In Search of the Social: Steamboats, Square Wheels, Reindeer and Other Things

This paper examines the concept of the ‘social,’ particularly from an archaeological perspective, and explores how it relates to the ways in which we seek to understand the processes of technological innovation and change. It is demonstrated that the concept ‘social’ is far from well defined and that enquiry is bedevilled by artificial polarization between subject-centred approaches and object-centred particularism. Through the medium of early United States steamboat technology a different approach is forged through the melding of people and things with the idea of viewing artefacts as active social actors along with people. Ultimately, it is argued that maritime archaeologists should be more bullish in their approaches to material things—instead of adopting social theories ‘wholesale,’ we should insist that they include the things we study: boats, material objects, people, artefacts, landscapes and animals.     

Direct chronometry (14C AMS) of the earliest copper metallurgy in the Guadalquivir Basin (Spain) during the Third millennium BC: first regional database

The characterisation of copper metallurgy in the Third millennium BC in the Southeast of the Iberian Peninsula as a simple and technological process on a domestic scale was the central axis that sustained a belated, underdeveloped appreciation for the Prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula and Western Europe dependent on the origin of social complexities. Nevertheless, this characterisation was incomplete since it was based more on the contexts of consumption than those of production and in territories used for agricultural rather than for mining purposes. Above all, however, it was incomplete because it lacked a precise spatial and temporal framework that evaluated the variability of the behaviours it articulated.To overcome these deficiencies, we have developed a systematic programme of interdisciplinary research aimed at documenting and dating, through the use of ¹⁴C AMS, the direct contexts of copper production of eight settlements that cover the populational variability (from 300 to 0.25 ha of surface area), chronology (between c. 3000 BC and c. 2000 BC), economic (settlements dedicated to mining, agriculture, etc.) and territorial along the axis of the backbone of the most fertile soils and primary (main) supplies of copper in the Iberian Peninsula: the Guadalquivir Basin.Results consist of the first systematic database, with sixty-six precise, direct radiocarbon dating of the metallurgical production of copper during the Third millennium BC, in the Iberian Peninsula and Western Europe. At the same time, it presents a variability of contexts (e.g. household, workshop, partial-time, full-time, factory, smelting quarter, etc.), in both time and space, affording a precise evaluation of social and territorial variability of behaviours that the production of copper shows us, a new historical explanation and the link between this and the development of social complexity.     

Production and Consumption of Copper-base Metals in the Indus Civilization

We review the existing data sets for the production and consumption of copper-base objects at Indus sites, outline a working typology for metal objects, and provide new data from on-going analytical work on the copper assemblage from Harappa. The role of metals in the economic and social networks of the Indus tradition is examined in terms of patterns of use and technological style. We note that Indus metalsmiths apparently relied more on procurement of metal ingots or scrap than on primary ingot production through smelting, which would have affected other aspects of Indus metallurgy. Object production did not involve elaborate forms, but may have involved complex alloying. Finally, we conclude that there is no evidence for elite control of metal production, and that access to metals was relatively widespread.     

Environmental change,agricultural innovation,and the spread of cotton agriculture in the Old World

Recent excavations at the site of Kara-tepe in northwestern Uzbekistan revealed evidence for the production of cotton (Gossypium sp.) in domestic contexts dated to ca. 300–500 AD. These archaeobotanical remains help to document the spread of Old World cotton production, and predate the existing evidence for its cultivation in Central Asia. The context in which these remains were found—in temperate Eurasia at a time of intense environmental and social change—suggests that the spread of cotton agriculture to this region occurred when new plant varieties were incorporated into domestic production regimes as part of local adaptive strategies. The development and transmission of cotton as a global cultigen was initiated by these small-scale innovations aimed at the expansion of economically and environmentally sustainable subsistence practices in Central Asia. Subsequent worldwide transmission occurred when emerging empires helped to spread cotton agriculture more widely across the Old World.     

