Public policy and anthropology

Michael V. Angrosino, ed. Do Applied Anthropologists Apply Anthropology? Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1976. 136 pp. $4.50 paper.

John H. Bodley. Anthropology and Contemporary Human Problems. Menlo Park, California: Cummings Publishing Company, 1976. 246 pp. Bibliography and index. $4.50 paper.

Peggy Reeves Sanday, ed. Anthropology and the Public Interest: Field‐work and Theory. New York: Academic Press, 1976. xxviii + 363 pp. Figures, tables, and index. $19.50.     

Early and mid Holocene tool-use and processing of taro (Colocasia esculenta), yam (Dioscorea sp.) and other plants at Kuk Swamp in the highlands of Papua New Guinea

Recent multidisciplinary investigations document an independent emergence of agriculture at Kuk Swamp in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. In this paper we report preliminary usewear analysis and details of prehistoric use of stone tools for processing starchy food and other plants at Kuk Swamp. Morphological diagnostics for starch granules are reported for two potentially significant economic species, taro (Colocasia esculenta) and yam (Dioscorea sp.), following comparisons between prehistoric and botanical reference specimens. Usewear and residue analyses of starch granules indicate that both these species were processed on the wetland margin during the early and mid Holocene. We argue that processing of taro and yam commences by at least 10,200 calibrated years before present (cal BP), although the taro and yam starch granules do not permit us to distinguish between wild or cultivated forms. From at least 6950 to 6440 cal BP the processing of taro, yam and other plants indicates that they are likely to have been integrated into cultivation practices on the wetland edge.     

Industrial Building Design and Economic Context: The Railway Freighthouse in Chicago, 1850–1925

Abstract

The rapidly increasing scale and broadening scope of railway freight operations in Chicago between 1850 and 1925 offer a unique opportunity to study the impact of factors affecting North American freighthouse design. Early freighthouses were small, single-storey brick and mill buildings designed to handle the straightforward exchange of freight shipments, while later freighthouses were large, multi-storey, concrete and steel structures featuring mechanised freight handling systems. A simple analytical framework for studying factors influential in freighthouse size, function and design is provided. Market factors include developments in the railway freight marketplace, notably freight traffic growth and the need to offer storage and warehousing services. Supply factors include those factors that limited or facilitated changes in design resulting from changes in the marketplace, notably local freight delivery costs, increases in land values, advances in construction materials and labour-saving freight handling technologies.     

ANALYSIS OF EARLY-NINETEENTH-CENTURY MUSCOGEE CREEK FUR TRADE AT A UNITED STATES FACTORY STORE

Abstract

We conducted an analysis of economic transaction records from the Fort Wilkinson Factory Store in central Georgia in an attempt to understand trade behaviors by the Muscogee Creek people of the southeastern United States. Between February 4, 1804, and November 29, 1806, factory personnel recorded 2,168 trade transactions at Fort Wilkinson. During this period, 38,226.5 deerskins and skins, 482 hides and rawhides, and 569 furs entered the fort. In exchange for these items, the Creek Indians primarily received cloth, followed by manufactured items such as kettles, gun supplies, and consumable groceries. We analyze the month-by-month exchange trends and compare the trade-good assemblages to archaeological sites that represent Creek occupations that date to the same time period in Georgia and Alabama. Further, we assess the biases of the data and interpret the data in relation to existing historical and archaeological studies of the Muscogee Creek people.     

The Istanbul Modern Art Museum: An Urban Regeneration Project?

Abstract

In the 2000s, contemporary art institutions have flourished in Istanbul. New museums (mostly private) and art galleries have been created; biennials and fairs of contemporary art have attracted a growing number of visitors. To what extent could this fostering of culture be linked with the “Bilbao effect”? To what extent are the promoters of these cultural investments betting on economic development and urban regeneration through these projects? Focusing on the Istanbul Modern Art Museum (IM), this article analyses the process of its creation and its potential impact on its environment. It argues that the development of culture investments in modern arts in Turkey is mainly due to the private initiatives of large industrial groups and the wealthiest families, most of the time with political support. More than the expected economic impact of cultural investments, the main reason for these public–private collaborations is the symbolic dimension that contemporary art provides to a country which strives to be perceived as modern, developed and European. From the IM to Istanbul European Capital of Culture 2010, cultural investments are a means of strengthening an international image in the context of the “membership” negotiations between “Turkey and the European Union”.     

