We review shoreline monitoring methodologies used by members of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) Archaeology, Geology, and Wildlife Biology teams from February 2021 to December 2022 on Pockoy Island in Charleston County, South Carolina, USA. Our project objectives were to better understand the driving forces behind the landward movement of the shoreline (transgression), to apply new understanding to the rate of shoreline erosion of the island that directly impacts the Pockoy Island Shell Ring Complex (38CH2533), and to establish best practice for future community science monitoring efforts. Each member of our team used a different shoreline monitoring methodology (a nested methodology approach). Multiple unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV)-derived orthoimagery datasets, on-the-ground transect measurements, and Arrow Gold real-time kinematic (RTK) unit measurements have been collected monthly following significant storms or king (perigean) tide events. Moving forward, the erosion transect approach tested within this project will serve as the foundation for community science monitoring at heritage at-risk sites in South Carolina. In this article, we introduce initial efforts in establishing a community science monitoring program in South Carolina that will influence future research, land management, and policy, and we propose how our research might be adapted for other sites at risk.

The civil war in Sudan, often overshadowed by other global conflicts, has deep roots in the country’s colonial past and ongoing struggles with governance. Despite early hopes for democracy, the situation deteriorated, leading to widespread violence and humanitarian crises. The war has seen mass displacement and severe restrictions on communication. Academia cannot remain silent in the face of such events. More importantly, we need to re-centre our practices from the outset, not just during in times of war. Archaeology plays a crucial role in this endeavour, but only if it actively moves away from its colonial past. The archaeological project at Jebel Moya is a fully joint collaboration between Sudanese archaeologists and those based in the Global North. It highlights the intersection of archaeology and contemporary conflict, underscoring the importance of equitable partnerships in post–colonial contexts. The narrative calls for international support for Sudanese scholars and students, emphasizing the need for flexibility, assistance, and a platform for Sudanese voices in the global academic community.

This paper considers a new corpus of 490,154 Roman coins (site finds) which have been recorded from England and Wales. The corpus provides British and regional means to aid in the preparation of coin reports in line with Historic England guidelines, along with spatial data providing new opportunities for research. The methods of data collection will be detailed and some of the possibilities this dataset can provide presented through a number of case studies. Through the consideration of applied numismatic analyses, the social distribution of the material and, crucially, the spatial distribution of Roman coinage, we can identify new trends and patterns. Case studies evaluating the fourth century will emphasise the changing importance of settlements in Roman Britain and identify those linked with the late Roman state. Furthermore, the retraction of coinage distributions in the second half of the fourth century will be explored. Building on the national and site type means explored within the paper, the full dataset has been made available in a range of forms on the Archaeology Data Service and in an interactive map developed by Maploom.

In March 2023 the EU-funded CHERISH project published its free user-guide and methodology for investigating heritage and climate change in the coastal and maritime environment (Barker and Corns 2023). This paper provides an overview of the publication, specifically the CHERISH toolkit – the 15 approaches employed by the multi-disciplinary project to investigate at-risk heritage sites in Wales and Ireland. Using the eroding coastal hillfort of Dinas Dinlle in Wales as a case study, the toolkit which combines air, land and sea-based investigation techniques is highlighted. This article will assist users going forward in identifying relevant approaches to the study of their own at-risk sites. It is relevant to a wide-ranging audience anywhere in the world, taking into consideration a variety of requirements such as the environment, budget, and outputs.

Classic Maya history was rife with shifting political coalitions and disputes with the key antagonists, Tikal and the Kaan regime, at the center. Understanding how power dynamics and political shifts were experienced among subordinate polities is best viewed from multiple perspectives. We employ elements of Graeber and Sahlins' (2017) stranger-king model, focusing on exogamous marriage practices in relation to two Snake Queens ruling at Waka’. They served as direct links between the Kaan regime and the subordinate Wak polity. We focus on the political and diplomatic nature of their roles in crafting Waka's place in the overarching narratives of alliance and conquest during the sixth through the early part of the eighth centuries. The pairing of archaeological and textual data surrounding Ix Ikoom in the sixth century and Lady K'abel during the seventh century permit interrogation of women's prominence with respect to Kaan regime-building strategies during these centuries.

The Kaanuˀl dynasty ruled a hegemonic state with political influence over much of the Classic Maya Lowlands between a.d. 520 and 751. The present article introduces the subject for a special section of the journal, which refocuses attention on the archaeological zone of Dzibanche in southern Quintana Roo, Mexico, where new data are emerging about the origins of the Kaanuˀl dynasty, its urban organization, and its connections to neighboring centers. In this article, we present new data from a recent lidar survey as well as from previous work by Enrique Nalda's Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) project to reevaluate Dzibanche's characteristics vis-à-vis its rise as a kingdom with far-reaching political influence. We complement these archaeological data with epigraphic information from new monuments and reanalysis of existing ones based on 3D scanning to update the list of Dzibanche rulers. We then revisit the chronology of Dzibanche's royal burials proposing correlations with known Early Classic Kaanuˀl rulers. Overall, the contributions to this special section present new perspectives on the Kaanuˀl's rise to power and its relationship with distant vassals in the crucial period of expansion into northern Peten, leading to the defeat of Tikal and eventually to its transition to a new dynastic seat at Calakmul in the a.d. 630s.

This article studies how Allied archaeological activities in Ottoman lands between 1918 and 1923 were part of the post-war negotiations over those territories. It uses the occupation of İstanbul as a reference point to understand the larger reconstruction of the Middle East through the inspection of practices and policies used by the Allies in the realm of cultural heritage. It explores the changes that World War I brought to this realm and asks what kind of practices were used and why. Using archival documents and archaeological literature, it argues that the Allies used institutions like museums and schools of archaeology, scholarly activities such as excavations and publications, and laws and regulations on cultural property to make geopolitical claims in the region and legitimize their occupation while acquiring as many antiquities as possible. By comparing the motivations, practices, and results of Allied archaeological activities in the capital to those elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, this study shines a light not only on the making of the post-war cultural heritage regime but also on the emerging geopolitical system in the Middle East.

In this article, we focus on the development of Rome: The Game – a large, lower-division online course crossed-listed in the History of Art and Architecture Department and Writing Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara – that features a choose-your-own-adventure-style interactive narrative. We explore the design principles underpinning the development of this type of gamified course, the mechanics of the course itself, student experiences, and learning outcomes. Citing relevant research in several fields – such as game studies, educational psychology, and communication studies – we argue that creating an online course in the style of an interactive, narrative-driven digital game presents a model for engaging and effective active learning in an online environment – one that goes beyond conventional virtual learning to offer an innovative, active, and deeply immersive model for online teaching.