News and Commentary on the Illicit Traffic in Antiquities

Abstract

In this review article, Dan Hicks works through the approach to “the archaeology of improvement” adopted in the book The Archaeology of Improvement in Britain, 1750–1850 (2007) by historical archaeologist Sarah Tarlow. Tracing the Interpretive Critique of traditional British post-medieval archaeology, the review considers the implications of the book's approach to archaeological practice, especially in relation to materiality, historiography, and geography. Using the volume as a point of entry for taking stock of the significance and limitations of this Interpretive Critique, Hicks calls for a decentring of the Britishness in British historical archaeology.     

Archaeology, History, and Historical Archaeology in South America

This paper discusses the relationship between history and archaeology in general, their common concerns and links with historical archaeology. It deals with the development of historical archaeology in three related South American countries, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, and pays attention to recent trends in the theory and practice of the discipline in the area.     

Context and Interpretation: An Archaeology of Cultural Production

This paper examines the construction of modern-world contexts in historical archaeology. To help draw out and understand the social and cultural contexts of capitalism, colonialism, and modernity, and how they may be materially understood, an explanation of the German history of everyday life school (Alltagsgeschichte) is presented. In this approach, the objects of historical study become the everyday cultural interpretations of past people and how these interpretations actively produced and reproduced cultures. This approach is illustrated by a landscape archaeology of the Bordley–Randall site in Annapolis, Maryland.     

An International Scottish Historical Archaeology?

This paper serves as an introduction to the special edition of the International Journal of Historical Archaeology on the theme of Scottish historical archaeology in its international context. The introduction aims to provide a context for the individual papers in the collection by briefly outlining some of the main characteristics of Scottish historical archaeology—as it has developed in the past, as it is at present and as it might develop in the future. The paper also discusses the ambiguous relationship between Scottish historical archaeology and wider historical archaeology.     

Archaeology, Memory and Oral Tradition: An Introduction

This paper serves as an introduction to this special edition of the International Journal of Historical Archaeology on the theme of archaeology, memory and oral history. Recent approaches to oral history and memory destabilise existing grand narratives and confront some of the epistemological assumptions underpinning scientific archaeology. Here we discuss recent approaches to memory and explore their impact on historical archaeology, including the challenges that forms of oral and social memory present to a field traditionally defined by the relationship between material culture and text. We then review a number of themes addressed by the articles in this volume.     

Developing Complex Societies in Southeast Asia: Using Archaeological and Historical Evidence

A number of archaeologists are making significant advances in the historical archaeology of Southeast Asia. The papers presented in this issue, and the one that preceded it, provide new insights and exciting directions for future research.     

Immaculate Consumption: A Critique of the “Shop till you drop” School of Human Behavior

Consumer behavior and choice models have assumed a major role in historical archaeology. Recent interest in consumption is an honest attempt to move beyond an emphasis on production. Consumer models have clear material referents, making them useful in historical archaeology. These models, however, separate production from consumption, and privilege the autonomous individual as the preferred unit of analysis. They also reinforce and validate ideologies that obscure inequalities and power relations in modern society. For us the important issue is how people reproduce themselves as social beings. Focusing on social reproduction integrates both production and consumption.     

Nazi camps on British soil: the excavation of Lager Wick forced labour camp in Jersey,Channel Islands

Abstract

The forced labour camp of Lager Wick in Jersey, built during the German occupation of the Channel Islands in 1942, is the first Nazi camp to be excavated on British soil. This paper presents the findings from three seasons of fieldwork (2014–16), and includes an analysis of the architecture of internment and the signposts it leaves for that which does not survive. It also draws into sharp relief the link between archaeology and oral testimony and the way that archaeology can both back up and disprove the historical record. Finally, this paper examines the important role that archaeology can play in uncovering and helping to normalize ‘taboo heritage’.     

