The Making of an Internal Frontier Settlement: Archaeology and Historical Process in Osun Grove (Nigeria), Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries

The historical, material, and spatial processes that defined the formative settlement practices in Early Osogbo (southwest Nigeria), a seventeenth- to early eighteenth-century frontier community, is the subject of this article. I use different datasets, including the spatial layout of the site, the archaeological depositional sequence, diverse artifact categories, and oral historical sources to engage Igor Kopytoff’s Internal African Frontier thesis. In this article, I argue against Kopytoff’s conceptualization of the frontier as a conservative space that relied on innovations from the metropolis. Instead, I demonstrate that Early Osogbo was a dynamic formative settlement in an internal Yoruba regional frontier whose material life was not a mere copy of a metropolis’s. Instead, this emerging community was characterized by diversity, complexity, experimentation, and newness that resulted from local forces of migration, frontier social networks, and regional exchange systems involving several spheres of interstitial frontiers and multiple metropolises. Contrary to the metropolis-frontier pattern of migration that informed Kopytoff’s Internal African Frontier thesis, Early Osogbo was originally created by frontier-frontier migrations before it became a site for intermetropolis contestation. The article underscores the need to bring conceptual clarity to the study of frontier processes, arguing that different historical contexts, migration patterns, and regional political frameworks produced different kinds of frontiers such as crossroads, boundary, colony, and cultural frontiers. The archaeological profile of Early Osogbo demonstrates that the settlement was a crossroads frontier community.     

Characterization of New Zealand obsidian using PXRF

New Zealand has some of the most active areas of rhyolitic volcanism in the world and this has produced numerous obsidian sources in the northern half of the North Island. In total archaeologists have recognized 27 named locations from which obsidian can be obtained scattered across 4 geological source regions. Shortly after colonization in the late 13th century AD Polynesian settlers began transporting this material some thousands of kilometers throughout the country and across the sea in small quantities to distant neighbors in the Kermadecs and Chatham islands. Although considerable research has been conducted on obsidian sourcing in New Zealand the complexity of geochemical source discrimination and the lack of a practical method of non-destructive geochemical analysis has hindered progress. We present the results of our use of PXRF to provide geochemical data on New Zealand obsidian sources and to compare the use of discriminant analysis and classification tree analysis to discriminate among sources and attribute archaeological samples to sources. Our research suggests that classification tree analysis is superior to discriminant analysis in sourcing studies. A large case study using an important settlement phase site (S11/20) from the Auckland region demonstrates the utility of the methods and the results support a model of high degrees of mobility and interaction during the early settlement of New Zealand.     

An Exemplary Leader?: New Zealand and Decolonization of the Cook Islands and Niue

ABSTRACT

New Zealand is proud of its decolonization record: Prime Minister Peter Fraser’s role in developing provisions for non-self-governing territories in the United Nations; New Zealand’s support for the 1960 declaration on colonialism; its leadership on decolonization in the Pacific; the innovative decolonization solution of self-government in free association with New Zealand adopted by the Cook Islands in 1965, and similar arrangement by Niue in 1974. This record is ascribed to a New Zealand belief in self-determination. Closer examination shows many officials, ministers and parliamentarians were opposed to self-government for the Cook Islands, and concerns lingered about Niue. The arrangements reached reflected New Zealand’s reluctance to let go. Yet self-government was granted, in the context of a reassuring New Zealand view of itself as the centre of the South Pacific region. With new competition for influence in the region, it is important that New Zealand does not seek to constrain the Cook Islands’ and Niue’s self-government and potential future self-determination.     

