Early wheat movement into Britain: The transition into the New Stone Age, or Neolithic period, in Great Britain and Europe was characterized by a change from hunter-gatherers to farmers. However, the early stages of this transition are not well understood. Smith et al. studied archaeological remains at an 8000-year-old site that has been underwater ever since the Neolithic (see the Perspective by Larson). The finds include evidence of wheat (or a relative of wheat) 2000 years before the first documented farmers in Britain. It seems that trade may have preceded the adoption of farming. Science , this issue p. 998 ; see also p. 945

3D seismic data from the Dogger Bank, North Sea, allow the mapping of Late Pleistocene and Holocene depositional systems in unprecedented detail. The data demonstrate that glacial processes resulted in the development of incised tunnel valley systems during the Weichselian and that these were subsequently modified by fluvial processes in a pro-glacial setting. Subsequently, the Dogger Bank formed an emergent plain during the Holocene with a complex meandering river system, associated tributary or distributary channels and lakes, dominating the region. Prior to the sea level rising sufficiently to submerge the Dogger Bank around 7500 yr ago, the meandering river system was replaced by a dendritic channel network of potential fluvial, estuarine or intertidal origin. As the Holocene depositional features bear no systematic relationship to the bathymetry this study demonstrates that previously published bathymetry-based models for the Holocene palaeogeographic development of the North Sea require modification.

Mass loss at specified temperatures has been used widely to determine amounts of organic matter and carbonate in sediment samples. The loss on ignition (LOI) method is cheap and simple, but is time-consuming and provides information only for specific, pre-determined temperatures. It also requires relatively large sample sizes and is destructive. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) is an alternative method for determination of organic and carbonate content in sediment samples, and provides accurate and precise data in a time-efficient manner. We compared results from these two thermal analysis techniques, which were applied to sediment samples from a submerged landscape (Doggerland). An organic-rich peat sample and a silty fine-sand sample were used. An unpaired t-test was used to test agreement and repeatability of the two analytical techniques. One advantage of being able to monitor mass loss throughout the analytical operation is that free and bound moisture losses can be distinguished. TGA is less time-consuming, involves automated sample handling (minimising operator error), and can yield reliable data from sample masses (typically 30–50 mg), which are much smaller than those needed for LOI (typically 3–5 g). The unpaired t-test, along with precision and repeatability analyses led us to conclude that TGA can be used instead of LOI to provide reliable measures of organic matter and carbonate content in sediments, and has several advantages over LOI.

Around 8150 BP, the Storegga tsunami struck North-west Europe. The size of this wave has led many to assume that it had a devastating impact upon contemporaneous Mesolithic communities, including the final inundation of Doggerland, the now submerged Mesolithic North Sea landscape. Here, the authors present the first evidence of the tsunami from the southern North Sea, and suggest that traditional notions of a catastrophically destructive event may need rethinking. In providing a more nuanced interpretation by incorporating the role of local topographic variation within the study of the Storegga event, we are better placed to understand the impact of such dramatic occurrences and their larger significance in settlement studies.

In 1997 a new collaborative research project was initiated by the British School at Rome. This project draws on a variety of sources of archaeological information to explore the regional impact of the City of Rome throughout the period from 1000 BC to AD 1300. The project provides a common collaborative research framework which brings together a range of archaeologists and historians working in various institutions. In this paper those involved in different aspects of this new project outline their work and its overall objectives.