This article aims to expand the scope of experimental archaeology to emphasize multilevel variation and interactions across the levels of perception, actions, and outcomes. Such an approach, loosely formulated as the Perception-Process-Product (“Triple P”) framework, offers a more grounded and richer explanation of the past archaeological record. It consists of three principles: (1) acknowledging the inherent trade-off between control and generalizability in the experimental research design; (2) encouraging collaborative projects that involve geographically diverse and nontraditional research participants, such as hobbyists and novices; and (3) adopting a workflow that normalizes the collection and curation of ethological and ethnographic data in experimental projects. Serving as a heuristic device, this alternative mode of knowledge production is highly flexible in nature, where each single component is detachable as dictated by individual research questions.

Archaeologists promote the use of digital methods and data management principles such as FAIR and CARE to democratize and decolonize the discipline and our projects. Digital archaeology offers the potential to enhance accessibility, improve opportunities for data sharing, and foster multivocal interpretation while avoiding colonialist dynamics in international collaborations. In June 2024, the authors’ discussions about digital archaeology in Armenia highlighted the importance of addressing collaborators’ prior knowledge and knowledge frameworks in digital archaeological projects. These discussions, along with a case study about an earlier digital survey in the Azat River valley, demonstrated that varying levels of familiarity with tools such as geographic information systems (GIS) and different training traditions can limit successful collaboration and data interpretation if not addressed explicitly. This review argues that successful digital archaeology requires a focus on understanding and integrating the diverse knowledge frameworks and prior experiences of all team members into all aspects of the digital workflow.

There is a current and projected dearth of individuals with the required skills and education to become professional archaeologists. Because of this, the discipline should consider underlying causes leading students to have a lack of interest in pursuing archaeological careers. Social cognitive career theory posits that self-efficacy, expected outcomes, and goal mechanisms mediate a student's career-relevant interest and aspirations. To understand undergraduate students’ perceptions of archaeological careers, we surveyed and interviewed students enrolled in an introductory course in biological anthropology and archaeology at a regional comprehensive university in the United States. Students completed surveys at the beginning and end of the course, and some students volunteered for an interview. Survey results revealed no significant changes in career interest from the beginning to the end of the course. Interview data indicated that taking the course gave students a better appreciation for archaeology, and none interviewed felt less likely to pursue a career in the discipline. We identify persistent perceptions that students held about the discipline that may dissuade them from considering archaeology as a viable career option, and we provide recommendations that may help attract more students to careers in archaeology.

Experimental stone tool replication is an important method for understanding the context and production of prehistoric technologies. Experimental control is valuable for restricting the influence of confounding variables. Researchers can exert control in studies related to cognition and behavior by standardizing the type, form, and size of raw materials. Although standardization measures are already part of archaeological practice, specific protocols—let alone comparisons between standardization techniques—are rarely openly reported. Consequently, independent laboratories often repeat the costly trial-and-error process for selecting usable raw material types or forms. Here, we investigated various techniques and raw materials (such as hand-knapped flint, machine-cut basalt, manufactured glass, and porcelain) and evaluated them for validity, reliability, and standardizability. We describe the tests we performed, providing information on the individual approaches, as well as comparisons between the techniques and materials according to validity and reliability, along with relative costs. We end by providing recommendations. This is intended as a serviceable guide on raw material standardization for knapping experiments, including existing strategies and ones so far undescribed in the experimental archaeology literature. The future of this field would benefit from developments in the relevant technologies and methodologies, especially for those that are not yet widely available or affordable.

The concept of a matricentric society, linked with female rule, has been enthroned in studies of Europe’s prehistory during the past two centuries. Nevertheless, in the 1960s and 1970s, feminist approaches dethroned the idea of the Mother Goddess as the key organizing principle of Aegean Neolithic societies. Recently, however, certain versions of gynecocracy, implying female rule, and/or of matrilineal kinship have been rethroned for studies in the Aegean Neolithic and Bronze Age. This article critically assesses how and why scholars have supported the existence of matrilineal kinship and/or female rule in the Aegean Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Which pools of evidence have they used to support their claims and why? The multiple lives of matrilineal kinship and female rule in the research record will be discussed through the lens of enthroning, dethroning and rethroning processes. Ultimately, tracing these processes helps to elucidate the troubled relationship between translating socio-cultural anthropological concepts with and without applying socio-cultural anthropological knowledge to the archaeological material.

In response to the article written by Sabina Cveček, it is argued that the view expressed by the author that matrilineal kinship has been ‘throned’ and ‘re-throned’ in Aegean prehistory has resulted from a poor understanding of anthropological terms. It is also proposed that archaeological perspectives on matrilineal kinship cannot be ‘streamlined’ through the contribution of social anthropology and ethnography as both fields are plagued by their own limitations.

This article aims to explain the strains and paradoxes of how African communities have been unable to obtain legal access and control to expropriated or stolen cultural heritage held in foreign museums despite their increased participation in international cultural heritage law. Further, it outlines the strained relationship between communities’ participation in cultural heritage governance under international cultural heritage law and cultural heritage law in Kenya. Using a postcolonial critique, this article examines these cultural heritage laws using notions of communitarianism and relationality in relation to the African Renaissance. It is demonstrated that communities should have increased participation in cultural heritage governance and, as a result, access to and control over their appropriated cultural heritage held in foreign museums. The purpose of a post-colonial critique of cultural heritage laws seeks to allow states and communities to listen to each other as opposed to one replacing the other in matters of cultural heritage.