A multi-disciplinary research project in the Aras Valley, Armenia, focuses on the remains of the Late Bronze/Early Iron Age settlement of Metsamor. The results challenge prior understandings of the settlement's past and the role it played in the region, especially during the first centuries of the first millennium BC.

A sickle boat petroglyph in Wadi Asafir, North-west Arabia, can potentially stretch the geographic scope of the connection between Egypt and Western Arabia in the fourth millennium BC.

Excavations in marginal areas of the loess uplands in southern Poland have revealed that the northern periphery of the Sandomierz Upland was intensely colonised in the sixth and fifth millennia BC by Linearbandkeramik and Malice Culture Danubian communities. This research suggests that analogous settlement clusters may exist in other marginal regions of the Central European loess belt, previously thought to be uninhabited.

The first formal bone tool in the Central Altai of Russia was found in an Early Upper Palaeolithic assemblage at the Kara-Bom open-air site. Here the authors report the results of AMS dating, use-wear analysis, 3D-modelling and zooarchaeological and collagen fingerprinting analysis, which reveal important new insights into the osseous technology of the Kara-Bomian tradition.

The discovery of an Early Upper Palaeolithic rockshelter, Nahal Rahaf 2, in the southern Judean Desert revives the debate about whether the Levantine Aurignacian extended into the arid regions of the Southern Levant.

A Late Bronze Age hoard from Karmin, Poland, contained 16 socketed axes, half of which were made of copper. The copper axes represent the same local type as the bronze objects and bear the same traces of manufacturing and use. The authors argue that the move to copper was a response to unexpected difficulties in the tin supply.

Ceramics discovered at Yan'an, Shaanxi, are glazed using a polychrome technique previously unknown in the Han Dynasty. Chemical analysis shows similar technological methods to those used during the Warring States period. This paper demonstrates two possible influences for the polychrome decoration that ultimately suggest Eurasian cultural hybridity and exchange.

Archaeological excavations at Kota Tampan in West Malaysia recovered a large stone assemblage dated to 70 kya and believed to be associated with the presence of early Anatomically Modern Humans in Mainland Southeast Asia. New technological analysis demonstrates that almost all these stone artefacts result from early stage reduction through freehand and bipolar percussion.

A combined archaeobotanical and micro-refuse analysis is being implemented at two Early Neolithic tells currently under excavation in the Pelagonia Valley: Vrbjanska Čuka and Veluška Tumba. The first results suggest similarities with Greek sites that show a relatively broad crop spectrum.

Excavations at Gonur Oasis in the ancient delta of the Murghab River revealed a unique polychrome painting at the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex. Found in an unusual grave at Gonur 20, the painting may offer new insights into ancient technologies and interaction between Old World civilisations.

A multidisciplinary project challenges traditional approaches to the rural landscape of Petra in order to understand its agricultural systems and the quantitative and qualitative aspects of a lived landscape.

Survey and excavation of a medieval fort in central Himalaya has provided evidence for a unique system of defence. Radiocarbon dates provide a chronology for the fort and fortalices (small forts or fortified houses) in the Garhwal region.

Sudan is a vitally important region for understanding the migrations of Anatomically Modern Humans from the African continent. Here, the authors present the results of a preliminary survey in the Kerma region, during which, 16 new Middle Stone Age sites were discovered.

A new project maps mobility patterns and social networks from prehistory to historical times in the western piedmont of the Maloti-Drakensberg, South Africa, and considers how rock art sites relate to seasonal or transhumance patterns in the region.

Here the authors report on a project that aims to understand zinc-production technologies at the earliest zinc-smelting site in China. Excavations at the site of Linjiangerdui, south of the Yangtze River, have provided a chronological sequence for smelting sites and revealed new evidence for methods of production.

It is often claimed that changes in material culture signify adaptations to changing environments. Deploying novel conceptual models and computational techniques, research funded by the European Research Council seeks to reconstruct the patterns and processes of cultural transmission and adaptation at the turbulent transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene.

A research project focused on the cultural heritage of the Swahili-Arab in the Democratic Republic of Congo has confirmed the location of their former settlement in Kasongo, one of the westernmost trading entrepôts in a network of settlements connecting Central Africa with Zanzibar. This project represents the first time archaeological investigations, combined with oral history and archival data, have been used to understand the Swahili-Arab legacy in the DRC.

The discovery of glass crucible fragments with the remains of semi-finished glass at Ile-Ife, Nigeria, has provided the first evidence for the existence of autonomous glass production in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the nineteenth century, two Neolithic axe-heads were reported from the Michelsberg enclosure system at Kapellenberg. The recent identification of an unusually large tumulus, from which the axe-heads were almost certainly once recovered, reveals that socio-political hierarchisation, linked to the emergence of high-ranking elites in Brittany and the Paris Basin during the fifth millennium cal BC, may have extended into Central Europe.

The ‘Landscapes of (Re)Conquest’ project investigates the dynamics of medieval frontier societies in South-west Europe through the lens of the cultural landscape. It compares diverse regional borderlands in Spain, created by successive waves of Islamic and Christian conquests, with the Pyrenean frontier on either side of the Albigensian Crusade and aims to reconnect the castles of frontier authorities with their associated territories from a heritage perspective.