Prehistoric sites in the lærdal basin. A theoretical and practical approach to the archaeological analysis of a non‐tool lithic material

A major Norwegian archaeological work will be presented in each number of NAR. The author's summary will be followed by comments from invited specialists who have studied similar problems to those treated in the publication in question. Arne Johansen's study of a Stone Age material from the Norwegian mountains (H?yf jellsfunn ved Lærdalsvassdraget I. Den teoretiskc bakgrunn og det f?rste analysefors?k) was chosen as the subject of discussion in this issue of NAR. Comments are written by Carl Cullberg, Svein Indrelid, Knut Odner, Povl Simonsen and Stig Welinder. Arne Johansen's reply closes the discussion.     

Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis of hunter–gatherers from the Coleman site,a Late Prehistoric cemetery in Central Texas

We report on a stable isotopic analysis of 17 hunter–gatherer burials from the Coleman site (41BX568), a Late Prehistoric Toyah Interval (700–350 years BP) occupation in Texas. Prior to our analysis, isotopic research on Toyah populations in Central Texas was represented by a single burial at site 41BX677. That burial showed an isotopic pattern suggestive of a diet heavily focused on CAM/C₄ plants and C₄ fauna. Coleman burials show a different pattern. While interpretations are complicated by high variability in the isotopic signatures of children and by differences in male and female diets possibly related to mate exchange, the 11 adult and adolescent burials at Coleman show a diet focused on C₃ fauna and the use of both C₃ and CAM/C₄ plants. The moderate CAM/C₄ plant use is a radical departure from a trend of increasing C₃ plant use that characterized hunter–gatherers in this region for at least 6200 years prior to the start of the Toyah Interval. Protein sources among Coleman adults probably centered on deer, but also included high nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) animals, such as fish. Males seem to have differential access to these high nitrogen sources. Two different isotopic patterns, one reflecting a focus on C₃ fauna and moderate use of CAM/C₄ plants, and a second reflecting C₄ fauna and extensive use of CAM/C₄ plants, are represented during Toyah. While interpretations are complicated by small sample sizes, these two patterns could simply reflect temporal differences, different acquisition strategies based on availability, or hint at different subsistence strategies. It may also be the case that the 41BX677 individual represents an immigrant into the Central Texas region, one with a different isotopic history.     

Settlement Patterns, Source–Sink Dynamics, and Artiodactyl Hunting in the Prehistoric U.S. Southwest

Numerous studies in the US Southwest suggest that prehistoric artiodactyl populations in areas of dense human settlement experienced population reductions which substantially reduced their availability to human hunters. Although most assemblages from villages in this region are dominated by lagomorphs, some settlements maintained greater access to artiodactyls. Factors influencing this variability include both local settlement history and settlement location relative to productive source areas for large game. In our study areas, source–sink dynamics likely contributed to the long-term resilience of hunted artiodactyl populations and allowed villagers continued access to animals moving in from source areas despite relatively rapid game depletion in heavily hunted areas immediately around villages.     

Comecon and the South in the years of détente: a study on East–South economic relations

The article deals with the economic relations of the socialist bloc with less-developed countries in the 1960s and 1970s. It focuses on the economic policies envisaged by technocrats and policy-makers in the Comecon's Commission for technical assistance. It argues that the original formula based on autarky, whereby socialist aid aimed at building a clear alternative to the West and less-developed countries were advised to introduce Soviet-style planning, nationalisation and industrialisation, was progressively abandoned during détente. Doubts on the appropriateness of the Soviet model emerged, especially in Eastern European governments. Trade became increasingly crucial and the strategy of promoting an international division of labour based on mutual advantage turned into an obsession with importing strategic raw materials. In the mid-1970s, despite the official socialist view, the East pursued ‘realist’ policies that made sense in terms of economics rather than ideology. The myth of socialist modernity as a variant of industrial modernity had definitely collapsed, and socialist countries' participation in the Western-dominated world economy became a necessity. Eventually, the developing world became the place where a joint East–West co-operation could take place, often in the framework of the so-called trilateral co-operation, where Western Europe had a special role.     

Settlement Form and Evolution in the Central Highlands of Scotland,ca. 1100–1900

Since 1996, archaeologists from Glasgow University have been involved in a research project on the north shores of Loch Tay in the Central Highlands of Scotland. This work—known as the Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project—was specifically focused on medieval and later settlement remains. For the purposes of this paper, the results of the archaeological work are contrasted with work from similar sites elsewhere in Scotland. The sweeping changes in tenurial, social and cultural spheres, known as the Improvements, of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are considered in relation to the preceding six hundred years.     

