The Classical Tradition Strikes Back. Reply to Comments on The Rise of Bronze Age Society from Gullög Nordquist and Helène Whittaker.

This paper discusses the recent excavation of a 10th century shieling in the highlands of eastern Iceland and places it in the context of other sites and research into Viking age shielings in the North Atlantic. Although the basic economic role of shielings in relation to livestock and summer transhumance is not contested, it is argued that a more complex interpretation needs to be developed around such sites, to consider their ideological and political status. The presence of ‘subsidiary activities’ is often a prominent element in the archaeological record of such sites; the site of Pálstóftir provides indications of small scale craftwork, hunting and magico‐religious practices which need to be made a more central part of interpretation.     

Greek nationalism,architectural narratives,and a gymnasium that wasn’t

Abstract

This paper seeks to further the discussion that positions archaeological interpretation as a practice entangled between professional ethics and political circumstances. Perhaps the most obvious route for the mobilisation of extant architecture is to recruit it into nationalist discourses. An example of this is the case of the Roman Bath-Gymnasium Complex at Salamis (Cyprus), which can be used to illustrate how nationalism can call forth convenient narratives about material culture. Excavations (1952–1974) revealed the remains of a massive structure, and Vassos Karageorghis, the principal excavator, identified it as a ‘Gymnasium’. This paper demonstrates that Karageorghis’ hitherto well-accepted interpretation remains largely conjectural due to the absence of hard archaeological evidence. By examining the architectural characteristics of the remains and analysing the published excavation data, the paper explains how the present structure belongs to a bath-gymnasium complex, erected during the Roman period, and is an amalgamation of Roman and Greek culture. The paper revolves around the argument that the Romans’ role in negotiating the socio-cultural differences, which ultimately enriched the existing structures, has been systematically downplayed in the architectural narratives for the sake of presenting a homogeneous ethnic-cultural continuity from the Homeric Greek world down to the contemporary Cypriote Greek society.     

The Trump administration and outer space: promoting US leadership or heading towards isolation?

In a relatively short period of time, the Trump administration has been fairly active in the field of space. The reconstitution of the National Space Council, under the direction of Vice President Pence, the President’s signing of Space Policy Directive 1, that calls for the return of humans to the Moon, and the announcement of a National Space Strategy that calls for an ‘America first’ approach in space, have been the highlights of this process. A key component of the administration’s approach has been the promotion of commercial (private) space activities through an effort of regulatory reform intended to facilitate free enterprise and individual initiative in space.

Overall, it is evident that the Trump administration views a consolidated US leadership in space as instrumental to ‘Make America Great Again’. However, due to the lack of cohesion in the management of the US space program, the controversial interpretation of international principles and the US-centred view of space endorsed by the administration, doubts remain as to whether the space policy of the Trump administration will foster US leadership in space or lead to its progressive isolation.     

THE ‘TEMPLE HOUSE’ AT LATO RECONSIDERED

This paper reconsiders the ‘Temple House’, a building excavated in 1969–70 on the Temple terrace of the site of Lato in eastern Crete. While the building was dated to the Hellenistic (HL) period and identified as domestic space by the excavator, a restudy of the material from the excavation, combined with an examination of the excavation notebooks, and observations on site, reveal a more complex history of use, unusual architectural details, and a heterogeneous range of dates (from Late Minoan (LM) IIIC to HL) and functions, suggesting original funerary and post‐funerary cult contexts. It is possible to recognize the remains of a Subminoan (SM)/Protogeometric (PG) burial and evidence for an Early Iron Age (EIA) and HL tomb cult, allowing a reconsideration of the history of Lato and the process of city‐state formation in eastern Crete.     

