This volume brings together two Graduate Archaeology at Oxford (GAO) conferences held in 2015-2016 to present the work of early-career researchers from across the globe. The papers cover a range of periods and regions, but all share the focus of bridging boundaries, whether these are theoretical, methodological or geographic. Some contributors traverse traditional divisions between subjects by integrating computational approaches with early excavation data or archaeology with historical sources to produce ‘thick interpretations’ of the past. Several papers approach the past as a bilateral process, examining how people shaped and were in return shaped by their interactions with the world around them. In addition, many authors have directly tackled the modern political divides that influence our research. Building on a strong tradition of novel approaches and interdisciplinary methods, these proceedings present current research on directly tackling issues of division head on.