Copper worlds: a historical archaeology of Abraham and Jakob Momma-Reenstierna and their industrial enterprise in the Torne River Valley,c. 1650–1680

This article analyses the industrial enterprise of the Dutch-born brothers Abraham and Jakob Momma-Reenstierna and their investments in Sápmi and the upper parts of the Torne River Valley, northern Sweden, during the second half of the seventeenth century. The aim is to explore the driving forces behind the industrial projects of the two brothers in a larger global and colonial context. With inspiration from recent critical studies on the simplifications, and Eurocentrism, in earlier understandings of the birth of modernity, we focus on the modernizing processes taking place in the upper part of the Torne River Valley as a meeting zone between local populations and landscapes and external capital. Metal extraction was booming in the seventeenth-century Sámi areas. Both the Danish-Norwegian and the Swedish Crowns invested heavily in the mining of silver, copper and iron. The scientific focus in archaeology and history has hitherto been very much on the state-governed projects, and limited interest has been directed towards the private enterprises. Moreover, there is also a need to study the roles of the local Finnish and Sámi populations, as well as the global connections, in these colonial industrial projects.     

Open-area excavations at the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village,South Dakota (A.D. 1000–1150): New interpretations of site function from interdwelling areas

Abstract

Excavations at the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village (A.D. 1000–1150), an Initial Middle Missouri period Plains earthen lodge village site in eastern South Dakota, revealed new data regarding the lifeways and cultural systems of its prehistoric inhabitants. While extensive excavations had been conducted at the site and at a large number of other Middle Missouri sites prior to the present project, our open-area approach revealed new and significantly different information. New features in the areas between the dwellings were uncovered, features that are rarely studied in the context of the Middle Missouri cultural tradition. Other finds included Mississippian-influenced ceramics, Avonlea projectile points, and ceremonial goods that indicate long-distance cultural interaction. The discovery of large, complex features in the interdwelling areas of the site changes our understanding of Middle Missouri lifeways and settlement structure.     

The technology of tin smelting in the Rooiberg Valley,Limpopo Province,South Africa,ca. 1650–1850 CE

A substantial indigenous tin-smelting industry arose in the Rooiberg valley of northern South Africa in the second millennium CE. This study concentrates upon tin-smelting slags and refractory ceramics from two archaeological sites that date between ca. 1650 CE and ca. 1850 CE. These were studied by optical and electron microscopy, wavelength-dispersive x-ray fluorescence (WD-XRF), inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), and electron microprobe (EMPA). The slags are predominantly glassy; high SnO and relatively low SiO₂ contents indicate that tin is a major glass-forming element. Comparison of slag chemistries with the mineralogy of ore deposits and host rocks shows that alluvial cassiterite was used at one of the sites, while cassiterite from hard-rock mining was smelted at the other site. Since few preindustrial tin slags have been studied, we compare our findings to other published examples, mostly from southwest England.     

Impersonating a Voter: Constructions of Race,and Conceptions of Subjecthood in the Franchise of Colonial New South Wales,c. 1850–1865

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the treatment of Aboriginal Australians as politically entitled subjects within New South Wales during that colony's first elections under ‘universal’ male suffrage. Using the case of Yellow Jimmy, a ‘half-caste’ resident prosecuted for impersonating a white settler at an election in 1859, it examines the uncertainties that surrounded Aboriginal Australians’ position as British subjects within the colony's first constitutions. By contrast to the early colonial franchises of New Zealand and the Cape – where questions of indigenous residents’ access to enfranchisement dominated discussions of the colonies’ early constitutions – in the rare instances in which indigenous men claimed their right to vote in New South Wales, local officials used their own discretion in determining whether they held the political entitlements of British subjects. This formed a continuity with the earlier treatment of Aboriginal Australians under settler law, where British authority and imperial jurisdiction was often advanced ‘on-the-ground’ via jurists and administrators rather than via the statutes or orders of Parliament or the Colonial Office.     

Paria la Viexa and an expanding empire: Provincial centers in the political economy of the Inka Empire (a.d. 1440–1532)

Abstract

The fastest growing and largest territorial empire of the Americas was the Inka Empire. At the time of its emergence in the 14th century, the empire lacked an urban network, a developed division of labor, a sophisticated craft industry, and an exchange network like that of most pre-industrial states. The emerging Inka state had to create the social and economic institutions that would ensure its growth and long-term operation. Data from Paria la Viexa, an Inka provincial center in Bolivia, illustrates how the Inka Empire created the necessary conditions for its expansion and operation through a network of provincial centers it had called to life.     

British Merchants in New Markets: The Case of Wylie and Hancock in Brazil and the River Plate,c. 1808–19

In 1808, after the Portuguese royal family was forced to leave Portugal and move to Brazil, Brazilian ports were opened to British merchant houses, which were quick to open offices in the likes of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro. By 1810 there were probably over 200 British merchant houses operating in Brazil, but we know very little about them because most of their historical records have not survived. In addition, scholars have assumed that, on account of the dominant British economic power, the establishment of new mercantile houses in South America c. 1808–19 was an easy task. This assumption is challenged in this paper, which sheds new light on the activities of one of these British merchant houses, making use of a recently discovered business collection concerned with the activities of Wylie & Hancock, a Scottish house which operated in Brazil and the River Plate from 1808 to 1819. These papers also provide a unique insight into neglected topics such as: the nature of managerial mercantile organisations; what the economic actors at the time actually did and thought; and how strategic and tactical choices were reached.     