Palynological interpretation of the Early Neolithic coastal open-air site at Sa Punta (central-western Sardinia,Italy)

The major goal of the present study has been to assess the ecological context of the Early Neolithic settlement under excavation in the coastal site of Sa Punta-Marceddì (Terralba, Sardinia, Italy) where a trench of Neolithic age has been brought to light. Based on the origins of the site's organic fossiliferous content, the purpose of this work is to achieve an understanding of: 1) the reasons why this location was chosen by EN man and 2) its functions. This research has enabled us to suggest a human paleoecological scenario over the course of the last three centuries of the 6th millennium BC in the inland area of the Oristano Gulf. On the basis of pollen spectra and the phytolith morphologies recognised, it is suggested that herbaceous vegetation covered the alluvial plain. Arable agriculture does not seem to have been practiced on the site, but the record of coprophilous fungi and endoparasites, along with clues that there were burning practices, suggest livestock farming activity. To date, a univocal interpretation of the function of this trench is still lacking. However, it is the oldest and the only evidence in Sardinia of a remarkable transformation of an open-air space due to settlement.     

Site Interiography and Geophysical Scanning: Interpreting the Texture and Form of Archaeological Deposits with Ground-Penetrating Radar

The remarkable potential of geophysical scanning—to assess the internal variability of sites in new ways, to highlight important phenomena in the field, to exercise co-creation of interpretation and commitment to minimal destruction of community partners’ resources, and to aid in the practice of due diligence in avoiding desecration of the sacred—continues to be underutilized in archaeology. While archaeological artifacts, features, and strata remain primary foci of archaeological geophysics, these phenomena are perceived quite differently in scans than in visual or tactile exposures. In turn, new registers of site exploration afforded by geophysical prospection may be constrained by the language of site excavation and visual observation, requiring adjustments in the ways of thinking about and describing what the instruments are measuring. The texture and form of site deposits as rendered in ground-penetrating radar scans can be examined in detail prior to making interpretations of cultural features or stratigraphy. Far more than simple “anomalies” demanding our attention for excavation, patterns in geophysical data can be the focus of extensive archaeological analysis prior to, in conjunction with, or independent from excavation.     

Excavating Communities: Lewis R. Binford and the Interpretation of the Archaeological Record in Illinois

Lewis Binford’s contributions to field archaeology have been largely ignored in favor of his many contributions to theoretical issues dominating the discipline of archaeology at the end of the twentieth century. We examine Binford’s excavation methods in southern Illinois in the early 1960s and demonstrate how his considered approach served to systematize large-scale site excavation procedures. He adopted the time-honored tool of the salvage archaeologist—heavy equipment—and unapologetically employed it in a fundamentally new way, proving it to be a tool that served the greater goals of archaeological research. We trace the development of field methods and theoretical approaches in two case studies of Illinois archaeology and demonstrate how Binford’s contributions have been incorporated or rejected by subsequent CRM researchers.     

Lacan et les probabilités

Lacan was interested by the treatment of the probabilities, the theory of games and decision, all topics that gave way to an interpretation of Pascal’s calculus of partition and of the famous argument of betting. Starting from a critical examination of Kant’s transcendental aesthetics, that Lacan propounds to the philosophers to replace by logical space and time of the theory of game (as a substitute), the psychoanalyst attempts to prove that Pascal is probably the forefather of the theory of game and decision. A number of interpretations of the «geometer of hazard», which will happen in the years 1970, are in debt, perhaps unconsciously, surely in a secrete way, to the farther lacanian interpretation.     

The philosophical systems of Francesco Patrizi and Henry More

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a comparison of the philosophical systems of Francesco Patrizi and Henry More. The point, however, is not to demonstrate Patrizi’s influence on More but rather to see how, with respect to some particular subjects, they both tried to offer a modern interpretation of Neoplatonism. The main axis of the analysis follows the topics of space, light, and soul. While to More, light is of merely marginal interest, it is demonstrated that space and soul are of crucial importance and play a similar role in both authors’ systems. They function as intermediary entities that link the higher and the lower reality and form a sort of canvas upon which the material world unfolds. Yet, in comparison with Patrizi, More’s system is both constrained by a much stricter, dualistic classification and at the same time veers dangerously close to immanentism and pantheism (which More tries to avoid).     

