Karakorum, in present-day Mongolia, was the first capital of Mongol empire and has often been portrayed as the cosmopolitan city par excellence of its era. This portrayal is primarily based on the description of the city as a multicultural community in a travelogue written by the Franciscan monk William of Rubruck, who spent some time there in 1254. This understanding of cosmopolitanism stems from a colloquial sense of the term and does not take into account its history and layered meanings. Based on a discussion of the term, this article presents an approach to cosmopolitanism suitable for archaeology, namely by examining the practices of ‘lived cosmopolitanism’. Taking the archaeological evidence from Karakorum as a case study, the author explores the cultural fields of city layout and architecture, cuisine, religion, and funerary rites to answer the question of whether and how the people of Karakorum were cosmopolitan. The discussion shows that it is of the utmost importance to distinguish between social groups and their status. While the Great Khans can be viewed as cosmopolitans of their time, the commoner population of Karakorum appears rather to have been segregated into different groups. The material evidence so far points to low degrees of engagement among different groups within the city. Yet, the discussion of cosmopolitanism reveals deeper insights into the social realities of the city’s inhabitants and unresolved questions in the study of this important city.

Scholars working on mandate Iraq have demonstrated the centrality of indiscriminate air power in the British Empire's “policing” tactics, recognising an intimate link between the Royal Air Force and mandatory rule. Less clear, however, is how Iraq's emergence as a node in interwar commercial aviation routes was also the product of British control. Foregrounding the activities of the British airline Imperial Airways (1924–1939) sheds light on the imperial roots of air tourism in Iraq. Using government records and the archives of Imperial Airways—alongside popular press books, magazines, newspapers, and ephemeral promotional material—this article draws attention to how Imperial Airways’ proponents talked about air travel in Iraq both as a boon for the British Empire and as a means of “developing” the mandated state itself. In this latter vein, promoters of “air-mindedness” emphasised Iraq's antiquity for multiple ends. First, and perhaps most obvious, to make it more enticing for tourists. Second, they juxtaposed an image of Iraq as frozen in the past with aviation's modernising potential. Ultimately, in foregrounding civic aviation, this article aims to contribute to the nascent historiography of tourism in Iraq alongside broader debates about transportation infrastructure, culture, and empire in the interwar period.

What does it mean to teach and work in a corporate university with colonial roots, today? The on-going events in Palestine – what have been described by many specialists and international organizations as a genocidal campaign – have brought to the surface the historical undercurrents, the tensions and the contradictions of such an institution as a nested sensorial assemblage of actors, memories, affects and interests. Starting from the events that happened in the context of teaching an archaeology course on social justice while a student encampment was in place on campus, in the spring of 2024, I reflect on the materiality of protest, on teaching as a transgressive undertaking and on the retooling of colonial and decolonial structures to advance emancipation. In the midst of a rather dark moment, this is ultimately a hopeful reflection.

Coastal landforms and associated archaeological records are at risk of erosion from a combination of rising sea levels and increasingly frequent high-intensity storms. Improved understanding of this risk can be gained by braiding archaeological and geomorphological methodologies with Indigenous knowledge.1 In this article, archaeological, geomorphological and mātauranga (a form of Indigenous knowledge) are used to analyse a prograded Holocene foredune barrier in northern Aotearoa/New Zealand. Anthropogenic deposits within dune stratigraphy are radiocarbon-dated and used as chronological markers to constrain coastal evolution, alongside geomorphological analyses of topographic data, historical aerial photographs and satellite imagery. These investigations revealed that the barrier is eroding at a rate of 0.45 m/year. A midden in the foredune, which has been radiocarbon dated to 224–270 B.P. (95% Confidence), has been exposed by coastal erosion, confirming that the barrier is in the most eroded state it has been within the past ~300 years. Vertical stratigraphy reveals the presence of midden and palaeosol deposits capped by dune sand deposits in the foredune, indicating that vertical accretion of the foredune continued over the last ~200 years, despite the barrier now being in an eroding state. Mātauranga played a vital role in this project, as it was the coastal taiao (environmental) monitoring unit of Patuharakeke (a Māori sub-tribe) that discovered the midden. The ecological mātauranga shared also played a vital role in this project, adding experiential evidence to empirical observations. The work of local Indigenous groups, like Patuharakeke, demonstrates the active use of mātauranga, woven with Western science methods to preserve or capture the knowledge contained within archaeological sites at risk of being lost to coastal erosion. In this study, we present a method for weaving mātauranga, geomorphological and archaeological approaches to gain a deeper understanding of coastal landscape development.

