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The Early Iron Age hillfort in Chotyniec (SE Poland) is the westernmost permanent settlement of the Scythian cultural circle. Recognizing the construction of the fortified settlement’s ramparts and their chronology was considered one of the priorities of the systematic research conducted since 2016. Based on 18 radiocarbon dated samples from different parts of the rampart, a chronological model of its functioning was made. It indicates that the construction of this monumental fortifications protecting the settlement in Chotyniec should be dated to between 651–595 or 531–409 BC. This dating synchronizes well with the chronology of the most important ritual and ceremonial object within the Chotyniec settlement—the so-called zolnik and other Scythian settlements from the East European forest-steppe zone.

The rich and extensively studied archaeological record of the Near East provides an opportunity to develop a comprehensive archaeomagnetic dataset for exploring the behavior of the geomagnetic field with high precision. The Levantine archaeomagnetic curve (LAC) project is an ongoing effort to develop a continuous high‐resolution geomagnetic intensity curve for the Levant and Mesopotamia. The first version of the LAC covered the period between 3000 and 550 BCE. Here, we report archaeointensity data from 169 samples compiled into 32 groups dating between the 7th and the 1st centuries BCE aiming at extending the LAC up to the end of the first millennium BCE. Twenty‐two groups are assembled from storage jar handles bearing different types of royal seal impressions, which were used in Judah as part of a taxation administrative system. These groups are combined with 10 other groups of pottery assemblages, three of which are from Hellenistic destruction layers dated using radiocarbon and coins. The new curve shows that the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly (LIAA) spanned 550 years (1100 ‐ 550 BCE) and that the rate of decline during the last spike around 600 BCE could have reached ∼0.6 μT/year. During the 6th century, the virtual axial dipole moment (VADM) dropped from 160 ZAm2 to 125 ZAm2 after which field intensity only slightly increased to 135 ZAm2, until another considerable decline to ∼90 ZAm2 during the 3rd to the 1st centuries BCE. We highlight the archaeomagnetic implication of the new curve in inferring the relative chronological relationship between different stamp types. Plain Language Summary The Earth's magnetic field is continuously changing both in time and space in an unpredictable manner. A detailed description of how the magnetic field has changed throughout Earth's history offers constraints on our understanding of the mechanism generating the field in Earth's core. In this study, we reconstruct the intensity of the past field using an assemblage of well‐dated archaeological materials from Israel, dated to the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic and Hasmonean periods. This work is part of an ongoing effort to procure a high‐resolution curve describing the changes in field intensity for the Levant and Mesopotamia over the past several millennia. With the new data, we calculate the curve for the first three millennia BCE. The curve provides further details on an anomalous behavior of the field between 1100 BCE and 550 BCE, termed the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly (LIAA), during which the field intensity and its rate of change were significantly higher than today's. In addition, the curve forms the basis for an archaeomagnetic dating tool, which can be especially useful for periods when traditional archaeological dating methods fail to provide precise ages due to large uncertainties in radiocarbon dates. Key Points Archaeomagnetic intensity data from 32 groups of pottery in Israel dated between the 7th and the 1st centuries BCE The second generation of the Levantine Archaeomagnetic Curve (LAC.v.2.0) covering the last three millennia BCE The new data constrain the duration of the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly (LIAA) from 1100 BCE to 550 BCE

Complex Communitiesexplores how sedentary settlements developed and flourished in the Middle East during the Early Iron Age nearly four thousand years ago. Using archaeological evidence, Benjamin Porter reconstructs how residents maintained their communities despite environmental uncertainties. Living in a semi-arid area in the present-day country of Jordan, villagers faced a harsh and unpredictable ecosystem. Communities fostered resilience by creating flexible production routines and leadership strategies. Settlements developed what archaeologists call \"communal complexity,\" a condition through which small-scale societies shift between egalitarian and hierarchical arrangements.Complex Communitiesprovides detailed, scientifically grounded reconstructions of how this communal complexity functioned in the region.These settlements emerged during a period of recovery following the political and economic collapse of Bronze Age Mediterranean societies. Scholars have characterized west-central Jordan's political organization during this time as an incipient Moabite state.Complex Communitiesargues instead that the settlements were a collection of independent, self-organizing entities. Each community constructed substantial villages with fortifications, practiced both agriculture and pastoralism, and built and stocked storage facilities. From these efforts to produce and store resources, especially food, wealth was generated and wealthier households gained power over their neighbors. However, power was limited by the fact that residents could-and did-leave communities and establish new ones.Complex Communitiesreveals that these settlements moved through adaptive cycles as they adjusted to a changing socionatural system. These sustainability-seeking communities have lessons to offer not only the archaeologists studying similar struggles in other locales, but also to contemporary communities facing negative climate change. Readers interested in resilience studies, Near Eastern archaeology, historical ecology, and the archaeology of communities will welcome this volume.

Recent research on the organisation and growth of large settlements (both urban and non-urban) has prompted a reassessment of factors driving population aggregation. Systematic aerial and ground survey of the South Caucasus mega-fortress Dmanisis Gora, described here, contributes to the understanding of large fortress settlements in the South Caucasus (c. 1500–500 BC) as part of this wider debate. Substantial defensive walls and stone architecture in the outer settlement contrast with low-intensity occupation, possibly by a seasonally mobile segment of the population. The exceptional size of Dmanisis Gora helps add new dimensions to population aggregation models in Eurasia and beyond.

Chronological frameworks based on artefact typologies are essential for interpreting the archaeological record, but they inadvertently treat transitions between phases as abrupt events and disregard the temporality of transformation processes within and between individual phases. This study presents an absolute chronological investigation of a dynamic material culture from Early Iron Age urnfields in Denmark. The chronological framework of Early Iron Age in Southern Scandinavia is largely unconstrained by absolute dating, primarily due to it coinciding with the so-called ‘Hallstatt calibration plateau’ (c.750 to 400 cal BC), and it is difficult to correlate it with Central European chronologies due to a lack of imported artefacts. This study applies recent methodological advances in radiocarbon dating and Bayesian chronological modelling, specifically a statistical model for wood-age offsets in cremated bone and presents the first large-scale radiocarbon investigation of regional material culture from Early Iron Age in Southern Jutland, Denmark. Dated material is primarily cremated bone from 111 cremation burials from three urnfields. The study presents absolute date ranges for 16 types of pottery and 15 types of metalwork, which include most of the recognised metalwork types from the period. This provides new insights into gradual change in material culture, when certain artefact types were in production and primary use, how quickly types were taken up and later abandoned, and distinguishing periods of faster and slower change. The study also provides the first absolute chronology for the period, enabling correlation with chronologies from other regions. Urnfields were introduced at the Bronze-Iron Age transformation, which is often assumed to have occurred c.530-500 BC. We demonstrate that this transformation took place in the 7 th century BC, however, which revives the discussion of whether the final Bronze Age period VI should be interpreted as a transitional phase to the Iron Age.