Biological determinism continues to rest on belief rather than evidence. The racial genetics of David Reich and his immediate predecessors exemplify science applied as racist ideology which obscures evidence for social criticism and moral accountability for inequity.

Digital archaeologists claim that their practices have proven to be an important tool for mediating conflict, ensuring that the digital turn in archaeology entails engaging in current political issues. This can be questioned by analysing a copy of the Syrian Arch of Triumph. The original was destroyed in 2015. A year later, a copy was carved out of Egyptian marble; the replica was constructed thanks to digital documentation, which allowed archaeologists to create a 3D model. The arch was placed in various Western locations; however, it never reached Syria. Hybridity, the cultural and political significance of the arch’s replica and its ‘Grand Tour’ invite us to think about different interpretive layers of this artefact of ideological discourse (ontological, epistemological, ethical). In this paper, the replica of the Syrian arch will be analysed through the frameworks of post-colonial theory and technology studies. Both perspectives provide an insight into promising advantages and alarming drawbacks of such digital practices. This paper argues that the case of a copy of the Syrian Arch of Triumph on the one hand reflects the contemporary colonial technocracy in heritage politics (an ethical dimension), and on the other demonstrates that an ideological aspect of its digital reconstruction emerges from a speculative anticipation of what might constitute the universal value of world heritage in the future (an onto-epistemological dimension).

This paper critically evaluates how archaeologists define ‘grave goods’ in relation to the full spectrum of depositional contexts available to people in the past, including hoards, rivers and other ‘special’ deposits. Developing the argument that variations in artefact deposition over time and space can only be understood if different ‘types’ of find location are considered together holistically, we contend that it is also vital to look at the points where traditionally defined contexts of deposition become blurred into one another. In this paper, we investigate one particular such category – body-less object deposits at funerary sites – in later prehistoric Britain. This category of evidence has never previously been analysed collectively, let alone over the extended time period considered here. On the basis of a substantial body of evidence collected as part of a nationwide survey, we demonstrate that body-less object deposits were a significant component of funerary sites during later prehistory. Consequently, we go on to question whether human remains were actually always a necessary element of funerary deposits for prehistoric people, suggesting that the absence of human bone could be a positive attribute rather than simply a negative outcome of taphonomic processes. We also argue that modern, fixed depositional categories sometimes serve to mask a full understanding of the complex realities of past practice and ask whether it might be productive in some instances to move beyond interpretively confining terms such as ‘grave’, ‘hoard’ and ‘cenotaph’. Our research demonstrates that is it not only interesting in itself to scrutinize archaeological evidence that does not easily fit into traditional narratives, but that the process of doing so also sheds new light on the validity of our present-day categories, enabling deeper insights into how people in the past ordered their material and conceptual worlds. Whilst our main focus is later prehistoric Britain, the issues we consider are potentially relevant across all periods and regions.

It is increasingly acknowledged that 21st-century archaeology faces serious challenges from a variety of directions, ranging from the theoretical to the practical. Above all, the discipline’s entanglement with capitalism, capitalist ideologies and capitalist institutions is simply unsustainable. The concept of degrowth involves a reconceptualization of archaeology’s possible future(s) in terms of a withdrawal from capitalism and an emphasis on collective and caring praxis looking towards both a sustainable future and the possibilities of the immediate present. A degrowth approach to archaeology can provide a useful supplement to existing critiques and proposed alternatives to current practices. Degrowth proposals such as reorienting economic behaviours towards cooperative, convivial and dépense (communal use of surplus) activities while freeing people to pursue work they find meaningful have potential applications in archaeological practice that address some of the problems currently facing the discipline.

Can we theorize the relationship between discourses that antagonize each other? In a recent article, Arponen et al. demonstrate the tension between two different research models, and spotlight the compelling impact these methods have on archaeological interpretation. In response to their observations, this paper theorizes how we can understand the position of the researcher in relation to the events they analyse. Using Michel Foucault’s approach to the ‘discursive formation’ and Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism, in this reaction I argue that focusing on a single and most important point (the crux) is problematic, and theoretically outline how creating conceptual space for polymorphous causality can aid the analysis of a ‘dispersion of events’.

In this paper we explore ancient DNA (aDNA) as a powerful new technique for archaeologists. We argue that for aDNA to reach its full potential we need to carefully consider its theoretical underpinnings. We suggest that at present much aDNA research rests upon two problematic theoretical assumptions: first, that nature and culture exist in binary opposition and that DNA is a part of nature; second, that cultures form distinct and bounded identities. The nature–culture binary, which underpins much aDNA research, not only is a misunderstanding of our world but also results in placing archaeology and material culture in a secondary and subservient position to science and aDNA. Viewing cultures as distinct and bounded creates exclusionary, simplistic and singular identities for past populations. This stands in contrast to the work of social scientists, which has revealed identity to be complex, multiple, changing and contradictory. We offer a new way forward drawing upon assemblage thinking and post-humanism. This allows us to consider the messy and complex nature of our world and of human identities, and demands that we expect equally messy and complex results to emerge when we bring aDNA into conversation with other forms of archaeological evidence.

Despite widespread attention to the recent past as an archaeological topic, few archaeologists have attended to the particular social and ecological stakes of one of the most defining material features of contemporary life: the long-term effects of toxic industrial waste. Identifying the present era as the high Capitalocene, this article highlights the contemporary as a period caught between the boom-and-bust cycles of capitalist production and the persistence of industrial waste. Drawing on an archaeological case study from Edmonton, Alberta, we outline how the working-class shanty town community of Ross Acreage (occupied 1900–1950) was formed in relation to the industrial waste that suffused its landscape. Drawing on data from both archaeological excavation and environmental testing, this article argues that the community of Ross Acreage was defined materially by its long-term relationship with industrial waste, what we term a ‘fence-line community’.

This article discusses the American Compañía Stanford’s efforts to drill an oil well on the outskirts of the archaeological site of El Tajín, Mexico, during the 1930s. Drawing on recent scholarly efforts to think beyond archaeology and the nation state, this article problematizes the notion of a unitary state behind the concept of nationalist archaeology, the constitution of archaeology and extractive industry as separate spheres, and their apparent mutual exclusivity. Exploring the negotiations between site guards, archaeologists, inspectors, oil company officials and labourers shows that different state actors worked at cross-purposes, and that the nominally separate spheres of nationalist archaeology and foreign oil extraction were in fact characterized by the sharing of infrastructure, equipment, expertise and labour. Consequently, this article advocates for close attention to the administration and management of archaeology in specific historical contexts, demonstrating that it is more reasonable to assume archaeology’s imbrications with the nation state and extractive industries.

This paper discusses the emergence of an archaeology of the contemporary era in a Middle Eastern country, Iran. Far from North America and Europe, where the subfield was introduced, appreciated and developed by academic archaeologists, this archaeology is now also becoming established in Iran in spite of academic reluctance and (indirect) political pressure. The most encouraged form of archaeology in Iran remains nationalist and conservative, supported by the current political structures. However, the archaeology of the contemporary past is increasingly practised on a limited scale and has gradually extended its scope and subjects. Highly dependent on context, it has enriched the ways and methods of archaeological practice under dictatorship. The archaeology of the contemporary past is still in its infancy in the Middle East, but the pioneers of the subfield try to take up the challenges of smoothing the way for the future of this interdisciplinary archaeology in Iran and the Middle East. Iranian contemporary archaeology not only aims to investigate conflict, tensions and political (and armed) opposition, but also studies everyday life and disastrous contexts.