Children, ‘healthy’ food,school and family: the ‘[n]ot really’ outcome of school food messages

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on a multi-method study with 50 families in Victoria, Australia. Primary school children were asked about food knowledge from school and whether they felt motivated to bring knowledge home. Generally, children and parents felt school food messages are unclear, contradictory and not relevant to them and this reduced the likelihood of messages coming home from school. We identify a critical difference in how families thought about healthy eating and food practices at home and the framework of school messages. Families focused on children’s eating in a pragmatic way, infused with nurturance as well as concern. We argue their practices can be viewed as a form of relational consumption (Lindsay and Maher 2013. Consuming Families: Buying, Making, Producing Family Life in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Routledge.) where food is part of the everyday exchange of love and care. A disjunction exists between familial relational approaches and the regulatory framework of school food messages that impacts how messages move between these spaces. Attention to relational aspects of food consumption at school might allow for a more valuable exchange between family and schools that supports family endeavours to feed children well.     

Using chaîne opératoire and communities of practice to identify interaction in the Contact and Mission periods in southern Georgia,AD 1540–1715

ABSTRACT

In this article, the pottery production of indigenous groups living inside and outside of colonial spaces in southern Georgia is compared by identifying portions of the chaîne opératoire of pottery production. Diachronic and geographic changes to production demonstrate that groups living in the interior of Georgia were in continual interaction with coastal groups in the mission system. This interaction likely contributed to the emergence of the Altamaha pottery tradition, which spread from southern South Carolina to northern Florida during Spanish colonization of the region. This research shows that Native American groups navigating colonialism drew on a wide network of communities to alter traditions in the face of unprecedented social change.     

Storage in traditional farming communities of the western Mediterranean: Ethnographic,historical and archaeological data

Abstract

This paper presents ethnographic, historic and archaeological data from the western Mediterranean in order to explore the variability of storage methods and the various strategies that may have existed in the past in this region. The paper includes ethnographic information on traditional storage methods collected in farming communities in northern Morocco (Rif area). We record the use of plant fibres such as canes (Arundo donax), dwarf palm (Chamaerops humilis), esparto grass (Stipa tenacissima) and dis (Ampelodesmos mauritanica) to make containers. Recipients made of cow dung and unfired clay, as well as underground silos, have been also used in this region to store food. In addition, we explore historical and ethnohistorical data on the use of large storage structures, including the study of communal granaries, a particular type of granary located at inaccessible places, such as cliff faces or mountain tops, or within fortified buildings, from which harvests can be easily protected and defended. We also examine the archaeological evidence of storage strategies in the Iberian Peninsula during prehistoric times. The paper informs of the large variety of systems and materials used, the functioning of storage structures, and more generally, provides a framework for reflecting on the enormous diversity of solutions that could have existed in the past and that may have left little or none archeological traces.     

Assessing Conflict and Exchange: The Defensive and Access Layout of La Alumbrera (c. AD 1000–1480, North-west Argentina)

Abstract

The Regional Development Period (c. ad 1000–1480) in north-west Argentina is characterized, among other important features, by the coexistence of two phenomena seemingly opposed: a constant situation of violent conflict between communities and the maintenance or even intensification of interregional goods exchange networks. Although recent studies recognize the simultaneity of these processes, only a few scholars asked how communities dealt with the necessity of protecting themselves as well as obtaining distant resources. In this paper we present the analysis of the defensive and access layout of La Alumbrera archeological site which has the peculiarity of condensing features that may illustrate an example of how conflict and exchange coexisted at a local scale.     

PASTE CHARACTERIZATION OF WEEDEN ISLAND POTTERY FROM KOLOMOKI AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR SPECIALIZED PRODUCTION

Abstract

We report the results of a petrographic analysis of pottery from Kolomoki, a Middle and Late Woodland period mound and village complex in southwestern Georgia. Thin sections of 65 sherds representing several prestige and utilitarian Weeden Island pottery types, from both domestic (midden) and ceremonial (mound) contexts, were obtained. For comparison, we also analyzed samples from a few potential clay sources. We characterize the range of variability in paste/resource groupings present in the Kolomoki assemblage and use these data to address patterns of manufacture and exchange of Weeden Island pottery through comparisons to thin sections of comparable types from the McKeithen site and other Weeden Island sites in the region.     