Ethnoarchaeology and the Organization of Lithic Technology

Although the modern production and use of stone tools is rare, ethnoarchaeological research on this subject has provided important perspectives on methodological approaches to archaeological lithic analysis. Recent ethnoarchaeological research on lithics frequently takes the form of “cautionary tales,” warning against the primacy of functional variables most commonly invoked by lithic analysts. I argue that lithic ethnoarchaeology would benefit from a comparative organizational framework for explaining variation in patterns of stone tool use that takes into account the predictability and redundancy of the location and timing of technological activities. Understanding the underlying causes of modern patterns of stone tool use, in turn, offers a framework for exploring sources of lithic technological variation in the archaeological record. I also argue that technological analytical perspectives, such as the cha?ne opératoire and sequence of reduction approaches, can benefit from the insights gained through lithic ethnoarchaeological research, helping us define important analytical concepts and identify appropriate units of analysis.     

Recent Trends in Theorizing Prehispanic Mesoamerican Economies

Theoretical frames for modeling prehispanic Mesoamerican economies have been informed mostly by political economy or agency approaches. Political economy models examine the ways in which power is constructed and exercised through the manipulation of material transfers, mainly production and distribution. Research along these lines emphasizes regional redistribution, wealth and staple finance, debt and reciprocity, and regional integration through core/periphery relations. Agency models, on the other hand, explore the social aspects of manufacture, circulation, and consumption to infer the processes by which power is negotiated and contested. Work using this framework focuses on the manner by which meaning and value are assigned to, and become fixed in, social valuables, as well as the moral and emotional dimensions of allocation and consumption. Political economy and agency approaches are converging in Mesoamerican research to forge a new, hybrid theoretical construct, “ritual economy,” which strikes a balance between formalist and substantivist views by considering the ways that belief systems articulate with economic systems in the management of meanings and the shaping of interpretations.     

Consumption,Environmental Sustainability and Human Geography in Australia: a Missing Research Agenda?

‘Consumption’ is a central concept in the global environmental sustainability agenda. However, one important argument from Agenda 21 — that all social actors must now practise ‘sustainable consumption’— has been publicly and politically marginalised in high‐income countries such as Australia. Geographers potentially have a role in bringing consumption back onto the agenda by constructing a critical geography of consumption. Such research can help understand how the contextual use of natural resources is perceived and practised, and how consumption helps to shape contemporary social relations. This body of knowledge is vital for building sustainable development into everyday lives. Yet a focus on urban consumption perceptions and practices appears somewhat lacking in Australian geography. Ways forward can be drawn from international geography, such as in the United Kingdom where a substantial body of work has drawn a complex picture of contemporary consumption and environmental understanding. It has also challenged prevailing ‘ecological modernisation’ policy approaches, which ignore consumption's cultural facets. In sum, considering consumption in Australia can offer insights into cultural practices expressed through consumption; can challenge and add to European geographical literatures, and can also contribute to sustainability debates by offering alternatives to currently ineffective policy discourses.     

The Role of Functional Efficiency in the Decline of North America’s Copper Culture (8000–3000 BP): an Experimental,Ecological, and Evolutionary Approach

The copper-using cultures of North America’s Archaic Period (10,000–3000 BP) have long been an archaeological enigma. For millennia, Middle and Late Archaic hunter-gatherers (8000–3000 BP) around the Upper Great Lakes region made utilitarian implements out of copper, only for these items to decline in prominence and frequency as populations grew and social complexity increased during the Archaic to Woodland Transition. From a cultural evolutionary perspective, the trajectory of North America’s copper usage presents a conundrum, as it is generally assumed that “superior” tools, i.e., metals, will replace inferior ones, i.e., stone. For well over a century, scholars have pondered the reason for the demise of copper technology that was once a wide-spread phenomenon. To address this question, an extensive archaeological experimental program was conducted which compared replica copper tools (spear points, knife blades, and awls) to analogous ones made of stone or bone to assess whether relative functional efficiency contributed to the decline of utilitarian copper implements. Here, the results of this three-part research program are presented in concert with population dynamics and ecological change to paint a broader picture of the complex interrelationships between the social, ecological, and technological spheres of past human behaviors. The synthesis of these approaches reveals that functional explanations—derived from experimental archaeology placed in an evolutionary framework—can shed much light on the trajectory of metal use in the North American Great Lakes.

