Hohokam Residential Organization at Kearny,Arizona

Abstract

A Hohokam Sacaton phase (A.D. 950–1100) courtyard group excavated at Kearny along the Gila River in central Arizona (designated AZ V: 13:201[ASM]) consists of seven houses and associated features. The features, material culture, chronology, subsistence, growth sequence, activity structure, group size, and formation and abandonment processes of this courtyard group are discussed. The findings reinforce the interpretation that courtyard groups were fundamental features of Hohokam society and were a common form of residential organization across the region. The study highlights the value of spatial studies in the analysis of archaeological sites.     

Evidence of Prehistoric Scalping at Vosberg,Central Arizona

Four crania recovered during the 1970 Arizona State University field school season at a prehistoric site in Vosberg, Arizona show parallel clusters of cut marks characteristic of scalping with a stone knife. These victims were identified during a general survey of the Vosberg skeletons for evidence of trauma and pathology. The discovery of these four victims in the same atypical burial context provides clues to the nature of the scalping custom in the American Southwest prior to European contact and brings the total number of prehistoric scalping victims reported from the Southwest to 15 individuals. Perimortem depressed fractures in two of the crania, and the presence of a stone arrow point within the chest of one of the skeletons, indicates that the scalping of these individuals was the result of violence rather than medicinal or ritual treatment.     

Paleoenvironmental reconstruction at Canyon del Muerto,Arizona, based on principal-component analysis

A multivariate statistical technique, principal-component analysis, is used to interpret pollen assemblages from archaeological context in terms of paleoenvironmental information. The pollen samples originate from an archaeological site in northeastern Arizona (Canyon del Muerto) covering the period between AD 700 and AD 1300. Through the use of principal-component analysis the percentage constraint in the pollen counts is removed and the data set effectively reduced to groups of co-varying taxa. Once these groups are ecologically defined as to the environment they represent, their changes of dominance through time can be analysed. This study has shown a correlation between a population expansion in Canyon del Muerto (AD 1050–1150) and the dominance of upland forest types suggesting slightly cooler and/or wetter conditions. The pollen data compare well with the tree-ring indices for this region. Local disturbance is reflected in the record during the period of greatest population. A shift to a shrubland vegetation during the peak construction phase indicates the clearing of cottonwood, fir, spruce and pine (all found within the site) by local inhabitants. Thus, the palynological evidence suggests both cultural and climatic factors are involved in the explanation of pollen deposition.     

Geoarchaeological evidence for ritual closure of a kiva at Fourmile Ruin,Arizona

Geoarchaeological analyses, including soil micromorphology and chemistry, were used to characterize the deposition history of a fourteenth-century Pueblo ceremonial structure (or kiva) at Fourmile Ruin, east-central Arizona. These subterranean structures were often ritually “closed” by Pueblo societies through the burning of roofs and the deposition of special objects. These conspicuous markers are absent in the Fourmile Ruin kiva, but the composition of constituent materials and sedimentation processes nonetheless signal complex, highly-orchestrated closure activities. The study demonstrates the efficacy of geoarchaeological analyses of stratified deposits for modeling the subtle behaviors associated with the ritual closure and abandonment of sacred places.     

江苏盱眙县大云山汉墓

大云山汉墓区为西汉第一代江都王陵园。陵园内共发现主墓3座、陪葬墓11座、车马陪葬坑2座、兵器陪葬坑2座以及陵园建筑设施等遗迹。其中,M1与M2出土了包括玉棺、金缕玉衣等在内的漆器、铜器、金银器、玉器等精美遗物。结合文献和出土资料,M1墓主人为西汉第一代江都王刘非。     

Scales of Analysis, Scales of Value: Archaeology at Bush Hill House, Barbados

The excavations at Bush Hill House were sponsored because of its association with a notable historical figure, yet the archaeologists were more interested in what we saw as the “bigger” picture: colonialism; slavery; the Atlantic World. This paper addresses both the micro scale—individual deposits and individual people—and the macro scale—placing this site within the larger world of the British Atlantic of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Not surprisingly, both scales, when considered explicitly, offer insights into past social worlds and archaeologists’ means of discovering them.     

江苏句容下蜀中心山土墩墓发掘简报

2009年2月～4月,南京博物院在江苏句容中心山发掘了一座春秋早期土墩墓,发现祭祀器物群1处、墓葬1座和房址1座。器物群器物出土时破碎严重,属有意识打碎。墓葬堆土成坑。房址位于墓葬下方,主体由基槽和基槽内柱洞组成,为截面呈人字形的两面坡式建筑,有长方形过道,其与墓葬及祭祀器物群的位置关系值得研究。     

裴头陀“驱蟒、开山、得金”等传说探赜

裴头陀是镇江金山悠久历史和丰富文化的重要组成。文章通过对镇江金山寺第二代开山祖师裴头陀若干传说进行文献考证,揭示从五代以来"头陀开山得金—裴头陀驱蟒得金建寺—裴休送子出家、裴头陀金山驱蟒建寺—法海就是裴头陀"的故事演变脉络,认为金山寺与南方各寺院故事相互融合演化,从而形成近代的传播格局,在僧俗界形成广泛影响;金山法海的法力来自佛教徒宣扬裴头陀的故事;金山裴头陀的传说与南方沿海各地裴真人、裴仙的民间信仰有着特殊渊源,是佛仙合流的另一种形式。     

Ceramic Production and Dietary Changes at Juffure,Gambia

This paper explores the connection between ceramic production and dietary changes immediately before, during, and through the decline of the Atlantic trade at Juffure on the Gambia River. The height of the Atlantic trade in the eighteenth century was a period of increased ceramic production and technical experimentation. Simultaneously, there is increase in the diversity of consumption evident in the faunal and botanical remains recovered. This diversity, in both ceramic manufacture and diet, all but disappears with the decline of the Atlantic trade on the river. It is argued that the greater variety observed in ceramic manufacture during the height of the Atlantic trade is related to social practices of display associated with food. This is accomplished through a comparison of everyday and special events composed of displays of food and wealth across ethnic boundaries. These are indicative of different traditions of consumption and discard rather than signaling ethnic differentiation.     

Economic and Land-Use Implications of Prehistoric Fire-Cracked-Rock Piles,Northern Arizona

Abstract

Intensive archaeological survey of 14.5 sq km of the Upper Basin, an area located near the Grand Canyon's eastern South Rim in northern Arizona, has discovered 126 fire-cracked-rock piles that are surrounded by artifact scatters of varying size and assemblage composition. Because these phenomena are unprecedented in upland conifer ecosystems of the American Southwest, several hypotheses are explored regarding their formation histories. Analyses of artifact assemblages, botanical remains, pollen, and faunal remains recovered from four excavated sites indicate that they result from flaked-stone artifact production, ground-stone artifact reuse and recycling, ceramic-vessel-fragment recycling, and animal and plant processing. In addition, radiocarbon dates and temporally diagnostic projectile-points and ceramics imply that the sites differ in terms of frequency, intensity, and patterns of use, and with respect to the groups of people who formed them (Anasazi, Cohonina, Havasupai, or Hopi). Byproducts of a little-known, long-term land-use pattern in Southwestern prehistory (ca. A.D. 417–1650), these sites represent a key source of information for understanding how different sources of variability come to be expressed in archaeological landscapes.     

The Prehistoric Local Environment of Grasshopper Pueblo,Arizona

Abstract

The prehistoric local environment near Grasshopper Pueblo, east-central Arizona, is reconstructed by analysis of mammalian microfauna recovered at the site. Changes in the vegetation surrounding the pueblo during the span of occupation (ca. 1300–1400 A.C.) are described and the present and past environments at the site are contrasted. Paleoenvironmental analyses to date have failed to produce evidence for a rapid prehistoric climatic shift with negative consequences for agricultural productivity.     

Iron Age Transformations at Mmadipudi Hill,Botswana: Identifying Spatial Organization Through Electromagnetic Induction Survey

Mmadipudi Hill (CE 550–1200) is an Iron Age site in east-central Botswana approximately 3 km west of Bosutswe, a major Iron Age trade center at the eastern edge of the Kalahari Desert. A 5,000-m² electromagnetic induction (EMI) survey conducted in 2011 revealed a cattle post arranged in the Central Cattle Pattern, including a central animal kraal with at least three clusters of houses flanking the eastern edge. A test trench confirmed the presence of a Taukome daga structure, possibly a house, 100–150 cm in depth. The EMI survey is one of, if not the first, archaeogeophysical surveys conducted in Botswana. It has proven invaluable as a means to understand the settlement organization and to pinpoint excavations to gain a more detailed understanding of the material culture. The perspective it offered on thorn brush fencing would not have been possible through excavation alone. Although small in scope, the test excavation yielded Taukome and Toutswe artifacts related to the larger sets of issues the Bosutswe region faced as Indian Ocean trade transformed the local political economy. The nature of the relationships between Bosutswe and its surrounding communities likely evolved due to the rise of a prestige goods economy, growing inequality, and environmental degradation around CE 1200. The occupation at Mmadipudi Hill would have immediately preceded these changes. By determining the spatial organization of Mmadipudi Hill, this article begins a crucial first step towards exploring what the local settlement pattern looked like prior to CE 1200 and understanding what the relationships among sites may have been.     

徐州户部山崔家大院建筑特色研究

徐州户部山崔家大院是徐州现存规模最大、文化内涵丰富的一处古民居群落,它地理位置优越,建筑功能齐全,平面布局巧妙,单体建筑特色鲜明,建筑风格南北兼融,是户部山古民居群中的集大成者,反映了徐州古民居群鲜明的地域特色。     

Memoir on some Ancient Arms and Implements Found at Lagore,near Dunshaughlin,County of Meath. With a Few Remarks on the Classification of Northern Antiquities

In 1957, gravel-digging exposed a previously unknown Roman fort and during the following five years this was destroyed. Observation during soil stripping, together with some manual excavation, recovered most of the plan and history which may be summarized as follows:

(a) Slight remains of occupation earlier than the first Roman fort; these were not fully worked out, and are not necessarily all of one period.

(b) A Roman auxiliary fort, founded c. A.D. 80 and destroyed after less than twenty years occupation. Most of the fort buildings were deliberately burnt, apparently after evacuation; it seems a little more likely that this was the work of the Romans themselves rather than of the natives, but there is no definite evidence.

(c) After an interval probably of a few years a ditch was dug along the line of the via principalis, as if intended for a fort of reduced area, as at Castell Collen or Tomen-y-Mur; this was unfinished, and after remaining open for a short time seems to have been deliberately refilled.

(d) A fortlet was built over the north quarter of the auxiliary fort. The meagre evidence available for dating would be consistent with a short occupation in the early or middle 2nd century.

(e) Finally, after a considerable interval, an irregular oval was enclosed by a light palisade. Full details of this occupation were not recovered. It seems to have begun about the end of the Roman period and may have continued into the 5 th century.     

武当山下"民歌村"

1999年4月的一个晚上,丹江口市六里坪文化站站长李征康从他家打来电话,告诉我他在武当山南麓发现了一处叫吕家河的“民歌村”。这里唱民歌的风气很盛,歌手多,流行的民歌分为“阳歌”和“阴歌”