With the advent of actual spring weather comes an assemblage update packed full of an array of content for you to browse in between running out to conferences and the start of the field season. We are all very excited to announce that Issue 12 is in the final stages and we'll have more academic content out this summer, so keep an eye out.

We have two blogs for you both centred on funding cuts, focusing on commercial field archaeologists and university departments, respectively. Bitterness, here? Perish the thought. Seriously, though, our bloggers offer insight to this ongoing concern.

Twenty Questions returns with a new victim: Niccolo Caldaro of the Department of Anthropology at San Francisco State University.

Welcoming back the excavation season, we have new Notes from the Field regarding the ongoing University of Sheffield's Castleton Hospital Project in Derbyshire, describing the 2012 season as battling flooding, running the risk of tetanus, and playing with chickens. Last, but not least, we have a review of Anthony Johnson's 2008 Solving Stonehenge: The New Key to an Ancient Enigma.

Our last mystery site was Great Zimbabwe, principle city of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe.  Constructed and inhabited from the 11th to 15th centuries AD, the site covers 722 ha. It was first investigated by archaeologists in 1871. Good luck with this site!

While the weather outside is frightful (currently foggy, raining and all of 4 degrees celcius), we've brought you an array of discussion, reviews and comment to keep you occupied before we all just give up and accept hibernation as a viable option. Issue 12 is progressing well, and with rumbles of Issue 13 in the distance, it's promising to be a fruitful new year for assemblage.

This time around, the blogs have been used to vent some end of year frustration, the first discussing the University of Sheffield's plans to demolish a Grade II listed building in favour of a new block of engineering labs, and the worrying recurring theme that heritage can be priced out by profit, and the second examines the ideas and reasoning used in calls for the repatriation of archaeological artefacts by a number of countries. We also see the return of the Forum, this time with two anonymous contributors discussing their experiences and treatment whilst pregnant and working in commercial archaeology.

We also have the details of the second season of excavation at Thornton Abbey (run by our own University of Sheffield, of course), this time with more trenches, more sheep, but fewer 16th century houses. Finally, we have a book review by Giovanna Fregni of M.A. Lopez's Metalworking through History: An Encyclopedia.

The last mystery site was the medieval fortified town of Mystras in Laconia, Greece. Founded in 1205, it experienced both Byzantine, Ottoman and Venetian occupation, and was only abandoned in the 1830's, but not before being mistaken for ancient Sparta. Good luck with this one!

The new academic year is in full swing, winter is starting to set in, and we've managed to tear ourselves away from our feverish reseraching to bring you a new update. Issue 12 is progressing well, and we should hopefully be getting it to you next year. We've also recruited a host of new team members, so we should be able to bring you some new perspectives on archaeology, academia and heritage in the coming months.

This time round, we have our usual dose of opinion and discussion from our blog, with one questioning whether a recent suggestion that the construction of an historical "theme park" of Pompeii would be a viable way of preserving the ancient city, and another, which looks at the historical and archaeological use of implementing digital information into funerary contexts.

Following on this technological theme, State of the Arch has a brief article by former Sheffield Masters student Harry Clarke on the growing world of augmented reality and smartphones and their applications to archaeological survey and research. And we also have a book review by Claire Fisher of Bar-Yosef and Zilhão's Towards a Definition of the Aurignacian.

Last update's mystery site was the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Ohio, which was one of the largest cities in the world during its time, covering six square miles at its peak, and was inhabited from AD 700 - 1400. Good luck with this one!