Atlantic salmon, archaeology and climate change in New England

A paucity of archaeological remains of Atlantic salmon in Northeast North America has been cited as evidence that the species may have been present in the region only during and after the Little Ice Age (ca. 1450–1850 AD), one of coldest periods of the Holocene. However, significant problems of preservation, recovery and identification remain. Here, improved methods of identification use vertebra structure to distinguish salmon from trout, and strontium/calcium ratios to differentiate sea-run from landlocked salmon. In addition to the Little Ice Age, Atlantic salmon is identified in tightly dated contexts at 7000–6500 and 3500–3000 calendar years BP, during climate periods that were comparatively warm and wet.     

全球公共考古学的新视角

本文是《全球公共考古学的新视角》文集的一篇导论,对上世纪70年代以来公共考古学在英语国家及全球范围的发展做了综述。该文集的各章由各国考古学家撰写,分别介绍了公共考古学在各自国家的发展和现状。正如本文开宗明义所指出的,考古学与公众的关系从这门学科开始就相当密切,不只因为大部分重要考古发现是老百姓而非考古学家所为,而且几乎所有发掘工作都需要民众的参与。而且盗墓活动也难脱底层民众的干系。公共考古学的概念进入中国之后,一度被等同于大众考古或考古学的普及工作。具有讽刺意味的是。在相当长时间里,我国专家撰写科普读物被看作是不务正业,这类作品不被视为学术成果。这种看法正因公共考古学概念的引入而得到改观,从而使普及工作名正而言顺。因为考古学界认识到,没有高素质的民众,文化遗产的保护就是一句空话。公共考古学的概念最初是由美国考古学家理查德·麦克基姆西1972年出版的Public Archaeology一书所提出,后来迅速传播到世界各国。类似其他非英语国家,public的中译有"公共"和"公众"两种方式。英语的public有"官方"和"民众"的双重含意。这比较接近中文"公共"的意思,因为中文的"公共交通"或"公共设施"一般是指由行政部门主导和资助的大众服务。如果中国的遗产事业要与国际接轨,公共考古学也要摆脱目前局限于考古教育和知识普及的零敲碎打的大众实践,借鉴国际通行做法,由政府出于公众利益对考古学进行管理,鼓励公众积极参加考古活动和遗产保护与管理,并从多声部的公众视角来解释考古成果和布置博物馆陈列。     

Science,landscape archaeology and public participation: The Community Landscape Project,Devon, UK

Abstract

This paper presents and describes the background to the Community Landscape Project (CLP), which commenced in Devon in 2001 with funding from sources that include the United Kingdom Heritage Lottery Fund. The project is concerned with increasing public participation in landscape archaeology and, unusually, palaeoenvironmental studies, with the aim of dispelling the myth that archaeology is only about excavation and ‘finds’. The paper describes the project's genesis and its success in increasing public participation in landscape archaeology. The unusual features of the project include its scientific palaeoenvironmental content, both in the field and in the laboratory (environmental stratigraphy and pollen analysis) and its use of GIS. It is argued that this kind of project, with external or charity funding, has become essential because of a high demand coupled with a funding gap between the government, local societies and universities. Lessons have been learnt and some of these are summarised here with the aim of helping others to devise and run innovative and inclusive community archaeology projects.     

将考古学展示给公众——建构遗址现场的深入了解

导读：当下。全国各地新建的博物馆如雨后春笋地拔地而起,外表令人赞叹。但是内部陈列大多仍是传统的套路,主题和形式大同小异。大体是本文所谓的“专家建构”。即用专家提供的框架对观众进行教育或灌输。本文论述了考古遗址展示的建构主义方法。建构主义认为。知识不是通过教师传授而得到,而是学习者在一定的情境即社会文化背景下。借助他人（包括教师和学习伙伴J。利用必要的学习材料,通过意义建构的方式而获得。由于学习是在一定的情境即社会文化背景下。借助他人的帮助即通过人际间的协作活动而实现的意义建构过程。因此建构主义学习理论认为“情境”、“协作”、“对话”和“意义建构”是学习环境的四大要素。本文指出。兼顾教育与自我满足、信息与理解是博物馆和遗址现场展示的理想境界。博物馆和遗产展示被公认为大众教育场所,从国际发展趋势可见,这种特殊教育场所在为观众提供“专家视角”的同时。也要鼓励培养“观众视角”。在展示中。观众能够通过对各种展示的了解,积极创造个人的体验和意义,从而形成个人的世界建构。我国博物馆陈列向来是饱受诟病的对象,通过这篇文章。我们应该考虑,如何改变展览方式,在尊重专家视角的同时,也充分培养观众的视角和体验,创造新的主动学习环境,将博物馆和遗产地变成开发智慧的休闲场所。     

The archaeology of place

It is suggested that if archaeologists are to be successful in understanding the organization of past cultural systems they must understand the organizational relationships among places which were differentially used during the operation of past systems. This point is illustrated by observations made among the Nunamiut Eskimo. Against this background it is demonstrated that the two most common forms of archaeological systematics, “assemblage”- versus “type”-based systematics, are not appropriate for the study of places. In the latter case, it is not possible to analyze places as such, while one cannot see places with different “content” as part of a single system in the former. It is concluded that current archaeological systematics are totally inappropriate for studying past systems of adaptation and their evolutionary modification.     

