This article examines how Indigenous Peoples who depend on World Heritage sites for their culture and livelihood can appeal to the Committee when State Parties fail to comply with their obligations. While scholars criticize the World Heritage Convention for the lack of participation of Indigenous Peoples, particularly in the inscription and management processes, the framework of the Convention also allows representation and visibility. Indeed, compliance mechanisms offer opportunities for Indigenous advocates to negotiate Land sovereignty and environmental protection. TWAIL, which places the worldview of Indigenous Peoples at the center of legal practice, is crucial to understanding the interactions between Indigenous Peoples and the 1972 UNESCO Convention. TWAILers highlight how international law historically denies sovereignty rights to Indigenous Peoples. Article 6(1) echoes this absence of sovereignty. This article examines three cases in which Indigenous advocates petition to protect Native Lands against environmental degradations and colonization: Kakadu, Wood Buffalo, and Uluru. Ultimately, the challenges of Indigenous activists in their quest to preserve nature and culture reveal that the absence of sovereignty prerogatives remains a substantial issue. While the Convention provides a venue for advocacy and international awareness, Indigenous Peoples still must negotiate Land autonomy and cultural sovereignty with the State.

An understanding of the growth and demise of ice sheets over North America is essential to inform future climate models. One poorly studied subject is the glacial dynamics during interstadial Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 (57–29 ka). To better constrain the southern margin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during this time period, we re-examined a stratigraphic sequence in southeast Manitoba, Canada, and provide robust evidence for advance and retreat of ice. Around 46.6 ± 5.1 ka (1σ error), fluvial sands were deposited under similar precipitation and significantly cooler summer temperatures than present-day. Ice then advanced south over the area, before retreating once again and a return to boreal forest and grassland conditions. The area was then covered by proglacial Lake Vita, dammed by ice to the north. Geochronology constraints indicate Lake Vita existed from ca. 44.3 ± 3.6 to 30.4 ± 2.3 ka (1σ error), although gaps in the optical and finite radiocarbon ages suggest either a lack of data or plausible temporary ice-margin advances during this time period. Ice covering most of Manitoba during MIS 3 is in line with global δ18O records, and glacially influenced sediment deposition in the Mississippi River basin.

In the summer of 2022, renewed excavations were conducted at the site of Gird-i Begum in the Shahrizor Plain, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The project aims to examine patterns of mobility, exchange, and resource acquisition practiced by the inhabitants of Gird-i Begum over time. To do so we re-examine the stratigraphic sequence, with a focus on continuities and breaks in site occupation. While the earliest occupation of the site dates to the Halaf period, with limited occupation traces attested during the Ubaid period, the settlement appears to have reached its largest extent during the Late Chalcolithic, which was one of the main foci of this year’s investigations. Our excavations confirmed the presence of Late Chalcolithic levels on the Upper Mound, with an analysis of the pottery as well as 14C dates indicating a chronological span from LC 3 to early LC 4. Work on the Lower Mound brought to light a substantial and previously undocumented Early Bronze Age occupation phase in the early third millennium B.C.E. The massive presence of snails characterizing layers of both periods additionally raised intriguing questions about subsistence strategies and potential crisis at the site.

A 1st-c. CE lamp from Cyprus, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, features a discus design of a satyr on a base before an enclosure. Formerly identified as a nude silenus, the design on this lamp and others with the same decoration in fact illustrates a motif after the Forum Marsyas statue from the Forum Romanum. The statue is typically understood as a symbol of civic libertas, and copies were erected in provincial fora and depicted on civic coinage in the 2nd and 3rd c. CE. This note argues that the lamps enhance our understanding of the Forum Marsyas in two respects. First, the lamps demonstrate that the motif was in provincial circulation ahead of the sculptural and numismatic trend. Second, it is now clear that the Forum Marsyas was used in private contexts, and potentially with a non-civic meaning, more extensively than previously understood. The lamps are therefore significant for understanding the provincial spread and legibility of this important but still enigmatic motif.

This re-evaluation of the Thetford hoard proposes a new date for its burial in the 5th c. CE (ca. 420s–40s), significantly later than the established date of the 380s–90s. The redating is based on comparative material from context-dated grave and hoard finds from across the western Roman Empire. At least 17 hoard artifacts are argued to have been made within the 5th c. The Thetford treasure is a key point of reference in dating artifacts, and therefore a new date, if accepted, will prompt further re-evaluation of material and significantly change our understanding of this key transition period.

The interpretation of the hoard is also revisited. The wide cultural connections that can be demonstrated in the jewelry reflect its assembly in a period of migration and displacement, and there is evidence that its economic value may have become paramount in the latest phase of the assemblage's use. Moreover, the revised date sets a new context for the hoard burial, after economic collapse and political breakdown in Britain. The article advocates for the potential role of wealthy religious sites like Thetford in filling the vacuum left by the collapse of Roman state authority in Britain.