The so-called “Prakhon Chai Hoard” is one of Southeast Asia’s most infamous cases of looting. The story begins in 1964 when a cache of Buddhist bronzes from Northeast Thailand appeared on the international art market via the auction house Spink & Son, London. They quickly ended up in museums and private collections throughout the US and Europe. The exact findspot was unclear but soon became associated with an unidentified temple in Prakhon Chai district in Buriram province. The moniker “Prakhon Chai Hoard/bronzes” subsequently took hold, becoming commonplace in museum displays, dealer/auction house catalogs, and art historical discourse. However, in 2002, it was revealed the temple in question was Plai Bat II in Lahan Sai district.

This article untangles the many myths and misunderstandings surrounding this act of looting. It does so by reviewing the extant literature in light of information revealed by criminal investigations into the late Douglas Latchford from 2012 onwards, and presenting conclusions drawn from our decade-long documentation of villager testimonies at Plai Bat II (2014–2024).

The use of programming languages in archaeological research has witnessed a notable surge in the last decade, particularly with R, a versatile statistical computing language that fosters the development of specialized packages. This article introduces the tesselle project (https://www.tesselle.org/), a comprehensive collection of R packages tailored for archaeological research and education. The tesselle packages are centered on quantitative analysis methods specifically crafted for archaeology. They are designed to complement both general-purpose and other specialized statistical packages. These packages serve as a versatile toolbox, facilitating the exploration and analysis of common data types in archaeology—such as count data, compositional data, or chronological data—and enabling the construction of reproducible workflows. Complementary packages for visualization, data preparation, and educational resources augment the tesselle ecosystem. This article outlines the project's inception, its objectives, design principles, and key components, along with reflections on future directions.

Between 1899 and 1902, Anglo-French archaeologist George Bonsor carried out an exploration of the Scilly Isles (United Kingdom). At that time the archipelago was believed to be the Cassiterides or Tin Islands mentioned by authors such as Strabo, Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy – an idea first posited by William Camden in his Britannia (1586). Adopting Camden’s theory and guided by ancient literature on the Cassiterides – which refers to the Phoenicians as the first controllers of this trade route – Bonsor sought traces of the Phoenicians and their tin trade in the Scilly Isles, becoming the first person to conduct such research from an archaeological perspective. Not having found any evidence, his exploration remained unpublished and went mostly unnoticed in debates about the Tin Islands over following decades. This paper presents a brief historiographical account on the Cassiterides before and after the explorations, as well as a critical analysis of Bonsor’s field notes regarding his use of ancient sources and his archaeological method. The analysis carried out suggests that Bonsor’s archaeological exploration has been overlooked thus far and that a new assessment of his work is required.

This article looks at Topkapı Palace as a showcase reflecting the changing cultural heritage policies of the Allies, as well as of the İstanbul and Ankara governments, during the occupation of İstanbul from 1918 to 1923. It analyzes the military, archaeological, and cultural facets of the occupation, focusing first on the military takeover of the Topkapı gardens, then on the French archaeological mission at the Seraglio, and finally on conflicts over the possession of the imperial treasures and sacred relics. Drawing on primary sources from Ottoman, Turkish, French, and British archives, memoirs, letters, newspapers, and visual material, this article explores the versatility of cultural heritage policies during the occupation and the entangled relations among various power groups, institutions, and actors. The military, strategic, cultural, and historical significance of the royal complex, together with its invaluable imperial collections, made the historic palace a place of rivalry and contestation, as well as deception and cooperation, among various agents and actors, including the Ottoman military and bureaucratic officials, local and foreign archaeologists, the dynastic family, the Interallied government, the occupation forces, and the Turkish resistance forces, ultimately reflecting the military and political empowerment of Ankara.