Archaeology, the Activist Community, and the Redistribution of Power in New York City

Two New York City projects, one world renown, the other struggling for recognition, exemplify the various ways in which the public defines its engagement with its archaeological past. At African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan and at Duffield Street in Brooklyn, the public battled with local, state, and federal entities in an effort to preserve the resources. As different as the sites are in context, scope and circumstances, public reactions and activism bind them together.     

Archaeology, History, and Historical Archaeology in South America

This paper discusses the relationship between history and archaeology in general, their common concerns and links with historical archaeology. It deals with the development of historical archaeology in three related South American countries, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, and pays attention to recent trends in the theory and practice of the discipline in the area.     

Prehistoric activity and environment on the North York Moors

A synoptic view and interpretation of archaeological material from the mesolithic to the end of the Iron Age is provided, and this is viewed in the context of available palaeoenvironmental information. The evidence of various settlement forms suggests that mesolithic folk occupied the region for a long period, but their environmental impact appears to have been low although not negligible. In neolithic times a probably higher population density was capable of more thorough changes of vegetation but the total permanent alteration of ecosystems is thought to be small. Evidence for settlement is entirely inferential. By contrast, the Bronze and Iron Ages were periods of considerable clearance of forest and subsequent ecological changes like the leaching of soils increased, and traces of settlement are plentiful. New data on Iron Age settlements shows a downward movement of settlement sites and some Celtic fields are noted, though they are sparse compared with other uplands in Great Britain. A number of unanswered questions are posed, mostly about the nature of the settlement pattern in mesolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age times. No complete synthesis of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data is yet possible at this scale but certain parts of the moors have a high potential for reconstructing prehistoric geography.     

Historical Archaeology as Modern-World Archaeology in Argentina

Historical archaeology has grown at a remarkable pace in the last decade. South America has seen a major growth in historical archaeology, with archaeologists in Argentina playing a large role in the maturation of the discipline on the continent. Much of this archaeology can be characterized as “modern-world archaeology” because of the archaeologists’ interest in issues relevant to post-Columbian cultural history.     

The Archaeology of Slavery at the Van Cortlandt Plantation in the Bronx,New York

Excavations at the Van Cortlandt Mansion, the central structure of an eighteenth-century plantation located in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, New York, highlight the difficulty of using archaeological evidence to document the story of enslavement in early America. While the documents indicate the extent of the Van Cortlandts' involvement in the slave trade and in the reliance on enslaved labor to build and run their enterprise, the excavations carried out over several years have not yielded concomitant evidence.     

Maroon Archaeology Is Public Archaeology

Researchers of the contemporary past have sought to be instrumental in public dialogue about how artifacts speak to heritage matters relevant to living communities and decision-making polities (Emberling and Hanson, Catastophe!: the looting and destruction of Iraq’s past, 2008; Gibbon, Who owns the past?: cultural policy, cultural property, and the law, 2005; Mullins, Places in mind: public archaeology as applied anthropology, 2004; Renfrew, Loot, legitimacy and ownership: the ethical crisis in archaeology, 2000; Skeates, Debating the archaeological heritage, 2000). This approach has made archaeology a public endeavor that serves the needs of inquisitive researchers, as well as those groups of individuals whose lives may be directly affected by the excavation, analysis, and interpretation of archaeological remains. This paper will broadly assess how the archaeology of Maroons—tribal communities of runaway slave descendants—has affected the application of scholarly research in the former Dutch territory of Suriname, SA. The shift in relevance is due to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights 2007 judgment that allows Suriname Maroons to assert decision-making authority on matters of land management and development in ancestral and contemporary habitat. Vital to this endeavor is, Maroon involvement in archaeological research and more importantly, an overhaul in Surinamese antiquity laws.     

考古学与性别

本文节译自英国杜伦大学(DurhamUniversity)考古学教授马太·约翰逊(MatthewJohnson)1999年出版的《考古学理论:导言》(ArchaeologicalTheory:AnIntroduction)一书的第八章“考古学与性别”(“ArchaeologyandGender”)。本章节通过对其中几个最流行主题的归纳综述了近二十年来性别考古学的概况,并且介绍了一例典型个案,最后还以答问形式阐述了作者本人对此领域较混淆的若干问题的看法。     

Language and Archaeology

The increase in the number of publications per year is connected to a decrease in their geographical scope and hence in the number and diversity of the international references. The nature of communication is thus decidedly influenced by language communities and their size, and in Europe has given rise to distinct traditions. My personal feeling is that these have enriched our discipline immensely.

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Resumen El aumento en el número de publicaciones anuales está conectado con la disminución de su cubrimiento geográfico y, por lo tanto, con la cantidad y diversidad de las referencias internacionales. La naturaleza de la comunicación está entonces, indudablemente, influenciada por las comunidades linguísticas y sus dimensiones que han producido tradiciones distintas en Europa. Creo que estas tradiciones han enriquecido nuestra disciplinas inmensamente.