     

The mead-hall community

The paper provides background context to the Anglo-Saxon concept of the ‘mead-hall’, the role of conspicuous consumption in early medieval society and the use of commensality to strengthen horizontal and vertical social bonds. Taking as its primary starting point the evidence of the Old English verse tradition, supported by linguistic and archaeological evidence and contemporary comparative material, the paper draws together contemporaneous and modern insights into the nature of feasting as a social medium. The roles of the ‘lord’ and ‘lady’ as community leaders are examined, with particular regard to their position at the epicentre of radiating social relationships. Finally, the inverse importance of the mead-hall as a declining social institution and a developing literary construct is addressed.     

Archaeology in the World of Display: A Material Study of the Use of History in the Stockholm Exhibition of 1897

History was an important notion in constructing an industrial capitalist society in the nineteenth century. This article deals with the manifest use of history at the Stockholm Exhibition of 1897. At this exhibition, history was ubiquitous and was most fully expressed in the model of medieval and Renaissance Stockholm called “Old Stockholm.” The history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century exhibitions in general has been thoroughly studied in the field of humanities. However, the specific use of history and space has not attracted much interest. This analysis of the model of Old Stockholm is of the first archaeological study of remains of the great exhibitions ever to have been done. Even though the “Old Stockholm” pavilion was exceedingly popular in the summer of 1897, only very scarce documentation has survived. An archaeological excavation of parts of the temporary historical models, such as the “Hospital of the Holy Spirit,” showed convincing evidence of the hegemonic position which the use of history enjoyed at the exhibition and in the nineteenth century.     

The dregs of trembling, the draught of salvation: the dual symbolism of the cup in medieval literature

This article examines the symbolism of the cup in Old English poetry and Old French romance. It argues that the dual symbolism of the cup in the Bible, both the cask of divine wrath and the vessel of mercy, invested the image with a particular dichotomy that was inherited by its metaphoric social functions in the literature of the middle ages. In Old English literature, the cup became a metonym for the contract for lord and thane, the conviviality and treasure exchange that united the mead-hall community. But never far beneath the surface is the fact that this contract requires the thane to die, and this unspoken yet unavoidable truth is writ large in the contagious imagery and vocabulary of the cup. In Old French romance, dichotomy crystallises into binary. The association of the cup of the Last Supper with Joseph of Arimathea, and the development of the Grail legend, made the service of the cup an exclusive loyalty, at the expense of social obligation, and its exigencies are made absolute and immediate. This article offers parallel readings of the same biblical metaphor in different literary cultures and a detailed analysis of a symbol that stands simultaneously for the positive image and its reversal, opposites that are mutually contingent: the community’s desire for unity and preservation and its concomitant fear of disintegration and death.     

The Bioarchaeological Investigation of Childhood and Social Age: Problems and Prospects

Recently, the value of the study of children and childhood from archaeological contexts has become more recognized. Childhood is both a biological and a social phenomenon. However, because of specialization in research fields within anthropology, subadults from the archaeological record are usually studied from the biological perspective (bioarchaeology) or, more predominantly, the social perspective (social archaeology), with little research that incorporates both approaches. These polarized approaches to childhood and age highlight the dualistic way in which “biological” and “social” aspects of the body are viewed. Some recent literature criticizes bioarchaeological approaches, and calls for the incorporation of childhood social theory, including social age categories, into subadult health analysis. However, few studies have explicitly addressed the practicalities or theoretical issues that need to be considered when attempting this. This paper critically examines these issues, including terminology used for defining subadulthood and age divisions within it, and approaches to identify “social age” in past populations. The important contribution that bioarchaeology can make to the study of social aspects of childhood is outlined. Recent theoretical approaches for understanding the body offer exciting opportunities to incorporate skeletal remains into research, and develop a more biologically and socially integrated understanding of childhood and age.

