Whereas some prehispanic societies across North America pursued monumentality, hierarchy, and regional integration, others adopted inward-oriented strategies that fostered cohesion through symbolic containment and household autonomy. Mimbres Classic period (AD 1000–1130) communities in southwestern New Mexico exemplify this alternative trajectory. By situating Mimbres insularity within broader regional developments, this study examines how material practices were mobilized to construct and maintain a culturally bounded world. Drawing on theories of boundary maintenance and ritual sovereignty, I argue that distinctive forms of architecture, painted ceramics, mortuary practices, and regulated interaction localized sacred authority and deliberately limited external connectivity. In contrast to Chaco Canyon’s investments in monumentality and social hierarchy, Mimbres society sustained social coherence through practices rooted in household ritual and symbolic regulation. Crucially, this insularity was neither fixed nor absolute—it emerged in the AD 900s, peaked during the Classic period, and receded after AD 1130 as communities relocated and engaged with new material traditions and regional networks. By tracing this historical arc, this study challenges models that equate social organization with scale or connectivity, demonstrating instead how inward-oriented strategies can produce resilient, if historically contingent, cultural frameworks.

La Viña rock shelter is a relevant archaeological site for understanding the late Middle and Upper Palaeolithic cultural development in northern Iberia as evidenced by the Mousterian, Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian bone and lithic industries, parietal engravings and human subsistence remains recovered during the 1980s excavations by J. Fortea in the western and central excavation areas. This paper aims to present 16 new radiocarbon dates, which are added to the previous radiocarbon dates obtained, using different analytical methods on bone and charcoal. These are now 57 dates in total. Bayesian models have been applied to assess and discern the chronology of the archaeological sequence in each sector of the rock shelter. The results provide details on the chronostratigraphy of each excavation area, documenting the duration of the different technocultural phases and confirming in-site postdepositional events.

Solomon Islands’ plural legal system, in which customary law operates in parallel with common law, and its practice and effects on society have drawn scholarly attention in spaces of legal studies, policy, economics, and state governance. An area that remains understudied is the dynamic nature in which landowners use Indigenous cultural heritage such as ancestral sites or genealogies as kastom evidence in courts. We explore this intersection through a critical review of the literature, Solomon Islands court judgments, and the nation’s lacking cultural heritage legislation. Two major infrastructure development projects in Solomon Islands, the Tina Hydro Project located on Guadalcanal and the Bina-Talifu Project on Malaita, are also examined to explore the nuances of state-led compulsory versus negotiated land acquisition. Fueling the perception that the customary land system is more of a hinderence than a strength to its peoples, these case studies demonstrate the fluid and unpredictable nature with which kastom evidence has been implemented in legal forums to substantiate or dispute claims. Ultimately, we argue that this largely reflects an incongruence between the British legal framework and traditional land tenure systems. Furthermore, we highlight how greater integration of archaeological expertise into legal processes of land surveying in Solomon Islands has the potential to mitigate some of these challenges.

Over the history of Maya studies, archaeologists have proposed various models for the structure of Maya settlements and their use of the landscape. The introduction of lidar to Maya studies, and the wealth of data this technology yielded, has many of these ideas coming under renewed study. Some of the most prominent models discussed in the last two decades have centered on low-density agrarian urbanism and forest gardens. Using settlement studies, lidar data, and hydrological analysis, this article discusses the applicability of these models for the ancient Maya at Lamanai and Ka’kabish, and more generally, Northern Belize. The Maya in the periphery at Lamanai developed wetland management strategies by capitalizing on natural drainage next to seasonally inundated swamps, or bajos. Evidence suggests that the Maya sustained large populations by using channels at the edge of bajos for field systems. These systems may be key to understanding their sustainability in the past.

