Based on geological and archaeological proxies from NW Russia and NE Estonia and on GIS-based modelling, shore displacement during the Stone Age in the Narva-Luga Klint Bay area in the eastern Gulf of Finland was reconstructed. The reconstructed shore displacement curve displays three regressive phases in the Baltic Sea history, interrupted by the rapid Ancylus Lake and Litorina Sea transgressions c. 10.9-10.2 cal. ka BP and c. 8.5-7.3 cal. ka BP, respectively. During the Ancylus transgression the lake level rose 9 m at an average rate of about 13 mm per year, while during the Litorina transgression the sea level rose 8 m at an average rate of about 7 mm per year. The results show that the highest shoreline of Ancylus Lake at an altitude of 8-17 m a.s.l. was formed c. 10.2 cal. ka BP and that of the Litorina Sea at an altitude of 6-14 m a.s.l., c. 7.3 cal. ka BP. The oldest traces of human activity dated to 8.5-7.9 cal. ka BP are associated with the palaeo-Narva River in the period of low water level in the Baltic basin at the beginning of the Litorina Sea transgression. The coastal settlement associated with the Litorina Sea lagoon, presently represented by 33 Stone Age sites, developed in the area c. 7.1 cal. ka BP and existed there for more than 2000 years. Transformation from the coastal settlement back to the river settlement indicates a change from a fishing-and-hunting economy to farming and animal husbandry c. 4.4 cal. ka BP, coinciding with the time of the overgrowing of the lagoon in the Narva-Luga Klint Bay area.

Archaeological and archaeogenetic evidence points to the Pontic–Caspian steppe zone between the Caucasus and the Black Sea as the crucible from which the earliest steppe pastoralist societies arose and spread, ultimately influencing populations from Europe to Inner Asia. However, little is known about their economic foundations and the factors that may have contributed to their extensive mobility. Here, we investigate dietary proteins within the dental calculus proteomes of 45 individuals spanning the Neolithic to Greco-Roman periods in the Pontic–Caspian Steppe and neighbouring South Caucasus, Oka–Volga–Don and East Urals regions. We find that sheep dairying accompanies the earliest forms of Eneolithic pastoralism in the North Caucasus. During the fourth millennium bc, Maykop and early Yamnaya populations also focused dairying exclusively on sheep while reserving cattle for traction and other purposes. We observe a breakdown in livestock specialization and an economic diversification of dairy herds coinciding with aridification during the subsequent late Yamnaya and North Caucasus Culture phases, followed by severe climate deterioration during the Catacomb and Lola periods. The need for additional pastures to support these herds may have driven the heightened mobility of the Middle and Late Bronze Age periods. Following a hiatus of more than 500 years, the North Caucasian steppe was repopulated by Early Iron Age societies with a broad mobile dairy economy, including a new focus on horse milking.

This article examines Volosovo period chronology at the hunter-gatherer settlement and burial sites Sakhtysh II and IIa (Upper-Volga area, Russia) by presenting 15 new AMS and stable bulk isotope (EA-IRMS; 13 C, 15 N, %C, %N, C:N ratio) measurements of animal bones and teeth from ritual contexts, as well as the first published AMS-dated charred organic residues on Volosovo pottery. The results confirm some recently presented views about chronology and further contradict the use sequence previously proposed for the sites. The discrepancies may be partially related to freshwater reservoir effect (FRE), but mostly to the problems in the quality and context of the conventional datings. The results are also briefly discussed in the background of general Volosovo chronology.

In the context of northern Europe, copper use started early in eastern Fennoscandia (Finland and the Republic of Karelia, Russia), sometime after 4000 BC. This article explores this Stone Age copper use in eastern Fennoscandia in relation to broader cultural developments in the region between the adoption of pottery (c. 5500 BC) and the end of the Stone Age (c. 1800 BC). Stone Age copper use in north-eastern Europe has conventionally been understood in terms of technology or exchange, whereas this article suggests that the beginning of copper use was linked to more fundamental changes in the perception of, and engagement with, the material world. These changes were associated with the Neolithization of eastern Fennoscandia, which started earlier than has traditionally been thought. It is also argued that the adoption, use, and manipulation of new materials played an active role in the emergence of the Neolithic world in north-eastern Europe and beyond. Also, issues related to the Finno–Russian border dividing up eastern Fennoscandia and its effects on the study of early metal use and other prehistoric cultural processes are discussed.

This article develops the idea that the emergence of the Neolithic world was closely linked to discovering and becoming aware of new aspects and dimensions of reality. Practices such as pottery making and cultivation promoted attentiveness to new aspects of things and the environment, which in turn generated a new kind of lived world that was, in a sense, richer, larger and deeper than before. It is proposed that new forms of material culture and new material practices -new ways of engaging with the material world -expanded people's horizons of perception and thinking. This cultivation of perception was an important mechanism through which new ways of life and thought associated with the Neolithic came into being.