Worldbuilding is a concept that has been used to describe the creation of immersive landscapes in fiction and games and is deeply resonant with archaeological knowledge construction. This article argues for worldbuilding in archaeology as a creative intervention that encourages an exploration of archaeological data throughout the process of creation, interpretation and dissemination to generate past worlds, shaped through community storytelling. Through the examples of Çatalhöyük in Second Life, Other Eyes and the Avebury Papers projects, I explore a playful practice that closely interrogates reuse of archaeological data and encourages lateral thinking amongst students and other archaeological storytellers.

The dragons of early modern German alchemy are inheritors of a unique cultural blend of folklore, religious custom and natural philosophy that is unrivalled in Western Europe. Whether inspired by the artwork of the Lutheran Reformation, like Stefan Michelspacher’s ‘Anfang. Exaltation’, or informed by the legends of dragon’s hoards, such as the shapes suggested by Anna Maria Zieglerin for the philosophers’ stone, serpentine monsters found within alchemical works possess more than their figurative chemical meanings. This article explores the range of cultural connotations these dragons held that served to expound their alchemical significance to an early modern German audience, as well as the ways in which alchemy brought these monsters to life through chemistry.

The domination and exploitation inherent to colonialism entailed casting Africans as violators of European standards, expectations, and even aspirations. This article identifies messaging which permeated the everyday experiences of African wage earners by locating the ways in which employers embedded their understanding of Africans as potential violators into the employment relationship. It examines the records of the Tribunal de Première Instance in Dakar, Senegal, during the decades of high colonialism to reveal the nature of that dynamic, exploring implicit expectations among employers regarding their employees, particularly related to allegations of theft or abandonment of work brought against workers. Analysis of such cases particularly highlights domestic workers, who were overwhelmingly male. The interactions and claims in the justice records reveal clear constructions of violation within the attitudes and actions of non-African employers in colonial Dakar and present the court as a venue for perpetuating that rhetoric.

The eighteenth-century French slave ship the Bonne Société traded bundles of goods in exchange for slaves in Loango. We present detailed evidence from the ship’s trading log that decomposes the goods in the bundle and identifies the European and African merchants selling captives to the ship. Prices steadily increased throughout the captain’s stay in port, and the captain increased the bundle’s price by adding more goods and adding high-priced goods. Sellers participated both as one-shot traders and as repeat traders. These results add a nuanced picture of how this destructive trade worked in practice.

Ulbe Bosma’s book on the global history of sugar offers fundamentally new insights into the nexus of technology, corporate capital, government policies, and ideologies of progress in the making of commodity frontiers. From the perspective of historical materialist anthropology, it is important to broaden the research agenda even further. With reference to Maussian historical personae in the making of global capitalism, for example, a long history of raiders of state budgets emerges from Bosma’s work. Incorporating Sidney Mintz’s work on Sweetness and Power on a critical extension of world-system theory reveals, for the case of colonial and postcolonial Mauritius, that economic subsystems and local responses to slavery and indenture have a permanence for kinship structures, social policies, real estate markets, trade union legislations, and postcolonial development policies in special economic zones. Such a widened focus allows for the incorporation of the Caribbean Plantation School theorists into our analysis of sugar commodity chains within a comprehensive world systems perspective beyond the commodity frontiers agenda.

This study examines gender bias in the investigative work of medieval inquisitors, focusing on Albert of Castellario’s trial of the Waldensians in Giaveno, Italy, in 1335. Drawing upon advancements in sociological and criminological literature, we conceptualize an inquisitorial trial as a discretionary information-gathering endeavor contingent upon the inquisitor’s judgment in deciding which leads to pursue. Employing social network analysis and survival methods, we evaluate whether Albert demonstrated gender biases in his investigative decisions, particularly regarding the weight assigned to testimonies from men versus women. Our findings demonstrate that Albert was more inclined to investigate men and prioritize their testimonies, even where similar levels of incriminating evidence were present for both genders. These results highlight the influence of societal attitudes toward gender on inquisitorial practices, on the representativeness of historical records, and on prevailing understandings of heretical groups. Furthermore, this study underscores the broader utility of our methodological framework for addressing related historical inquiries, including the political motivations behind the medieval inquisition.