Among the most recurring motifs in the prehistoric rock-art corpus, handprints stand out as one of the most significant elements due to their dual nature, both artistic and fossil. These markings represent a unique source of information for characterizing the corresponding artists and the social and cultural context of prehistoric communities. This study focuses on a comprehensive characterization of the phenomenon of Upper Palaeolithic hand representations from a multidimensional perspective, combining various theoretical and methodological approaches. By offering a holistic view, the aim is to contextualize these artistic expressions within a broader framework that includes biological, social, cultural, spatial and technological considerations. The study revisits classical documentation on hand representations and brings new perspectives through experiments and analyses conducted under conditions that replicate, as closely as possible, the physical and technological characteristics of the Upper Palaeolithic. These new perspectives broaden our understanding of these artistic expressions and their significance within prehistoric societies, shedding light on their potential role within rock art and their functional and symbolic meaning.

A large-scale outcrop was exposed along the newly constructed road access to the Kumamoto Earthquake Museum “KIOKU” (former Tokai University Aso Campus). Multiple layers of tephra and paleosols cover the Sawatsuno lava (27 ± 6 K-Ar ka) in this outcrop. Three (3) characteristic tephra layers: Kusasenrigahama Pumice (Kpfa: ca. 32.5 cal ka BP) from Kusasenrigahama crater in Aso caldera, Aira Tn (AT: ca. 30 cal ka BP) and Kikai Akahoya (K-Ah: ca. 7.3 cal ka BP) from southern Kyushu are intercalated between thick sandy volcanic ash layers erupted from the post-caldera volcanoes of Aso caldera. Thirteen (13) radiocarbon ages were obtained from soil samples and charcoal fragments. Among these, a sample just below AT shows a younger age, indicating that the upper soil/tephra sequence including AT, was re-deposited on ground surface at the time immediately after ca. 13.4 cal ka BP indicated by this age. This suggests that the duplicated sequence, confirmed by our detailed dating is a product of either near-surface hidden faulting or a small local landslide associated with one of the paleoseismic events similar to the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake.

In the Nejapa region of Oaxaca, places now categorized by some as archaeological ruins have retained power and meaning through time. Ruins often retain vibrancy and are (and were) typically treated respectfully and carefully. Although many of the sites may no longer be occupied by humans, these ruined or palimpsest places should not be considered entirely abandoned or uninhabited. Some sites in Nejapa, such as Los Picachos and Cerro del Convento, were charged with spiritual valency that inspired people to leave offerings at the sites. Other long unoccupied archaeological sites, such as the ruins of La Baeza, Casa Vieja, and the Pueblo Viejo, were viewed in multiple ways: sometimes approached with trepidation or purposely avoided, and at other times viewed with nostalgia and reverence. Part of what makes ruins powerful and layered with meanings is their association with ancestors and their common connections to memorable, and often difficult, historical events. Thus, ruins play active roles and can at times inspire social actions and at other times entail intentional avoidance.

Cultural heritage occupies a paradoxical position in law: It is protected as property but experienced as a repository of identity, memory, and dignity. This article examines whether cultural heritage could, in principle, be recognized as a subject of law, drawing on emerging developments in environmental and nonhuman personhood. After tracing the historical and conceptual evolution of legal personhood—from human and corporate subjects to nature and ecosystems—it explores the moral, relational, and symbolic dimensions that might justify extending personhood to heritage. The analysis highlights both the potential benefits of such recognition, including stronger ethical and representational protections, and the associated risks, such as legal inflation, state appropriation, and conflicts with ownership and restitution law. Ultimately, it argues that rethinking heritage through the lens of relational personhood reveals the need for a more pluralistic and ethically responsive legal imagination.

In Mesoamerica ceramics are used to define spatial and chronological units of past social, political, and economic activities. Here we compare results on ceramics subjected to type-variety classification, INAA and thin-section petrography, and symmetry analysis of design structure. The samples are primarily from sites in the Lake Pátzcuaro and Zacapu Basins in central and northern Michoacán from the Late Preclassic to the Late Postclassic periods (200 BC–AD 1522). We offer this analysis as a test case that introduces and compares the results of symmetry analysis with the more familiar typological and paste analyses. We explore how each approach monitors the timing and rate of sociocultural stability and change, as well as the kinds of social processes that each method documents.