Learning by Experience: The Flint Mines of Southern England and Their Continental Origins

Since the discovery of prehistoric flint mines across Europe during the nineteenth century, mining has been recognized as a central component of the Neolithic ‘package’. In the south of Britain a small group of mines date to the early fourth millennium BC, posing a problem for traditional interpretations of the Early Neolithic, as they appear a significant period of time before other Neolithic monuments. This paper will look at evidence preserved in the mines of southern England, examining whether these sites demonstrate flint‐mining techniques already practised in Continental Europe. Central to the research is a notion that complex activities, such as mining, involve long periods of trial and error before evolving into an accomplished working methodology.     

Theory,Disciplinary Perspectives and the Archaeology of Later Medieval England

Abstract

In the year 2000, a lead canister and a penny of Henry III were recovered during a watching brief on a site in Colchester which is within 13 m of the find spots of two 13th-century coin hoards buried in similar canisters. While the container found in 2000 may have held a third such hoard (later recovered), it may also have been used as a floor safe. The site has connections with the Colchester Jewry, who were probably the principal agents in the handling of money and deposition of hoards on this site. The single penny may be simply a coin lost on a site where money changed hands in large quantities, or (speculatively) the only survival from a recovered hoard.     

The Archaeology of Poverty and the Poverty of Archaeology

In this Editor’s Introduction to this Special Contribution, I explore some central issues surrounding the archaeology of poverty and ponder why it has taken historical archaeologists so long to “discover” poverty as a research topic.     

Sarah and the Puritans: Feminist Contributions to New England Historical Archaeology

This article analyzes a seventeenth-century adultery case from southern Massachusetts to examine the effects of Puritan colonization on Native American women. As a feminist analysis the article focuses on gendered access to power and considers Puritan strategies for transforming Native American gendered relations. This reading highlights Puritan use of physical punishment and public humiliation to shape gendered behavior. It exposes Puritan efforts to transform Native American men into Puritan patriarchs and to transform Native American women into submissive consorts. It concludes with a series of characteristics that will define archaeological sites that date to the period immediately after New England’s colonization. Arguably, Sarah and the Puritans contributes to history more than it contributes to archaeology because the primary evidence is documentary, rather than archaeological. Nonetheless, this analysis informs archaeological interpretation by revealing the consequences of cultural change on the archaeological record. By demonstrating colonization’s transformative power on southern New England Native American culture, Sarah and the Puritans identifies the context in which many historical period Native American sites were created. Ultimately, this affords an opportunity to gender New England colonization and to examine the archaeological record of that process.     

The Archaeology of Historic Battlefields: A History and Theoretical Development in Conflict Archaeology

In the last two and a half decades there have been many advances in the technology available to archaeologists. As new technologies have been used to challenge previously held hypotheses and expand the capabilities of current research, they also have assisted the expansion of archaeology to include conflict archaeology. Although there has been a long history of interest in the material remains of conflict, it is only recently that the necessary tools, methodology, and theoretical approaches have been combined to allow serious scientific contributions to the holistic study of past human conflict. This article provides an overview of the origins of conflict archaeology and research that has helped consolidate the subfield into its present form. We examine the current state of conflict studies and consider what lies ahead for conflict archaeology.     

环境考古

本文以蒙塞拉特岛克雷镇（Clay County MS）亚布鲁（Yarborough）遗址为例对环境考古进行了介绍。作者指出。环境考古对于考古文化及其与自然环境之间的关系的研究有着重要意义。环境考古可以为生物学家、生态学家及土地管理者就如何保护自然资源提供有价值的信息。     

The Archaeology of Immateriality

Despite changes in archaeological theory and practice over the past 40 years, most archaeologists are still not very good at acknowledging that “significance” is context-dependent and non-material. In this paper I present two cases studies from New England where archaeologists collaborated with Native peoples on sites that had significant preservation concerns. I evaluate to what extent these projects were successful in their goal of decolonizing archaeology. I call for a definition of materiality that acknowledges that tangible objects and their intangible contexts and meanings are inextricable, and that values are continuously created and recreated in the present by a variety of memory communities.     