成都市温江区柳岸村遗址商周时期遗存试掘简报

柳岸村遗址商周时期遗存发掘了4个灰坑,出土了大量陶器,这些陶器特征明显,且大多出自同一个灰坑,共存关系明确。这为研究十二桥文化、三星堆文化及两者关系问题提供了重要材料,也为成都平原商周时期陶器器形的整体辨识提供了参考。     

Lapita before Lapita: The Early Story of the Meyer/O’Reilly Watom Island Archaeological Collection

ABSTRACT

Seventeen years before the first excavation at the archaeological site of Lapita (New Caledonia) in 1952, two men of the cloth met and exchanged artefacts, notes and ideas to produce some of the earliest analyses of what later became known as Lapita pottery. Otto Meyer (1877–1937), a Sacred Heart Missionary stationed on Watom Island, described chance finds of ‘prehistoric pottery’ in 1909, following these with more systematic excavations. Patrick O’Reilly (1900–88), a Marist Father associated with the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, drew on Meyer’s work, his own extensive bibliographical knowledge and his observations during a one-year mission in the region in 1934–5 to present part of the collection in France, laying the ground for further theories. The publication, interpretation and curation of the Meyer/O’Reilly collection represents an exemplary journey through the history of Pacific archaeology and the emergence of the Lapita paradigm. We consider the context of Meyer’s encounter with O’Reilly, the ideas both men advanced in analysing the collection and the site, and how these resonated during the development of Pacific and Lapita archaeology throughout the first half of the 20th century.     

The Amarna Stone Village Survey and life on the urban periphery in New Kingdom Egypt

Abstract

Recent fieldwork at Amarna, the short-lived capital city of Egypt in the late 2nd millennium B.C., added a second area of peripheral settlement, the Stone Village, to the well-known Workmen’s Village, the subject of an intensive excavation campaign in the 1970s and 1980s. Both villages were evidently involved in tomb cutting and/or stone quarrying, but the Stone Village is smaller, conveys a particularly vernacular style of architecture, and seems to have had less state support than the Workmen’s Village. This paper describes the Stone Village as a source for the study of urban life in ancient Egypt. The two village sites offer a case study of the tensions that arose from controlling human populations in a border zone and from longestablished belief frameworks concerning desert landscapes and sacred space.     

隋唐长安城东北角夹城及十王宅遗址2021年度发掘简报

隋唐长安城东北角夹城及十王宅遗址位于隋唐长安城遗址东北部,位置十分重要。2021年对遗址整体向西发掘10米,清理了隋唐长安城东郭夹城墙所在区域。该段夹城墙是兴庆宫通往大明宫的夹城墙仅存的一段,为唐玄宗开元年间修筑。本文即是对2021年度发掘工作主要收获的简报。     

江苏淮安王庄村汉墓群发掘简报

2013年淮安市博物馆发掘淮安王庄村汉墓群,共清理汉墓97座。墓葬形制多样,排列有序,共同位于一大型土墩之下,与淮安地区传统族葬墓有明显的区别。墓葬随葬器物丰富多样,器物组合时代特征明确。从出土器物和墓葬形制及排列情况分析,墓葬时代在西汉早期至东汉时期,墓葬之间在年代上有明显的承继关系,是一处大型汉代土墩墓。该墓地的发掘为研究淮安乃至苏北地区汉代墓葬特别是汉代土墩墓类型提供了极其重要的新材料。     

南澳Ⅰ号明代沉船2007年调查与试掘

南澳Ⅰ号沉船位于广东省汕头市南澳县云澳镇三点金海域,2007年6～7月,广东省文物考古研究所在广州打捞局的协助下对其进行了调查与试掘。出水器物有瓷器、陶器、铁器、铜器等,其中瓷器的数量最多。根据对出水瓷器的形制、胎质、釉色、纹饰、制作工艺等的研究,并结合沉船考古的特点判断,南澳Ⅰ号沉船的年代为明万历时期。南澳Ⅰ号沉船的发现对于明代中晚期海上贸易的研究具有重要意义,为研究外销瓷器提供了珍贵的实物资料。     

