Protohistoric populations of the southern steppes experienced a series of significant changes in settlement and material culture between the Late Bronze Age (c. 1500 BC) and the end of the Iron Age. Analysis of new archaeozoological data from Turkmen sites and re-examination of published data from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan reveal considerable economic flexibility and adaptive responses to the variety of ecosystems. They indicate that localised cultural choices, perhaps responding to local environmental constraints, persisted throughout this period, despite successive cultural or political shifts, including the Achaemenid conquest of the region in the sixth century BC.

Stonehenge is a site that continues to yield surprises. Excavation in 2009 added a new and unexpected feature: a smaller, dismantled stone circle on the banks of the River Avon, connected to Stonehenge itself by the Avenue. This new structure has been labelled ‘Bluestonehenge’ from the evidence that it once held a circle of bluestones that were later removed to Stonehenge. Investigation of the Avenue closer to Stonehenge revealed deep periglacial fissures within it. Their alignment on Stonehenge's solstitial axis (midwinter sunset–midsummer sunrise) raises questions about the early origins of this ritual landscape.

The deeply engrained stereotype of opposing ‘steppe’ and ‘sown’ societies has strongly influenced interpretation of Bronze Age Central Asia. This has led to the idea that the agricultural Oxus civilisation and non-Oxus mobile pastoralists formed two distinct cultural-economic groups in this region that are easily distinguishable through archaeological remains. Recent excavations of campsites in southern Turkmenistan, however, provide new evidence of variability in exchange between sites, suggesting adaptation by pastoralist groups in their interactions with settled Oxus farming groups. Rather than wholly reiterating or dissolving the distinctions between them, such practices dynamically reshaped the boundaries of these social and economic groups. These findings challenge us to move away from notions of centre-periphery, dependency and diffusion in discussions of intercultural contact in Eurasian prehistory.

The South Caucasus has been largely absent in broader discussions of prehistoric population aggregation in Greater Eurasia. The authors use remote sensing, surface collection and magnetometry to investigate two hilltop fortress settlements at the margins of the Kura River Basin, with a particular emphasis on satellite settlements around the main hills. The results support a model of settlement growth in which previously mobile groups settled around the fortress, while maintaining a degree of spatial and social separation. The use of multiple survey techniques reveals a complex picture of settlement organisation, with implications for comparative analysis of prehistoric population aggregation models.

Despite a general paucity of archaeological, archaeozoological and iconographic evidence from the Upper Palaeolithic through to Late Antiquity, the corpus of whalebone finds in the Mediterranean region indicates that some level of interaction between humans and whales did indeed occur. A concentration of finds from Roman contexts suggests more active interventions in this period, especially around the Western Mediterranean and the Strait of Gibraltar—a ‘cetacean hotspot’. Whale vertebrae or scapulae were sometimes fashioned into portable chopping boards, identified from cut-marks made by fishermen or craftsmen, but whale meat and blubber may have been less important owing to abundant alternative food and fuel sources.

Excavations at the stone sarcophagus burial site of Pangkung Paruk on Bali have yielded the largest collection of Roman gold-glass beads in early Southeast Asia found to date, together with elaborate gold ornaments and two Han Chinese bronze mirrors. Unprecedented in Island Southeast Asia, these artefacts find parallels at Oc Eo in Vietnam, at other sites in the Mekong Delta and on the Thai-Malay Peninsula. Analyses of these new finds and comparison with others from across the region provide insights into the early to mid first-millennium AD trans-Asiatic networks that linked Southeast Asia to South Asia, the Roman world and China.

The remarkable subterranean architecture of the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum on Malta has generated many claims about its dramatic acoustic effects, but previous studies have lacked rigour. A systematic, methodical approach has now been applied to measure the acoustic properties of the site, and to test earlier assertions. The results confirm some, but not all, prior observations, and demonstrate how a sound-based approach can contribute to an understanding of the archaeological context. It is argued that for the people who created the Hypogeum, the acoustics must have had particular significance and ritual power.

Climatic fluctuation is often cited as a major factor in the collapse of Maya civilisation during the Terminal Classic Period (e.g. Luzzadder-Beach et al.2016). Evidence of how people dealt or failed to deal with it has only recently become a more widespread focus for archaeologists. Investigations at Xcoch in the Puuc Hills show the various ways in which resident populations sought to manage water stores when faced with a climate prone to drought and other meteorological extremes. The study also presents results from the analysis of nearby speleothem laminae, which indicate that severe episodes of flooding and droughts may have contributed to a collapse in the population around AD 850.

Despite more than three decades of feminist critique, archaeological scholarship remains predominantly focused on the exploration of patriarchal narratives and is, therefore, complicit in reinforcing structural inequalities. Questions must be asked of how the construction of archaeological knowledge affects representation and impacts upon our ‘archaeologies’. This article explores the relative absence of gendered approaches within archaeology through the lens of later medieval archaeology, with a micro-focus on castle studies in Britain and Ireland. Are there reasons for the silence in relation to gender in the archaeology of the later Middle Ages, and what lessons are there for bringing about a more inclusive archaeology?