This article examines the reasons for the widespread use of sea loans in financing Spain’s transatlantic commerce before the 1780s, and for their subsequent decline. Although never in the hands of a company with monopoly rights, Spain’s colonial trade was heavily regulated before 1778. The system reduced market risk and unpredictability by operating through a single Spanish port, keeping the colonies undersupplied, and lowering the frequency of the exchanges to allow for silver accumulation in Spanish America. This afforded significant, though volatile, profit margins. Such conditions fostered the use of the sea loan because the instrument enabled the lender to reap greater returns by charging higher-than-standard interest rates while avoiding usury laws. In contrast, the 1778 free-trade regulations increased competition and unpredictability, narrowing profit margins. Trade expanded, and “marine interest” rates dropped, precipitating the end of the sea loan as the hallmark credit instrument of the Spanish colonial trade.

Cities play a crucial role in green transformation and need strategies to address environmental, social and cultural issues. This article explores how Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) contribute to strengthening urban resilience, restoring biodiversity, improving air and water quality, and adapting to climate change. The integration of natural solutions with renewable energy systems and circular economy strategies reduces greenhouse gas emissions, enhances energy efficiency, strengthens resource resilience, and supports public health and economic stability. Important EU initiatives such as the Mission ‘100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities’, the Mission ‘Adaptation to Climate Change’, and the New European Bauhaus, provide a framework for integrating sustainability, inclusiveness and aesthetics into urban development. Technological concepts such as Digital Twins and Building Information Modelling help to adapt these innovations to local contexts. Examples of European cities (such as Barcelona Super Block, Aspern Smart City, Rotterdam hydrogen-fuel transport, etc.) clearly demonstrate benefits such as reduced emissions, increased biodiversity, and improved quality of life. This article underscores the role of interdisciplinary collaboration, innovation labs, and creative funding in advancing inclusive, climate-resilient urban transformation across Europe.

This paper examines whether the democratic shortcomings of Restoration Spain influenced the expansion of education spending. Specifically, we discuss how electoral outcomes conditioned the allocation of primary education investment across provinces from 1902 to 1922. Our results show that voting for minority parties and the extensive political patronage at the provincial level hindered public primary schooling outlays. We argue that the government punished “rebellious” provinces to preserve the regime, and that education was not well suited to support patron–client relationships. We also show that these effects diminished after World War I, as government control over electoral outcomes declined. Accordingly, by the end of the period, political voice gained a more salient role.

This study analyzes Turkey’s political landscape by harnessing computational social science techniques to parse extensive data about public ideologies from the Politus database. Unlike existing theoretical frameworks that focus on the ideologies of political elites and cadres, this study examines public ideologies in a contentious political manner. Exploiting an artificial intelligence-based data generation pipeline on digital traces, it distills the eight most prevalent ideologies down to the city level and employs exploratory statistical analyses. Principal component analysis delineates two fundamental axes: the traditional left–right political spectrum and a separate spectrum of secular–religious inclination, encompassing both political and cultural dimensions. Then, cluster analysis reveals three distinct groups: left-leaning and religiously inclined; center-right-leaning and religiously inclined; and those with a center-right-leaning focus and a pronounced secular orientation. The outcomes provide valuable insights into the political and cultural axes within political society, offering a clearer understanding of the most recent ideological and political climate in Turkey.

The World of Sugar by Ulbe Bosma offers an ambitious and sweeping account of the global history of sugar. Readers interested in sugar’s role in shaping economies, environments, and societies will find it a captivating synthesis of its past and present trajectories. In this commentary, I engage critically with the book, focusing on the areas most closely aligned with my own research on the Brazilian sugar industry. I highlight key points related to labour, race, and resistance in order to broaden the debate on the sugar frontier.