The Internationalism of German Castle Research: Bodo Ebhardt,His European Network,and the Construction of 'Castle Knowledge'

Abstract

Recent monographs and articles emphasize the strong impact of nationalism and racist thinking on archaeology. In contrast to the treatments which focus on single nation states and on archaeology as a politically legitimate science, this paper explores the tension between internationalism and racist premises in German castle research, and how it manifests itself in the construction of knowledge about medieval castles across national borders. I will focus on Bodo Ebhardt, Germany's most famous and influential castle researcher of the first half of the 20th century. The analysis of his scientific work, and of his personal contact with other European researchers as well as with German politicians and patrons, will shed light on the changes and continuities in his network, and in particular on his construction of the past that was influenced by the formation of this network, which, in turn, affected his assessment of medieval castles.     

A Disgruntled Tourist in King Arthur's Court: Archaeology and Identity at Tintagel,Cornwall

Abstract

'Welcome to Tintagel, the birthplace of King Arthur' is a phrase often repeated at this small village on the north coast of Cornwall where legend, childhood stories and merchandise all serve to attract thousands of visitors per year. As 'a place to go', the area provides stunning coastal scenery, a romantic ruined castle and a highly commercialised village. Tintagel Island, owned by the Duchy of Cornwall but managed by English Heritage, plays centre stage as the 'birthplace' in question. On-site, the character of Arthur is largely debunked as a literary phenomenon and, furthermore, a survey of day-trippers revealed that visitors were left in an interpretive limbo — arriving with ideas of Arthur and leaving knowing little about Tintagel.

Whilst the aesthetics of the castle and scenery go some way towards mitigating against disappointment, on site encounters with kitsch representations of the past combine with more amorphous senses of pseudo-spiritual atmospheres as well as experiences of walking, eating and drinking to ultimately provide a 'grand day out'. The marketing ephemera and heritage presentation all serve to create, reinforce and suppress different identities of place which are revealed as being a fairly cohesive package of Celtic-Arthuriana. This paper questions the ways in which visitors' expectation and imagination are mediated through experience of place.     

Casting Identity in the Cultural Tourism Industry: Greek Tourist Guides in a 'Mission' of Heritage Interpretation

Abstract

The focus of this article is on how identity on a local level is expressed through cultural heritage interpretation and negotiated in an environment of globalization, but also multiculturalism and promotion of locality, like the European Union (EU). Interpretation is public communication of perceptions and values attached to heritage, and a main component of cultural tourism. Tourist guides in Greece, where guiding is strictly regulated, have been confronted with the EU on several occasions. Through the examination of this conflict, issues such as rights of interpretation, the projected image and identity of place and people, otherness and identity realization, the role of education and especially archaeology in governing, as perceived by the Greek tourist guides, are examined and analysed in the contexts of audience, state and the EU.     

The ESR geochronology and geology of the open‐air Palaeolithic deposits in Bollschweil,Germany*

This paper presents ESR (electron spin resonance) ages of rhinoceros and equine tooth enamel from the open‐air Palaeolithic site of Bollschweil on the western edge of the Black Forest near Freiburg, Germany. Bollschweil is one of very few archaeological sites in southern Germany to yield Lower or Middle Palaeolithic faunal and lithic materials from a buried, open‐air context. The geological context of the archaeological remains indicates that the loessic sediments have been reworked. Excavation at this site yielded a cold‐period fauna characterized by bones of mammoth, horse, large bovids and wooly rhinoceros. In the absence of any clear chronostratigraphic marker horizons, the age of the finds could not be determined without the use of a chronometric dating method. Lithic artefacts from the site, including a handaxe and a side scraper, suggest either a Middle Pleistocene or early Late Pleistocene age. The ESR dating results indicate that the deposit enclosing the archaeological finds should be assigned to oxygen isotope stage (OIS) 6, although there exists some possibility that some teeth were deposited later, in OIS 5.     

Constructing National Identity: The Image of the Medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania in Lithuanian Art from the 1920s to the 1990s

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the ways in which the image of the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania, intended to awaken the national pride and contribute to the building of the national identity, was constructed by artistic means in the Republic of Lithuania during the 1920s and 1930s. It contains a brief discussion on the genesis of the image of the Grand Duchy, including the selection of appropriate historical heroes and events, and the main aspects of their interpretation. The article analyses some of the most striking and influential examples of the image of medieval Lithuania, such as the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the death of Grand Duke Vytautas the Great in 1930 and art works created for that purpose, the decoration of public buildings (for example, the Museum of War and the Officers’ Club in Kaunas, and Lithuania’s pavilion in the New York World Fair of 1939). It also looks briefly at the dissemination of the image of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in popular culture. The article also touches on isolated efforts by a number of intellectuals to warn of the dangers inherent in the extreme glorification of the past. The image of the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania, created in interwar Lithuania, was preserved during the period of Soviet occupation. After the restoration of Lithuanian independence in 1990, this image had a significant influence on the mentality and culture of Lithuanian society at the turn of the millennium. In this respect the situation in Lithuania could be treated as a case study, for a similar relation to the past can be encountered in other European post-Communist countries faced with the problem of creating a new identity.     

