A Multi‐disciplinary Approach to the Archaeological Investigation of a Bedrock‐Dominated Shallow‐Marine Landscape: an example from the Bay of Firth,Orkney, UK

Investigation of shallow‐marine environments for submerged prehistoric archaeology can be hampered in many localities by extensive bedrock exposure and thus limited preservation potential. Using the concept of ‘seamless archaeology’ where land‐based archaeology is integrated across the intertidal zone through to the offshore, a multi‐disciplinary approach is essential. This approach taken in the Bay of Firth, Orkney uses geophysics, historical archive and ethno‐archaeology, coastal geomorphology, palaeo‐environmental analyses and sea‐level science, and allows a clearer understanding of the landscape in which prehistoric settlers lived. While acknowledging the limitations of the preserved environment, we are successful in identifying areas of archaeological potential on the sea‐bed for both upstanding structural elements as well as sediment preservation that contains evidence for human occupation. This has wider implications beyond Orkney's World Heritage sites to provide a blueprint for similar studies elsewhere in the coastal zone. © 2012 The Authors     

Bede, Æthelberht,and the ‘examples of the Romans’ in early medieval England

In Book II, Chapter 5 of the Historia ecclesiastica, Bede writes that the Kentish king Æthelberht had, ‘with the advice of his counsellors, established legal enactments according to the examples of the Romans.’ This article argues that Bede’s formulation serves as a means of characterizing the increasingly interventionist role played by early Kentish kings in making the laws issued in their names.     

Working-with: talking and sorting in personal archives

This paper draws upon experiences of working in a personal archive in a domestic space in order to contribute to recent debates about archival formation, conduct and practice. By exploring the collaborative practices of working-with an archive owner in ordering and cataloguing a collection, we provide methodological insights into how historical geography research is carried out. Although such working-with in archives is, we argue, a common practice amongst researchers, these interactions with others are often absent from published work. This paper provides an explicit discussion of these often hidden collaborations and socialities, highlighting their importance for the conduct of archival research in three specific areas. First, we show how working-with actively (re)shapes and (re)makes archival materials and the stories that emerge from them. Second, we argue that working-with the owners of archives, but doing so without clearly defined research aims and going against the grain of productivist methods of working, can be rewarding both within and beyond academia. Third, in focussing on working-with, the paper extends conceptions of the archive and archival practice. We argue that the domestic setting of archival work produces particular patterns of archival conduct and disrupts the boundaries of collections themselves.     

Gendered Visibilities and the Dream of Transparency: The Chinese‐Indonesian Rape Debate in Post‐Suharto Indonesia

How does the seen produce the unseen? And what happens when the unseen makes a bid to emerge from its occlusion? This paper examines the gendered visuality of the Reformasi crisis in Indonesia in 1998, juxtaposing the visibility of male‐on‐male violence at student demonstrations with the invisibility of violence against (feminised) Chinese‐Indonesians and, in particular, raped Chinese‐Indonesian women. The discussion focuses on activists’ attempts to establish ‘proof’ that these rapes did occur, government attempts to discredit their evidence, and the circulation of false photographs of the rapes on the internet. (An unremarked irony of this falsification of evidence was that it was made possible by the pre‐existence of an archive of sexually violent images on pornographic sites depicting ‘Asian schoolgirls’.) The paper argues that this particular debate over credibility, witnessing and proof needs to be seen within a wider popular Indonesian discourse on the status of evidence, the privileged place of the photograph within it, and the archive of images of (male) students and heroic male‐on‐male violence that helped shape what people could ‘see’ as meaningful political action and recognisable state violence. It also comments on the evidentiary status of witnessing and embodied experience in the age of mechanical and digital reproduction.     

Telling off Justinian: Theudebert I,the Epistolae Austrasicae,and communication strategies in sixth‐century Merovingian–Byzantine relations

The death of the powerful Frankish king Theudebert I (r. 533–47) gave rise to a diplomatic imbroglio between the courts of the eastern emperor Justinian, who condemned the late king, and Theudebert's son and successor Theudebald, who aggressively defended his father's memory. This dispute provides two opportunities: first, to parse the sixth‐century sources into separate political discourses; and secondly, to examine the diplomatic letters of Theudebert and Theudebald, preserved in the Gallic letter collection Epistolae Austrasicae, as evidence for creative experimentation with the genre of letters, expanding the functions and forcefulness of the basic media of long‐range communication.     