The Geography of the Anthropocene in New Zealand: Differential River Catchment Response to Human Impact

New Zealand provides a useful environment to test the notion that the Anthropocene is a new geological epoch. There are two well‐dated anthropogenic impact ‘events’: Polynesian settlement c. AD 1280, and European colonisation c. AD 1800. Little attention, however, has been given to regional catchment response to these, although it has been assumed that both Polynesian and European farming and land use management practices significantly increased erosion rates across most of New Zealand. This paper addresses the nature and timing of human impacts on river systems using meta‐analysis of a recently compiled nationwide database of radiocarbon‐dated fluvial deposits. This shows highly variable human impacts on erosion and sedimentation in river systems, which are often difficult to separate from naturally driven river activity. Catchment‐scale data with high resolution dating control record clearer evidence of human disturbance. In Northland, anthropogenic alluviation is recorded from c. AD 1300 linked to early Polynesian settlement, enhanced further in the late 19th and 20th centuries by European land clearance, when sedimentation rates exceeded 25 mm year^?1. This study demonstrates significant geographical variability in the timing of human impact on river dynamics in New Zealand, despite two synchronous phases of human settlement, and highlights the difficulty of formally designating a simple and single ‘Anthropocene Epoch/Age’.     

Economic re-colonisation: Financialisation,indigeneity and the epistemic violence of resolution

The 1998 Ngāi Tahu-Crown Te Tiriti o Waitangi-Treaty of Waitangi settlement represents a long battle for justice concerning Te Waipounamu (South Island) of Aotearoa, New Zealand. We focus on the resolution practices of the New Zealand Government and the impacts of financialising historic harm as economic techniques dominate the articulation of resolution. The paper challenges three main ideas. First, it illustrates a logical impossibility in a process of ‘resolution’ determined by the Crown. Second, it challenges the financialisation rhetoric applied in ‘resolving’ harm caused. Third, it challenges the imposition of economic control in requiring Ngāi Tahu to establish a corporate structure to be eligible to receive settlement. These three elements constitute ‘economic re-colonisation’ by denying alternative approaches to resolution and knowledge and consequently, the rhetoric of resolution constitutes ‘epistemic violence’.     

Rich Pickings: An Analysis of Opportunistic Behaviour at Rangitoto Island,Aotearoa/New Zealand

Rangitoto Island, Aotearoa/New Zealand, is the location of a graveyard of abandoned vessels and three communities of baches (circa 1910s–1930s)—small and modest holiday homes. In 2014, an archival and archaeological investigation of 11 discarded watercraft located at Boulder Bay and the bach communities of Beacon End, Rangitoto Wharf and Islington Bay revealed evidence of salvage and reuse of abandoned vessel materials in the construction, modification and use of the island’s baches. This evidence in turn provides insight into opportunistic behaviours of communities unassociated with the maritime industries that created ships’ graveyards, and consequently affords a more well-rounded understanding of post-depositional site formation processes. Influenced by social and economic impacts, the Rangitoto Island bach communities’ resourcefulness enhances our knowledge of behaviours towards ships as sources of material.     

‘Vague Native Rights to Land’: British Imperial Policy on Native Title and Custom in New Zealand, 1837–53

What is often referred to as a common law doctrine of aboriginal or customary title neither underpinned imperial policies towards Māori property rights in the 1830s and 1840s nor was it viewed as a settled or broadly accepted legal doctrine. Rather, critics of imperial policies applying to New Zealand deployed these legal sources in order to challenge and influence the workings of imperial policy on British settlement within New Zealand. The particular emphasis of such policy was on disciplining the extent of such settlement and providing a land fund from crown grants. Imperial policy-makers did not endorse these legal sources despite their use in the decision of the New Zealand Supreme Court in Regina v Symonds (1847). In this context, there was no consensual legal view or approach as to the nature or content of indigenous property rights. Ultimately, in the face of disagreement, diverse views of the nature and extent of Māori property rights persisted. The perceived non-justiciability of such rights meant that political spaces rather than the courts were of ongoing significance to characterising and debating such rights.     

Hair today,gone tomorrow: Analysing potential mercury exposure in 19th-century New Zealand gold miners using Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry

Toxic metal or element exposure has the potential to cause significant negative health effects in human populations. During the goldrushes of the colonial period, mercury amalgamation was one of the most common methods of extracting gold from alluvial deposits or crushed ore, and exposure to mercury was an occupational health hazard. In this study we examine mercury exposure in mining populations from New Zealand’s first major goldrush, which began in Central Otago in 1861. We explore mercury toxicity through laser ablation inductively coupled mass spectrometric analysis of archaeological hair and sediment samples associated with the Tuapeka goldfields. Our analysis highlights ubiquitous low-level mercury exposure on the goldfields, as well as one individual with such high mercury concentrations in their hair that we suspect direct mercury intake, perhaps medicinally, rather than from environmental contamination.     

