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Abstract Time has consistently been regarded as the missing dimension from our renderings of space, having a significant impact on how we interpret and represent past interaction. Nowhere is this more keenly felt than in discussion of maritime mobility. This paper outlines an innovative approach to mapping maritime spaces by taking into account the performance of Bronze Age sailing ships in different weather conditions and the subsequent time of sailing journeys. The use of cartograms is demonstrated to be invaluable for reconceptualisation of maritime space and rethinking maritime connectivity in the past. This marks a step-change in approach, which has implications for regions beyond the case study area (eastern Mediterranean). The results presented in this paper foreground meaningful differences in maritime connectivity between Egypt and the Levant during the earlier Bronze Age than are easily realised through traditional static representations. This demonstrates the significance of developing alternative representations of space/time for archaeology. Graphical abstract Image 1 Highlights • Mediation with mapping for maritime spaces. • Modelling the maritime space-time of ancient sailing by accounting for environmental rhythms and vessel performance. • Distorting space according to time with linear cartograms. • Rethinking maritime connectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines the extant evidence regarding gender reconstructions and relations for the Neolithic of the southern Levant of southwest Asia. Data from human skeletal remains, mortuary contexts, architecture, and figurative art provide the empirical bases for a broad assessment of gender in the realms of productive labor, social organization, and ideology. Overall, little evidence is found to support that Neolithic societies in this region were organized hierarchically in terms of gender. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We present results from an archaeointensity investigation based on a relatively unexploited recording medium, copper slag deposits. Together with a recently improved experimental design for the archaeointensity experiment, we demonstrate the applicability of this medium, as well as other archaeometallurgical artifacts, for the study of the ancient geomagnetic field intensity. In addition to archaeointensity data from well-dated archaeological contexts, we obtained reliable archaeointensity results from poorly dated or contentious archaeometallurgical sites in the Southern Levant. These results shed new light on the dating of these sites, among them the copper smelting installation of Timna 39b – a site that has important implications for the beginning of metallurgy during the fifth millennium BCE. The paper also aims to introduce archaeointensity research to the archaeologist scholar, and to encourage further collaboration between the disciplines in future research. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]