Saving the Sweet Track: The in situ preservation of a Neolithic wooden trackway,Somerset, UK

Abstract

The Sweet Track is the oldest known wooden trackway in Europe. Part of the trackway is preserved in situ in a nature reserve under an active system of hydrological management, designed to prevent damage to the monument from desiccation. The English Heritage-funded project, reported here, was established to assess the condition of the monument and the effectiveness of the management regime. The results have shown that although the trackway is highly deteriorated it still holds a wealth of archaeological information. The decay of the wood probably occurred gradually over several thousand years but the present management regime should be able to ensure its continued survival.     

Living with Heritage: The Potentials of and Pressures on the Heritage Landscape of Gwollu,Upper West Region,Ghana

Abstract

The impact of development has been identified as one of the most pressing concerns in heritage management in Africa. At the same time, heritage has also been recognized as having the potential to bring tourists, and thus growth, to local economies. Communities that wish to benefit from the latter have to balance developmental pressures against the preservation of heritage, and various sectors of the community may view these priorities differently. In this paper, I discuss some of the potentials of, and pressures on, the heritage landscape of Gwollu, a town in Ghana's Upper West Region. I use Gwollu's brickmakers as a case study to illustrate the small-scale everyday development that can have a lasting impact on a town's heritage resources, and how internal divisions within communities may affect the heritage tourism process.     

方国瑜先生与彝族史研究

方国瑜先生是中国西南民族史研究的拓荒者和奠基人。自 1 93 4年秋开始收集资料 ,到 1 984年《彝族史稿》公开出版 ,在长达半个世纪的时间里 ,方先生“筚路蓝缕 ,以启山林” ,在资料的搜集、整理 ,族别史研究的理论指导 ,彝族史研究的框架体系 ,彝族史上的重大问题如族源、叟人、爨部、乌蛮、南诏等方面做出了开创性的贡献 ,为彝族史学科的建立和发展奠定了坚实的基础。同时 ,方先生提出的理论体系和对重大问题的讨论 ,在中国民族史研究上 ,具有普遍性的理论指导意义     

The Azazo Project: Archaeology and the Community in Ethiopia

Abstract

In this article we discuss the motivations, aims, and preliminary results of working with a local community in Ethiopia. Trying to escape from the (neo)colonial archaeology that is still practised in Africa, this project aims to achieve a cooperative and participative archaeology. This work with the community has been one of our main priorities in our last seasons, and although we have focused on elementary school and university students, we have opened up a number of different paths to follow in future years. The experience has been very positive, and engagement with local people has helped us to create awareness about the importance of cultural heritage, hopefully ensuring the future protection of the sites.     

Agency,Periodisation and Change in the Gender and Women's History of Colonial India

The paper begins with a critique of the ‘imperialism‐nationalism’ paradigm and its concomitant privileging of the period 1885–1947, which has dominated the writing of modern Indian history. It is argued here that the fixation with the ‘birth‐of‐the‐nation’ theme has led to the neglect of women's agency; that it has resulted in many inconsistencies, dilemmas and unresolved issues regarding a range of topics within Indian gender‐relations; and that this periodisation inhibits the reclamation of terms such as ‘feminist’ and ‘feminism’. The second half of the essay proposes that women's agency can be recovered via a new chronology and a new template for understanding agency within which scholars will be enabled to retrieve the conscious voices of Indian women and record change in gender relations.     

学术规范建设与世界史研究

学术规范建设关系到中国学术的发展和繁荣,对于世界史研究具有同样重要的意义。开展学术规范的建设,既要考虑学术规范自身的系统性,又要照顾不同学科的特点;既要引进欧美学术界的成功经验,又要结合中国学术的传统和实际。世界史作为中国学术的一个分支,其发展需要学术整体进步的带动,同时在学术规范建设中也能发挥某些独特的作用。世界史学科的特点是具有跨文化了解的性质,需要大量使用外文文献,其研究的难度较大,因此,在研究取向、资料运用、引用方式、标注形式、防止抄袭和剽窃各个环节,均有特别的要求。学术规范建设只有顾及世界史的这些特点,才能对其研究水平的不断提高产生有力的推动。     

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.     