BUTCHERING PATTERNS AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF FAUNAL ANIMAL REMAINS CONSUMED AT THE LOS MILLARES CHALCOLITHIC SETTLEMENT (SANTA FE DE MONDÚJAR,ALMERÍA,SPAIN)

The archaeological settlement of Los Millares (Santa Fe de Mondújar, Almería) is located in the Mediterranean coastal area of southern Spain. This archaeological site constitutes one of the most important settlements belonging to the Copper Age in the Iberian Peninsula and has given its name to the ‘millariense’ culture. The settlement has been completely excavated, yielding major archaeological faunal remains, with 27,426 bone fragments classified by researchers from Munich University (Germany). In this paper, we apply different statistical methods (mainly χ² analysis) to study the spatial distribution of bones from domestic and wild animals, reconstructing the patterns of appearance within specific functional spaces. These functions can be associated with meat consumption (sites to cut the animals into small pieces, areas where the meat was eaten, garbage sites, etc.) and the production of handmade objects (bone tools, stone tools, etc.). The results show different spatial distributions of faunal remains within the areas of the settlement, according to the animal species and particular parts of the animal skeleton, as well as the age and the sex of individuals. The findings reflect social behaviour that relates the consumption of certain species to a specific sector of population, and such behaviour can be discerned in the animal remains. Moreover, there is evidence regarding economic matters, such as meat production and the exchange of animals, which require further research.     

A Spanish Man‐o‐War in New Zealand? The 1864 wreck of Grafton and its lessons for pre‐Cook shipwreck claims

This paper considers the 1864 wreck of Grafton in the Auckland Islands, and its implications for wreck analysis and pre‐Cook exploration claims. The captain of Grafton, Thomas Musgrave, stated that the schooner was built from the wreck of a Spanish man‐o‐war, and archaeological analysis of the wreck found that the timbers are a tropical South American species, and had possibly been reused. The implications of this are clear; it is possible that timbers that originated in pre‐Cook (1769) ships lie in New Zealand, but without a full understanding of the historical and archaeological context of any such timbers, including their reuse in later ships, it is not possible to claim proof of pre‐Cook European exploration of New Zealand.     

The prehistoric sources of Palliser Bay obsidian

A sample of 210 pieces of archaeologically derived obsidian from settlement sites in Palliser Bay, New Zealand, was subjected to X-ray fluorescent analysis, in order to define the petrographic sources exploited by these prehistoric groups. It was found that the material had been derived from sources at Mayor Island, Huruiki, Rotorua, Cooks Bay, Purangi, Ongaroto and Taupo, and with the exception of the last 3, all were being quarried as early as the 12th century AD. Problems were encountered in assessing the significance of trends in source exploitation which had been proven on other grounds, and these suggested that future analyses must involve far larger archaeological samples.     

Economic outcomes in New Zealand: a varieties of capitalism lens

This article situates New Zealand in the Varieties of Capitalism literature and then uses this theoretical framework to provide a critical analysis of the country’s recent economic under-performance. It argues that while New Zealand is rightly assumed to reflect a near pure example of a free-market Liberal Market Economy, its historical trajectory has been rather more mixed. This has led some analysts to assume that a shift from a ‘Coordinated’ to a ‘Liberal’ Market Economy has occurred, yet the state played a much heavier-handed role in creating and overseeing such apparently cooperative mechanisms than is the case in true coordinated market economies. When the state removed such support structures as the results of pro-market reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a lack of ‘coordination’ altogether in the New Zealand political economy. Businesses, either on a collective or an individual basis, did not step in to perform functions previously delivered by the state. This analysis is applied specifically to the fields of skills formation, or vocational education and training, and research and development, as illustrative examples of this broader critical line of argument.     

