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The obsidian mirror associated with the Elizabethan polymath and magus John Dee (1527–1608/1609) has been an object of fascination for centuries. The mirror, however, has a deeper history as an Aztec artefact brought to Europe soon after the Spanish conquest. The authors present the results of new geochemical analysis, and explore its history and changing cultural context to provide insights into its meaning during a period in which entirely new world views were emerging. The biography of the mirror demonstrates how a complex cultural history underpins an iconic object. The study highlights the value of new compositional analyses of museum objects for the reinterpretation of historically significant material culture.

The reliability of radiocarbon dates for Palaeolithic human burials is of utmost importance for prehistoric archaeologists. Recently obtained dates for several such burials in central Russia raise important interrelated issues concerning site taphonomy and the precise radiocarbon-dating technique employed, with implications for the ‘true’ age of the burials. A critical review of the dating of the Sungir and Kostenki burials calls into question the reliability of employing ultrafiltration or single amino acids for the radiocarbon dating of Upper Palaeolithic bones.

Zhokhov Island in the Siberian High Arctic has yielded evidence for some of the most remote prehistoric human occupation in the world, as well as the oldest-known dog-sled technology. Obsidian artefacts found on Zhokhov have been provenanced using XRF analysis to allow comparison with known sources of obsidian from north-eastern Siberia. The results indicate that the obsidian was sourced from Lake Krasnoe—approximately 1500km distant—and arrived on Zhokhov Island c. 8000 BP. The archaeological data from Zhokhov therefore indicate a super-long-distance Mesolithic exchange network.

Shuidonggou localities 1 and 2 provide key evidence for the Initial Upper Palaeolithic of north-east Asia. In a recent article inAntiquity(87 (2013), 368–383), Liet al.proposed a new chronology, building on the earlier results of Madsenet al.(Antiquity75 (2001), 705–716). Here Susan Keates and Yaroslav Kuzmin take issue with the new chronology. The article is followed by a response from Li and Gao.

Review of the book: E.M. Ineshin & A.V. Tetenkin (translated by P.N. Hommel & N. Reynolds). Humans and the environment in northern Baikal Siberia during the Late Pleistocene. 2017. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars; 978-1-4438-8277-4 £64.99. This book is about the Terminal Pleistocene archaeology of the Vitim River Basin, located between North Baikalsk and the Patomsk uplands. Hardly known outside of Russia, it is only briefly mentioned even in major summaries on the Upper Palaeolithic of eastern Siberia (Mochanov 2009; Pitul’ko & Pavlova 2016: 113–15). The release of the English translation of this volume, originally published in Russian in 2010, is therefore very welcome. The Foreword by J. Chlachula provides an introduction of this work for an international audience.

Intriguing wooden objects, excavated (mostly unstratigraphically) from peat bogs in the Trans-Urals region of Russia, are here dated by AMS and found to belong to the Aeneolithic and Bronze Age. In spite of a long sojourn in museums, and conservation with various chemicals, the dates obtained were consistent and reliable.

Carbonised textiles were found in a burnt down building inside a cave 30km from the far eastern coast of Russia. The textiles were made from untwisted or hand-twisted blades of sedge grass to form ropes, nets and woven mats. Dated by AMS toc. 9400–8400 cal BP these are the earliest textiles so far known from East Asia.

The origin of pottery is among the most important questions in Old World archaeology. The author undertakes a critical review of radiocarbon dates associated with the earliest pottery-making and eliminates a number of them where the material or its context are unreliable. Using those that survive this process of ‘chronometric hygiene’, he proposes that food-containers made of burnt clay originated in East Asia in the Late Glacial, c. 13 700-13 300 BP, and appeared in three separate regions, in Japan, China and far eastern Russia, at about the same time.

Results of recent excavations and radiocarbon dating show that several places in Siberia and the Russian Far East, such as the Lower Amur River basin and the Transbaikal, represent independent centres of pottery invention, and all pre-date 10,000 BP. These two areas should be considered among the earliest centres of pottery origins in East Asia and the Old World. The rest of Siberia is characterized by significantly later appearance of Neolithic cultures, between c. 8000 BP and c. 4600–2600 BP.