Intersections, Networks and the Genesis of Social Complexity on the Nyali Coast of East Africa

This paper examines intersections between different societies occupying the Nyali Coast region of southern Kenya from the late first millennium ad to the mid-second millennium ad. We explore interaction between societies at three scales: between hunter-gatherers and farmers in the coastal hinterland, between the hinterland and the coast and between the coast and the wider Indian Ocean. The patterns indicate that local intersections in the hinterland between hunter-gatherers and farmers went hand-in-hand with both the emergence of larger settlements in the hinterland and on the coast, and participation in a pan-Indian Ocean trade network.     

High-resolution radiocarbon dating of marine materials in archaeological contexts: radiocarbon marine reservoir variability between Anadara, Gafrarium, Batissa, Polymesoda spp. and Echinoidea at Caution Bay, Southern Coastal Papua New Guinea

The remains of shellfish dominate many coastal archaeological sites in the Pacific and provide a wealth of information about economy, culture, environment and climate. Shells are therefore the logical sample type to develop local and regional radiocarbon chronologies. The calibration of radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dates on marine animals is not straightforward, however, requiring an understanding of habitat and dietary preferences as well as detailed knowledge of local ocean conditions. The most complex situations occur where terrestrial influences impinge on the marine environment resulting in both the enrichment and depletion of ¹⁴C (Ulm Geoarchaeology 17(4):319–348, 2002; Petchey and Clark Quat Geochronol 6:539–549, 2011). A sampling protocol that combines a high-resolution excavation methodology, selection of short-lived samples identified to species level, and a tri-isotope approach using ¹⁴C, δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O, has given us the ability to identify ¹⁴C source variation that would otherwise have been obscured. Here, we present new research that details high-resolution mapping of marine ¹⁴C reservoir variation between Gafrarium tumidum, Gafrarium pectinatum, Anadara granosa, Anadara antiquata, Batissa violacea, Polymesoda erosa and Echinoidea from the Bogi 1 archaeological site, Caution Bay, southern coastal Papua New Guinea. These isotopes highlight specific dietary, habitat and behavioural variations that are key to obtaining chronological information from shell radiocarbon determinations.     

Developments in Rural Life on the Eastern African Coast,a.d. 700–1500

The eastern African coast is known for its Swahili “stonetowns.” Archaeological study of stonetowns has overshadowed that of Swahili rural life, and how it reformulated in the context of urban transformations after a.d. 1000. To help redress that imbalance, we focus here on village research carried out in a Swahili heartland—Pemba Island, Tanzania—in the context of two archaeological projects. We feature four settlements: later 1st millennium Kimimba village and its large, trading village neighbor, Tumbe; and 2nd millennium Kaliwa village, neighbor to Chwaka stonetown. Their archaeology, contextualized within a regional landscape, allows us to say new things about the changing nature of rural life on Pemba, and to make a case for the potential of village complexity elsewhere on the Swahili coast.     

What makes bones shiny? Investigating trampling as a cause of bone abrasion

Taphonomic modifications on animal bones have the potential to provide a wealth of information on the depositional histories of faunal assemblages. However, certain modifications have received little attention and their interpretation remains complex due to their varied or uncertain aetiology. This has hindered progress in approaches to taphonomic research and it remains relatively rare that a comprehensive suite of modifications is recorded during zooarchaeological analysis. Abrasion, defined as a shine or polish on bone, is one such modification, with a plethora of processes having been cited as a potential cause. Relatively little holistic analysis of archaeological specimens has been carried out and consequently the interpretative potential of the modification is yet to be realised. This paper examines the degree to which the process of trampling causes bone abrasion. Trampling causes multiple, sub-parallel, linear striations on bones and has been suggested by some researchers as a cause of abrasion (see Andrews and Cook, Man 20:675–691, 1985; Behrensmeyer et al., Palaeogeogr Palaeocol 63:183–199, 1986; Fiorillo, Univ Wyoming Contrib Geol 26:57–97, 1989; Myers et al., Am Antiquity 45:483–490, 1980; Nielsen, Am Antiquity 56:483–503, 1991; Olsen and Shipman, J Archaeol Sci 15:535–553, 1988). Research presented here involves statistical analysis of a large and diverse faunal dataset from seven British sites. Results from both correlation and logistic regression analysis demonstrate the very close relationship between the two modifications, although this is not the case at every site. These findings strongly suggest that trampling is a major cause of abrasion in a British context. Once the relationship is established at a specific site, the modification can be more reliably used for reconstructing the taphonomic trajectory of an assemblage.     