THE FLIGHT FROM THE FEN: THE PREHISTORIC MIGRATIONS OF THE BOIKEN OF THE EAST SEPIK PROVINCE,PAPUA NEW GUINEA

This paper has two goals. Its specific aim is to establish the prehistoric migrations of the Boiken people of the East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, using a large corpus of Boiken settlement histories supplemented by linguistic, genetic, and ecological data. In the course of the analysis, a method of applying cluster techniques to detect underlying directional patterns in settlement histories is demonstrated. The migration history thus revealed fits well with the picture of Middle Sepik prehistory emerging from recent geoarchaeological research. At a more general level, the paper seeks to verify that the spatial aspects of Boiken settlement traditions are indeed historically accurate. This finding is of intrinsic importance for anyone attempting to understand the construction of ethno-historical knowledge, and particularly for regional analysts and historical ethnographers, who are often faced with reconstructing the diachronic dimensions of ethnography in regions of New Guinea where archaeological research is little developed. In the case of the Boiken, the migrations that emerge from ethnohistory help resolve the puzzle of why the symbolic culture of the Ndu-speaking Yangoru Boiken exhibits much closer affinities to that of the Torricelli-speaking Mountain Arapesh than that of any Ndu-speaking group, including some of the Boiken dialect groups to the southeast.     

‘I Felt Connected to a Past World’: A Survey of Visitors to Colonial Archaeological Sites Conserved In Situ in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

While there is extensive international literature on the technology and techniques of archaeological conservation and preservation in situ, there has been only limited discussion of the meanings of the places created and the responses they evoke in visitors. Experience in Australia and New Zealand over the past decade suggests that the conservation of colonial archaeological remains is today seen as a far more desirable option, whereas previously many would have suggested that this kind of conservation was only appropriate in ‘old world’ places like Greece and Italy; and that the archaeology of the colonial period was not old enough to be of value. This paper discusses a recent survey of visitors to colonial archaeological sites which reveals some of the ways in which these archaeological remains are experienced, valued, and understood, and gives some clues as to why conservation in situ is an expanding genre of heritage in this region. The visitors surveyed value colonial archaeological sites conserved in situ for the link they provide to place, locality, and memory; for the feeling of connection with the past they evoke; and for the experience they provide of intimacy with material relics from the past. This emphasis on the affective qualities of archaeological remains raises some issues in the post-colonial context, as it tends to reinforce received narratives of identity and history, and relies on the ‘European’ antiquarian appreciation of ruins — making the urban environment more like Europe by creating evidence of similar historical layering.     

Excavations on a Roman Salt-working Site at Jersey Way,Middlewich, Cheshire

In 2012, Oxford Archaeology North undertook large-scale archaeological excavations at Jersey Way, Middlewich, Cheshire, in advance of development by Stewart Milne Homes Ltd. Historically, Middlewich is well-known for its intimate connection with the salt-production industry. The excavation uncovered a sizable area of Roman remains, some of which were extremely well-preserved as a result of waterlogging, comprising timber used for processes connected with Roman salt production. One of these features, a brine well, contained evidence for ‘placed’ or ‘structured’ deposition. Other archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence was also connected with salt production, in addition to the infrastructure of the Roman settlement and agricultural activity. Together, this allows greater insights into Middlewich’s Roman settlement, the salt-working sites of Cheshire and, more generally, the process and form of inland salt production.     

Declining foraging efficiency and moa carcass exploitation in southern New Zealand

The application of foraging theory to understanding carcass exploitation is a relatively recent development. The methodology developed by archaeological and ethnoarchaeological research on butchery/transport studies has been integrated into a behavioral ecological framework to create models that can be used to understand archaeological carcass exploitation. In this paper, I use such a model to examine how New Zealand foragers altered their use of moa carcasses as the availability of these large birds declined. Moa data from the Shag River Mouth site in southern New Zealand are analyzed to test changes in butchery/transport and skeletal element breakage patterns expected with resource depression and declining foraging efficiency. This research shows that at Shag Mouth, field processing of moas increased and marrow, and possibly grease extraction intensified over time.     

