Building Mounds. Longhouses,Coastal Mounds and Cultural Connections: Norway and the Northern Isles,c ad 800–1200

Abstract

WHY WERE important Viking longhouses built on large mounds of sand and then repeatedly rebuilt in precisely the same apparently challenging location? Generations of Viking–late Norse people did so, on sandy bays along the coasts of the Northern Isles of the United Kingdom. These prominent, ‘layered-up’ longhouse complexes were landscape statements. They reflected, in their location and the detail of their construction and use, the social attitudes and arrangements of those who lived in and visited them. The settlements played a pivotal role in power relationships and in the organisation of the local economy. This article explores the meaning of these focal settlement mounds through landscape archaeology; investigates building practices, stratigraphic detail and place-name associations; looks at their cultural roots in Scandinavia; and considers the role they played in the development of local social and political structures in Orkney.     

Economy and Settlement Pattern 1350–1600 AD,Based on Evidence from Farm Mounds

The examination of Norse farm sites in Greenland has been taking place for nearly a century, and a reasonable picture has been built up from several disciplines of the nature of the settlements. There has, however, been little integration of the research between the various scientists. Using the example of a recent interdisciplinary palaeoecological study at Nipáitsoq in the Western Settlement, this paper summarizes the interrelated results of the work of an archaeologist (C.A.), historian (G.S.), animal bone specialist (T. McG.), entomologists (P.C.B. &; P.S.), and plant macrofossil researcher (D.S.). A detailed picture of the demise of the farm and of living conditions is attempted, and the paper ends with a plea for further integrated multi‐disciplinary studies.     

Questioning Craft Production at Angel Mounds Analysis of the 2006–2009 Angel Mounds Field-Schools

Abstract

Seventy years of archaeological investigations at the site of Angel Mounds (12VG1) have led to a broad overall understanding of the cultural practices of the Mississippian people in southwest Indiana nearly 1,000 years ago, but have also raised ever expanding new questions. Recent field-school excavations at Angel Mounds, sponsored by the Glenn A. Black Laboratory (GBL) at Indiana University, explored magnetic anomalies in a previously unexcavated area at Angel Mounds. Analyses of features and artifacts encountered during the excavations at Unit A (the “Potter's House”), including large amounts of Mississippi Plain pottery and craft-production objects, inspired new questions on the organization of craft production at Angel Mounds and other Mississippian archaeological sites. In this article, I test whether a structure at Unit A may have been a craftproduction workshop by reviewing data archaeologists traditionally associate with workshops and examining the standardization of pottery found at the location. Preliminary results demonstrate the variability of Mississippi Plain pottery, even within single locations, and also show the potential analytical utility of such variability for testing important issues in the archaeology of Mississippian societies, including supposed elite-control over craft production and intrasite social organizations.     

Historical Archeology,Dialectical Marxism,and “C.F.U.G. Studies”

In studying capitalism in general, Marx declares it his chief aim “to lay bare its law of motion”; and his main way of proceeding is to begin with its present state, and then move backwards into the past by uncovering its necessary preconditions, especially within the mode of production (asking essentially—what had to have happened earlier for the present to appear and function as it does?). After which, he reverses himself, and, starting with where he arrived in the past, he re-examines the same conditions and events—using whatever evidence is available—as they evolved up to the present. Finally, with the help of the contradictory tendencies (often referred to as “laws”) that are brought into view by combining these two steps, Marx projects in broad outline where capitalism seems to be heading. Human beings, divided into social classes, come into this analysis—as both causes and effects—every step along the way. The present article examines what the discipline of archeology can contribute to this project.     

Alvis,J. David,Jeremy D. Bailey,and F. Flagg Taylor,IV. The Contested Removal Power, 1789–2010.

Abstract

In this article, we use legislative correspondence to determine who gains access to key staffers in a congressional office. To evaluate our theory of the office power hierarchy, we test hypotheses using an original dataset of more than 3,000 correspondence records from the office of former member of Congress James R. Jones. Our empirical analysis is supplemented by an e-mail interview with Representative Jones. We find that key senior staffers are more likely to pay attention to powerful individuals and nonroutine matters. Letters from women and families and those dealing with routine legislation are more likely to be answered by lower-ranked staffers. These results are important because they reveal that even something as simple as constituent correspondence enters a type of power hierarchy within the legislative branch where some individuals are advantaged over others.     