Clay Tobacco Pipes and Coffee Cup Sherds in the Archaeology of the Middle East: Artifacts of Social Tensions from the Ottoman Past

Nearly all discussion in historical archaeology exploring issues of consumption and commodities is focused on the Euro-American world. This paper contributes data from archaeological investigations in the Middle East for exploring modern consumption. Commodities of pleasure, such as tobacco and coffee, entered Middle Eastern social life after the fifteenth century and greatly impacted the cultural landscape of the Middle East, entangling the peoples of the region into larger socio-political arenas. Examples from provincial corners of the Ottoman Empire illustrate the potential of historical archaeology for uncovering the material self-definition of peoples in the Middle East and for breaking down perceived divisions between components of the modern world.     

Histoire embrouillée: Making material histories in Southern Africa

This article examines how historical knowledge about Southern African chiefdoms was produced in D.F. Ellenberger's research archive (c. 1860–1913) and archaeology drawing on his scholarship. I describe a historiographic approach detailing how Ellenberger's work co-opted the material world to create historical facts, obscuring diverse meanings of home, movement, and authority.     

Trading Shovels for Controllers: A Brief Exploration of the Portrayal of Archaeology in Video Games

Archaeology has been a persistent theme for video games, from the long-running Indiana Jones and Lara Croft franchises to more recent uses of archaeology in games like Destiny and World of Warcraft. In these games, archaeology is often portrayed as a search for treasure among lost worlds that leads to looting and the destruction of cultural heritage. In this article, we review the current state of archaeological video games, including mainstream and educational games. While this is not an exhaustive discussion, it provides an introduction and overview to the current landscape. We propose that an understanding of current popular archaeological video games is important to archaeologists for three reasons: (1) it is a source of potentially dangerous misconceptions about the discipline that must be addressed; (2) it can be a source of inspiration for funding and a means to recruit new students to the discipline; and (3) games can be leveraged as teaching moments in classrooms and public discussions. It is important that archaeologists recognize the ways the discipline is being portrayed in such public contexts, in order to maximize the potential benefit for archaeology and to prevent further misconceptions about the subject.     

Forty years of Industrial Archaeology Review: A Personal View

ABSTRACT

This article presents a personal view of the origins and development of Industrial Archaeology Review in the 40th volume of its publication. This is preceded by an account of the earlier journals to publish articles on industrial archaeology, as well as a brief account of such articles in the sister journal, Post-Medieval Archaeology. A short history of Industrial Archaeology Review is included for future reference purposes. The range of authors contributing to the journal is considered, from the volunteers in local industrial archaeology societies to the professional archaeologists of the later period. Attention is given to the importance of the publication of the annual Rolt Memorial Lectures, as well as the occasional themed issues where articles on specific topics have been grouped together. Finally, the article suggests how best use can be made, in this article and in the journal generally, of the advantages of digitisation.     

Sense and Sensibility in Midwestern Archaeology and the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology,Part II

Abstract

The progression of archaeology in the midcontinent over the past 40 years has moved on a series of different but overlapping fronts: regional, governmental, institutional, disciplinary, and personal. This collection of thoughts by both longtime and relatively young practitioners of our field suggests the many ways that archaeology has changed for the good—and maybe not so good—depending on our own experiences. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology (MCJA) has changed along with these developments. Part I of this discussion centered on the need for, and foundation of, MCJA. Part II is more diverse, with the archaeologists who have participated in the field for the last 40 years reflecting on the shifts in archaeology within their regions—both in terms of practice and institutional practices. The forces of national economics and academic politics and the changing sensibilities toward our public constituencies described here are themes that continue to influence us today.     

Geography,political economy and the ‘personality of Britain’

SUMMARY: This paper engages with the historical archaeology of the British Isles (With one or two exceptions, I follow the usage of Kearney 2006 in preferring the term ‘British Isles’ to ‘Atlantic archipelago’, preferring the more ideologically loaded, but familiar, term over the arguably more neutral but obscure term.) as a whole. It advocates an approach that foregrounds geography and political economy, via quite simple and traditional ways of mapping variation, for example the work of Cyril Fox. It seeks to play to archaeology’s strengths: rather than seeking abstract origins, it examines how practices later labelled as ‘colonial’ emerged from an intersection of concrete material practices.     

