Institutional food is renowned for being monotonous and unappetising, yet the accuracy of these prescribed diets is difficult to verify archaeologically. Desiccated plant remains from beneath the floorboards at Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney offer a rare insight into the culture of food at the Female Immigration Depot (1848–1887) and the Destitute Asylum (1862–1886). Here, the author reveals the wide range of unofficial plant foods accessed by inhabitants at these two institutions—representing resources sourced from across the British Empire—and the sometimes-illicit nature of their consumption, highlighting the importance of incorporating archaeological evidence into discussions of institutional life.

The American sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a globally important comestible crop that features prominently in Polynesian lore; however, the timing and mode of its Oceanic transplantation remain obscure. New research from the Māori cultivation site M24/11 in Aotearoa/New Zealand, presented here, offers a re-evaluation of evidence for the early use and distribution of the sweet potato in southern Polynesia. Consideration of plant microparticles from fourteenth-century archaeological contexts at the site indicates local cultivation of sweet potato, taro and yam. Of these, only sweet potato persisted through a post-1650 climatic downturn it seems, underscoring the enduring southern-Polynesian appeal of this hardy crop.

The dynamics of our species’ dispersal into the Pacific remains intensely debated. The authors present archaeological investigations in the Raja Ampat Islands, north-west of New Guinea, that provide the earliest known evidence for humans arriving in the Pacific more than 55 000–50 000 years ago. Seafaring simulations demonstrate that a northern equatorial route into New Guinea via the Raja Ampat Islands was a viable dispersal corridor to Sahul at this time. Analysis of faunal remains and a resin artefact further indicates that exploitation of both rainforest and marine resources, rather than a purely maritime specialisation, was important for the adaptive success of Pacific peoples.

Durable architecture is a hallmark of Polynesian chiefdoms, associated with centralised control of residential and agricultural land. Previous work in West Polynesia has indicated a relatively late date for the onset of such construction activity—after AD 1000—suggesting that political development was influenced by events such as post-colonisation migration. The authors report new dating evidence from the excavation of a large earth mound on the island of Tongatapu. Its construction 1500 years ago indicates that, in contrast to previous findings, well-developed chiefdoms and field monuments probably dominated the landscapes of West Polynesia substantially prior to the colonisation of more easterly island nations.

Ethnohistoric accounts indicate that the people of Australia's Channel Country engaged in activities rarely recorded elsewhere on the continent, including food storage, aquaculture and possible cultivation, yet there has been little archaeological fieldwork to verify these accounts. Here, the authors report on a collaborative research project initiated by the Mithaka people addressing this lack of archaeological investigation. The results show that Mithaka Country has a substantial and diverse archaeological record, including numerous large stone quarries, multiple ritual structures and substantial dwellings. Our archaeological research revealed unknown aspects, such as the scale of Mithaka quarrying, which could stimulate re-evaluation of Aboriginal socio-economic systems in parts of ancient Australia.

Secret societies, involving restricted and hierarchically organised initiation rituals, are conspicuous in the chronicles of many past and present societies. These rarely leave a substantial written record and yet archaeology can provide vivid insight into past performances, for example in relation to Roman ‘mystery cults’. Far less research, however, has focused on Australia and the Pacific Islands. This article presents archaeological evidence for ceremonies practised on Woeydhul Island in the Western Torres Strait, exploring initiation rituals at the cusp of contemporary memory. By doing so, it provides a detailed and long-term history for Torres Strait Islander secret societies and ritual activities involving dugong bone mounds, stone arrangements and worked stingray spines.

At the time of European contact, Torres Strait, New Guinea and northern Australia were home to highly restricted fraternities focused on warfare, headhunting and mortuary rituals. Masked dancers, representing spirits of the dead, initiated the next generation into secrets reputedly brought by a pantheon of wandering heroes, such as Waiat. A new project explores the deep history of Islander traditions, excavating initiation places associated with Waiat. In so doing, it demonstrates the advantages of collaborative history-building using archaeology and traditional knowledge.

Ancestral Polynesian Society has been argued to represent a formative stage in Polynesian ethnogenesis. Recently discovered human burials at the Talasiu midden site in Tonga, dating to c. 2650 cal BP, now provide the earliest known evidence for Ancestral Polynesian mortuary behaviour. This article presents and evaluates the burials, comparing archaeological evidence for Talasiu mortuary practices with those of older Lapita and more recent Tongan burials, as well as with Ancestral Polynesian Society funerary activities inferred through linguistic reconstruction. These comparisons emphasise that several socio-cultural behaviours that are important to contemporary Polynesian societies were expressed very differently in the past.

Recent survey in the Gulf of Carpentaria region of northern Australia has identified a unique assemblage of miniature and small-scale stencilled motifs depicting anthropomorphs, material culture, macropod tracks and linear designs. The unusual sizes and shapes of these motifs raise questions about the types of material used for the stencil templates. Drawing on ethnographic data and experimental archaeology, the authors argue that the motifs were created with a previously undocumented stencilling technique using miniature models sculpted from beeswax. The results suggest that beeswax and other malleable and adhesive resins may have played a more significant role in creating stencilled motifs than previously thought.

A unique wooden sculpture collected by James Cook during his first voyage to the Pacific is widely considered to be a masterpiece of Oceanic art, but its exact provenance has been unclear. New analysis of shavings from the object now indicate that a) the tree from which it was carved was felled between 1690 and 1728, and that the carving was therefore up to 80 years old when obtained, and b) it originated in Tahiti, despite its stylistic affinities with art from the Austral Islands. Motifs and forms clearly travelled within regions, and populations interacted in ways that blur presumed tribal boundaries. It is perhaps time to reconsider the association between region and style upon which the cataloguing and identification of objects routinely depends.

The rock art of Doria Gudaluk (Beswick Creek Cave) in the Northern Territory of Australia has previously provided a valuable lesson in the difficulties of definitive interpretation without local knowledge. Now, newly recorded motifs at the site—some only visible with digital enhancement—highlight the dangers of relating stylistic changes to the replacement of different cultures. When considered in the context of local history, developments in the rock art of Doria Gudaluk during the second half of the twentieth century can be understood as the result of new cultural collaborations between incoming groups and older, local communities.

Future scientists seeking evidence of the Anthropocene on a planetary scale will find a series of structurally similar deposits dating to within the same few thousand years at multiple locations around the world. It will be evident that they were produced by a global human drive to exploit the Earth's mineral wealth. The impact and the evidence left by this phenomenon in the ‘Gold Rush’ region of Victoria, Australia are particularly clear. Using a multi-scalar approach, the authors examine the extent and significance of changes resulting from water management and mining processes, which, in some cases, resulted in the creation of new landscapes far beyond the mining district.