‘The Castles’ project was completed in late 2025 (https://castles.unisi.it) and its innovative, multidisciplinary approach is revealing a revised chronological and typological sequence for the phenomenon of incastellamento in Italy. The results show an earlier appearance of large stone structures and a much later appearance of fortified stone-built villages around seigneurial centres than previously thought.

Occupied from around 1600 BC and linked to the Cherkaskul and Alekseevka-Sargary cultures, Semiyarka is a newly identified 140ha Late Bronze Age settlement in north-eastern Kazakhstan. The site represents a unique settlement with planned architecture—including a central monumental structure—low-density pottery scatter and evidence for organised tin-bronze production.

A geophysical survey at Cahal Pech, Belize, identified one of the earliest securely dated lithic caches from the Maya lowlands. Linked to Middle Preclassic (800–400 cal BC) monumental architecture and communal ceremonial events, this find demonstrates the effectiveness of gradiometry for detecting ritual deposits.

Excavations at Xiaeryamakebu, located in the Qaidam Basin of north-west China, have uncovered a large Bronze Age settlement that includes residences and cemeteries. The site provides crucial insights into the Nuomuhong culture, its mortuary practices and local adaptation to the Tibetan Plateau.

This article redefines the concept of the Achaemenid ‘Royal’ Road using GIS-based route modelling to reconstruct possible roads between Susa and Persepolis. By integrating logistical and environmental parameters, it shows how royal mobility required a specialised infrastructure—distinct from ancillary roads—tailored to the operational scale of the Achaemenid court.

Residue analysis of small ceramic bottles from around Tyre in Lebanon reveals chemical traces of wine, resins, pitch and palm oil, indicating their multifunctional use. The authors state that these results enhance understanding of Phoenician container use, trade and production across diverse archaeological contexts.

This study investigates Escuadrón 41, a former colonial battery turned detention and torture centre, to examine the material and mnemonic afterlives of state violence in Cuba. Through excavation, archival research and oral histories, it reveals how ruins, memory and erasure intersect, positioning archaeology as critical engagement with difficult pasts.

Rescue excavations at Mersin (Semnan, Iran) reveal a tightly patterned Achaemenid-period cemetery. Thirty-four graves, excavated between 2014 and 2024, combine local mortuary traditions with imperial-era objects, demonstrating how provincial communities selectively adopted imperial markers to negotiate identity and refining narratives for the empire’s north-eastern interior.

Through autoptic examination, macrophotography and comparative palaeography, this study identifies changes in sign forms, engraving techniques and associated iconography in a corpus of Urartian inscribed bronze bowls. Evolving scribal practices, and the transformation of monumental cuneiform into portable media, highlight the role of inscribed metal vessels in expressing Urartian kingship.

Following the identification of more than 600 suspected house platforms on aerial survey data from Brusselstown Ring hillfort, four test excavations revealed evidence of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age occupation, positioning the site as the largest nucleated settlement so far identified in prehistoric Ireland and Britain.

Excavations on Letná Hill uncovered a forgotten 1950s labour camp linked to Prague’s Stalin Monument. Preserved architecture and artefacts reveal the daily life of workers, driven less by physical violence than by ideological pressure and social consequences, shedding new light on forced labour and material culture in communist Czechoslovakia.

Macroscopic analysis of potsherds used to make herringbone-patterned pavements at two medieval centres in northern Yorùbáland suggests production variations despite shared architectural traditions. Reflecting local production choices and broader regional interactions, these results affect our understanding of pottery production, cultural interaction and social complexity in medieval West Africa.

Ostrów Lednicki was a centre of the Piast dynasty (tenth–fourteenth centuries AD), laying the foundations for the development of the Polish state. A collapsed tenth-century wooden fortification associated with Bolesław the Brave (the first king of Poland) and its unique sculptural element provide insights into early-medieval construction techniques.

Forced population resettlement constituted a strategic instrument in the territorial expansion of the Roman Empire. Survey and geophysical data from Macchia di Circello (Campania) offer novel evidence on the settlement of a forcibly relocated community, the Ligures Baebiani, transferred from Liguria to Samnium in the second century BC.

Atop El Castillo, the largest pyramid within the Maya site of Chichen Itza, in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, stand two ruined columns that once portrayed the feathered serpent deity K’uk’ulkan. 3D-imaging technologies have identified scattered sculptural fragments belonging to these columns, allowing a digital reconstruction that opens new possibilities for their conservation.

Photographed over more than two decades, alterations to the Alto Caramucho geoglyphs in the Atacama Desert show the unfolding of a heritage disaster. This article presents research that integrates new digital technologies (photogrammetry and artificial intelligence) for the evaluation and documentation of the deterioration of the geoglyphs.

Pre-construction archaeology in West Africa presents new avenues for understanding historic urban development. Excavation of two building plots for the Museum of West African Art, Benin City, Nigeria, provides new perspectives on the Kingdom of Benin, a significant polity in the West African forest zone during the second millennium AD.

A community-based initiative in Ghana has mapped and partially excavated an earthwork site in the Oti region. Radiocarbon dating shows that the site was occupied between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries AD, while archaeo- and ethnobotanical research connects historical plant use with modern practices, contributing to our understanding of West African earthworks.

Recent research at the Chimú site of Quebrada del Oso in the Chicama Valley, Peru indicates that the site functioned as a pre-Hispanic agricultural centre. This finding is relevant to debates about the nature and viability of the Chicama-Moche canal built by the Chimú state around the eleventh century AD.