Gendered Taskscapes: Food,Farming, and Craft Production in Banda,Ghana in the Eighteenth to Twenty-first Centuries

This article blends insights from gender, technology, and development studies with Ingold’s concept of taskscape to examine the interrelated nature of farming, food, and craft manufacture practices in Banda, Ghana during the last three centuries. We begin by comparing two ethnoarchaeological studies that were conducted separately by the authors, one that focused on food, and the other on ceramic production, preparation, and consumption. We use these data to analyze gendered taskscapes and how they have changed in recent decades with the introduction of new technologies and major economic and environmental shifts. Building on such insights, we analyze how taskscapes shifted in earlier centuries in Banda through archaeological remains of food and craft practice at the eighteenth- to twentieth-century site of Makala Kataa. Craft production cannot be fully understood without reference to food production, preparation, and consumption; thus, viewing these practices as interrelated tasks in a gendered taskscape yields insight into the rhythms of everyday life and highlights women’s often undervalued skills.     

The impact of Russian food security policy on the performance of the food system

Abstract

Food security has guided Russia’s food policy since 2010. The article examines the impact of food security policy on the food system. The Russian model of food security combines government intervention in the form of assistance for domestic production while simultaneously restricting market access. Food security does not appear to have a deleterious impact on the food system. We measure impact on four dimensions. Financial support for agriculture continues to increase in nominal rubles. In food production, the beef and dairy branches continue to lag, but increased grain production has made Russia a global leader in grain exports. Average per capita food consumption improved, although the poor consume much less, and the decline of the ruble affects the way Russians shop. The largest impact of food security has been on food trade. Food security policy has brought food to the forefront as an instrument of foreign policy. Food trade is politicized, witnessed by the food embargo against the West and food import bans against Turkey and Ukraine.     

‘Business as usual’: the impact of the Great War on the British ceramics industry

SUMMARY: The Great War had a dramatic impact upon the manufacturing industries and trade of the United Kingdom, and not least upon the ceramics industry. Manufacturers faced tremendous difficulties, including a massive decline in the overseas trade essential to their survival. At the same time, however, the war itself presented opportunities for the expansion and development of British ceramic manufacture and the repositioning of British ceramics in the global market. In August 1914 the British ceramics trade was in a precarious state, threatened both at home and in long-held overseas markets by low-priced porcelains from German and Austria–Hungary. However, the naval blockade of Continental ports which followed the outbreak of war denied these countries access to what had been an extremely lucrative overseas trade, leaving customers in many countries desperate for replacements for the goods no longer available. British manufacturers rose to the challenge, maintaining production, developing new lines and taking trade from its enemies. The war halted the steady decline of the British ceramics industry, but its post-war future was by no means secured.     

20世纪上半叶龙泉瓷业生产形态

20世纪上半叶,龙泉的制瓷业虽几近颓废,但仍变换产品谋求生存,终使传统行业得以延续和传承。本文以详实的调查材料,从作坊的基本模式、生产经营、行规习俗及瓷业组织等方面考察了20世纪上半叶龙泉瓷业的生产形态。     

The technology of Copper Age funerary pottery from Central Italy: An integrated study of compositional analyses and manufacturing traces

The paper focuses on ceramic vessels unearthed from Copper Age necropolises located in the area of the modern city of Rome and commonly attributed to the Rinaldone culture. The peculiar vessels' shapes, mainly associated with the consumption of beverages, their accuracy of manufacture and the very low impact of these ceramic morphologies in the coeval household assemblages lead to the study of such an apparently selected production through a multidisciplinary research. Petrographic analysis, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) integrated with the analysis of manufacturing traces and X-ray investigation suggest the transmission of technological choices, which remained unchanged over almost two millennia.     

Identifying wine markers in ceramics and plasters using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Experimental and archaeological materials

The identification of the organic residues preserved in archaeological materials yields good insights into understanding food production, trade and consumption. Wine is one of the most important beverages produced, traded and consumed in the Mediterranean area. Consequently, it is important to identify its presence in ancient materials. Nevertheless, the identification of wine markers is still an object of discussion. We present here the results obtained from analysing different materials using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), which allowed for the identification of tartaric acid and other markers of wine. The method was first tested on experimental and traditional materials that have been used until recently to store and/or produce wine and was then used for investigating archaeological materials. The experiments also involved the degradation of wine through cooking, drastic heating and burial for seven years. The results from the analysis of ceramic and plaster materials are discussed.     

A new perspective on Late Holocene social interaction in Northwest Alaska: results of a preliminary ceramic sourcing study

This research examines the evidence for prehistoric ceramic exchange networks over the last 2000 years in northwest Alaska through the use of neutron activation analysis of ceramic artifacts. Results from ceramic analysis on eight coastal and inland archaeological sites identified three source macrogroups and three associated subgroups. Clay source diversity and shared source macrogroups between geographically distant sites suggest the use of multiple sources and/or the movement of pots between production locales, mirroring related patterns in pottery stylistic data. Although additional analytical work is needed to fully understand the changing character of clay procurement and ceramic distribution across this time period, this study provides exploratory data on past ceramic production and distribution that hints at changes in exchange and territoriality in northwest Alaska during the late Holocene.     

Atlantic consumption of French rum and brandy and economic growth in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Caribbean

Why did the production of rum in the French West Indies not achieve the same success within the French Atlantic as it did in the British Atlantic world? Surveying the history of rum production in the French Caribbean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this article contends that the reason why no regional trade in rum developed in French North America resulted from fierce industrial and institutional competition from brandy producers in metropolitan France. Rum, nevertheless, remained significant within the culture and economy of Native Americans and African Americans. This article seeks to add nuance to the wider debate of the ability of the trans-border diffusion of new ideas to stimulate and institutionalize industrial and economic growth in the Atlantic world. French entrepreneurs were no less ‘entrepreneurial’ than their British counterparts, but real constraints on consumption on both sides of the Atlantic created insufficient demand.     

Dual Energy Computed Tomography for the Non‐destructive Analysis of Ancient Ceramics

Ceramics are usually the most common artefact found on any ancient archaeological site. Compositional analysis of this pottery, and characterization of the clay fabrics from which they are made, has the potential to pinpoint sources of manufacture as well as identify trade routes and consumption patterns in the ancient world. Currently, most analytical techniques require the partial or total destruction of the ceramic sample. This research investigates the use of dual energy computed tomography (DECT) to analyse Black Gloss and Vesuvian Sigillata from Pompeii. The results indicate that DECT may be a viable adjunct or alternative to conventional analytical techniques. Importantly, unlike traditional methods, DECT is totally non‐destructive, a highly significant factor when analysing irreplaceable artefacts.     

乾隆时期宫廷瓷器修补

陶瓷修复史是中国陶瓷史和手工艺史重要内容之一。随着制瓷的发达和藏古瓷之风的盛行,陶瓷器修复在明清时期发展出适用各阶层需求的多样工艺。至乾隆时期,酷爱陶瓷的清高宗更是直接指示了宫廷陶瓷的修补、修复和修整。本文界定了乾隆时期清宫瓷器修缮的范围概念,试图分析以《活计档》为主的清宫档案,与传世实物相印证,还原当时陶瓷器修复的工艺方法、步骤过程,以及修复地点和工匠的情况。通过修补痕迹和工艺细节,修正和补充了对部分清宫藏高古瓷器的认识。乾隆皇帝对不同的陶瓷器选择了迥异的处理方式,体现其审美好恶、品鉴素养和性情意识。     

POST-COLLAPSE: THE RE-EMERGENCE OF POLITY IN IRON AGE BOĞAZKÖY, CENTRAL ANATOLIA

How communities reorganize after collapse is drawing increasing attention across a wide spectrum of disciplines. Iron Age Boğazköy provides an archaeological case study of urban and political regeneration after the widespread collapse of eastern Mediterranean Late Bronze Age empires in the early twelfth century BC. Recent work at Boğazköy has significantly expanded our understanding of long-term occupation in north central Anatolia. This work counters previous suggestions that Boğazköy was abandoned after the collapse of the Hittite Empire during the Early Iron Age. In this paper, we focus on the Iron Age occupations at the site to show how growth in the scale and complexity of ceramic production and trade during this period provides another line of evidence for economic and political re-emergence. Based on the increasing diversity of non-local ceramics and ceramic emulations during the Iron Age, we suggest that only in the Late Iron Age, 500–700 years after Hittite collapse, did Boğazköy re-emerge as a significant polity in central Anatolia.     

Forming and Shaping Pottery Boundaries in Contemporary South-Eastern Botswana

In southern African archaeology, the equation of pottery styles with archaeological ‘cultures’ and their attribution to the antecedents of contemporary ethnic groups has been a common practice for a long time. Ethnoarchaeological studies from other parts of Africa and beyond have shown that the matter is complex and that stylistic and technological boundaries in ceramic distributions can reflect different kinds of social boundaries under different circumstances. To expand on these findings and make them locally relevant, a large-scale ethnoarchaeological study of 41 potters in south-eastern Botswana aims for a better understanding of ceramic technological style and boundary relations. Here, we present and explain only the results concerning the boundaries in the forming and shaping stage of ceramic vessel manufacture. We conclude that learning networks explain the visible boundaries in the technological style of forming and shaping pots in south-eastern Botswana today; language and ethnic affiliation do not. Boundaries in the other stages in the operational sequence of pottery manufacture, such as clay sourcing and preparation, vessel surface treatment and decoration, firing and finishing, will be presented in a series of further publications.     

Domestic economies and regional transition: Household multicrafting and lake exploitation in pre-Aztec Central Mexico

This article takes a micro-archaeology approach to investigating household production strategies using data derived from Early to Middle Postclassic (A.D. 900–1350) houses from Xaltocan, Mexico, an island capital in the northern Basin of Mexico. I examine household production strategies by integrating multiple lines of evidence including microartifacts, soil chemistry, and macroartifact remains to document a diversity of household production activities, including the manufacture of goods that are typically invisible archaeologically such as foods and perishable goods. Next, I consider changes in subsistence practices through time in order to understand household scheduling and labor allocation strategies. The results indicate that households in pre-Aztec Xaltocan not only pursued diverse economic strategies, but also engaged in multiple types of production activities, including the manufacture of food products and other utilitarian goods derived from lake resources. I conclude that households were fundamental to economic development in ancient political economies and were enmeshed in broader systems of power and networks of exchange.     

Fashion and Consumption of Painted and Printed Calicoes in the Mediterranean during the later Seventeenth Century: The Case of Chintz Quilts and Banyans in Marseilles

This article focuses on research into fashion and consumption in the early modern Mediterranean with an emphasis on chintz quilts and banyans in Marseilles during the last third of the seventeenth century. The success of these two products is key to a better understanding of the roots and outcomes of Asian textile fashions in Europe during this period. In this analysis, we are principally interested in their manufacture, trade and marketing. This paper also highlights the importance of connections and intermediations between the two continents: sellers and purchasers, wholesalers and retailers, merchants and manufacturers and shopkeepers and their clients.     

Stability in a Spatial Production and Trade System

Basic properties of the production and trade system for sulfur in the North Atlantic sphere are studied. Oligopolistic competition produces a more stable system than polypoly. Occasional exceptions, difficult to anticipate theoretically, are possible, however. When subjected to realistic exogenous shocks in consumption (demand), the system is less stable than if the shocks appear in supply.     

Reading fair trade: political ecological imaginary and the moral economy of fair trade foods

This paper begins to explore the changing political geographies of alternative development as practiced and envisioned in the global South. Looking specifically at the growing movement and market for fair trade foods, this form of alternative development has become the moral business of latte drinkers and other reflexive consumers in Europe and the US. Fair trade attempts to re-connect producers and consumers economically, politically, and psychologically through the creation of a transnational moral economy. This re-connection is accomplished through material and semiotic commoditization processes that produce fair trade commodities. The semiotic production of these commodities and their traffic in particular ‘political ecological imaginaries’ is essential to the formation of ethical production-consumption links, acting to also politicize consumption and fair trade eaters. Fair trade's moral economy rides the tension between the ethical relationships it fosters and the need for the wily characteristics of enterprise in the construction of transnational trade networks. Bringing recent work on moral geography to bear, constructing this moral economy is an attempt to facilitate a sense of ‘solidarity in difference’ in the experiences of global economic inequalities between North and South and growers and eaters. At the same time, fair trade networks look to produce an expansive ‘spatial dynamics of concern’ in the fashioning of ethical places of production and consumption. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the continuing dilemmas critical for fair trade and suggestions for further empirical study of fair trade provisioning and alternative development networks.     

Elymian regional interaction in Iron Age western Sicily: a preliminary neutron activation study of incised/impressed tablewares

Neutron activation analysis of indigenous ceramics from western Sicily reveals five compositional clay types used in production, suggesting specific exchange patterns around the 5th century BCE, at a time of escalating Greek and Phoenician colonial intrusions. A sample of 62 incised/impressed tableware specimens suggests that ceramic manufacture was organized on a regional level with distinct patterns of intra-group trade of vessels, and that the distribution of these ceramics has important implications for the refinement of cultural–historical affiliations of western Sicily at this time. In fact, the spatial distribution of one of these compositional groups appears to directly correspond with epigraphic data regarding the presence of the Elymians centered at Segesta.     

Mineralogical analysis and provenancing of ancient ceramics using automated SEM-EDS analysis (QEMSCAN®): a pilot study on LB I pottery from Akrotiri,Thera

A wide range of existing mineralogical and geochemical methodologies such as optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction, manual scanning electron microscopy, ICP-MS and INAA have been utilised in the analysis of ancient ceramics, in attempts to elucidate patterns of regional trade and interaction. However, advances in automated scanning electron microscopy with linked energy dispersive spectrometers (SEM-EDS) have created the potential to offer a seamless combination of textural and mineralogical data based on the acquisition of energy dispersive spectra that has so far been unattainable with existing techniques. In this pilot study on pottery from the Cycladic Bronze Age site of Akrotiri (Thera), we have quantified the mineralogy of the ceramics based on automated SEM-EDS using QEMSCAN^® technology and imaged the textures of the ceramics through compositional mapping. Thirteen samples were analysed and, based upon the automated analysis, four groups of ceramic compositions are defined. These data are consistent with, but also refine, previous traditional petrographic examination of the ceramic samples, and enable the likely provenance of the raw materials used in the ceramic manufacture to be identified. This technique allows the acquisition of fully quantitative data, not only for the larger inclusions within the ceramics but also for the typically finer-grained groundmass/matrix, whilst also providing the overall texture of the ceramic.     

Clovis biface technology at the Topper site,South Carolina: evidence for variation and technological flexibility

The Topper site in the South Atlantic Coastal Plain of South Carolina provides a rare glimpse of the entire range of Clovis tool manufacture. Topper is a quarry-related site along the Savannah River with an outcrop of Coastal Plain chert and a buried Clovis component. This paper focuses on the 174 bifaces and diagnostic debitage from recent excavations to understand biface production at Topper. I present the process of manufacture then measure the variation in production characteristics at the site in terms of our current knowledge of Clovis biface technology. I conclude that Topper flintknappers used reduction strategies typical of Clovis-period tool production but created a biface assemblage with greater flexibility in design than documented at most other Clovis sites. This variation in biface production suggests greater variability in Clovis behavior across America—Clovis groups adapted to local resource conditions and adjusted the organization of their technology accordingly.     

克拉克瓷研究

克拉克瓷作为明末清初的一种中国外销瓷,对世界陶瓷文化和陶瓷贸易产生了重要影响。本文从克拉克瓷名称的含义、特征、分期、窑口和时代等五个方面较为全面地对克拉克瓷的历史作了研究。着重地介绍了外国目前对克拉克瓷的研究成果,并对克拉克瓷的生产范畴和断代提出了自己的观点。