The GINI project investigates the dynamics of inequality among populations over the long term by synthesising global archaeological housing data. This project brings archaeologists together from around the world to assess hypotheses concerning the causes and consequences of inequality that are of relevance to contemporary societies globally.

In the Andean highlands, hilltop fortifications known as pukaras are common. Dating predominantly to the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000–1450), pukaras are important to archaeological characterisations of a political landscape shaped by conflict but the distribution of these key sites is not well understood. Here, the authors employ systematic satellite imagery survey to provide a contiguous picture of pukara distribution on an inter-regional scale covering 151 103km2 in the south-central highlands of Peru. They highlight the effectiveness of such survey at identifying pukaras and capturing regional variability in size and residential occupation, and the results demonstrate that satellite surveys of high-visibility sites can tackle research questions at larger scales of analysis than have previously been possible.

Imagery-based survey is capable of producing archaeological datasets that complement those collected through field-based survey methods, widening the scope of analysis beyond regions. The Geospatial Platform for Andean Culture, History and Archaeology (GeoPACHA) enables systematic registry of imagery survey data through a ‘federated’ approach. Using GeoPACHA, teams pursue problem-specific research questions through a common data schema and interface that allows for inter-project comparisons, analyses and syntheses. The authors present an overview of the platform's rationale and functionality, as well as a summary of results from the first survey campaign, which was carried out by six projects distributed across the central Andes, five of which are represented here.

Recent archaeological research in the Andes suggests that Indigenous herders carefully managed their environments through the modification of local hydrology and vegetation. However, the limited geographical scale of previous research makes it challenging to assess the range and prevalence of pastoralist land management in the Andes. In this article, the authors utilise large-scale, systematic imagery survey to examine the distribution and environmental contexts of corrals and pastoralist settlements in Huancavelica, Peru. Results indicate that corrals and pastoralist settlements cluster around colonial and present-day settlements and that a statistically significant relationship exists between pastoral infrastructure and perennial vegetation. This highlights the utility of remote survey for the identification of trans-regional patterns in herder-environment relationships that are otherwise difficult to detect.

Archaeological surveys conducted through the inspection of high-resolution satellite imagery promise to transform how archaeologists conduct large-scale regional and supra-regional research. However, conducting manual surveys of satellite imagery is labour- and time-intensive, and low target prevalence substantially increases the likelihood of miss-errors (false negatives). In this article, the authors compare the results of an imagery survey conducted using artificial intelligence computer vision techniques (Convolutional Neural Networks) to a survey conducted manually by a team of experts through the Geo-PACHA platform (for further details of the project, see Wernke et al. 2023). Results suggest that future surveys may benefit from a hybrid approach—combining manual and automated methods—to conduct an AI-assisted survey and improve data completeness and robustness.

This terrestrial and underwater archaeological research project around a Mediterranean islet identifies that it was a commercial centre during the fifth century AD. The results shed light on Late Roman island occupation dynamics.

Innovations in horse equipment during the early Middle Ages provided advantages to societies from the steppes, reshaping the social landscape of Eurasia. Comparatively little is known about the precise origin of these crucial advances, although the available evidence points to early adoption in East Asia. The authors present new archaeological discoveries from western and northern Mongolia, dating to the fourth and fifth centuries AD, including a wooden frame saddle with horse hide components from Urd Ulaan Uneet and an iron stirrup from Khukh Nuur. Together, these finds suggest that Mongolian groups were early adopters of stirrups and saddles, facilitating the expansion of nomadic hegemony across Eurasia and shaping the conduct of medieval mounted warfare.

Domesticated cattle were brought to Ireland during the Neolithic. By the early medieval period, 4000 years later, these animals were central to social and economic status in Irish communities and the landscape was organised around cattle husbandry to a degree unattested elsewhere in Europe. How this socio-economic importance developed is unclear. Here, using isotope data spanning six millennia, the authors identify a culturally driven shift towards the creation and management of open pastures, which began in the Iron Age, eventually supplanting woodland grazing. Cattle continued to dominate the economy until the later medieval period when a shift to participate in silver-based trade led to a reassessment of Ireland's unique human-cattle relationship.

Between c. 300 BC and AD 350, the Meroitic kingdom dominated the Middle Nile Valley; following its breakdown, it was replaced by a series of smaller successor polities. Explanation for this change centres on socio-political and economic instability. Here, the authors investigate the role of climate and environment using stable carbon and oxygen isotope analyses of human and faunal dental enamel from 13 cemeteries. The results show increasing δ18O values towards the end of the Meroitic kingdom and in the post-Meroitic period, combined with less negative δ13C values. These trends suggest a shift towards more arid conditions associated with changes in agricultural practices and land use that may have contributed to the kingdom's dissolution.

The European far north is an improbable location for a large prehistoric hunter-gatherer cemetery. Tainiaro, 80km south of the Arctic Circle, was first excavated four decades ago but the unpublished findings and their potential significance have evaded wider recognition. Despite the absence of skeletal evidence, dozens of fifth-millennium BC pits have been tentatively interpreted as burials. Here, the authors present the first analytical and comparative overview of the site. Many of the pits are consistent in form with those used for inhumation at contemporaneous sites suggesting that Tainiaro is one of the largest Stone Age cemeteries in northern Europe and raising questions about the cultural and subsistence practices of prehistoric societies in the subarctic.

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.

Failure is a fundamental part of the human condition. While archaeologists readily identify large-scale failures, such as societal collapse and site abandonment, they less frequently consider the smaller failures of everyday life: the burning of a meal or planning errors during construction. Here, the authors argue that evidence for these smaller failures is abundant in the archaeological record but often ignored or omitted in interpretations. Closer examination of such evidence permits a more nuanced understanding both of the mundane and the larger-scale failures of the human past. Excluding failure from the interpretative toolbox obscures the reconstruction of past lives and is tantamount to denying the humanity of past peoples.

Medieval hospitals were founded to provide charity, but poverty and infirmity were broad and socially determined categories and little is known about the residents of these institutions and the pathways that led them there. Combining skeletal, isotopic and genetic data, the authors weave a collective biography of individuals buried at the Hospital of St John the Evangelist, Cambridge. By starting with the physical remains, rather than historical expectations, they demonstrate the varied life courses of those who were ultimately buried in the hospital's cemetery, illustrating the diverse faces of medieval poverty and institutional notions of charity. The findings highlight the value of collective osteobiography when reconstructing the social landscapes of the past.

The expansion of the early Islamic state (c. AD 700–900) was underpinned by the minting of silver coins (dirhams) on an enormous scale. While the wider effects of this coinage have been studied extensively, the sources of silver have attracted less attention and research has relied on literary texts pointing to mines in Arabia and Central Asia. Here, the authors use lead isotope and trace element analyses of more than 100 precisely dated silver coins to provide a geochemical perspective on Islamic silver. The results identify multiple new sources, stretching from Morocco to the Tien Shen, and indicate an Abbasid-period mining boom. These source locations have implications for contemporary geopolitics including on the Islamic-Byzantine frontier.

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.

Archaeological narratives have traditionally associated the rise of social and political ‘complexity’ with the emergence of agricultural societies. However, this framework neglects the innovations of the hunter-gatherer populations occupying the Siberian taiga 8000 years ago, including the construction of some of the oldest-known fortified sites in the world. Here, the authors present results from the fortified site of Amnya in western Siberia, reporting new radiocarbon dates as the basis for a re-evaluation of the chronology and settlement organisation. Assessed within the context of the changing social and environmental landscape of the taiga, Amnya and similar fortified sites can be understood as one facet of a broader adaptive strategy.