A metric study of three types of artificial cranial modification from north‐central Peru

Artificial cranial modification (ACM) involves the alteration of cranial vault shape by cultural means, and is performed during infancy while the cranial bones remain soft and malleable. The direction of normal cranial growth is altered through the application of external forces. In this study, three types of ACM from north‐central Peru (posterior flattening, bilobed and circumferential) were analysed using standard craniometric techniques. The aim was to determine the effects of these forms of ACM on craniofacial morphology, and the extent to which different types of ACM could be distinguished from one another and unmodified crania on the basis of these measurements. Significant differences between artificially modified and unmodified crania, and between different types of ACM, were demonstrated in cranial vault shape for all types. Significant differences in facial morphology were found only in the bilobed group compared with the unmodified crania. Canonical variates analysis (discriminant analysis) confirmed that major differences between modification types and unmodified crania were in measurements and angles of the cranial vault. While the results show some similarities to previous studies, they add to the variability in the patterns and extent of differences documented to date. It is suggested, based on these results and visual observations, that interpopulation variation in ACM within major modification categories may explain some of the variability in results between studies, an explanation which has previously received insufficient recognition but which remains to be tested since varied methodology between studies may also be a contributory factor. While previous studies have often sought to generalise about the effects of ACM, the examination of the differences between populations even within major ACM categories may offer new insight into cultural variation in modification techniques between populations and the nature of craniofacial development. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Early medieval landscapes in north‐west Spain: local powers and communities,fifth–tenth centuries

There has been in the last few years a rapid expansion in the archaeology of early medieval societies in the north‐west of the Iberian Peninsula. A large part of this evidence remains unpublished or has been published incompletely. This article considers the historical landscapes of the north‐western Iberian Peninsula in the early medieval period as social constructions, starting with the identification of the systemic relationships between different archaeological entities. The dynamics and articulation of early medieval societies in the Cantabrian area and in the Duero and Tagus basins will be outlined by means of deconstructing their landscapes. To achieve this, a set of variables will be analysed in comparative terms from three regions selected as case studies: Madrid, the Duero basin and the Basque Country. With the aim of explaining these systems diachronically a division between the fifth–eighth and eighth–tenth centuries will be taken into consideration.     

FIXED‐FREQUENCY RADIO‐WAVE IMAGING OF SUBSURFACE ARCHAEOLOGICAL FEATURES: A MINIMALLY INVASIVE TECHNIQUE FOR STUDYING ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES*

In memoriam Tony Clark Sadly, this research marked the last field visit to the test site that the authors were able to share with their colleague Tony Clark. His enthusiasm, experience and encouragement inspired us to complete this project that, to many, must have appeared as grown men at play in a sand pit. A new approach to subsurface exploration has been developed, based on fixed‐frequency radio‐wave illumination from a buried transmitter. Data are collected from a buried, continuous wave source with a phase‐coherent surface‐scanning receiver and recorded in a digital archive from which images of the archaeological features are subsequently produced. An important feature of this approach is the opportunity to separate the data collection and archive functions, which form an uncompromised record of the site, from the more subjective image formation function. This paper reports the results of a feasibility assessment programme and discusses the future application of the method to real archaeological sites.     

A Viking Ship Graffito from Kilclief,County Down,Ireland

Deep ploughing near Kilclief, County Down, near the site of an early monastery, disturbed a large quantity of buried stones. One of these displayed a Viking‐type ship with a furled sail. Decorative artwork on the stone suggests an 11th‐century date. The ship displays close similarities to Viking ship graffiti in Viking Dublin and in the Scandinavian homelands. This article describes the decorated stone and suggests that it represents an Irish ship constructed in the Viking style. Documentary sources indicate that ships were being granted by an Irish over‐king to a local king of this area at this time.     

Kings,crisis and coinage reforms in the mid‐eighth century

Between 740 and 770 coin reforms occurred in five north‐west European kingdoms: Northumbria, East Anglia, Francia, Kent and Mercia. Comparison between them highlights important common features, especially the advent of a more explicit royal role in the supervision of minting than had hitherto prevailed. Precipitated by a substantial downturn in production probably resulting in part from shortfalls in bullion supply, the new coin issues stem from a partnership between the king and other agencies: moneyers in the Anglo‐Saxon kingdoms; secular magnates in Francia. These coinages provide an insight into international connections and local adaptation, grounded in the economic role of coinage and a complex administrative background.     