Finding Meaning in Ancient Swahili Spatial Practices

The development of the Swahili world involved new ways of organizing and conceiving of space. Archaeology and historical linguistics are both crucial in charting the trajectory of changing spatial practice during the late first and early second millennium ad, yet their respective datasets have been correlated only in specific and restricted ways. In this paper, we take the first steps toward working between archaeological and historical linguistic data to understand the changing contexts and meanings of Swahili spatial practice. We develop this argument in three parts. First, we review archaeological approaches to space in the Swahili world and develop a holistic view of towns, including both confined and delimited space. Second, we offer an archaeologists’ perspective on the development of historical linguistics in relation to the Swahili world, exploring the changing relationship between linguistics and archaeology and arguing for a greater appreciation of context in how archaeological materials are deployed with linguistic data. Finally, drawing on new data from Songo Mnara, a fourteenth–sixteenth-century Swahili town on the southern Tanzania coast, we make a preliminary attempt to reconcile some aspects of the archaeological and linguistic datasets. Using published lexical innovations, we suggest ways that meaning might be found alternatively in archaeological and linguistic data. Our hope is to make some tentative steps toward a mutually satisfying way of working between disciplines.     

Building Capacity in Pacific Island Heritage Management: Lessons from Those Who Know Best

In recognition of the need to build capacity in heritage place management in the Pacific in 2004, UNESCO funded the development of the CD-ROM training program Conserving Pacific Places. The program attempted to address the lack of sustainable long-term outcomes from previous training programs ‘field-tested’ by Pacific Island heritage managers. This not only provided feedback on modifications to the Australian training model required to make it appropriate and useful in the Pacific Island context but gave voice to shared regional issues and concerns in Pacific Island heritage conservation through the writing of the Smith (2004).     

WAC Matters: A Different View to that of Shepherd and Haber

This paper is a response to Shepherd and Haber??s (Public Archaeol 10(2):96?C115, 2011) critiques to World Archaeological Congress, from the viewpoint of the current Secretary of WAC. While most of the issues discussed have been already answered and corrected by Smith (Public Archaeol 10(4):223?C234, 2011), this paper adds my own views on two of these controversial issues: the meeting between WAC and Rio Tinto Limited in 2007 to explore options to work together on enhancing cultural heritage management and protection in mining activities (where I attended as the WAC Treasurer), and the Archaeologists Without Borders Program (as member of the committee for this program).     

Two Vanished African Maritime Traditions and a Parallel from South America

Maritime traditions that extend along coastlines are more vulnerable to disruption and disappearance than areal trading networks. The paper describes two cases from Africa, the likely early movement of Bantu speakers down the coast of West Africa and the Swahili trading diaspora that reached southern Mozambique by at least the seventh century. Both of these have disappeared from the ethnographic and historical record but can be recovered through archaeology and linguistics. A parallel is made with the trade route that linked the coastal region of Peru and Ecuador with Western Mexico and may have been active from as early as 4,000 bp until the Spanish conquest. The hypothesis is that areal networks, such as those in island Southeast Asia and the Pacific, which are driven by colonisation and bidirectional exchange, are more likely to persist because they are more resilient due to the number of broken ‘links’ they can withstand. Linear expansions may be driven by a quest for trade and resources but are usually not necessary to survival.     

Towards a Multi-Agent-Based Modelling of Obsidian Exchange in the Neolithic Near East

This paper examines an alternative approach to previously proposed models of prehistoric exchange such as the law of monotonic decrement or the down-the-line exchange model developed by Renfrew (Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 34: 319–331, 1968, Renfrew 1977) to explain the distribution of obsidian across the Near East during the Neolithic period. Renfrew’s down-the-line model, which results in a very regular and clustered network, does not permit the circulation of obsidian to regions of the Near East that are further than 300 km from the source zones, as is shown in the archaeological data available. Obsidian exchange is a complex system where multiple factors interact and evolve in time and space. We therefore explore Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) so as to get a better understanding of complex networks. ABM simulations of an exchange network where some agents (villages) are allowed to attain long-distance exchange partners through correlated random walks are carried out. These simulations show what variables (population density, degree of collaboration between villages…) are relevant for the transfer of obsidian over long distances. Moreover, they show that a type of small-world exchange network could explain the breadth of obsidian distribution (up to 800 km from source) during the Near Eastern Neolithic.     

Mass Production and Mountain Marketplaces in Norway in the Viking and Middle Ages

AS HUBS IN STABLE ECONOMIC NETWORKS, mountain¹1 The Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, PO Box 6762, N-0130 Oslo, Norway. kjetil.loftsgarden@khm.uio.no marketplaces are seen as integral to the increase and eventual mass production of iron in the Viking period and Middle Ages. The amount of iron produced exceeded local and regional demands, and constituted a valuable commodity from the inland areas of Norway and Sweden. This paper shows a dynamic trade network — one that was adaptable to trade patterns and surplus production. The marketplaces enabled an inland population to obtain both the products they needed and those they wanted, and gave the populous communities along the coast — the medieval towns, the royal and ecclesiastical elites — access to the resources and commodities from the hinterland via trade networks flowing through these marketplaces. This integration of inland resources into domestic and international trade can be considered to be part of a functioning market economy in the western Scandinavian inland from the late Viking period.     

