While a clear human presence may be recognised in the Andes by 12 000–11 000 cal BP, most archaeological research has focused on occupation of the Andean highlands. To understand the initial occupation of inland areas of South America, the authors consider regional connections and spatial exploitation strategies of hunter-gatherers highlighted in a recent survey of Andean sites. Focusing on north-central Chile, artefacts and radiocarbon dates from three rock shelters suggest sporadic and brief occupation during the Terminal Pleistocene–Early Holocene. Co-occurrence of marine and montane resources, the authors argue, demonstrates a strategy of high mobility and local adaptation in early Andean occupation, using rock shelters as landmarks to navigate and learn new landscapes.

During the tenth century AD, Harald Bluetooth ruled Denmark from the royal seat at Jelling. The two extant Jelling mounds are traditionally associated with Harald's parents, Gorm and Thyra, about whom we know little. Unusually, the name Thyra appears on both Jelling runestones and on several others from the region. If all refer to the same person, she would be commemorated on more runestones than anyone else in Viking-Age Denmark. The authors use 3D-scanning to study rune carving techniques, combined with analyses of orthography and language, concluding that the Jelling 2 and Læborg stones are linked by the hand of the carver Ravnunge-Tue. The results suggest Thyra played a pivotal role in the emergence of the Danish state.

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.

The architectural connections between western Central Asia and China are not well understood. Recent investigations at the Haermodun site in central Xinjiang reveals new evidence of the influence of western Central Asia on the construction of fortifications in China during the early first millennium AD.