The discovery of an ornament made from Phyllobius viridicollis beetles in a cremation grave at the Domasław cemetery highlights the diverse use of organic materials in funerary rites. Together with dandelion pollen, the find offers interpretative potential for reconstructing the seasonal timing of the burial.

In 2022–2023, fragments of figurative wall paintings were discovered in the Royal Palace at Sanjar-Shah, a Sogdian site near Panjikent in Tajikistan. The paintings depict a procession of priests approaching a large fire altar—this offers a rare insight into religious imagery and a representation of fire worship in Sogdian murals.

A newly discovered grave in Wadi Nafūn, Oman, features a unique burial structure, combining monumental architecture and the collective deposition of human remains from multiple Neolithic groups. Detailed analysis of the burial community reveals new insights into Neolithic rituals and subsistence strategies during the Holocene Humid Period in southern Arabia.

A brooch found in a mid-first-century AD context at the Roman port of Berenike, on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, represents the southernmost find of an Aucissa-type fibula. The item reflects the identity of its wearer, possibly a Roman soldier, for whom it may have held sentimental value.

Large-scale field investigation in the Eastern Tianshan Mountains of Xinjiang identified 108 Palaeolithic/microlithic surface findspots. Pulei Cave reveals the first well-preserved spelean sediment record containing Upper Palaeolithic cultural remains in eastern Xinjiang, dating from c. 45–43 ka BP.

In the highlands of northern Chile, research on industrial mining camps and agropastoral sites (estancias) shows the relevance of a contemporary archaeology perspective for studying the impacts of capitalist expansion, ruination and deindustrialisation for local Indigenous communities.

Excavations at Alcatrazes, the seat of Cape Verde’s short-lived second captaincy, have exposed a Portuguese colonial settlement, demonstrating continued occupation after the relocation of its official offices. The results include insights into early Luso-African practices and the presence of West African and local-made pottery, with environmental samples ‘clocking’ colonial introductions.

Medieval elite culture is often difficult to grasp among archaeological records from settlement sites. A silver-gilt amethyst setting, probably part of a brooch, from the moat of Castle Kolno in Poland represents an unusual high-status find from a context related to everyday activity.

Excavations at the Infantas complex in Chillón Valley, Perú, revealed a U-shaped monumental centre with a central mound, clay staircase and columned atrium. Aligned with structures from the Rímac and Lurín valleys, these complexes anchored ritual-political power, serving as hubs for ideological integration and territorial organisation in early Andean societies.

Accessibility at the Sterkfontein Caves UNESCO World Heritage Site limits public and scientific engagement. The authors digitally visualised part of the cave using laser scans and photogrammetry, geospatially integrating the digital cave and fossil datasets. This enables broader access for learners, educators and scientists and enhances scientific outreach potential.

Fortified Island (FORTIS) examines Iron Age fortifications on the island of Bornholm to assess their characters, locations and chronologies. Through a multimethod approach, the project deepens our understanding of fortifications in relation to their physical and cultural landscapes, both on Bornholm and in the Baltic Sea Region more generally.

Multidisciplinary methods permit the first archaeometallurgical study of artefacts from five key first-millennium BC settlements in Poland: Grzybiany, Wicina, Kamieniec, Tarławki and Mołtajny. This project fills a lacuna in our understanding of technical ceramics, metal provenance and the role of settlements in the cultural landscape.

In 2022, a project was initiated to investigate the cemetery at Nowy Chorów, northern Poland, with Orzeszkowo-type (rectangular) burial mounds. During the excavations, both inhumation and cremation graves were uncovered, along with elements of elite grave goods and evidence of the reopening of the graves.

Recent investigations in north-west Arabia have revealed that many major oases in the region were enclosed by a network of monumental walls. Confirmation of four newly identified walled oases demonstrates that this Walled Oases Complex had a substantial impact on long-term socioeconomic development in the region.

‘Lamsdorf/Łambinowice: an archaeology of memory’ is an interdisciplinary project that uses archaeological research methods and tools to locate unknown and unmarked graves of prisoners of war (PoW) and civilians related to the functioning of the German camp Stalag VIII B (344) Lamsdorf in the years 1939–1945.

Since 2015, four non-invasive campaigns have surveyed the San José Galleon shipwreck in the Colombian Caribbean, providing valuable insights into the age and provenance of artefacts found on the seabed. Numismatic, archaeological and historical approaches have been employed to analyse a collection of gold coins recorded within this underwater context.

This study uses archival photos and data from lidar, geophysical surveys and excavations to help uncover the physical realities of two Second World War Nazi sub-camps, Czyżówek (AL Halbau) and Karczmarka (AL Kittlitztreben), in the Gross-Rosen network, now in south-west Poland.

Ancient stone monuments may have marked the locations of key ritual activities for pastoralist communities. This project is the first to employ multi-method geophysical survey to identify additional features of construction and use at the Chalcolithic-period Rajajil Columns site in northern Saudi Arabia.

The early medieval stronghold of Grzybowo, Wielkopolska, was a large complex, comprising two strongholds and an extensive outer settlement, with numerous elite movable monuments. Excavations suggest that this was an important site for the ruling dynasty, with analogies for this form of central stronghold found in Ruthenia and Bohemia.