of closely related Treponema pallidum that give rise to the diseases yaws, bejel, pinta and, most notably, syphilis¹. Debates on a common origin for these pathogens and the history of syphilis itself have weighed evidence for the ‘Columbian hypothesis’², which argues for an American origin, against that for the ‘pre-Columbian hypothesis’³, which argues for the presence of the disease in Eurasia in the Medieval period and possibly earlier. Although molecular data has provided a genetic basis for distinction of the typed subspecies⁴, deep evolution of the complex has remained unresolved owing to limitations in the conclusions that can be drawn from the sparse palaeogenomic data that are currently available. Here we explore this evolutionary history through analyses of five pre- and peri-contact ancient treponemal genomes from the Americas that represent ancient relatives of the T. pallidum subsp. pallidum (syphilis), T. pallidum subsp. pertenue (yaws) and T. pallidum subsp. endemicum (bejel) lineages. Our data indicate unexplored diversity and an emergence of T. pallidum that post-dates human occupation in the Americas. Together, these results support an American origin for all T. pallidum characterized at the genomic level, both modern and ancient.

The medieval period in Sicily was turbulent, involving successive regime changes, from Byzantine (Greek Christian), Aghlabid (Sunni Muslim), Fatimid (Shīʿa Muslim), to Normans and Swabians (Latin Christian). To shed new light on the local implications of regime changes, we conducted a multidisciplinary analysis of 27 individuals buried in adjacent Muslim and Christian cemeteries at the site of Segesta, western Sicily. By combining radiocarbon dating, genome-wide sequencing, stable and radiogenic isotopic data, and archaeological records, we uncover genetic differences between the two communities but find evidence of continuity in other aspects of life. Historical and archaeological evidence shows a Muslim community was present by the 12th century during Norman governance, with the Christian settlement appearing in the 13th century under Swabian governance. A Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates from the burials finds the abandonment of the Muslim cemetery likely occurred after the establishment of the Christian cemetery, indicating that individuals of both faiths were present in the area in the first half of the 13th century. The biomolecular results suggest the Christians remained genetically distinct from the Muslim community at Segesta while following a substantially similar diet. This study demonstrates that medieval regime changes had major impacts beyond the political core, leading to demographic changes while economic systems persisted and new social relationships emerged.

ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENTS in early-medieval northern Britain was the re-emergence of fortified enclosures and settlements. As in western England and Wales, the fort rather than the hall formed the most prominent material manifestation of power of an elite and their client group. While fortified sites dominate our knowledge of the form that central places of power and governance took in the early-medieval period in northern Britain, our historical sources reveal little about the character, longevity and lifespan of many of these important nodes of power, and archaeological investigation has also tended to be limited. Hence only a handful of forts in northern Britain provide well-dated and investigated sequences for what are critical sites for understanding the character of post-Roman society in the north. As part of the Leverhulme Trust-funded Comparative Kingship project, a suite of new radiocarbon dates was produced using archived material from excavations at the now-destroyed early-medieval hillfort of Clatchard Craig in Fife, eastern Scotland (NGR NO 2435 1780); one of the most complex early-medieval forts yet identified in northern Britain. Some 35 years ago, Joanna Close-Brooks oversaw the publication of a report on the hillfort based on excavations which had occurred more than two decades earlier in response to the quarrying of this multivallate hillfort. ⁵ Due to the imprecision and scarcity of radiocarbon dating, a broad 6th to 8th + century ad chronology for the defences and occupation of the interior was obtained. With higher precision AMS dates and a new Bayesian model, a much tighter sequence of dating has been produced suggesting the development and destruction of the monumentally enclosed phase of the site centred on a much shorter period in the 7th century ad. The new chronology for the site, which suggests the fort was constructed and destroyed within a few generations at most, has important implications for the role of fortifications, and the character of warfare in early-medieval society. The burning of the fort suggests a catastrophic and rapid end to a site that is likely to have been constructed by the Pictish elite. The fort may have been a victim of the tumultuous and pivotal events of the latter half of the 7th century when southern Pictland came under Northumbrian control before being wrested back into Pictish overkingship in the aftermath of the Battle of Nechtanesmere of ad 685.