Ancient biomolecules including DNA, proteins, and lipids are often preserved in archaeological skeletons or artifacts such as potsherds from cooking vessels. Techniques for analyzing these molecules have improved dramatically in recent years, though challenges remain in ensuring that results are authentic and not confused by the presence of contaminating modern biomolecules. Ancient DNA (aDNA) can be used to identify the sex, kinship relationships, and population affinities of human skeletons, and also to detect the presence of disease-causing organisms such as the plague and tuberculosis bacteria. Stable isotope ratios in collagen and other skeletal proteins enable past diets to be studied, and similar work with lipids from potsherds have revealed that dairying in Europe began 2,000 years earlier than previously thought. Biomolecular archaeology has therefore developed into a mature discipline that is making a significant contribution to different aspects of our understanding of the human past.

We present a high-resolution cross-disciplinary analysis of kinship structure and social institutions in two Late Copper Age Bell Beaker culture cemeteries of South Germany containing 24 and 18 burials, of which 34 provided genetic information. By combining archaeological, anthropological, genetic and isotopic evidence we are able to document the internal kinship and residency structure of the cemeteries and the socially organizing principles of these local communities. The buried individuals represent four to six generations of two family groups, one nuclear family at the Alburg cemetery, and one seemingly more extended at Irlbach. While likely monogamous, they practiced exogamy, as six out of eight non-locals are women. Maternal genetic diversity is high with 23 different mitochondrial haplotypes from 34 individuals, whereas all males belong to one single Y-chromosome haplogroup without any detectable contribution from Y-chromosomes typical of the farmers who had been the sole inhabitants of the region hundreds of years before. This provides evidence for the society being patrilocal, perhaps as a way of protecting property among the male line, while in-marriage from many different places secured social and political networks and prevented inbreeding. We also find evidence that the communities practiced selection for which of their children (aged 0–14 years) received a proper burial, as buried juveniles were in all but one case boys, suggesting the priority of young males in the cemeteries. This is plausibly linked to the exchange of foster children as part of an expansionist kinship system which is well attested from later Indo-European-speaking cultural groups.

The article deals with the practice of phenomenological archaeological fieldwork, which is concerned with sensory experience of landscapes and locales. Phenomenological approaches in archaeology have cast light on aspects of past human experience not addressed by traditional archaeological methods. So far, however, they have neither developed explicit methodologies nor a discussion of methodological practice and have laid themselves open to accusations of being 'subjective' and 'unscientific'. This article describes and explores three experiments in phenomenological archaeology developed in the context of the Tavoliere-Gargano Prehistory Project and carried out on Neolithic settlement sites of the type known as villaggi trincerati. Our aims are both to develop explicit methods for this type of fieldwork and to combine phenomenology with other more traditional approaches, such as those concerned with technological, economic and environmental aspects of landscapes and sites. Our work also differs from other phenomenological archaeology in its concern with familiar, everyday experience and domestic contexts, rather than exceptional, special experience in ritual contexts. We consider how our particular approach might be used to further understandings of past lives.

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Out of molecular biology -the revolution of past decades in biological science -there now begins to come molecular archaeology, the study ofDNA in ancient plants, animals and people to address questions of history as well as biology. Here is set out what molecular archaeology is about, how it works and what it has begun to do.