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Funder: FP7 Ideas: European Research Council; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100011199; Grant(s): 323727, Funder: Magdalene College, University of Cambridge; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000653, Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000267, Objectives: Palaeopathological analysis is key for characterising population health at the individual level and across large assemblages but is rarely exploited to unite the remains of disarticulated individuals. This study explores the potential for individual identification through differential diagnosis of periosteal lesions in a commingled deposit, both to ascertain the number of individuals represented and provide a differential diagnosis. Materials and Methods: The late Neolithic Xagħra Circle hypogeum on Gozo contains the remains of more than 800 individuals, most of which were transformed to a collective disarticulated assemblage. Across the excavated population, pathological observations are strikingly low. In one specific 1 × 1‐m area in a single stratigraphic context, fragmented and disarticulated cranial and post‐cranial non‐adult bones were identified that displayed periosteal new bone formation. To aid differential diagnosis, macroscopic analysis, taphonomic analysis and micro‐computed tomography (μCT) imaging were integrated. Results: This approach, when combined with osteobiographical analyses, reveals that the elements most likely derive from one individual, a young child, who presents a probable case of scurvy. The potential for micronutrient co‐morbidities are explored, but without further microscopic study it cannot be determined if this individual also experienced iron‐deficiency anaemia and/or rickets. Discussion: In the context of the Mediterranean and Europe in later prehistory, reported cases of scurvy are currently low and often reveal periods of environmental instability and resource insufficiency. Our finding of non‐adult scurvy in late 3rd millennium BC Malta contributes to a developing picture of an increasingly unstable palaeoenvironment and declining population health at this time, although it may also indicate an individual case of poor childhood health within this broader context.

This paper explores celebrations in prehistoric Malta (Figure 1) that were intrinsically linked to the marking of time, a framing of experience that was crucial to early communities. In pursuit of understanding these celebrations, we compare and contrast modern celebrations with ancient celebrations on the Maltese islands, putting the case that archaeologists can be as ambitious as anthropologists in understanding these events, when armed with modern interdisciplinary techniques. Anthropologists remind us that celebrations were dependent on audience, the representatives of the community, because it is “only through the presence of participants who embody and show attention and attachment to the situated presentations are these presentations – and the gathering and the occasion in general – socially realized, recognized, and validated” (Polak 2007: 15). In the case of Malta, we do not need to turn to the distant island of Bali for ethnographic insights, since Jeremy Boissevain recorded the changing celebrations of the island of modern Malta over a period of 55 years, more than two generations of time (Boissevain 1969; Driessen 2016). We bring all these insights to bear on the interpretation of new archaeological fieldwork which is now reaching its conclusion.

This paper integrates the results of recent bioarchaeological and spatial analyses at one of the largest collective burial sites in Europe, the Xagħra Circle Hypogeum on Gozo. This suite of new approaches has addressed demography, funerary practices, interactions with the dead, and the changing use of space. Modelling structural events and reconstructing funerary practices from 2900 to 2350 cal BC, we trace persistent variation and flexibility in the use of space over time. Taphonomic analysis shows that young individuals (from foetal age and above) were included within the burial space, and their depositions occasionally informed subsequent interments. Such results resonate beyond this site and enhance our understanding of society in third millennium BC Malta. We advance a model of broad accessibility to the burial space, strengthening emerging narratives of heterarchical social dynamics in the Maltese islands.

This paper compares changes in vegetation structure and composition (using synthetic fossil pollen data) with proxy data for population levels (including settlements and radiocarbon dates) over the course of the last 10 millennia in Tyrrhenian central Italy. These data show generalised patterns of clearance of woodland in response both to early agriculturalists and urbanism, as well as the specific adoption of tree crops and variations in stock grazing. The results provide a comprehensive understanding of the development of the anthropogenised landscape of one of the most important early centres of European civilisation, showing regional trends as well as local variations.

Taphonomic modifications to Neolithic human skeletal remains from six rock-cut tombs in Malta has provided key information about funerary practices and the local environment. Application of microscopic analysis, computed tomography (CT) scanning, and 3D imaging of the modifications has allowed their comparison with similar examples in modern and archaeological skeletal material. The modifications are interpreted as pupal chambers and feeding damage by dermestid beetles. Based on observation of the behaviour and ecology of dermestid beetles, we suggest several scenarios for funerary practices at the Xemxija tombs which nuance our current understanding of collective burial during the late Neolithic in Malta. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd