Taken with a Grain of Salt: Experimentation and the Chemistry of Archaeological Ceramics from Xaltocan,Mexico

Neutron activation analysis (NAA) of ceramics from Xaltocan (n?=?651) displays high values for sodium and potassium and low concentrations of many transition metals and rare earth elements compared to other sites in the Basin of Mexico. Given that Xaltocan was situated on an island in the middle of a saline lake, the potential reasons for this chemical signature are diverse. On one hand, if the sodium and potassium were elevated due to some behavioral aspect of the potters, the Xaltocan chemical groups provide a glimpse at the behaviors of Xaltocan potters that permit more precise source designations. On the other hand, if this chemical fingerprint arose due to contamination in a saline post-depositional environment, the Xaltocan chemical groups would not be valid references for provenance studies. To evaluate these alternative hypotheses, we employ several lines of evidence: (1) comparison of the Xaltocan ceramics to over 5,000 NAA assays of clays and ceramics from the Basin of Mexico, (2) experimental doping of clays with water of different salinities and fired to different temperatures, (3) leaching experiments of archaeological pottery sherds (n?=?22) recovered from the site of Xaltocan, and (4) laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry of the clay and temper fraction of a small sample of Xaltocan ceramics to determine which component is responsible for the elevated sodium and potassium values. The results suggest that the high sodium and potassium values were present in the ceramic paste before firing. We then use these newly established reference groups to better understand the role of Xaltocan in the regional economy. The type of experimentation employed in this study has proven to be an important method for determining the behaviors of ancient potters and distinguishing them from post-depositional processes.     

豫东商丘考古调查与南亳问题

文献记载,商丘地区为汤都南亳所在地。本文根据对考古调查材料的分析,认为,邹衡先生从考古学角度否定南亳是有道理的,商汤亳都只有一处即郑州商城。     

A Reconsideration of Rwandan Archaeological Ceramics and their Political Significance in a Post-Genocide Era

This paper reviews Rwandan ceramic typologies and integrates these with recent regional ones through the consideration of four new ceramic assemblages dating to three distinct phases across the past 2,000 years. In addition to providing a synthesis of ceramic approaches as a research resource, it also suggests that ceramics previously termed type C might now better be understood as a transitional form of Urewe. In so doing, it both describes how previous accounts of Rwanda's archaeological ceramics reproduced a contested ethno-racial colonial construction of Rwandan society and suggests the replacement of these with non-ethno-racial explanations of material culture change proposed elsewhere for comparable circumstances in Great Lakes Africa. Finally, as the government seeks to reintroduce secondary school history teaching using archaeological narratives, it discusses the contemporary political significance of this and other research in post-genocide Rwanda, arguing that archaeology, whether framed in technical language or not, has contemporary political reference.     

河南安阳固岸墓地考古发掘收获

本文简要介绍了河南许昌灵井许昌人遗址2005～2008年田野考古的一系列新发现,并着重对与之有关的现代人类起源、石工具面貌、末次冰期时人类对环境的选择与适应和今后研究工作的着力点等,进行了简要概述和讨论.     

Problem Definition, Agenda Access, and Policy Choice

Problem definition is fundamental to public policy making, intertwined as it is with the political process throughout the activities of issue initiation, program design, and legislative enactment. Yet problem definition remains in immature analytic construct, productive of only a modest amount of scholarship that is lacking a coherent shared framework. Seeking to address this deficiency, this article systematically examines the origins, elements, and consequences of problem definition, relating this discussion to previous literature in the area, current policymaking developments, and future research needs.     

UNESCO, URI, and Archaeology in the Deep Blue Sea: Archaeological Ethics and Archaeological Oceanography

Multiple groups have interests that intersect within the field of deep submergence (beyond the 50 meter range of SCUBA) archaeology. These groups?? differing priorities present challenges for interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly as there are no established guidelines for best practices in such scenarios. Associating the term ??archaeology?? with projects directed at underwater cultural heritage that are guided by archaeologists poses a real risk to that heritage. Recognizing that the relevant professional organizations, local laws, and conventions currently have little ability to protect pieces of cultural heritage across disciplines and international boundaries, the authors propose institution-specific mechanisms, called Archaeology Review Boards, guided by local and international laws and conventions concerning cultural heritage, as the best means to provide oversight for academically centered archaeological activities at the local level.     

Engagement: Archaeological Design and Engineering

Practice, architectonics, the disposition of materials, instruments, people, the articulation of heterogeneous parts in an assemblage that performs transformative work: we can easily call this engineering—science in action. One of the main topics of this collection of papers is the design of archaeological knowledge. Taking a lead from these papers, let us ask how we might work with the richness of the past, creatively, respecting the qualities of materials and relationships. From these questions, I sketch a few components in the design of knowledge.     

Balancing the Elements: An Archaeological Story

In this piece of short fiction, readers will explore the experiences of four American archaeologists as they complete an archaeological excavation impacted by laws at the local (Massachusetts State) and national (federal USA) level. All four archaeologists are in various stages of their careers in archaeology and find themselves working together for the same privatized Cultural Resource Management (CRM) firm on an unexpectedly complex and sensitive site excavation. Here readers are urged to consider how archaeologists’ previous experiences (both personal and professional) impact site excavations, and how, in turn, each project leaves an impression on an archaeological professional moving forward. They are further invited to relate the experiences of the archaeologists in the story to their own—possibly very different—experiences. While site context is key at every excavation, is the human context equally relevant?     

No Compensation Needed: On Archaeology and the Archaeological

The archaeological is regularly perceived in negative terms as lacking and deficient. It is fragmented, static, and crude, a residue of past living societies. Accordingly, much of archaeologists’ efforts are directed toward the amendment of these flaws. The present paper, however, argues that these so-called deficiencies are in fact constitutive absences. Whatever the archaeological lacks, it lacks by definition. It thus follows that working to render the archaeological “complete” is in fact an effort to undo it, to convert it into something else. For the sake of discovering the past, archaeological practice is a sustained effort to rid itself of the very phenomenon that defines it, consequently setting in motion self-perpetuating circularity predicated on deficiency and compensation. The reason for this, it is suggested, is the otherness of the archaeological, being at one and the same time a cultural phenomenon and a fossil record, a social construct and a geological deposit. This condition is so baffling that it is approached by transforming it into something familiar. The paper argues that understanding the archaeological should be archaeology’s first priority. Insofar as it is also the study of the past, this should be predicated on the understanding of the archaeological present.     

Accurate Measurements of Low Z Elements in Sediments and Archaeological Ceramics Using Portable X-ray Fluorescence (PXRF)

This study seeks to demonstrate the ability of portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) to estimate concentrations of K, Ca, and Fe in sediments and archaeological ceramics under controlled conditions. After a discussion of the potential confounding factors in PXRF use, a protocol which attempts to address these issues through repeated measurement, calibration, and re-sampling is detailed. Data generated using this protocol are then tested for accuracy and repeatability. PXRF is argued to be able to produce accurate estimates of K provided the suggested protocol is used, and able to produce repeatable estimates of K and Ca under these same conditions. Other experimental conditions tested failed to produce accurate and repeatable results. Fe results are found to be problematic given the calibration standards used here.     

Teaching Archaeological Pasts in South Africa: Historical and Contemporary Considerations of Archaeological Education

This paper discusses the history and trending of archaeological education in South Africa, a set of frameworks wherein primary and secondary level students instrumentalize archaeology to investigate and debate their pasts. Archaeological education has existed thus far as a conversation among archaeologists and a footnote in the national curriculum. I present the first cohesive treatment of these projects. I examine attendant conflicts and obstacles, drawn partly from my involvement in two South African projects but illustrating issues that I believe have global resonance. I submit that archaeological education entails engagements that hold serious ramifications for archaeological ethics, practice, and epistemology.