Fuel Efficiency of Ancient Copper Alloys: Theoretical Melting Thermodynamics of Copper,Tin and Arsenical Copper and Timber Conservation in the Bronze Age Levant*

The melting of pure or alloyed copper, tin and arsenical copper ingots or recycled objects was a drain on the timber and dung fuel resources of many cultures. This paper suggests formulae grounded in thermodynamic principles in an attempt to estimate the energy requirements necessary to melt copper alloys common to both Old and New World cultures, with the goal of identifying consumption and conservation patterns. It has been suggested that tin bronze metallurgy was first adopted in the Levant during the Early Bronze Age (EB) IV, at the onset of the Late Holocene climate episode (c.2300–2000 bc ), becoming the most desired alloy by the Middle Bronze Age (MB) II (2000–1530 bc ) due to the ease of melting tin. To test this hypothesis, the formulae are applied here to all published Levantine EB IV – MB II copper alloys. Fuel conservation rates are proposed based on the thermodynamic formulae. Tin bronze is demonstrably more fuel efficient than pure copper. Due to the inherent difficulties in predicting the behaviour of arsenical copper compounds, it is suggested that melting experiments with representative alloys are conducted to further test and refine these energy relationships.     

Healthy for Family Life: Television, Masculinity, and Domestic Modernity during West Germany's Miracle Years

This article uses the history of West German television as alens to analyse the politics of consumption and domestic modernityduring the ‘economic miracle’ in the 1950s and early1960s. Politicians, academics, broadcast executives, industrypromoters, clerical leaders, and cultural critics engaged ina ferocious debate about the effects of the new mass media onWest German society and family. While some championed the democratizingand modernizing effects of television, others decried its supposedlytotalitarian and ‘feminizing’ qualities; their arguments,pro and con, marked a foundational moment in contemporary culturalcriticism that continues to resonate. Installed in the familyhome, television accelerated the arrival of a highly commodifiedsociety and transformed the private habits of everyday life.Men in particular began to spend more leisure time on domesticpursuits, crossing traditional boundaries between public andprivate gender roles. Such private practices had larger effects:buying, watching, and thinking through television helped replacetraditionalist social conservatism with its neoliberal variantand linked West Germany into the social, political, and culturalstructures of corporate capitalism and western consumer society.     

Prehistoric copper production and technological reproduction in the Khao Wong Prachan Valley of Central Thailand

This paper concerns the identification and explanation of change in prehistoric extractive metallurgical behaviour in the Iron Age Khao Wong Prachan Valley of central Thailand. This metallurgical complex is amongst the largest in Eurasia and constitutes Southeast Asia's only documented pre-modern copper-smelting evidence. The two Iron Age smelting sites investigated, Non Pa Wai (NPW) and Nil Kham Haeng (NKH), provide a sequence of metallurgical consumption and production evidence from c. 500 BCE to c. 500 CE. The enormous quantity of industrial waste at these sites suggests they were probably major copper supply nodes within ancient Southeast Asian metal exchange networks. Seventy-six excavated samples of mineral, technical ceramic and slag from NPW and NKH were analysed in hand specimen, microstructurally by reflected-light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy and chemically by polarising energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. The analytical data were used to generate detailed technological reconstructions of copper-smelting behaviour at the two sites, which were refined by a programme of field experimentation. Results indicate an approximately 1,000-year trend of Valley copper smelters' improving technical proficiency from what may be an experimental phase of production in the mid-first millennium BCE. This amelioration in production was accompanied by a substantial increase in the human effort of copper extraction. This shift in local ‘metallurgical ethos’ is interpreted as a response to rising regional demand for copper in late prehistory.     