The Indo‐European mirror: Monotheism and polytheism (J.G. Herder,E. Renan,A. Pictet,F.M. Müller and R.F. Grau)

Some authors assigned the Indo‐Europeans a mirror‐like role which allowed them to understand their own position with respect to contemporary Christian values. After dealing briefly with the writings of J.G. Herder, I shall evoke a certain number of questions which oriented the research of E. Renan, F.M. Müller, A. Pictet and R.F. Grau. The works of the latter authors expounded fabulous genealogies, organizing them into explanatory systems that radically opposed Hebrew monotheists to Indo‐European polytheists. Thus, depending on whether they had used the Semites or the Indo‐Europeans as their starting‐point, they concluded that monotheism or polytheism, respectively, was the archaic source of human thought. The goal on their horizon was a ressuscitated West, forever in the forefront of progress, often simultaneously Christian and scientific. If this type of historiographic analysis is urgently needed at the present time, its purpose is not to provide a grid for distinguishing “truth”; from “falsehood,”; but rather to grasp a set of scholarly traditions within its own channels of transmission.     

Filibusters,Fenians, and a Contested Neutrality: The Irish Question and U.S. Diplomacy, 1848–1871

Abstract

The period from the late 1840s to the early 1870s represented a distinct one in Irish-American politics. This article frames Irish-American nationalists active in this period as nonstate actors seeking to influence the course of U.S. foreign relations to serve their own interests. In particular, it focuses on the activities of the Fenian Brotherhood and an earlier, less well-known organization, the Robert Emmet Club. The actions of both highlighted the looseness of U.S. neutrality legislation and, ultimately, provided a compelling argument for Anglo-American rapprochement. Simultaneously, in the immediate postbellum years, U.S. statesmen had reason to manipulate the Irish question to further their own ends. As Anglo-American relations improved, however, the geopolitical value of Irish nationalism declined; Irish-American nationalists were left marginalized in the calculations of U.S. diplomats.     

W. B. Yeats,the Abbey Theatre,and the Cinema, 1909–1939

ABSTRACT

Given the significance of new technologies to the literary and visual cultures of the early-twentieth century, it is surprising how little has been written about W. B. Yeats and cinema. Viewed by some scholars as emphatically resistant to what he termed “the leprosy of the modern,” Yeats has long been a difficult writer to situate in relation the progressive impulses of modernity. Building on Kevin Rockett’s identification of the parallels between the work of Abbey Theatre and a nascent Irish cinema culture, this article argues that Yeats played a prominent role in early attempts to develop an indigenous film industry, and to cultivate representations of Ireland on screen abroad. During the period I consider, the Abbey Theatre and the film industry were similarly affected by state censorship programmes and various forms of cultural nationalism. Exploring the Abbey Theatre Minute Books and archival materials discovered in Trinity College Dublin, I suggest that Yeats’s Abbey was a shaping force in Irish cinema history, despite the fact that most attempts to create a national cinema met with limited success.     

The Robot Condition: Karel Čapek's R.U.R. and Hannah Arendt on Labor,Technology, and Innovation

This article reads Karel ?apek's R.U.R. through the lens of Hannah Arendt's critique of technology in The Human Condition. Arendt and ?apek share a suspicion that modernity's attempts to overcome labor through the use of technology undermines the human condition of natality. Indeed, the revolt of ?apek's Robots dramatizes Arendt's warnings of the dangers of a “society of laborers without labor” and “world alienation.” Both thinkers suggest that the dilemmas posed by modern technology cannot be resolved through “practical” means but require loving attentiveness to the fragile conditions in which genuine natality can emerge.     

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.     

E. H. Carr,Norman Angell,and Reassessing the Realist–Utopian Debate

While the realist argument presented by E. H. Carr in The Twenty Years’ Crisis has received much attention from scholars, recent scholarship has suggested that traditional interpretations of the work and the debate in which it figured have not accurately reflected the inter-war discourse. In this article, the author provides detail to support these claims through an examination of Carr's landmark work in comparison with prominent ‘utopian’ counterparts, primarily Norman Angell but also others such as Leonard Woolf and Arnold Toynbee. The conclusion of this article calls for increased emphasis on the works of internationalist writers of the inter-war period. It also echoes other scholars in calling for renewed focus on early twentieth-century internationalist thought and a critical reappraisal of Carr's landmark work through the prism of his policy recommendations and the critique he received during the original ‘great debate’.