A canine surrogacy approach to human paleodietary bone chemistry: past development and future directions

When archaeological human remains are absent or otherwise unavailable for bone chemistry-based paleodietary reconstructions, dog remains may provide an appropriate surrogate material for approximating ancient human diet. This “canine surrogacy approach” (CSA) has developed over the past thirty years and is becoming more common in archaeological science literature. A dearth of continued innovation in CSA applications as well as recent criticisms of its feasibility may reflect the absence of a cohesive overview of the approach’s development, its underlying analogical nature, as well as variation and inconsistency in the ways it has been applied. Considering the CSA’s invaluable potential to partially circumvent the destructive analysis of human remains, thereby addressing the increasingly recognized concerns of indigenous groups, such considerations would be timely and germane. Recent research has characterized the role of analogy in CSA applications and devised a framework for making CSA interpretations (Guiry J Archaeol Method Theory 19(3):351–376, 2012a, b). In contrast to, and complementing that work, this paper provides an outline of the CSA’s inception and evolution with particular emphasis on identifying the impetuses for, and trends in, its development. In addition to clarifying the CSA’s origin as well as where and why it is applied today, this review provides an opportunity to identify future directions for productive methodological innovation.     

In the Shadow of the Grand Narrative: Revisiting the Early Holocene of the Northern Adriatic

In a 1995 article, ??Reviving the Grand Narrative??, Andrew Sherratt critiqued stadial models based on binary opposition (Sherratt in J Eur Archaeol 3:1?C32, 1995), causing some to question whether the ??post?? of ??post-Pleistocene?? was an appropriate way to understand the period. This paper uses that critique as a starting point and examines the Early Holocene of Mediterranean Europe, not as the backwater of Pleistocene big-game hunters, but rather as a dynamic period of socioeconomic as well as environmental changes, separate from yet related to both the preceding Epipaleolithic and the ensuing Early Neolithic.     

Towards an Archaeology of the Welfare State in Britain, 1945–2009

In this paper I develop an argument for the specific contribution which archaeology might make to the study of the ‘classic’ welfare state in Britain (c. 1945–1975) and its aftermath (c. 1976 to present). This period saw massive state investment in infrastructure which transformed both the material and social worlds of its citizens, through new state policies, new networks of political and social control, the centralisation and nationalisation of a range of existing aspects of civilian life and the construction of housing on a monumental scale. While this is a topic which has been studied in detail by historians and sociologists, despite the massive investment in construction and the accompanying effects on the physical landscape of Britain, there has been relatively little work on the ‘material worlds’ of the welfare state. In developing this argument I focus particularly on public housing, an area which has been the subject of some previous archaeological comment and which provides a clear case study in the contribution which such an approach might make. State subsidised housing policy developed as a brave utopian socialist experiment during the interwar period in Britain, reaching its zenith in the mid-1970s, at which time the state supplied almost a third of the nation’s housing. Public housing projects became an area of experimentation in the realisation of modernist ideals of high density private accommodation and in the use of new building technologies and materials. However, following the demise of the classic welfare state, for various reasons high density public housing has come to be viewed as part of a dystopian social cycle, the buildings and associated landscapes themselves becoming a symbol of poverty, substance abuse and violence. From an early history associated with slum clearance and the development of idealised homes for the nation’s poor, many high rise/high density public housing developments from the classic welfare state are now more often viewed themselves as slums, their design and ‘materiality’ perceived as contributing to, or even creating, a series of social problems. I suggest, following earlier work by Miller (Man (New Series) 23(2):353–372, 1988), Buchli (The Archaeology of Socialism, Berg, New York, 1999) and Buchli and Lucas (Archaeologies of the contemporary past. Routledge, London, 2001) that an archaeological approach to the material world of public housing has the potential to reveal not only the ways in which changing state ideologies are expressed through their design, but also the ways in which individuals have (and continue to) engage with their spaces and material culture to manage the conditions of everyday life, and how such places exist within counter-discursive urban and suburban worlds. I also suggest that part of the role of an archaeology of the welfare state is to consider the circumstances under which the welfare state fails through a focus on the archaeology of poverty and homelessness.     

