Historical Archaeology and the Slave Ship

This introduction explores the relationship between maritime archaeology and the historical archaeology of the African Diaspora, and discusses the structure and content of this special issue of IJHA, which marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade in 2007.     

土地所有制与中国奴隶社会

中国古史分期的讨论已经持续了七十年之久，有论者将七十年采的研究成果归纲为”三论五说”八种不同意见。三论即西周封建论，战国封建论，魏晋封建论。这是早在40年代形成的三种主要意见。五说即后起的与战国封建论意见相近的春秋统一说和秦统一说，与魏晋封建论意见相近的西汉统一说，东汉统一说和东晋统一说。近年来又出现一种无奴隶社会说，持这种意见的论者或认为“夏商是封建社会”，或认为“夏商二代可以称之为‘氏族封建时代”’。说法虽然不同，但都“不再套用‘五种社会形态’的演变模式”。都认为中国在原始社会之后没有经过奴隶社会发展阶段，而是直接进入了封建社会。     

Slave Ships and Maritime Archaeology: An Overview

This contribution collates information about wrecked slaving vessels discovered or sought by maritime archaeologists since 1972. To date, only a handful of firmly identified, active slave ships have been subject to excavation, but additional work has been carried out on wrecks of former slaver ships and possible slavers. The impending 200th anniversaries of the abolition of the British and US slave trades (2007 and 2008, respectively) appear to have stimulated a new wave of interest in slaver wrecks, and these new initiatives are also discussed.     

The history of marriage and the myth of Friedelehe

The idea that Friedelehe and Muntehe constituted two distinct forms of Germanic marriage was based upon an attempt to reconstruct common Germanic culture with scraps of evidence from widely different times and places. A thorough re-examination of the sources for the institutions that were posited, based on this now outmoded methodology, reveals no evidence that transfer of Munt, or guardianship, distinguished between two different types of marriage, except perhaps in Lombard Italy, under the influence of Roman law. The idea that marriage with a dos is a different institution from marriage without one is not attested until the Carolingian period.