Confirming ephemeral human occupation is a crucial issue in cave archaeology. The project ‘Tracing human presence in caves of Polish Jura’ focuses on the application of molecular methods to decode the history of past human activities in cave sediments in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland. The results will be compared with archaeological and palaeoecological proxies.

This article presents details of the recent discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in Cova Dones, Valencia. The preliminary results reveal a rich graphic assemblage with features that are unusual for Mediterranean Upper Palaeolithic art and were previously unknown for the Pleistocene in the eastern Iberian coast.

Discoveries at Letti provide important data on the functioning and reach of one of the oldest African civilisations: the kingdom of Kerma (2500–1500 BC). Extensive surveys and preliminary excavations have recorded numerous settlement and funerary sites in the region. Our results help to expand the economic data and chronology.

Occupation of Mitzpe Shivta in the Negev Desert coincided with times of economic and social upheaval and counterculture movements during the sixth and seventh centuries AD. Inscriptions and symbols found in rock-hewn rooms in the region indicate that while the agricultural economy declined during the late Byzantine period, pilgrimage and monasticism prospered.

This article illustrates preliminary results of the interdisciplinary research project ‘Science for society, society for science at the Site of National Remembrance in Łambinowice’. It presents the material traces of prisoner-of-war, resettlement and forced labour camps that functioned between 1870 and 1946 in Lamsdorf (now Łambinowice, Poland) and explains their modern social significance.

The military invasion of Ukraine has destroyed and damaged extensive built cultural heritage, including churches, museums and monuments. Based on site visits conducted since the invasion, we outline damage to the eleventh-century sites of Boldyni Hory, Chernihiv, and the church, citadel and graveyard at Oster, Chernihiv Oblast.