This special issue of World Archaeology is devoted to articles that tackle current debates of significance to the discipline, and/or that frame new questions emerging in archaeological research. This issue thus welcomes papers addressing established topics of debate in the field – including those previously discussed in the journal – as well as articles that articulate important new questions and ideas of interest to global archaeology. Some articles will explicitly cover both ongoing debates and new questions. Archaeology is a rapidly changing discipline, and we propose this issue to serve as both an index and a prompt for the global conversation on where the discipline is headed.