Ceramics and the Early Swahili: Deconstructing the Early Tana Tradition

Archaeological understandings of the Iron Age societies that developed on the East African coast and its hinterland have been transformed by exploration of locally produced ceramics. During the late first millennium, c. AD 600–900, sites across eastern Africa are characterized by ceramics known as early Tana Tradition or Triangular-Incised Ware, containing necked jars with incised decoration and a series of other jar and bowl forms in varying quantities. The recognition of this pan-regional tradition of pottery, known from an ever-growing number of sites, has been crucial in the reorientation of Swahili research to recognize the indigenous roots of the cosmopolitan coastal culture. This paper reports on the results of a ceramics project that has revisited excavated collections from a series of key ETT/TIW sites, analyzing sherds according to a single system and allowing true cross-site comparison for the first time. The results show regional diversity, in both form and decoration, particularly in the relative importance of the necked jar types that have come to stand for the early Tana Tradition more generally. While previous studies have hinted at regional diversity, such conclusions have been subsumed in discussion by the evident similarities between assemblages. Comparative results are here discussed against the background of previous research at the sites, and a series of conclusions about overlapping spheres of commonality are presented. Rather than critiquing previous work that has recognized this ceramic type, we seek to understand the remarkable distribution better by exploring its context and content.     

Publications

Abstract

This article examines the development of urban forms of community organization on the north-central coast of Peru during the 1st millennium b.c. Recent mapping and excavations at the Early Horizon center of Caylán, in the Nepeña Valley, provide insights into the nucleation of human groups at an extensive valley floor complex. The results indicate the establishment of an urban core around cross-cutting avenues, while architectural data point towards the existence of multi-functional residential stone-and-mud walled compounds. The density of the architectural remains combined with the abundance of refuse is indicative of a significant urban population. The Caylán research sheds light on the development of urbanism after the demise of the Chavín sphere of interaction.     

Nkope: The Early Ironworking Pottery Tradition of Southern Coastal Tanzania

This paper discusses Early Ironworking (EIW) pottery traditions of the southern coast of Tanzania. The beginning of the trend toward settled village communities in large parts of southeastern Africa was assumed to result from the southward movements of Bantu speakers who are presumed to have introduced the earliest evidence of domestication and sedentary behaviour, as well as iron- and pottery-making skills. The corollary of this was that the earliest settled villages of the coast were considered to have been of the Kwale tradition, which is a coastal variant of EIW ceramics that dates from the third and fourth centuries ad on the northern and central coasts of eastern Africa. Recent studies on the southern coast of Tanzania have revealed an EIW pottery tradition with a strong resemblance to the Nkope tradition of the southwestern interior, corresponding to the woodland belt on the southern edge of the equatorial forest zone. The temporal pattern of this tradition does not suggest any direction of movement but rather an axis of interactions between the coast and interior, at least since the last millennium bc.     

The Aswan High Dam and the International Rescue Nubia Campaign

The preservation of the legacy of mankind is no less important than the construction of dams, the erection of factories and the greater prosperity of peoples (President Gamal Abdel-Nasser, cited in Säve-Söderberg 1987, 90). The Nubia Campaign mounted with the aim of salvaging the archaeological sites threatened by the construction of the Aswan High Dam (1960–1971) was the first collaborative international rescue effort involving UNESCO. One of the main outcomes of this campaign was the valorization of what came to be known as “world heritage” and the establishment of a UNESCO World Heritage Center entrusted with the mission to safeguard the cultural heritage of humankind. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Nubia Campaign and as more sites are increasingly in need of international drives to rescue them from dams and other threats, this contribution provides a critical assessment of this historical event highlighting the role of foreign scholars and institutions, governments, organizational infrastructures, sources of funding, activities undertaken, as well as the impact of the dam on Nubians. In retrospect and in light of what happened to the preservation of Egyptian and Sudanese heritage as work of the foreign missions united by a single cause came to end, and considering the ongoing projects in Egypt and the Sudan that require urgent international efforts, I canvass the shortcomings of the Nubia Campaign in order to come up with recommendations for immediate action.     

The Future of WAC: A Fringe or a Popular Professional-Social Network?

In response to Shepherd and Haber??s (Public Archaeology 10(2):96?C115, 2011) article ??What is up With WAC??? I argue that, on the one hand, it is possible to adopt the authors?? new definition of Indigenous with certain modifications that enable it to accept a diverse constellation of responses to dwelling-in-displacement and explain the origin of these inequalities. On the other hand, I argue that WAC is not a reactionary organization of colonial heritage but that it makes great efforts to respond to 21st century postcolonial archaeology.     

The Unthinkable and the Unseen: Community Archaeology and Decolonizing Social Imagination at Okeeheepkee,or the Lake Jackson Site

Recent decolonizing scholarship examines how Indigenous ways of knowing can transform archaeology. This article discusses community-based research undertaken with a Muskogee tribal town in North Florida, focusing on the archaeology of the Lake Jackson site (1100–1500 A.D.). Centering on the historical narratives circulated in this community illuminates gaps in the dominant archaeological discourse, or what Trouillot (Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, 1995) calls the silences of history. Examples such as iconographic representations of “genderless” moths and possibilities of “invisible” mound structures render the limits of colonial imagination visible. Archaeology can move beyond these constraints by bridging the center and margins of archaeological production.