Stress‐induced temperature variations in groundwater of the Monferrato area (north‐western Italy)

Although characterized by low seismicity, the Monferrato area of north‐western Italy was affected by earthquakes, of magnitude M5.1 and M4.8, in 2000 and 2001. At the same time, marked changes were recorded in water temperature and chemistry in several wells within the epicentral area. In May 2004, an automatic network for the continuous monitoring of groundwater was installed in selected wells to study the phenomenon. Here, we report on data collected during a 3‐year period of groundwater monitoring. During the first year, episodes of water heating (by up to 20°C) were observed in one monitored well. The temporal analysis of the seismic activity recorded in the area revealed as almost all seismic events occurred during the period of elevated water temperatures. The similar timing of earthquakes and groundwater‐temperature anomalies suggests that both may be triggered by the same processes acting in the crust.     

Henry II,liturgical patronage and the birth of the ‘Romano‐German Pontifical’

Variously acclaimed as coepiscopus, saint and Mönchskönig, Henry II of Germany has always had a reputation as a quasi‐religious figure. This article goes a step further, appending to his résumé the creation of the wildly successful liturgical tradition known as the ‘Romano‐German Pontifical’. Formerly dated to the tenth century, its major ordines are here argued to have been cultivated in royal circles in the years 1002–9, before being compiled for the first time as a gift for the new Bamberg Cathedral. The tradition is shown to reflect the king’s concerns, scholarly, political and confessional, as well as projecting an idealistic, Bamberg‐esque notion of Romano‐German unity.     

战国楚简公文书人名记写形式论议——兼与秦简记名的比较

战国楚、秦简公文书在人名记写上都表现出某些一般性的规律。《包山楚简》公文书人名记写包括某地之人+姓名、某人之人+姓名、某官+姓名、某族+名、某人之子+名、某人之奴、某王之+名、某客+姓名、单称官职、单称封号诸种形式。不同的记名方式区分了个体,同时进行了社会分类。楚简公文人名记写有省略情形,包括省略属地信息、省略姓氏、案件审理者自署名的省略和无规律省略。楚简中还有提示人名的符号。楚简公文记名对多数人都记姓和名,秦简则多记名而不称姓,只在特殊情况下另外加姓作为补充。楚简人名记写习惯可能承自周人制度,与秦简相比,更有利于达到识别个体的目的,以及保证公文作为行政工具的效率。     

Naturwissenschafts‐, Technik‐ und Medizingeschichte in Deutschland, 1997—2004. Literaturbericht über die Forschung an den Institutionen

This compilation of German research in history of science, technology, and medicine for the years 1997 to 2004 will continue the previous ones. Researchers of the institutions have given us these information, however, only up to ten indications were requested by the national committee of the IUHPS/DHS. More research results may be found on the homepages of the larger institutes and of most of the individual researchers. The list adheres to the alphabet of the authors names, no longer to that of the institutions. After this note you will find the survey of them. A new national data base is proceeding very slowly and completion might still last some time in a country where this kind of research is considered to be of regional importance only …! This compilation was again supported by the national German science foundation (DFG), which we appreciated very much. The compilation work was mainly done thanks to the efforts of Verena Witte MA, Bochum.     

The Post Medieval Gravellona Toce Boat: an inland watercraft from north‐west Italy assembled using locked dowels

Discovered in 1955, not far from the Roman necropolis of Pedemonte, the Gravellona Toce boat has long been considered evidence of Roman‐period riverine navigation in northern Italy. This initial interpretation, which was not supported by direct dating evidence, has been recently reconsidered on the basis of radiocarbon‐dating and analysis of the timbers retrieved. In this paper, the authors present the results of the recent analysis of the surviving remains which allow the vessel to be interpreted as a post medieval boat built using the traditional bottom‐based construction techniques of the Po Valley region.     

Old English sǣte and the historical significance of ‘folk’ names

Old English s?te names survive in documentary sources and place‐names, and have been used in historical discourse as evidence for early and middle Anglo‐Saxon socio‐political organization. Earlier analyses, founded on incomplete datasets, have attempted to interpret the material in isolation from its onomastic context; this has led to confusion about the significance of such names. Here the analysis of s?te names is based on a more complete corpus, leading to a radically new interpretation of their distribution, chronology and historical context, with significant implications for our understanding of the evolution of Anglo‐Saxon administrative geography and the wider perception of so‐called ‘folk’ names.     

Black-and-White Photography in Batcham: From a Golden Age to Decline (1970–1990)

In this article, I explore the biographies of three professional black-and-white photographers of the 1970s from Batcham, West Cameroon. They are Edouard Fofou, alias Photo-Edouard; Michel Kenne, also known as Photo-Kmichel and Gaspard Vincent Tatang, alias Tagavince. They and their work stands as an example of the very many African photographers whose work could be archived but probably will not be. If we know of a few celebrated names like Malik Sidibe but not Vincent Tatang it is as much by chance as anything else. This then is an exploration of a possible but unrealized archive. What we could call an archival path not taken.