Academic and professional conferences provide opportunities for the dissemination of knowledge, networking, and professional development. Those in more prestigious roles often gain greater visibility, and invited roles in particular make important statements about whose research the profession values most. Conference participation is therefore a source of economic, social, and cultural capital that translates into real opportunities and future career success. In this article, we examine gender representation in the field of archaeology through the lens of participation in the annual meetings of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA). Using archived SAA annual meeting programs from 2002 to 2024, we analyze differences in gender representation across conference roles and participation formats. We find that although women and men are similarly likely to fill self-selected leadership roles, women are less frequently asked to fill invited roles by their peers, particularly when men serve as organizers. We thus argue that gender plays a strong role in determining who occupies positions of prestige and that decisions about who is “qualified” affect distributions of capital within the discipline. We conclude by recommending a series of interventions to session organizers, session participants, and the SAA to help redress gender-based differences in conference participation.

Following a trend across the sciences, recent studies in lithic analysis have embraced the ideal of replicability. Recent large-scale studies have demonstrated that high replicability is achievable under controlled conditions and have proposed strategies to improve it in lithic data recording. Although this focus has yielded important methodological advances, we argue that an overemphasis on replicability risks narrowing the scope of archaeological inquiry. More specifically, we show (1) that replicability alone does not guarantee reliability, interpretive value, or cost effectiveness, and (2) that archaeological data often involve unavoidable ambiguity due to preservation, analyst background, and the nature of lithic variability itself. Instead of allowing replicability to dictate research priorities, we advocate for a problem-driven, pluralistic approach that tailors methods to research questions and balances replicable measures with interpretive depth. This has practical implications for training, publishing, and funding policy. We conclude that Paleolithic archaeology must engage with the replicability movement on its own terms—preserving methodological diversity while maintaining scientific credibility.

During the early twentieth century the rise of professional archaeology pushed the study of deep-time oral tradition into the fringes of historiography. The development of evidence-based archaeological chronologies displaced oral tradition, relying on the assumption that transmission processes include short-term limits on durability. By the end of the century, sporadic innovative partnership experiments brought together archaeological chronology and oral tradition, suggesting the need for further research. This article advances the narrative merging of oral tradition, archaeology, and genomic analysis. After surveying research on archery technology, it explores how the integrative aligning of oral tradition and archaeology can expand meaningful insights into antiquity worldwide. Although twenty-first century inquiry into deep-time oral literature unfolds in the shadowy academic fringes, perhaps such research is on the verge of professionalizing into new scholarship and a mutual enrichment of knowledge systems. Academic scholarship may someday see “prehistory” replaced by ancient human history.

This work compares the use of palace diplomacy and propaganda by the rulers of Constantinople and Mexico-Tenochtitlan. It builds on studies of the cultural exchange between the Roman and Sasanian empires from the third to sixth centuries a.d., which led to a diplomatic protocol shared by these two realms. This protocol and Liudprand of Cremona’s account of diplomatic receptions are the basis for comparative analysis. Drawing on Hernando Alvarado Tezozómoc’s Crónica Mexicana and other sixteenth-century sources, this study identifies key characteristics of diplomacy in Mesoamerica. It explores how Mexico-Tenochtitlan employed palace diplomacy and propaganda from the reign of Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina to Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin. Through this analysis, we find that the diplomatic and propaganda objectives of Constantinople and Mexico-Tenochtitlan had distinct focuses. The Byzantine rulers aimed to maintain their existing empire, while the Tenochca rulers sought not only to preserve but also to expand their domain. As a result, Constantinople’s strategy emphasized palace diplomacy, whereas Mexico-Tenochtitlan’s focused more on propaganda. Despite these differences, both approaches share several similarities. Both began with invitations, and their protocols included the same components: visual (architecture, wealth, and terror), ceremonial (including aural, olfactory, gustatory, ludic, haptic, somatic, and terror elements), and diplomatic (interviews and gift exchanges).

Geoforensic analyses complement archaeological resource crime investigations, cultural resource damage assessments, and other investigations involving sediments. Civil and criminal litigation may hinge on attributions of sediments recovered from persons, equipment, objects, and localities to specific source deposits, including altered cultural resources. Geoforensic fieldwork often entails fluid interplays among geological, archaeological, and investigative factors, and few scientists have experience working in such contexts. Geoforensic specialists may be tasked to swiftly investigate unfamiliar regions to obtain representative specimens and to present expert reports grounded in scientifically reliable principles and methods. For these reasons, systematic preparation is needed to improve geoforensic fieldwork effectiveness and efficiency. We present recommended procedures and field-tested assets for five pre-fieldwork steps: (1) commit to the teamwork, discretion, and professionalism required for crime scene investigation and case resolution; (2) gather geological and archaeological background information; (3) assemble the sediment sampling tool kit; (4) prepare sediment sampling documentation and specimen collection forms; and (5) obtain necessary permits and law enforcement, landowner, or attorney guidance for participation in crime scene reconnaissance, survey, or resurvey. Completion of these five steps will optimize the prospects for geoforensic contributions to cultural resource damage assessments and to just resolution and remediation of unauthorized cultural resource alterations.