Welcome to Archaeology International 27 for 2024. This issue sees the format and style of the journal revised, with a wide range of reports, news items and research papers reflecting the UCL Institute of Archaeology’s truly global approach to archaeology and heritage. This issue carries the usual features, starting with the Director’s View describing key events, appointments and the like over the past 12 months, followed by details of the Institute’s current activities around the world and notice of key publications. On a sad note, this issue carries four obituaries, reflecting a hard year for the Institute’s community which has lost great friends and colleagues. This issue is dedicated to their memory.

The various papers take the reader from Madagascar to Romania, and from Stonehenge to East Anglia, where one of the Institute’s new field projects has started to bear its early fruits. Further highlights include a previously unpublished lecture by the Institute’s former Director, Vere Gordon Childe, with an extended commentary, and two reflections on key areas of activity closely associated with the Institute: one celebrating 50 years of what is now Archaeology South-East, one of the largest contracting archaeological units in the UK; the other charting the history of medieval archaeology at UCL, a subject with distinguished origins and one that has played a key role in the development of the sub-discipline. Rounding off the volume, there are reflections from former students and a selection of images drawn from the Institute’s historic archives. Archaeology International 27 also sees the retirement from the journal’s editorial board of Robert Staniuk, post-doctoral representative, who has provided expert reviews of material submitted for publication: I wish him well in his new research post at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Finally, as Editor-in-chief, I am extremely grateful to the contributors and reviewers who have contributed to Archaeology International 27, to my Features Editor, Panos Kratimenos, and to Jaimee Biggins, Amy Lynn, Angela Thompson and Cecile Berbesi at UCL Press for seeing the volume through to publication.