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Résumé L’augmentation du nombre de publications par année est liée à la diminution de la portée géographique et par conséquence du nombre et de la diversité des références internationales. La nature des communications est donc indubitablement influencée par les communautés linguistiques et leurs dimensions, ce qui a produit des traditions distinctes en Europe. Mon impression personnel est que cela à grandement enrichie notre discipline.

     

考古发掘与考古发现

考古发现和考古学理论方法是考古学赖以进步的两条腿。考古发现不断刷新考古学家的视野并为考古学研究的深入提供新的资料,考古学理论方法使考古学的眼睛更加明亮,分析和思考更具有科学的力量。理论方法让考古学家对考古发现有更深入的认识,考古发现同时也推动综合研究和理论方法的进步。此外,考古发现往往会引起社会的关注,考古发现和考古学知识的普及可以为考古学的进步提供良好的社会环境,从而对考古学的发展产生强大的推动力量。考古学的持续发展要求考古学家必须正确处理考古发现、考古学自身理论方法的完善以及考古学与化遗产保护、公众知识状况和社会需求的关系。     

The Archaeology of Poverty and the Poverty of Archaeology

In this Editor’s Introduction to this Special Contribution, I explore some central issues surrounding the archaeology of poverty and ponder why it has taken historical archaeologists so long to “discover” poverty as a research topic.     

考古与萨满教

国内外萨满教研究者普遍把世界上最早出现的巫术宗教遗迹当作萨满教的早期例证.在这个意义上,萨满教和人类早期宗教具有相同的内涵,它等同于一般学者所说的原始宗教.世界上不同时期考古发现的宗教遗迹,对说明萨满教起源及其特点,有很多珍贵的东西,许多学者愿意选择考古证据来解释萨满教.考古学的优越性在于:它依据考古遗址和古老岩画保留的信息,向人们提供了人类智力机能的进化历史,以及与此相伴随的各种宗教现象的时间证据和宗教遗迹的观念内涵,乃至当时的社会组织情况.这些对于分析不同时期的宗教文化体系,都是极为珍贵的.本文主要从旧石器时代和新石器时代不同文化时期的遗址发现,世界各国在原始洞穴画、岩画的发掘成果,来研究萨满教文化的起点与发展轨迹,展示考古学对研究萨满教现象所特有的学术价值.     

Archaeology in Translation

In this editorial I note a type of resistance to the hegemony of English in academic contexts and call for consideration of expanding on this development. In an editors note I go on the credit assistant editors Marcia Bezerra, Julie Holowell and Alexander Hererra who were inadvertently not acknowledged in the volumes to which they contributed.

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Resumen En este editorial hago notar una cierta resistencia hacia la hegemonía del idioma inglés en contextos académicos y hago un llamado a considerar la expansión de este desarrollo. En una nota editorial doy crédito a los editores asistentes Marcia Becerra, Julie Hollowell y Alexander Herrera, quienes inadvertidamente no fueron reconocidos en los volúmenes donde ellos contribuyeron.

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Résumé Dans cette rédaction, je remarque une résistance à l’hégémonie de l’anglais dans le contexte académique, ce qui demande une certaine réflexion pour nous étendre sur ce sujet. Dans une note de l’éditeur dans laquelle je suis mentionnée, les rédacteurs adjoints Marcia Bezerra, Julie Holowell et Alexander Hererra n’ont pas, par inadvertance, été reconnus dans les publications auxquelles ils ont contribué.

     

Beowulf and Archaeology

THIS SHORT CONTRIBUTION discusses an early medieval copper-alloy disc with polychrome enamel from Lincoln (England), held by ‘The Collection: Art and Archaeology in Lincolnshire’, and identified as a brooch dated to the 10th century and of probable continental manufacture. Only four brooches of this type are currently known, three of which were found in England, with a fourth from France. Following discussion of its stylistic characteristics and metallurgical composition, we discuss the implications of the Lincoln find for the understanding of the relationship between the area of the Danelaw and the Continent, highlighting a growing body of evidence for the popularity of continental ‘fashions’ in areas of Scandinavian settlement.     

Cross-Cultural Approaches in Archaeology: Comparative Ethnology, Comparative Archaeology, and Archaeoethnology

Cross-cultural approaches have been used widely in archaeological research. Comparative ethnology has provided a number of archaeological indicators of behavior, but large segments of the archaeological record have not yet been subjected to extensive comparative analysis. Comparative archaeology has aided in exploring variation among societal types (such as chiefdoms) and categories within the archaeological record (such as settlements). Diachronic comparisons have been used frequently by archaeologists, but these have often been based on unique samples and only rarely have employed statistics to aid in the discovery or testing of hypotheses. Archaeoethnology, comparative analyses of archaeological cases employing valid samples and statistical evaluation of theories and hypotheses, is introduced.