Dixon,Skinner and Te Rangi Hiroa

In the early 1920s, Henry Devenish Skinner of the Otago Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand, entered into a correspondence with Roland Burrage Dixon of the Peabody Museum and Harvard University and with Te Rangi Hiroa, then Director of Maori Hygiene in Auckland, New Zealand. The correspondence centred on recent publications by Dixon that used an experimental craniological analysis of his own devising to construct a number of global racial types and to trace their prehistoric migrations. This work had a bearing on theories of the settlement of Polynesia, in particular of New Zealand, a subject of vital interest to Skinner and Te Rangi Hiroa. Although the weaknesses of Dixon's technique were well documented in subsequent reviews, both New Zealanders were initially swayed by his arguments. This paper looks at the details of and context for the interactions between the three scholars and the possible impact of this correspondence on later work.     

Pioneers,politicians and the conservation of forests in early New Zealand

In pioneering societies there is usually little interest in resource conservation, and scant concern for the consequences of environmental disturbance. Yet legislation to conserve the extensive forests of New Zealand was introduced soon after settlement began, and despite a general desire for material improvement. Ultimately, this paradox is attributable to George Perkins Marsh's demonstration of the ecological consequences of man's impact on his environment in Man and nature. The arguments of this work published in 1864 were soon heard in New Zealand. But a mere handful of New Zealanders recognized the importance of Marsh's ideas. For the most part, they were immigrants from the middle and upper ranks of British society, drawn to the colony by the prospects it offered, and removed from the general struggle to tame the land. Their concern was essential in promoting interest in the questions of environmental disturbance and conservation in the 1870s. The immediate reason for the introduction of the New Zealand Forests Bill in 1874, however, was Prime Minister Julius Vogel's recognition of the applicability of the conservationists' arguments to the New Zealand scene. Thus character and circumstance combined to heighten the impact of Marsh's writing and to temper the ethic of exploitative land use in the pioneering environment of New Zealand.     

The Scale and Impact of Viking Settlement in Northumbria

DISCOVERIES AT the Viking winter camp at Torksey indicate that the armies that invaded Anglo-Saxon England in the late 9th century were much larger than is often assumed, and that a literal reading of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s assessment of the size of Viking fleets may, after all, have been correct. Furthermore, study of the Torksey metalwork assemblage has allowed the identification of the archaeological signature of the Viking Great Army, and when applied to Cottam, it confirms the identification of an initial phase of raiding by an element of the Army, followed shortly thereafter by settlement represented by the development of a hybrid Anglo-Scandinavian culture. Taken together, over 25 categories of non-ferrous artefacts are diagnostic of Viking or Anglo-Scandinavian activity in Northumbria. Applying this model to sites, largely known only from metal-detecting, we can observe a common pattern. At the majority of sites, a large and fairly standardised middle Anglo-Saxon finds assemblage is succeeded by just a few Viking finds, which we attribute to raiding following Halfdan’s return to Northumbria with part of the Great Army in AD 876. At a smaller number of sites, assemblages of Anglo-Scandinavian finds relate to the establishment of settlements by the new landowners. The overall picture is of major settlement disruption and dislocation of existing land holdings and populations in the late-9th century. This demonstrates, for the first time from archaeological evidence, the scale and impact of Viking activity in Northumbria.     

An archaeology of poverty: architectural innovation and pauper experience at Madeley Union Workhouse,Shropshire

Abstract

One of the world’s most important industrial heritage sites, Ironbridge Gorge has been the focus of numerous archaeological investigations into the area’s early, innovative industrialization. The region’s important contribution to the development of institutional architecture and early social care has not been explored. An archaeological study of Madeley Union Workhouse exposes the complexity of the evolving ideologies surrounding pauperism in the late 19th century. This article broadens our understanding of Ironbridge by analysing the region’s response to poverty and the New Poor Law, and considers the impact of institutional architecture on pauper identity and experience.