Scottish Historical Archaeology: International Agendas and Local Politics

Historical archaeology as practiced in Scotland is divergent from the mainstream tradition of historical archaeology/post-medieval archaeology that dominates North America and the English-speaking world. Cultural and historical forces have shaped an historical archaeology with a deeper time depth, which extends back into the Middle Ages. It also focuses on different subjects reflecting the political concerns associated with Scottish national identity. Examples drawn from Glasgow’s history are used to illustrate the distinctiveness of the Scottish tradition and how it is evolving. I argue that one of its strengths of Scottish historical archaeology is that it provides a corrective contrast to the subjects and approaches which dominate historical archaeology in the English-speaking world.     

Fences, Boats and Teas: Engendering Patient Lives at Peel Island Lazaret

Within institutions, a separate social world comes into existence. Gender is a crucial shaper of relations in this new world, defining status, relationships to others and personal identity. Understanding the gendered conditions of, and responses to, institutional care is an important social contribution of historical archaeology to contemporary society. Research on the Peel Island Lazaret in Moreton Bay, Queensland, uses a model for engendering archaeology, with modifications pertinent to historical archaeology. Analysis builds on the work of others who have investigated the ways in which men and women of the confined and confining classes experienced institutions and interacted with each other. This study also extends beyond these approaches in exploring the areas of “interpersonal agency” and relationship building, and the ways in which disadvantage minimization was mediated by the structuring principle of gender.     

Consequences of Styles of Thinking: On the Relative and the Absolute in Archaeology at the End of the Twentieth Century

The article discusses relativism and absolutism in archaeology on the threshold of a new millennium. The point of departure is Nationalism, Po-­litics, and the Practice of Archaeology and a 'consensus document' from the Lampeter Archaeological Workshop advocating a relativist attitude in archaeology. The author considers that relativism is closely related to indifference and is far from as positive as it is represented. On the basis of Feyerabend's concept of Denkstil (style of thinking) and the fondness of 'post-processual' archaeologists for manifestos, the article considers archaeology under Maoism in China, and whether Ian Hodder's appeal for an archaeology for all sheds light on views of professionalism and the training of archaeologists.     

Stirrings at the Periphery: History, Archaeology, and the Study of Dian

Early Chinese texts speak of the Han state conquering the kingdom of Dian in southwest China in 109 B.C. The limited historical record is complemented by archaeolgical discoveries pointing to the presence in Yunnan province of a complex Bronze Age society whose association with the historical Dian has been generally accepted. Historiographic and nonprocessual in nature, archaeology in Yunnan has yet to generate the data needed for a deeper understanding of Dian social structure and change. Whatever its shortcomings, however, Dian archaeology plays a consistent and important role within a system of thought which gives preeminence to the historical record.     

The myth of Aeneas: The Italian Archaeological Mission in Albania, 1924–43

Abstract

The development of archaeology in Italy during the first decades of this century led to a partial rejection of positivist principles of experimentation in favour of a historically-based idealist philosophy. Under the Fascist regime archaeology was used to create and sustain the political mythology of Romanità. Excavations in central Rome sought to highlight the physical connections between the Rome of Augustus and that of Mussolini as well as emphasising the links between the chain of ‘great men’, who had created and sustained the Roman state.

The Italian archaeological mission to Albania was established against this background, with the aim of reinforcing Italian hegemony to the east of the Adriatic. The means of achieving this varied from reinforcing Albanian historical preconceptions to emphasising the mythological connections and traditional civilising mission of Rome in the Balkans. Within these political objectives, the mission was able to follow a serious scientific research programme, although full publication was prevented by the outbreak of war. Thereafter, the changed political situation enforced the abandonment of the project.     

出土遗物现场应急处置方法

近些年来,考古出土遗迹和遗物的种类越来越丰富,利用何种方法手段去处置和保护,使这些珍贵的遗迹和遗物有效地保存下去是一个重要的研究课题。为此,介绍了一些对考古出土遗迹和遗物有效的处置保护措施与方法,为考古学科的开展和研究提供更加全面翔实的实物资料。