Archaeological Evidence for the Emergence of Language,Symbolism, and Music–An Alternative Multidisciplinary Perspective

In recent years, there has been a tendency to correlate the origin of modern culture and language with that of anatomically modern humans. Here we discuss this correlation in the light of results provided by our first hand analysis of ancient and recently discovered relevant archaeological and paleontological material from Africa and Europe. We focus in particular on the evolutionary significance of lithic and bone technology, the emergence of symbolism, Neandertal behavioral patterns, the identification of early mortuary practices, the anatomical evidence for the acquisition of language, the development of conscious symbolic storage, the emergence of musical traditions, and the archaeological evidence for the diversification of languages during the Upper Paleolithic. This critical reappraisal contradicts the hypothesis of a symbolic revolution coinciding with the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe some 40,000 years ago, but also highlights inconsistencies in the anatomically–culturally modern equation and the potential contribution of anatomically pre-modern human populations to the emergence of these abilities. No firm evidence of conscious symbolic storage and musical traditions are found before the Upper Paleolithic. However, the oldest known European objects that testify to these practices already show a high degree of complexity and geographic variability suggestive of possible earlier, and still unrecorded, phases of development.     

Sonic geography in a nature region

This paper considers the sonic geography of a region since the late nineteenth century, taking material from the Norfolk Broads, a wetland region in eastern England. This area has been defined through competing cultures of nature and leisure, with the presence, absence and nature of sound a key concern. The theme of sonic geography is set within debates concerning the nature of regional identity, moral geographies of conduct in landscape, and uses of the term ‘soundscape’. The paper draws on surveys of sound, travel guides, press reports, private journals and fictional accounts, showing how in the contested valuation of a regional landscape the aesthetic, ecological and social are enfolded through sonic geography.     

Commemorating a Rural African-American Family at a National Battlefield Park

The Robinson House site is situated within the Manassas National Battlefield Park in northern Virginia. The original Robinson House was constructed in the 1840s and was occupied until 1936 by the same free African-American family. The National Park Service recognizes and interprets the Robinson House since it was part of the Civil War battlefield landscape during the First and Second Battles of Manassas. The original house went through a series of structural additions and alterations in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The house stood until 1993 when arsonists burned it, causing 60% damage to the structure. Today, the east chimney and the stone foundations remain. Amidst the many Civil War monuments at the battlefield park the interpretation of a century of occupation by the Robinson family through the remaining foundations adds meaning and depth to the area's local history. The Robinson House remains symbolize an African-American family's way of life as well as their struggle to survive during Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era. The foundations and site are a steadfast symbol of African-American cultural persistence that has prevailed for over 100 years on a battlefield landscape.     

论乐感

本文主要探讨了音乐活动中的乐感问题。     

Huysmans's Flowers

Contemplating the grotesque specimens just delivered from Paris nurseries, J.-K. Huysmans's decadent esthete, Jean Floressas des Esseintes, reflects on floriculture as the intersection of nature and artifice: “par le temps qui court,” he intones, “les horticulteurs sont les seuls et les vrais artistes.” A multifaceted symbol appearing throughout Huysmans's oeuvre, flowers mark off the stages of the author's artistic and religious development. Beginning with the plebian geraniums of En Ménage (1881), progressing through the Decadent blooms of A rebours (1884), and ending with the lilies in Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam (1901) representing the spiritualization of flesh into holiness, the Huysmansian flower evolves as does the spiritual naturalist who used them in his fiction.     

三星堆青铜树象征性研究

对三星堆遗址二号祭祀坑出土的青铜神树的研究现状进行回顾,从宗教人类学与萨满艺术的角度对其作了新的探讨,认为树与鸟相结合的表现形式是萨满艺术中“世界之轴”或“萨满树”的典型特征,是萨满和巫师进行祭祀时沟通天地的主要道具.文章呼吁,对这类意识信仰的产品我们除了文献资料以外,还应该利用宗教人类学方法来深入解读其深层的涵义.     

The Pleistocene art of Asia

While the Pleistocene art of Europe has been described, discussed, analyzed and explained in thousands of publications, that of Asia has attracted almost no interest at all. This paper is a brief summary of all known Ice Age art of Asia, both rock art and portable art. The current evidence is critically reviewed, region by region, and hundreds of specimens purported to be art are rejected by the author. Those considered to be authentic are often extremely isolated, in both time and space. It is argued that this record can only be explained effectively as having been greatly distorted by several factors. The geographical distribution, for instance, is clearly conditioned by such factors as intensity of research activities and local preservation conditions. Thus the pronounced paucity of available evidence is, at least in part, imposed by taphonomic biases of various types.     