Taphonomy and contextual zooarchaeology in urban deposits at York,UK

Zooarchaeological research on assemblages from deeply stratified sites in historic towns is complicated by the reworking of bones through intercutting and disturbance. Conversely, structural association with buildings and property boundaries may allow detailed spatial analysis, and interpretation at a close contextual level that reveal small details of people’s lives. Five years of excavation at the Hungate site in York has yielded a very large animal bone assemblage ranging from Roman to early modern times. Assessment of this assemblage has focussed on identifying context groups of good integrity and high research value. In this paper, we present preliminary results from Hungate to show the potential of contextual analysis in urban deposits, and the challenge presented by redeposition and time-averaging.     

A New Method for Urban Geoarchaeological Excavation,Example from Norrköping,Sweden

Urban excavations often uncover complex stratigraphy that is difficult to interpret by archaeological experience alone. Versions of Single Context Recording can be useful tools, but this method is known to be demanding when co‐employed by consulting geologists in the field. Are these difficulties caused by fundamental differences between the views of archaeologists and geologists, or are they mainly a result of lack of mutual understanding? What would happen to field methods and interpretations if a geologist worked alongside an archaeologist at an urban excavation throughout a whole excavation season? This approach was tested at a geoarchaeological excavation in the town of Norrköping, Sweden. The experiment led to the development of a new field procedure involving continuous pilot sampling and on‐site analysis of plant macrofossils. It provided new ways of using natural sediments and redeposited layers in the interpretation of the sites development and clearly confirmed that mutual understanding is the key to interdisciplinary cooperation.     

Heritage views through urban exploration: the case of ‘Abandoned Berlin’

This article frames the practice of urban exploration and its interest towards abandoned places from a heritage perspective. It is argued that most urban explorers prioritise the excitement of trespassing and the creation of their own narratives over the historic importance of the sites they explore. These ‘performative’ explorers avoid deliberate attention that may lead to vandalism or touristification – an alternative way of ‘preserving by not preserving’ that celebrates decay and assumes the sites’ progressive loss. To achieve this, they prefer not to disclose exact locations, creating a divergence towards a minority of practitioners who prefer to collect data on history and current state of conservation to make it public. Attention is paid to these ‘communicative’ explorers, whose documentation renders abandoned places visible, opening further debates about a more inclusive preservation and memorialisation. By distinguishing both heritage views, the objective of this article is to contribute to the enlargement of Heritage Studies by incorporating urban exploration as a space for reflection between loss and bottom-up preservation and interpretation.     

隋唐长安城东北角夹城及十王宅遗址2020年度发掘简报

隋唐长安城东北角夹城及十王宅遗址位于隋唐长安城遗址东北部。2020年,西安市文物保护考古研究院对该遗址东城墙与夹城墙之间的道路南段进行了主动发掘,清理道路、车辙等遗迹,并解剖了东城墙墙基。本文即是对2020年度发掘工作主要收获的简报。     

Space,time and history in the Polish People’s Republic: the trilogy Sami swoi,Nie ma mocnych,Kochaj albo rzuć

Abstract

The article discusses the meanings of popular culture, authenticity and history in People’s Republic of Poland. As an example it uses a popular film trilogy. The trilogy Sami swoi, Nie ma mocnych and Kochaj albo rzu? (‘All friends here’, ‘Take it easy’ and ‘Love or leave me’) was shown in Polish cinemas between 1967 and 1977. The reviews were written just after the premières. The article uses the concepts of time and space elaborated by Mikhail Bakhtin and Doreen Massey to analyze the different chronotopes of the films. It analyses both the films and the reviews as strategies of creating authenticity and creating cultural meanings: the meaning of history and the meanings of rurality. I will show how history and present, memory and society are interwoven in the light of popular production. In addition, I will emphasize the diverse interpretation possibilities resulting from this micro-historical view and the transnational critique of modernism highlighting the small and local which emerged throughout Europe in the 1970s.