The Archaeology of California

Stimulated by several important, recent empirical advances, California archaeologists are engaged in a series of lively debates. These advances include new discoveries about the early peopling of western North America and sustained occupation of the California coasts as early as 12–13,000 BP. There also have been significant new developments in the role of paleoenvironmental change in cultural evolution, the emergence of long-distance interaction spheres, the presence of intensive craft specializations, and the appearance of sociopolitically complex hunter–gatherers. This article addresses these issues—and several others—with a view to the general interests of scholars worldwide. The exceptional heterogeneity of California ecosystems (from deserts to dense redwood forests to bountiful offshore islands) and the remarkable cultural diversity exhibited by the dozens of major groups who made these lands their home combine to produce a complex indigenous sociopolitical picture. Current understandings reveal myriad trajectories of cultural change across nine major subregions of the state.     

The Gravity of Archaeology

One of the defining features of the material culture of space exploration is the fact that much of it is “out there”: in orbit around celestial bodies and on planetary surfaces. In outer space, we have to rethink the meaning of place. Cartesian coordinates must be replaced with equations of motion to describe the ceaseless movement of heavenly objects in relation to centres of gravity. Archaeological sites in space are not solid condensations of artefacts, hundreds or thousands of years compressed into layers perhaps only centimetres deep. The materials of an archaeological deposit become rather a cloud or swarm. But for both Earth and space, gravity is the structuring force. In this paper I want to reconceptualise archaeological sites according to their position in the gravity well, using dynamical systems and Riemann surfaces. I then consider the Mir space station as an example of a site existing simultaneously on Earth and in orbit, as a preliminary excursion towards a frame of reference that can be used to effectively conduct an archaeology in outer space.     

公共考古学的多样性与非调和性

公共考古学英文作,或被译作公众考古学。在英文中,public所指并非汉语中的公众及其群体,而更与国家公共机构密切相关。从这层意思上来说,Public Archaeology译作公共考古学更为贴切。这一概念出现于上个世纪70年代初期的美英等发达国家,最初是与考古学科发展所带来的考古遗存和文化资源管理工作中所出现的紧急情况密切相关的。这种紧急状况表现在两个方面,第一是由学科专业化增强所带来的资料的保护和管理问题,第二是学术界对于大量的具有潜在价值的考古资源面临日益严重的破坏而自身却又缺乏足够的保护能力。就是说,文化遗产的管理和保护是公共考古学关注的焦点,甚至可以说,公共考古学就是文化遗产保护。业内人士对以往那种由专业学者和官员来"替"公众管理文化资源的模式进行反思,首先从理论上厘清了长期以来在文化遗产保护工作中对于公众角色的定位问题。这里的"公众"一词指的是一个多元的、但又不以考古研究为职业的人群。作为国家概念之外的一个具有批评性的实体,他们对文化遗产的参与权与解释权应得到充分尊重;考古学的公共方面多数是与文化、价值甚至经济利益冲突相关的,因此被有的学者称为"不谐调的遗产";考古学归根到底是阐释文化认同及其演变,因此不可避免地与政治脱不开干系。诸如此类,文化遗产管理与保护中所遇到的这类问题,都成了公众考古学研究的对象。经过30多年的发展,公众考古学现已发展成为当今考古学一个非常重要的分支学科。本文作为NickMerriman所主编的《公共考古学》一书的序言,对于公共考古学在西方的产生和发展做了系统论述,有利于我们对国外公共考古学的历史与现状的认识。     

The Slate Quarries at Easdale,Argyllshire, Scotland

Abstract

In this article the author draws attention to the little-known slate industry that flourished in the Slate Islands off the west coast of Scotland. From small beginnings in the 17th century, the industry reached a peak around 1900, before declining to extinction in the 1960s. Attention is focused on the unusual location of some of the quarries—below sea-level—and of their consequent vulnerability to natural disasters.     

东方考古学协会述论

北京大学国学门考古学研究室 ,是中国乃至东亚最早的专门考古学独立机构。 192 6年 ,国学门考古学会与日本东西两京帝大合组的东亚考古学会结成东方考古学协会 ,计划以联合发掘、交流成果、互派留学等方式 ,共同推进东方考古事业。可惜双方对于如何利用这一机缘并发挥各自的作用 ,利益和想法不一致。结果北大在考古发掘方面更形困顿 ,无法在重建古史的活动中占据重要位置 ,不得不将在这一领域的应有地位拱手让人。