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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In 2021, submissions to an art contest on Margarita Island, Venezuela, showcased Guaiquerí identity. Archaeology was largely absent from the artworks, but areas for meaningful future contributions connecting with existing identity narratives were identified. Intangible heritage, especially the Virgen del Valle and fishing, emerges as central to Indigenous identity formation.

Conservation of fragile and fragmented archaeological remains can be essential to their preservation and study. Here, the authors use the example of the approximately 75 000-year-old Shanidar Z Neanderthal to illustrate the importance of appropriate conservation from excavation to the laboratory, and of the detailed documentation of this process, for enabling anatomical and taphonomic research.

Białowieża Forest in eastern Poland preserves a landscape largely unaffected by recent human activity. A multidisciplinary study combining airborne and surface surveys, excavations and palaeoenvironmental analysis confirms episodic human activity in the area over the past 10 000 years, providing a methodological foundation for future research and heritage conservation.

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.

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.

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.

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.

‘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.

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.

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.