Characterizing the rural landscape during the Iron Age and Roman period (ca. 1200 b.c.–a.d. 400): An intensive survey of Wadi al-Feidh,southern Jordan

Abstract

Archaeological surveys in the southern Levant have traditionally focused on areas with favorable climates and flat terrain where large urban sites are found, corresponding with a research focus on social complexity and state formation. Fewer surveys have explored the rocky, difficult-to-reach areas where large-scale agriculture was rare. This article uses survey data from the 2009 survey of Wadi al-Feidh, southern Jordan, to demonstrate the importance of exploring these environmentally marginal areas. Employing an intensive survey methodology, we recorded a range of sites and features previously unrecognized in this region. These findings suggest that subsistence patterns shifted from small-scale, mixed agro-pastoralism in the Iron Age (1200–586 b.c.) to a more intensive, top-down strategy of agricultural production by the Roman period (ca. 100 b.c.–a.d. 400). The results provide new insight into regional socioeconomic change in the southern Levant from the perspective of peripheral communities.     

Migration and mobility at the Late Lapita site of Reber–Rakival (SAC), Watom Island using isotope and trace element analysis: a new insight into Lapita interaction in the Bismarck Archipelago

This paper uses strontium isotope (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr), oxygen isotope (δ¹⁸O) and Ba/Sr trace element data in archaeological tooth enamel samples to investigate migration and mobility at the Late Lapita site of SAC, Watom Island in the Bismarck Archipelago. Previous archaeological models have identified Lapita mobility at a community level using obsidian distribution patterns and changes in ceramic design, whereas isotope and trace element data can potentially reconstruct prehistoric mobility on an individual level. Human and pig teeth were sampled from SAC and a selection of human teeth were included from the Late–Post Lapita site of Lifafaesing, Tanga Islands as a geographic/geological comparison.The results indicate that there is a large amount of isotopic variation in the Bismarck Archipelago which is useful for identifying non-local individuals and possibly determining their origins. One human individual and several pigs were suggested as coming from elsewhere in the region. Three potentially separate locations were identified for the non-local pigs. It is argued, using the data from SAC, that Late Lapita communities in the Bismarck Archipelago were more mobile than previously assumed. The potential for identifying individual migrants in a Lapita context are discussed in terms of assessing the more subtle aspects of Lapita society in the Southwest Pacific Islands.     

Spinners and weavers of auffay. Rural industry and the sexual division of labour in a French village, 1750–1850

German scholars of Jewish origin who were students of Martin Heidegger in the 1920s and 1930s are frequently criticized for their supposed postwar refusal to ‘disavow earlier liaisons with Heidegger.’ These scholars are thus indicted for being fundamentally anti-liberal or apolitical, and for those reasons dangerous disciples of Heidegger. By examining the works of Karl Löwith and Hans Jonas, two of Heidegger's influential former students, the following paper presents a more nuanced reading of the relationship between master and disciples, namely that Jonas and Löwith operate with Heidegger's philosophical grammar in order to turn against Heidegger, philosophically and politically. Within this framework, the article fleshes out the crucial importance of theology to the understanding of Jonas’ and Löwith's philosophical critique of Heidegger's thought. Following this theological turn, the paper demonstrates the complexity of Jonas’ and Löwith's postwar approach, that is an anti-Heideggerian ethical and political quest which is anchored nonetheless in Heidegger's philosophy. As such, Jonas’ and Löwith's political projects demonstrate the manner in which Heideggerian categories are not exhausted by Heidegger's own political interpretation; they grippingly denotes the aptitude to steer Heideggerian philosophy towards new ethical and political shores.     

Fortified Homesteads: The Architecture of Fear in Frontier South Australia and the Northern Territory,ca. 1847–1885

Abstract

This paper investigates the use of defensive architectural techniques by civilian settlers in frontier South Australia and the Northern Territory between ca. 1847 and 1885. Four sites were analysed, three of which are located in South Australia and one in the Northern Territory. This study takes a new approach to the archaeological investigation and interpretation of Australian rural buildings, one that identifies defensive strategies as a feature of Australian frontier architecture. These structures represent physical manifestations of settler fear and Aboriginal resistance. Over time, however, the folk stories attached to these structures have also come to play a significant part in Australia's frontier mythology. They are shown to form one component of a wider body of myths which serve the ideological needs of the settler society, justifying its presence by portraying the settlers as victims of Aboriginal aggression.