Science,anthropology, and the study of communication

Charles F. Hockett. The View From Language: Selected Essays 1948–1974. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1977. Tables, figures, references, bibliography, and index. $15.00.     

‘The Next Wave of Italians Has Come to America’: Italian Investments and Business in the United States, 1980-2013

Abstract

This article examines the economic and socio-cultural impact of Italian investments and business in the United Stated from the 1980s onwards. It investigates flows, networks and ideas that have cut national boundaries and politically-defined spaces. The article argues that the last three decades of Italian investments and business in the USA have re-defined the symbolic space held by Italy and Italians in the American imagination. It also argues that the distinctive Italian contribution to the American business environment lies in the so-called ‘fourth capitalism’ and in the family business aspects of Italian Capitalism.     

The lower paleolithic of the Near East

The Near East forms the geographic crossroads between Africa, Asia and Europe and was certainly a main route for the dispersal of Homo erectusinto Eurasia. The study of Lower Paleolithic sites in this region and in the neighboring Caucasus area sheds some light on several potential colonization events. Sites such as Ubeidiya (Jordan Valley) and Dmanisi (Georgia) suggest the early sorties took place around 1.4-1.0 Ma. Despite the lack of radiometric dates, sequences of raised beaches, marine deposits, river terraces, and paleolake formations have enabled various investigators to identify several series of major aggradation and erosion periods within the Pleistocene. Lithic assemblages derived from a few systematic excavations and collections from stratigraphically dated outcrops led to a threefold subdivision of the Acheulian sequence into the Lower, Middle, and Upper Acheulian. The study of nonbiface assemblages, however, has not resolved the question of whether these assemblages deserve inclusion as separate entities or should be viewed as sites within the Acheulian settlement pattern. While the typotechnological definitions of each major phase can be compared to what is known from other regions of the Old World, the Acheulo-Yabrudian (or the Mugharan Tradition) is seen as a local entity. Rare human remains and scarce data concerning subsistence activities do not warrant a comparative discussion with what is known from African and some European sites.     

The Neolithic refrigerator on a Friday night: How many people are coming to dinner and just what should I do with the slimy veggies in the back of the fridge?

Abstract

The prehistoric development of food storage represents a major evolutionary transition, one potentially more important than the initial domestication of plants. Researchers, however, have yet to really deal with some of the critical practical questions related to the materiality of food storage and decision-making. Drawing upon experimental research this paper seeks to identify and model some of the critical interconnections between anticipated food loss due to spoilage, storage decision-making and the need for people to store food for multiple years. Building on this foundation, and echoing ethnographic, ethnoarchaeological and archaeological research, this study argues that the concept of storage and surplus is underdeveloped and that in many cases the storage practices of prehistoric sedentary people do not reflect a food surplus so much as normal storage. Turning to a case study of changing Near Eastern Neolithic grain storage practices, this research argues that from the Natufian through Neolithic periods people increasingly relied upon cultivated domesticated plants and food storage. This required people to expand their use of pre-existing technology, such as plaster for lining storage features, to store sufficient amounts of food to overcome seasonal shortages, potential crop failures and minimise food spoilage due to a range of biological agents. Tracking shifts through time, the results of this study suggest that it is only with increased scale of food storage in the later stages of the Neolithic that we may see a materialization of a food surplus.     

Intensive Agricultural Landscapes of Oceania

Pacific Islanders have adapted over time to a wide range of social and environmental conditions. Subsistence regimes include broad-based fishing and gathering along with horticulture, particularly the cultivation of staple tubers. Agricultural ecosystems on many islands manifest elaborate expressions of greater inputs of labor or the necessity to overcome agronomic constraints to production. Landscapes of intensive agriculture once found throughout Oceania include yam mounds, raised fields, and irrigated terracing. Most of these systems are either abandoned or greatly diminished in scale. Findings from research in the Fiji Islands exemplify some of the forms and functions of these landscapes. Field study at an active system of irrigated terraces for growing taro (Colocasia esculenta) on the remote southern island of Kadavu elucidates the dynamic operations of a gardening strategy that was once much more prevalent throughout the archipelago. Changing political economies across the region may have radically altered humanenvironment relations, but intensive agricultural landscapes endure, providing visible evidence and imparting valuable lessons for traditional cultural ecology in Oceania.     