Ecomyopia in the Anthropocene

The authors apply longue durée and semiotic approaches to a case study of flood management in the American Midwest to critique the suggestion that naming the current geological epoch the ‘Anthropocene’ might encourage global environmental sustainability. It is unlikely that the Anthropocene moniker has the symbolic power to correct ecomyopia, which the authors define as the tendency to not recognize, to ignore, or fail to act on new information that contradicts political arrangements, social norms, or world views. Anthropogenic transformation of the Mississippi River watershed shifted world views toward the human domination of nature and afforded opportunities for social stratification and the consolidation of capital and control over resources, which has biased social responses to increasing flooding. Globally, biological systems have been replaced with technological systems of increasing complexity creating canalized trajectories of practice and thought in which societies become insulated from ecological realities. The global capitalist response to the Anthropocene will likely be to embrace technological hubris.     

Contesting Digital Futures: Urban Politics,Alternative Economies,and the Movement for Technological Sovereignty in Barcelona

Scholars have offered important critiques of the socio-spatial processes of contemporary technological development, including the rise of “smart city” urban development models. While these critiques have been essential for understanding contemporary forms of techno-capitalism and their reach into new areas, this paper calls for a consideration of alternative modes of digital development in urban life beyond the logics of securitisation and capital accumulation. In particular, I examine the critical discourses and experimental practices of a grassroots movement focused on claiming “technological sovereignty” (TS) in Barcelona. The TS movement is a broad, de-centralised network of cooperatives, associations, and community initiatives experimenting with alternative practices of locally rooted, open-source digital development. These groups explore democratic and cooperative practices of work, property, production, and consumption in relation to digital technology, based around an ethics of care and a commitment to working through and within local communities. In examining the values, beliefs, and practices of the TS movement, I bring ongoing discussions around digitalisation and the “smart city” into critical conversation with the extensive literature on prefigurative urban politics and postcapitalist economies.     

Early Metal in South India: Copper and Iron in Megalithic Contexts

In South India early metal artifacts, usually associated with megalithic sites, include both copper and iron. Although in some cases copper artifacts predate those made of iron, there is no evidence of an extensive metallurgical tradition based on copper and its alloys. Typological studies have had limited success in explaining the megalithic sites and the production and consumption of metal, while other approaches have not explicitly addressed the social contexts of metal production. While there emerge some suggestive patterns from the archaeometallurgical evidence to date, understanding the role of metal production and consumption in megalithic contexts means reevaluating traditional paradigms about the nature of these sites and about how metal technologies develop.     

The Production and Display of Domestic Interiors in Wilhelmine Germany, 1900-1914

In the opening years of the twentieth century, the German homeassumed new cultural meanings and symbolic significance as asite of economic, political, artistic, and social intervention.This article investigates a range of Wilhelmine institutions—fromthe Wertheim department store and the Prussian Commerce Ministry,to the Applied Arts Movement and the Movement for Art Education—toillustrate the variety of German approaches to promoting newconceptions of the home. Examining the ways in which Wilhelmineprivate and state reformers turned the topic of how one livedand dwelled into a topic of pressing significance, the articleargues that private, commercial efforts and state-driven policyinitiatives interpenetrated to a degree previously underappreciatedin Wilhelmine historical studies. These private and state initiativeswere, in turn, closely tied to the cultivation of German consumeridentities, and to larger efforts on the part of Wilhelmineinstitutions to adapt to the dizzying conditions of twentieth-centurycapitalist modernity. As a result of these developments, specialexhibitions of artistic home interiors originated in premierGerman department stores as well as in the halls of the statebureaucracy; historical ornaments termed ‘modern’in one decade were denigrated as barbaric in another; and generationsof craftsmen battled one another for a legitimacy conferred,to a significant degree, by private commissions, generous statesubsidies, and admission into prestigious exhibitions.     

Down Little Lon: An Introduction to the Casselden Place Archaeological Excavations, Melbourne

In 2002 Melbourne’s Casselden Place excavation provided a window into the urban past opened by an innovative relationship between the development industry, heritage consultancy and La Trobe University. The project demonstrated that with the support of consent authorities and the co-operation of the development industry, collaborations between the academic world and heritage consultants could be highly successful. The Casselden Place Project made a significant contribution to the ‘slum debate’ in Australia and delivered an enhanced understanding of the cultural, social and scientific significance of an inner-city block, and shed new light on a notorious chapter in the city’s history.