浅论道教音乐的源流与特点

道教音乐滥觞于南北朝时期。道教音乐在发展过程中,始终与民间音乐息息相关。道教音乐既是宗教音乐,又具有多样化、地区化和世俗化的特点。     

三门峡虢国博物馆形式设计综述

三门峡虢国博物馆在空间、整体造型与色彩、环境辅助设施等方面力求艺术性,在造型和色彩设计上具有象征性,而且在功能设计的各个环节强调其功能性,因此取得了良好的效果。     

A new era and new themes in Italian politics: The case of Padania

Abstract

By calling for the independence of Padania from the rest of Italy, the Lega Nord has recently drawn a great deal of attention to itself. In support of this campaign the Lega has actively introduced mythical and Utopian models onto the Italian political scene, combining a degree of cultural innovation with a certain political adventurism. This article focuses on these elements, beginning with the events of the autumn of 1996 when the Lega organized a ‘grande festa’ along the banks and in the towns of the River Po aimed at marking the birth of the new nation of Padania. The principal events of the festival were dominated by the many performances of the League's founder and leader, Umberto Bossi, whose speeches were full of pseudo‐religious or pseudo‐prophetic elements. Though the festival ended in Venice with a unilateral declaration of independence by the Lega and its followers in the north, it did not lead to any immediate political consequences. Nevertheless, the situation in Padania is marked by a complex mixture of identities. The Lega has not just introduced new methods of political opposition, it has also brought many subjects (local cultures, regionalism, the right to self‐determination) into the Italian political debate. Furthermore, it has used the language of the sacred and of ‘origins’ to create new characters, new calendars and new sacred sites.     

Symbols, Myth-Making, and Identity: The Red Hand of Ulster in Late Nineteenth-Century Paterson, New Jersey

Symbols are manipulated to express social identity and to reaffirm or create a sense of place. Smoking pipes recovered from late nineteenth-century privies in the Dublin Section of Paterson, New Jersey, bear the symbol of the Red Hand of Ulster. Today, the Red Hand of Ulster is ubiquitous on Unionist murals throughout Northern Ireland symbolizing Northern Irish Protestant identity. Originally, the Red Hand symbolized the dawn of the Irish High King of Ulster. In late-nineteenth-century Paterson, it is argued here, the symbol was embedded in ethnic politics involving the Irish Diaspora and Irish–American identity developed through the Gaelic revival and Irish–American organizations and labor unions.     

Cultural policies for national music in South and North Korea (1960s–70s): a comparative study

ABSTRACT

This article is a comparative study of the cultural policies of North Korea (DPRK) and South Korea (ROK) in the 1960s and 1970s, specifically concerning the disciple of music. In this period, both South and North Korean regimes demonstrated similar conceptualisations of ‘national music’, harmonising Korean traditional music with western musical styles, but the end result differed in the two regimes. The DPRK developed national music through a homogenised musical style by assimilating Korean folk music with a western musical style while excluding traditional court music, with drastic modifications to traditional instruments and musical forms. In contrast, the ROK’s policy on establishing national music resulted in a combination of traditional court music for the ruling class and western classical music, indicating elitism. Particularly, this article argues that these distinct features of their national music were the result of differences in the strength and interest of government officials between the regimes.     

从出土实物谈洛阳汉代音乐艺术

本文以洛阳汉墓出土的乐器资料为切入点,就乐器的种类、组合及其相关问题作了初步探讨.     

How old are Australia's pictographs? A review of rock art dating

Australia contains some of the world's richest and apparently longest traditions of rock pictographs. Dating this art, however, has been problematic, with few ‘direct’ and reliable dates of Pleistocene or early Holocene age having been obtained from visible, representational imagery. This paper critically reviews the evidence for the antiquity of pigment rock art in Australia by examining the various dating techniques employed. The accurate and reliable dating of rock art worldwide is crucial to understanding the evolution of modern human symbolism and whether cognitive modernism came about after, rather than with, the first signs of full biological modernism; understanding the pitfalls and devising proper methods are crucial prerequisites. Towards these ends, this paper reviews the results and techniques that have been employed to date the apparently earliest known pictographs in Australia.     

Boats Apart. Building and Equipping an Iron-Age and Early-Medieval Ship in Northern Europe.

Archaeological ship remains usually induce a functional, i.e. technological and social, interest. This text introduces what is not 'another' aspect in fact, but rather something that runs parallel or is contained within both. Maritime societies and individuals develop cosmologies and rituals, not only strategies for sustenance, which to them are supposed to be as necessary for survival. It is an additional challenge to archaeology to explore and interpret these cognitive elements and their role in maritime cultures of the past, illustrated here by the wood, the building place, the equipment, the ship as a unit, illustrating power, ancestors, and pars-pro-toto .
© 2007 The Author