Review Articles

The United States Foreign Service. MARTIN WEIL. A Pretty Good Club: The Founding Fathers of the U.S. Foreign Service. New York: W.W. Norton & Company 1978. Pp. 313; RICHARD HUME WERKING. The Master Architects: Building the United States Foreign Service, 1890–1913. Lexington: The United Press of Kentucky 1977. Pp. xvi, 330; RACHEL WEST. The Department of State on the Eve of the First World War. Athens: The University of Georgia Press 1978. Pp. viii, 183. Reviewed by F.M. Carroll

Friends in Need, Allies in Competition. PETER LOWE. Great Britain and the Origins of the Pacific War: a Study of British Policy in East Asia, 1937–1941. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1977. Pp. 318; JAMES R. LEUTZE. Bargaining for Supremacy: Anglo-American Naval Collaboration, 1937–1941. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1977. Pp. 328; WILLIAM ROGER LOUIS. Imperialism at Bay 1941–1945: The United States and the Decolonisation of the British Empire. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1977. Pp. 595; CHRISTOPHER THORNE. Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War against Japan, 1941–1945. London: Hamish Hamilton 1978. Pp. xxii, 772. Reviewed by T.B. Millar     

DENTAL ATTRITION AT THE INDIAN KNOLL (15OH2) AND BLACK EARTH (11SA87) SITES: EXTREME WEAR AS A STRESSOR IN LATE ARCHAIC POPULATIONS OF THE OHIO VALLEY

Abstract

This study investigates comparatively the prospect that excessive dental wear in certain Late Archaic populations in eastern North America was caused by extensive shellfish consumption and the associated ingestion of grit. Specifically, the amount and rate of dental wear at Indian Knoll, a large shell midden site in western Kentucky, are compared to those at the Black Earth site, a contemporary occupation in southern Illinois with no evidence of shellfish utilization. Results show no significant differences in dental wear between Indian Knoll and Black Earth and point correspondingly toward the alternative prospect that the intensification of Late Archaic food-processing technology using stone-grinding and hot-rock cooking was the proximate cause. Such technologies provided short-term caloric benefits, but long-term disease consequences for adults of child-bearing age. A decrease in young adult dental wear correlates with the adoption of both food production and pottery in the subsequent Woodland period.     

Prehistoric shell beads on the Georgia coast

ABSTRACT

The prehistoric peoples living along the Georgia coast fabricated and used shell beads for millennia. Out of a number of mollusk species inhabiting the region, only a few were selected for the fabrication of beads. The knobbed whelk (Busycon carica) was the most common species used, and it represents the most common whelk found in Atlantic coastal waters. The lightning whelk (Busycon sinistrum), the second most common whelk in the region, was occasionally used in the production of beads. Small numbers of beads were made from marginella and olive shells and, rarely, from bivalve species. Small beads were manufactured from the body whorl of whelks, while larger beads were fabricated from whelk collumella. Shell beads appear in small quantities in Late Archaic period contexts, and then almost disappear during the Woodland period. Beads reappear in quantities at about AD 800 in the Early Mississippian period. More shell beads have been recovered from Mississippian period archaeological contexts along the northern Georgia coast than along the southern coast, reflective of cultural differences between these two geographic areas in the post-Woodland period era.     

Coming of age in applied archaeology

Thomas F. King, Patricia Parker Hickman, and Gary Berg. Anthropology in Historic Preservation. New York: Academic Press, 1977. xi +344 pp. $15.00.

Michael B. Schiffer and George J. Gumerman, eds. Conservation Archaeology. New York: Academic Press, 1977. xxi + 495 pp. $19.50.     

Change and continuity: Case studies in cultural anthropology

George D. Spindler and student collaborators. Burgbach: Urbanization and Identity in a German Village. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973. x + 134 pp. Glossary, references, recommended reading, maps, illus. $3.25 (paper).

Oriol Pi‐Sunyer. Zamora: Change and Continuity in a Mexican Town. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973. xii + 134 pp. Glossary, references, recommended reading, map, tables, illus. $2.75 (paper).

Richard A. Barrett. Benabarre: The Modernization of a Spanish Village. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974. xiv + 106 pp. References, recommended reading, map, tables, illus. $3.00 (paper).

Helen Icken Saga. The Urban Poor of Puerto Rico: A Study in Development and Inequality. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974. xii + 110 pp. Glossary, references, map, tables, illus. $3.00 (paper).