Toward the Historical Archaeology of Levuka, a South Pacific Port of Call

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Fijian port of Levuka alternately passed through incarnations as a beachcomber community, boisterous port of call, commercial entrepôt, and colonial capital. Initial investigations in this town in 2000 provide a data set through which archaeology's potential for a meaningful dialogue on Levuka's past can be explored. These data reflect upon an increasingly segregated European community structure, through which social transformations in alcohol use, landscape alterations, and material culture consumption patterns are examined.     

Archaeology on the Western Front: the Archaeology of Popular Myths

Abstract

The Sámi of today (the Lapps of yesteryear), currently divided from each other by the national boundaries of Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden, have been, at least in part, ‘defined’ in the past by archaeology and its practices. In creating and modifying identities believedto be appropriate to the 21^st century, the Sámi facemany problems similar to other ‘indigenous’ and minority groups in the world. These include struggles to repatriate human remains and objects of material culture, others concern the use of the archaeological evidence to determine longevity of tradition and land rights, and still others demonstrate the role of heritage in the definitions of ethnicity and even in tourist presentations of what the Sámi might become, or might have been, or currently are.     

Aviation Archaeology Offshore: The Recovery of a Rare Ju88 Aircraft Wreck during Work for the New London Gateway Port

Abstract

During dredging works for the new London Gateway Port in 2011, fragments of a German Ju 88 bomber were recovered from the Thames Estuary. Subsequent archaeological investigation by Wessex Archaeology, using geophysical survey and divers, resulted in the location of the wreck site and its subsequent recovery under licence in 2012. Post-recovery analysis has enabled it to be identified as a very rare prototype Ju 88T. The aircraft, flown by men of the secretive Luftwaffe special operations unit VOdL, was lost during a reconnaissance mission to record bomb damage at Chelmsford in 1943. The Norwegian fighter ace who shot it down, Marius Eriksen, subsequently achieved fame as a Norwegian skiing champion and actor. The recovery was unusual in that it was carried out as a staged archaeological investigation and in the context of offshore development, where ‘avoidance’ is the usual strategy.     

Memory as Archaeology: An Experience of Public Archaeology in the Atacama Desert

Conducting archaeological projects in areas inhabited by Indigenous Communities who dislike both excavations and archaeologists leads to an ethical conundrum, one requiring a reconsideration of the research methodologies utilized in these settings, and a turn toward Public Archaeology as a means to find alternative pathways. This article describes a research project conducted in the Indigenous Atacameño Community of Peine, in the Atacama Desert, Chile, where, through a principal methodology of Participatory Action Research, it became possible to explore the past of this community in ways that were both meaningful and valid for its members. The results drawn from this experience differ markedly from traditional archaeological approaches (i.e. excavations, analysis of material culture), both in terms of the nature of the knowledge recovered and the temporal depth achieved. In this particular instance, collective remembrance and embodied memory featured prominently in accounting for the past of Peine.     

Editorial: Railway Archaeology

Abstract

The following paper argues that archaeological analyses of communities of recent centuries can be as rewarding a means of understanding the past as the examination of the development of particular technologies.     

Maroon Archaeology Is Public Archaeology

Researchers of the contemporary past have sought to be instrumental in public dialogue about how artifacts speak to heritage matters relevant to living communities and decision-making polities (Emberling and Hanson, Catastophe!: the looting and destruction of Iraq’s past, 2008; Gibbon, Who owns the past?: cultural policy, cultural property, and the law, 2005; Mullins, Places in mind: public archaeology as applied anthropology, 2004; Renfrew, Loot, legitimacy and ownership: the ethical crisis in archaeology, 2000; Skeates, Debating the archaeological heritage, 2000). This approach has made archaeology a public endeavor that serves the needs of inquisitive researchers, as well as those groups of individuals whose lives may be directly affected by the excavation, analysis, and interpretation of archaeological remains. This paper will broadly assess how the archaeology of Maroons—tribal communities of runaway slave descendants—has affected the application of scholarly research in the former Dutch territory of Suriname, SA. The shift in relevance is due to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights 2007 judgment that allows Suriname Maroons to assert decision-making authority on matters of land management and development in ancestral and contemporary habitat. Vital to this endeavor is, Maroon involvement in archaeological research and more importantly, an overhaul in Surinamese antiquity laws.     

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.     

Aegean Prehistory as World Archaeology: Recent Trends in the Archaeology of Bronze Age Greece

This article surveys archaeological work of the last decade on the Greek Bronze Age, part of the broader discipline known as Aegean prehistory. Naturally, the literature is vast, so I focus on a set of topics that may be of general interest to non-Aegeanists: chronology, regional studies, the emergence and organization of archaic states, ritual and religion, and archaeological science. Greek Bronze Age archaeology rarely appears in the comparative archaeological literature; accordingly, in this article I place this work in the context of world archaeology, arguing for a reconsideration of the potential of Aegean archaeology to provide enlightening comparative material.     

World-Systems Analysis and Archaeology: Continuing the Dialogue

Many archaeologists have used world-systems analysis in precapitalist settings. Some have criticized it; others have dismissed it out of hand. Critiques include that it was developed for the “modern” world, that it is overly economistic, that it neglects individual actors, and that it inappropriately uses modern analyses in ancient settings. Although there is some validity to these charges when applied to Wallerstein’s original formulation, most are misdirected. The critiques are rooted in inattention to the last three decades of work on world-systems, especially modifications made with the explicit intention to make world-systems analysis useful in precapitalist settings. Newer comparative versions of world-systems analysis were initially developed to better understand the evolution of world-systems that gave rise to the modern world-system. These new advances are useful for the study of interregional interactions and long-term development. Archaeologists are well placed to contribute to the further development of world-systems analysis; they can shed light on ancient world-systemic processes and the origins of the modern world-system, provide empirical backing for hypotheses, and raise new theoretical and empirical questions.     

Archaeology without gravity: Postmodernism and the past

Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the past and the present have become commonplace: anthropologists now situate cultures in their historical contexts, while historians pursue particularistic ends within politicoeconomic or ideational structures. Archaeologists have cast their nets even more widely, not only toward anthropology and history, but to fields ranging from molecular biology to hermeneutics. Postmodernist approaches maintain that archaeologists should be looking at the past from multiple perspectives and listening to its multivocality. Archaeologists, in fact, not only develop different ways of understanding the past, but actually develop alternative pasts. This paper argues that multiple paths to alternative pasts enhance archaeological understanding and, at the same time, stimulate the development of archaeological theory.