Geoarchaeological analysis of settlement stratigraphy is key to understanding continuity and change in economic, social and cultural spaces within complex (proto-)urban sites. Here, preliminary micromorphological and micro-refuse data from the Pungrt hillfort demonstrate the potential of a fine-scaled geoarchaeology-based approach for understanding the structuring and reuse of space, not just within settlements but within individual households, through time.

Previous archaeobotanical research in Southwest Asia focused on the Neolithic ‘founder crops’. The Founders project revisits this concept and the economic role these species played in the development of agriculture. To achieve this aim, archaeological food remains are studied and culinary practices of the last hunter-gatherers and first farmers are evaluated.

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.

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.

Xiaonanshan is an archaeological site dated to 16.5–13.5 cal kyr BP, situated beside the Ussuri River in China. The lithic assemblages feature microblade debitage, bifacial points and stone adzes, which provide important new materials for this project to explore Neolithisation in the Amur River basin of northeast Asia.

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.

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.

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.

Rare organic artefacts, including wooden figurines and fishnet fragments from the Stone Age (c. 6000–2000 BC) were found in 2020 and 2021 during excavations of a wetland site in Finland. The first results from analysing the artefacts, crafting methods and raw materials provide novel insights into artisanship, material know-how and visual culture of northern hunter-fisher-gatherers.

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.

Plant domestication represents a major turning point in human history, resulting in the shift from a hunting/gathering/fishing-based economy to food production. Combining the analysis of ground stone tools and dental calculus, the PATH project aims to investigate dynamics of plant consumption, and the knowledge and toolkits involved in their processing.

The Early to Middle Pleistocene Transition (EMPT) is characterised by major environmental changes and evolutionary innovations within the genus Homo but the scarcity of the African EMPT fossil and archaeological records obscures its palaeoecological context. Here, we present archaeological and faunal evidence from a newly excavated West-Turkana EMPT site—Kanyimangin.

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.

Bronze and Early Iron Age hoards in Poland are the focus of a multi-faceted study combining archival research with laboratory analyses and landscape studies. The diverse dataset is expected to reveal new insights into the phenomenon of metal deposition.

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.

A 3D reconstruction of the principia at Novae (Bulgaria) allows modelling of the inscribed statues, altars and building stones as they used to look. By restoring the inscribed monuments to their original contexts, the model means that Roman military religiosity and its messages can be analysed in the legionary headquarters.

Praia Melão, the largest sugar mill and estate in São Tomé, active from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, is the first archaeological site ever investigated on the island. It embodies the inception of the plantation economic system predicated on the labour of enslaved people and of local resistance.

How did the Roman Empire supply and maintain its frontier garrisons? What was the impact on populations and landscapes of conquered territories? The Feeding the Roman Army in Britain project will answer these questions by establishing how soldiers were provisioned and how frontiers operated as economic as well as militarised zones.

An archaeological field project designed to investigate Palaeolithic occupation is being undertaken in Mardin Province, south-east Turkey. New sites have been identified and recorded systematically, including Şıkefta Elobrahimo Cave. Together, these provide ample evidence for hominin presence in this area since the Middle Palaeolithic.

Geophysical prospection and archaeological excavation are helping to contextualise a group of Middle Bronze Age metalwork hoards in Brittany. At Kerouarn, three hoards with a total of 89 bracelets were found buried in a semi-circular enclosure with a monumental entrance, bounded by two deep ditches and their associated embankments. No domestic or funerary remains were discovered.