Monumental constructions are often associated with developed power structures, exploiting unequal access to resources to control large labour forces. Yet archaeological research worldwide increasingly shows that this model is not only an oversimplification, but often is also wrong. Here, the authors explore the burial mounds at Kaillachuro in the Peruvian Andes, and present new radiocarbon dates that position these mounds as the earliest evidence of monumental architecture in the Titicaca Basin. Built over 2000 years through recurring acts of communal memorialisation, this novel architectural tradition forces us to reflect on the role of ritual in socioeconomic transformations of highland Andes communities.

The Medieval Wall System (MWS), constructed in the tenth–thirteenth centuries AD across parts of Mongolia, China and Russia, was one of several long walls built along ancient frontiers in Asia. Despite a growing body of literature about this network of walls and trenches, many questions still surround its construction and function. Here, the authors present results of archaeological investigations on the Mongolian Arc of the MWS, revealing new construction dates and insights into daily life. Rather than a regimented defence, the MWS, at least in parts, was a symbolic boundary that endured within the social landscape long after it was abandoned.

The Late Iron Age (fourth–first centuries BC) district of Carpetania in the Central Iberian Peninsula is traditionally cast as a marginal territory, where cultural development is primarily attributed to acculturation, diffusionism and imitation. Here, the authors critically re-evaluate published evidence from the site of El Cerrón, Illescas, focusing on a decorated terracotta relief with a ‘Mediterraneanising’ style to argue that the local elite was not a passive actor in history. Instead, the community at El Cerrón actively engaged in the cultural dynamics that shaped not only the Iberian Peninsula but also the wider Mediterranean basin during this crucial period.

Connectivity and trade dominate discussions of the Mediterranean Bronze and Iron Ages, where artefacts travelled increasing distances by land and sea. Much of the evidence for the means through which such networks operated is necessarily indirect, but shipwrecks offer direct insights into the movement of goods. Here, the authors explore three Iron Age cargoes recently excavated at Tel Dor on the Carmel Coast, the first from this period found in the context of an Iron Age port city in Israel. Spanning the eleventh–seventh centuries BC, these cargoes illuminate cycles of expansion and contraction in Iron Age Mediterranean connectivity and integration.

Despite a notable increase during recent decades in the application of anthropological approaches and archaeometric analyses in Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeology in China, studies relating to the post-Qin period of Chinese history (after 221 BC) continue to focus on social centres and elite tombs, and to rely on historical texts to validate archaeological discoveries. This article examines the extent to which archaeometric analyses might be applied more beneficially in post-Qin contexts and explores current barriers to the wider undertaking of these methods within Chinese archaeology.

The tradition of beating bark to produce cloth probably emerged in South China before spreading to Island Southeast Asia with the Austronesian cultural expansion (5000–3500 BP). Type IV barkcloth beaters found on the island of Sulawesi mark a technological leap from mainland examples and the discovery of 16 such beaters at Buttu Batu pushes the local adoption of this type back to c. 2111–1933 BP. Combining archaeological examples with extensive ethnographic research, the authors document an early-twentieth-century diversification in the patterning of grooves on type IV beaters, revealing a unique innovation aimed at improving barkcloth quality in response to increasing competition.

Multidisciplinary research is deepening our understanding of high-altitude pastoralism on the Tibetan Plateau, but such studies also highlight a strong riverine bias in the location of excavated sites. In a move to address this skewing of the dataset, the authors propose the exploration of modern highland corrals with shovel testing and test excavations as a labour-efficient survey method, streamlined through the identification of potential sites from satellite imagery. Three prehistoric sites were successfully located using this method, the earliest dating to the first millennium BC, encouraging the reconsideration of current survey strategies in Tibet and other mountainous regions.

Oasis communities across Central Asia were key to the emergence and maintenance of the ancient Silk Roads that spanned Eurasia from the late second century BC, yet our understanding of early interaction networks in this region is limited. Multi-isotopic analysis of human teeth from the Zaghunluq Cemetery, southern Xinjiang (sixth century BC to first century AD) now suggests that oasis communities established intricate exchange networks, forming strong ties with other nearby oases and mountain pastoralists and weak ties, facilitated through in migration, with more distant regions. These diverse connections, the authors argue, made possible cultural exchange across the challenging geography of eastern Central Asia.