This article examines a monumental structure in the North Pontic Steppe that was repurposed as a burial mound in the late fourth millennium BCE. The authors argue that this repurposing reflects a pattern of Yamna appropriation of ritual spaces, conceptualised as a ‘continuity of sacred spaces’.

The Fenscapes project investigates trajectories of landscape, habitat and species change in the Fens of eastern England from the Neolithic to the present, with the aim to build self-reflective understandings of land-use and wetland management. Yet underlying biases exist in data patterning linked to burial depth and archaeological practice.

Since 2017, the Samtskhe-Javakheti Project has identified about 168 archaeological sites in the highlands of southern Georgia and conducted excavations at Meghreki Fortress and Baraleti Natsargora. These sites reveal complex occupational sequences, fortification strategies and decorative practices, highlighting the region’s role as an interactive cultural frontier between highlands and steppes.

Field surveys in the Esfarayen Plain, north-eastern Iran, documented evidence of hominin occupations at 24 localities in Northern Khorasan. These findings help transform our understanding of Palaeolithic populations in north-eastern Iran and underscore the importance of this region in the dispersal of hominins into the interior of Asia.

Polished stone axes are one of the most iconic types of tools of Europe’s first farmers. Despite their ubiquity, we know relatively little about how they were used. Here, the authors outline how macroscopic wear analysis is revealing diversity in the use and treatment of axe-heads from Neolithic Orkney.

Use-wear analysis is rarely conducted for ground stone axes (GSAs) from West Africa. Here, the results of use-wear analysis of 50 GSAs from Akwanga and other parts of Central Nigeria are discussed, contributing to our understanding of their functional attributes.

This project investigates archaeological material collected from north-west China in the 1920s and housed at the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm. Finds and archival materials are examined and catalogued to learn about prehistoric cultural interactions and to reconnect discoveries with the original excavation contexts and excavators.

Despite the survival of some historical records, little is known about water management in Urartu. This project focuses on the fortress of Argishtikhinili in the Araks Valley, Armenia, employing satellite imaging and remote sensing data to identify 1019km of water-management features, including a potential 134.6km of ancient canals.

First excavated in 1928 by Dorothy Garrod, Hazar Merd represents the earliest documented Palaeolithic site in the Zagros Mountains and a landmark in regional archaeological research. Nearly a century later, renewed investigations are refining the site’s stratigraphy and cultural sequence, providing a more nuanced understanding of its long-term occupation.

Tarkhan is a cemetery in Egypt’s Nile Valley, best known for its pivotal late Predynastic and Early Dynastic remains. Despite its importance for understanding state formation in Egypt, the site saw limited modern investigation until 2024, when a new Egyptian-Polish archaeological project was launched to provide a reassessment of Tarkhan.

Excavations at Kalat-e Yavar offer new insights into prehistoric connectivity between the Iranian Plateau and Central Asia. Stratified deposits yielded ceramics and burials from the third/second millennia BCE, alongside architectural remains, pits, faunal/botanical assemblages and a kiln, marking the Bojnord Plain as a cultural contact zone.

An intensive archaeological surface survey of the El Argar site and its hinterland has provided new information for the discussion of early sociopolitical complexity in the western Mediterranean. This article presents the preliminary interpretation of a long-term settlement pattern, particularly in the Bronze Age.

Excavations at the Jizhong site in eastern China reveal the agricultural and horticultural range of the ancient Yue state, uncovering rice, gourds and fruit seeds, and the integration of proto-urban foodways with state development. This suggests that increasing dietary complexity and urban-rural integration were inherited by the subsequent Qin-Han dynasties.

New dates from Mujina pećina, obtained through optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), provide the earliest radiometric dates yet recorded from an archaeological site in Dalmatia, Croatia. Associated Mousterian artefacts indicate that humans were present in this part of the Adriatic region c. 30 000 years earlier than previously believed.

Two seasons of excavations at the site of Tapeh Tyalineh in western Iran retrieved the largest known corpus of late prehistoric administrative artefacts in the ancient world, including more than 7000 seal impressions, more than 200 clay figurines, several clay tokens and two cylinder seals, dating to 5000 years ago.

Tell Abraq (United Arab Emirates) is a key site in south-east Arabian archaeology, evidencing over three millennia of continuous human occupation. Recent discoveries highlight its inclusion in trade networks across the Persian Gulf and beyond and illustrate how the nature of the site changed through time.

From 2022–2025, the Curaçao Cultural Landscape Project conducted archaeological and palaeoecological investigations of Rif Sint Marie and Jan Thiel, Curaçao, to reconstruct long-term landscape history. Results reveal a 5700-year settlement history, strategic adaptations enacted by diverse cultural groups and the legacy of past human activities within the contemporary landscape.

Newly discovered open-air sites along the Dorps River in the arid Karoo (South Africa), a region with uneven archaeological coverage, demonstrate multiple visits to this favoured habitat in the late Holocene Later Stone Age (c. 3000–2000 BP).

The ‘Costumes of Authority’ project (2022–2024) investigated how clothing expressed secular and religious authority in Christian Nubia (ninth–fourteenth centuries). Experimental reconstruction of five representative costumes (two kings, two royal mothers, one bishop) based on iconographic and textile evidence highlights the physical impact and visual effect of these garments.

Excavations at Aketala reveal traces of human activity at the oases of the western Tarim Basin, north-western China, by at least 2200 BC. The recovered artefacts indicate that, by 1800 BC, the Andronovo culture had reached this region, bringing agropastoralism and developing the earliest regional evidence of bronze manufacturing techniques.