古史辨派的史学遗产与中国上古史体系的建设

以顾颉刚为首的古史辨派是我国20世纪20-40年代古史研究的主要派别,对我国史学尤其是上古史研究影响深远。疑古精神、对进步史观的积极追求与接纳的态度、对古史资料考信而后用之的原则、注重历史与考古研究结合的治史方法,以及建设新古史体系的设想,是古史辨派留给我们的史学遗产。新古史体系的建设道路并不平坦,搞好新古史体系建设较为根本的对策就是在总结和继承古史辨派优秀史学遗产的基础上,坚持理论创新,切实加强考古学家与历史学家的沟通与合作。     

The Symbolic Making of a Common Property Resource: History,Ecology and Locality in a Tank-irrigated Landscape in South India

Today there is a pervasive policy consensus in favour of ‘community management’ approaches to common property resources such as forests and water. This is endorsed and legitimized by theories of collective action which, this article argues, produce distinctively ahistorical and apolitical constructions of ‘locality’, and impose a narrow definition of resources and economic interest. Through an historical and ethnographic exploration of indigenous tank irrigation systems in Tamil Nadu, the article challenges the economic-institutional modelling of common property systems in terms of sets of rules and co-operative equilibrium outcomes internally sustained by a structure of incentives. The article argues for a more historically and politically grounded understanding of resources, rights and entitlements and, using Bourdieu's notion of ‘symbolic capital’, argues for a reconception of common property which recognizes symbolic as well as material interests and resources. Tamil tank systems are viewed not only as sources of irrigation water, but as forming part of a village ‘public domain’ through which social relations are articulated, reproduced and challenged. But the symbolic ‘production of locality’ to which water systems contribute is also shaped by local ecology. The paper examines the historical and cultural production of two distinctive ‘cultural ecologies’. This serves to illustrate the fusion of ecology and social identity, place and person, in local conceptions, and to challenge a currently influential thesis on the ecological-economic determinants of collective action. In short, development discourse and local actors are seen to have very different methods and purposes in the ‘production of locality’. Finally, the article points to some practical implications of this for strategies of ‘local institutional development’ in irrigation.     

Impulses of agro-pastoralism in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC on the south-western coastal rim of Norway

Abstract

A review of the available archaeological and palaeoecological evidence from the coastal heathlands of south-western Norway was compiled to reveal the processes of neolithisation proceeding from the Early Neolithic towards the generally accepted breakthrough in the Late Neolithic, 2500/2350 cal. BC. South-western Norway then became part of the Scandinavian, and thus the European, agricultural complex. Three phases of forest clearance are recorded — from 4000–3600 cal. BC, 2500–2200 cal. BC and 1900–1400 cal. BC. Deforestation was intentional and followed a regional pattern linked to the geology and topography of the land. In the first period (4000–2500 cal. BC), forage from broad-leaved trees was important, while cereal cultivation was scarcely recorded. Agro-Neolithic (here referring to agriculturally-related Neolithic) artefacts and eco-facts belonging to the Funnel Beaker and Battle Axe culture are rare, but pervasive. They must primarily be considered to be status indicators with a ritual function; the hunter-gatherer economy still dominated. The breakthrough in agro-pastoral production in the Late Neolithic was complex and the result of interactions between several variables, i.e. a) deforestation resulting from agriculture being practised for nearly 1500 years b) experience with small-scale agriculture through generations and c) intensified exchange systems with other South Scandinavian regions. From 2500/2350 cal. BC onwards, two distinct environmental courses are noticeable in all pollen diagrams from the study area, indicating expansion in pastoralism, either towards heath or towards grassland and permanent fields.     

历史、文化与民族:20世纪前期中国文化史的兴起

20世纪初,西方“文化”概念成为整理传统中国历史遗产的重要概念工具。国人编纂文化史有意展现传统中国的文化成就,反映出中西文化竞争下,国人隐秘的文化争胜意识。“文化”与“历史”结合,逐渐成为历史叙事的核心概念。文化史在史学研究的对象、价值判断、时代分期、研究方法等方面发展出自身特征,亦反映出西方文明史、文化史在理论和实践方面对中国“新史学”的影响。文化史在实践中注重对民族历史生活的呈现,表现出民族史的特征,其叙述特定群体或民族社会生活的方方面面,揭示群体的精神内核。历史、文化与民族融会一体,在西学东渐、传统文化权威失坠的情况下,文化史构建了一种彰显社会凝聚力的叙事。     

历史博物馆展览的景观化建构:构成、思维与途径

历史博物馆展览作为被观看的客体,以历史遗存为基础、以叙事为核心、以沉浸式体验为吸引观众达成展览目标的途径。历史博物馆展览中的景观意味着由文物展品与多种媒介物构成的具有一定叙事与意义表达的空间图示,并具有“器-象-道”三个层面。景观化可以广义地理解为将零散的元素组织成为具有意义指向的整体。“象”作为蕴含着“器”与“道”的感知整体,是营造体验、让观众形成第一印象的关键所在,因而景观化建构应以“象”为先,根据各自的基础条件运用不同的建构途径--利用天然的历史景观、重构历史场景、景观化的文物组合,从而有助于历史博物馆打造更具吸引力与更具传播效能的展览。