News and Short Contributions

Abstract

A Controlled Archaeological Test Site (CATS) facility has been constructed in Champaign, Illinois, by the Cultural Resources Research Center at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, with funding provided by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training. The test site will be utilized for research and training with geophysical applications in archaeology. The CATS facility replicates a range of archaeological features commonly encountered in North American archaeological sites and offers a controlled environment for the application of non-destructive investigative techniques. The site provides the opportunity for geophysicists and archaeologists to work with features of known geophysical attributes in a controlled geomorphological setting. In addition to providing a controlled “test bed” for training students in the use of geophysical techniques, the CATS facility will be available for research in a broad range of problems associated with archaeogeophysics, such as the effects of environmental conditions on geophysical expression, sensor type and configuration, data sample density, image processing and pattern recognition, operator variation, and feature variability. This research will contribute to our ability to interpret geophysical data and refine field methods for application in archaeological investigations.     

News and Short Contributions

Abstract

Muralla de Leon is a dry stone wall construction on an elevated plateau NE of Lake Macanche, in the central portion of the Department of Peten, Guatemala. Surrounded by water on three sides, the wall attains a maximum height of 4 m. and has a perimeter of 1.4 km. Twenty-one structures are located inside the wall, their construction spanning the Terminal Preclassic through the Postclassic periods. Most interesting are quantities of Floral Park Protoclassic materials as well as a Postclassic “temple assemblage” inside the wall. Problems associated with dating the fortification are discussed, and processes that may have contributed to the construction and occupation of the Muralla de Leon site are reviewed. The times of apparent construction and occupation of the Muralla de Leon area suggest the possibility of a broader role of conflict in the evolution of Maya civilization during the Protoclassic period than previously recognized, and illuminate the role of warfare in the interrelationships of Postclassic communities in the Central Peten.     

News and Short Contributions

Abstract

Temporal and spatial patterns of faunal, floral, and ceramic deposition reveal several aspects of household and village economy at Tell el-Hayyat, Jordan. Hayyat was a modest farming hamlet (0.5 ha) with 100–150 inhabitants, which was occupied in six major phases between ca. 2100 and 1500 B.C. This timespan covers the entire Middle Bronze Age, commonly considered the heyday of early urbanism in the southern Levant. Ethnographic and ancient historical exa1nples of agrarian villages in SW Asia include settlements administered by crown or temple estates, held as private property by elite families or absentee landlords, or owned collectively by resident villagers. Data drawn from Tell el-Hayyat Phases 5,4, and 3 (dating to Middle Bronze IIA and IIB) suggest some changes toward a commercially-oriented rural economy, as might be anticipated for villages held by institutional or private estates. Most of the Hayyat data, however, suggest trends toward enhanced economic autonomy, as expected for a collectively owned community. Tell el-Hayyat exemplifies the economic resilience of Levantine villages in the face of developing Middle Bronze Age town and city life.     

Anthropological Contributions and Challenges to the Study of Children and Childhoods

This essay considers the anthropology of childhood's recent growth. It summarizes the sub-field's extensive if often unacknowledged past, reviews its late 20th-century bourgeoning, and then highlights three influential teaching texts, each of which argues for a more considered, culturally informed understanding of children and childhood while performing the vital service of bringing together heretofore scattered ideas and data. To ensure the field's further maturation, scholars must leverage what an integrative, four-fields approach has to offer, attend to the conjoined, coterminous, and coeval facets of adulthood and childhood; leverage what an integrative, four-fields approach has to offer; expand the pediatric lens; and otherwise guard against our own cultural biases.     

The Dispersed Sculpture of Parthenay and the Contributions of Nuclear Science

Abstract

TWENTY-TWO limestone sculptures, thought to have once decorated the now-destroyed 12th-century church Notre-Dame-de-la-Couldre in Parthenay (Deux-Sèvres), are dispersed in numerous American and French museum collections. To assess their provenance, stylistic analysis and documentary evidence are here combined with compositional analysis of their stone by neutron activation. Comparison of the resulting compositional profiles with those of samples from the still-standing west façade produced matches for works in the Musée du Louvre, Glencairn Museum, William Hayes Fogg Museum, and a private collection. Samples from sculptures in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art differ in composition from each other and from those that match stone from the façade of Notre-Dame-de-la-Couldre. Still other works, such as those in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, returned varied results conflicting with other provenance information. This application of scientific techniques sheds new light on these sculptures, but just as importantly, this diverse group — by offering a range of archival, photographic, and restoration records — provides an excellent demonstration of the contributions, as well as limitations, of nuclear science to provenance study.     

印度尼西亚华人的历史地位、作用和贡献

华人在印尼的历史已有上千年。在西方殖民者入侵前 ,华人与原住民一向和睦相处 ,对繁荣当地经济做出了重要贡献。荷兰殖民统治后 ,大批华人到印尼谋生或被掳掠当劳工 ,他们全面参与了印尼经济从自然经济向市场经济的过渡并发挥了重要作用。 2 0世纪 ,在印尼出现了华人和原住民两种民族觉醒和双轨的民族运动 ,在争取民族独立的斗争过程中二者逐渐汇合并轨。印尼独立后 ,原住民中的“原住民主义”思想抬头 ,曾出现大规模的经济排华。“新秩序”时期 ,“原住民主义”思想变本加厉 ,对华人采取强制、快速和彻底的同化政策 ,企图通过消灭华人的“一切特性”以实现完全的“原住民化” ,导致 1 998年的“五月骚乱”和“新秩序”政权的垮台。印尼进入民主改革时期之后 ,对华人的历史地位、作用和贡献才有了比较客观和公正的评价     

试论抗日战争中非洲华侨的贡献

海外侨胞在抗日战争中的贡献是不言而喻的 ,对此学术界已有不少论著。遗憾的是 ,对非洲华侨在抗战中的作用很少提及。少数学者关于华侨与抗战的论著对此略为涉及 1,但有的份量很重的关于华侨革命史著作和华侨与抗日战争的有关论文 (集 )对这一重要史实根本未提 2 ,这是有欠公允的。本文将从非洲华侨的抵制日货活动、非洲华侨抗日后援团体以及抗日救国募捐等三个方面进行考察 ,力图客观地对他们的贡献作出应有的评价。一192 8年的“济南惨案”充分暴露了日本对中国的侵略野心。非洲华侨虽远离国土 ,但对祖国的安危时时关心。马达加斯加华侨在…