Baffles and Stockades: Entryway Construction at Southern Plains Fortifications,A.D. 1500–1850

Southern Plains archaeologists have for years reported piecemeal data suggesting that ancestors of the Wichita Indians periodically built fortifications. Since 2003, we have conducted archaeological and geophysical investigations at multiple Late Prehistoric and European contact era fortified Wichita sites occupied between about a.d. 1500 and a.d. 1811. We seek to better understand the areal extent, timing, and structural changes associated with facilities that appear to have functioned as redoubts (Drass, Perkins, and Vehik 2018). In this article, we focus on how the Wichita constructed and secured fortification entryways. Given the inherent vulnerability of entryways, architects across the globe have designed a variety of defensive configurations to confound attackers. For the Wichita, the introduction of horses and guns beginning in the 1600s magnified these challenges. Our findings indicate that baffled gates, often paired with fenced extended entryways, facilitated quick entry by defenders and dependents while serving as impediments to hostile intruders.     

J.B. Priestley: Bradford and a provincial narrative of England, 1913–1933

J.B. Priestley's writing has been used to explore aspects of landscape and Englishness. Through an analysis of Priestley's early journalism in the Bradford Pioneer and the Yorkshire Observer, we argue that his critical disengagement to most of the landscapes of England was based on a connection to the landscapes of his youth in Bradford where he first developed his fictional and documentary narrative style. In his early journalism, Priestley articulated a sense of dwelling in Bradford that was rooted in the experience of two distinct local landscapes: the spaces of the city and the nature of the surrounding upland and moorland. Priestley's geographical ideal balanced the civility of the Edwardian city embedded in a landscape that offered escape to and commune with nature. The existential balance between the two was, we argue, central to the narrative geographies developed by Priestley in his fiction which is illustrated through an analysis of his two early novels: The Good Companions (1929) and Angel Pavement (1930). We suggest that the ways in which Priestley's interwar writing expressed dwelling in local landscapes might be thought of as a critical provincialisation of London and England.     

The Royal Palace at Tilleda,Kr. Sangerhausen,D.D.R.: Excavations from 1935–1966

THE REMAINS of Caergwrle castle in E. Clwyd stand on a hill dominating the modern village of Caergwrle, which lies immediately to the N. (Fig. 1). The castle is situated about half-way between Mold and Wrexham in NE. Clwyd at SJ.306572 (Fig. 2; Pl. VIIl). The castle is very much a border fortification; it stands at an altitude of 135 m OD just to the E. of Hope Mountain. Any defender on the wail-walk of the castle's E. curtain enjoyed extensive views NE. towards Chester, S. to Wrexham and beyond, and N. to Halkyn Mountain.     

Geophysical Investigations at Teotepec,Mexico (1000 B.C.–A.D. 1000)

Abstract

Recent investigations at the site of Teotepec in the Sierra de los Tuxtlas in southern Veracruz, Mexico explored Middle Formative through Late Classic (1000 B.C.–A.D. 1000) socioeconomic conditions. A central focus was the form and function of the site's distinctive architectural configuration, the Long Plaza Group. During the 2007 and 2008 field seasons, a systematic geophysical survey of Teotepec obtained initial information on the layout, orientation, and possible function of the site's central architectural core. Results from the survey allow for a clear definition of the site's Long Plaza Group in addition to the identification of a possible ball court along its eastern edge. It is also clear that Teotepecans incorporated natural features into their architectural core by placing a pyramid atop a volcanic landform and modifying a natural basalt flow in order to create a level plaza. Finally, the geophysical data indicate significant time depth in architectural construction by suggesting diffirent mound construction techniques, thus underscoring the importance of Teotepec as a persistent place in a region marked by significant population fluctuations in the Formative and Classic periods.     

Flood-Damaged Canals and Human Response,A.D. 1000–1400, Phoenix,Arizona, USA

The scale of prehistoric canal construction in the North American Southwest peaked in a.d. 450–1450, during what has been named the Hohokam Millennium. Explanations for the eventual Hohokam “collapse” remain elusive. Environmental disturbances, such as floods, that were once manageable may have become unmanageable. Recent archaeological excavations of Hohokam canals in Phoenix identified stratigraphic evidence for three destructive floods that date to a.d. 1000–1400 within two large main canals in System 2, Hagenstad and Woodbury’s North. Woodbury’s North Canal was flood-damaged and abandoned sometime after a.d. 1300. Thereafter, no main canals of similar size were constructed to supply villages within System 2 and the area was depopulated. Our investigation provides the first stratigraphic evidence for a destructive flood during the late Classic period in the lower Salt River Valley and is compatible with the hypothesis of diminished resilience to environmental disturbance at the end of the Hohokam Millennium.     

Neurasthenia at Mengo Hospital,Uganda: A Case Study in Psychiatry and a Diagnosis, 1906–50

This article uses a case-study approach to examine the complex and contradictory nature of diagnoses like neurasthenia in colonial Africa. Drawing on the case notes of European and African patients diagnosed with neurasthenia at the Church Missionary Society's Mengo Hospital, Uganda, it argues that in practice, and outside the colonial asylum in particular, ideas about race and mental illness were more nuanced than histories of psychiatry and empire might imply. At Mengo, the tales of pain and suffering recorded by the doctors remind us that there is more to the history of neurasthenia than colonial anxieties and socio-political control. This was a diagnosis that was negotiated in hospital examination rooms as much as in medical journals. Significantly, it was also a diagnosis that was not always reserved exclusively for white colonisers—at Mengo Hospital from the early 1900s neurasthenia was diagnosed in African patients too. It became part of a wider discussion about detribalisation, in which a person's social environment was as important as race.