Conservation,community archaeology,and archaeological mediation at Songo Mnara,Tanzania

Abstract

During archaeological fieldwork at Songo Mnara, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the southern Tanzanian coast, a storm caused the collapse of a graveyard’s retaining wall. The process initiated by the rebuilding of that wall serves as a case study in addressing the dialogue among researchers, community members, and national and international organizations concerning heritage. During the process of rebuilding the wall, the Village Ruins Committee was called up by the Songo Mnara villagers as a community voice to speak with external stakeholders and to access perceived opportunities to work with UNESCO for financial reward. The committee led the rescue operation at the graveyard, yet was not always recognized as part of the process of conserving the site. In describing the tensions among the hierarchy of stakeholders at Songo Mnara, we explore the benefits and contradictions of international involvement with marginalized communities who might have multiple competing interests. Our study also speaks to good archaeological practice and the ways that we must seek to do community archaeology through recognizing the efforts of local groups who need to forge their own paths to collaboration. The case of Songo Mnara is an interesting example of how international heritage agendas, local historical memory and archaeological research can intersect to strengthen community ties to, and investment in, the monuments of the past.     

Middle-range theory,behavioral archaeology,and postempiricist philosophy of science in archaeology

This paper examines middle-range theory (MRT) within processual and postprocessual archaeology. An analysis of the Binford-Schiffer dispute serves as a means of clarifying what MRT in processual archaeology is or is intended to be. Postprocessualists, despite their vigorous criticisms of MRT-based approaches, are found to rely on the same resources and types of reasoning to make their inferences. In their practice they tacitly turn to processualist middle-range principles, and so the justification of postprocessual interpretations is equivalent to that of MRT-based processualist models. If the middle range is functionally defined — a space within a research program occupied by varying theories that are taken from the body of general theory to which the program is committed and that function as background knowledge in the verification of theories — MRT bridges the epistemological gap between processual and postprocessual approaches.     

Airborne LiDAR,archaeology, and the ancient Maya landscape at Caracol,Belize

Advances in remote sensing and space-based imaging have led to an increased understanding of past settlements and landscape use, but – until now – the images in tropical regions have not been detailed enough to provide datasets that permitted the computation of digital elevation models for heavily forested and hilly terrain. The application of airborne LiDAR (light detection and ranging) remote sensing provides a detailed raster image that mimics a 3-D view (technically, it is 2.5-D) of a 200 sq km area covering the settlement of Caracol, a long-term occupied (600 BC-A.D. 250–900) Maya archaeological site in Belize, literally “seeing” though gaps in the rainforest canopy. Penetrating the encompassing jungle, LiDAR-derived images accurately portray not only the topography of the landscape, but also, structures, causeways, and agricultural terraces – even those with relatively low relief of 5–30 cm. These data demonstrate the ability of the ancient Maya to modify, radically, their landscape in order to create a sustainable urban environment. Given the time and intensive effort involved in producing traditional large-scale maps, swath mapping LiDAR is a powerful cost-efficient tool to analyze past settlement and landscape modifications in tropical regions as it covers large study areas in a relatively short time. The use of LiDAR technology, as illustrated here, will ultimately replace traditional settlement mapping in tropical rainforest environments, such as the Maya region, although ground verification will continue to be necessary to test its efficacy.     

Stigmatized ethnicity, public health, and globalization

The prejudicial linking of infection with ethnic minority status has a long-established history, but in some ways this association may have intensified under the contemporary circumstances of the "new public health" and globalization. This study analyzes this conflation of ethnicity and disease victimization by considering the stigmatization process that occurred during the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Toronto. The attribution of stigma during the SARS outbreak occurred in multiple and overlapping ways informed by: (i) the depiction of images of individuals donning respiratory masks; (ii) employment status in the health sector; and (iii) Asian-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian ethnicity. In turn, stigmatization during the SARS crisis facilitated a moral panic of sorts in which racism at a cultural level was expressed and rationalized on the basis of a rhetoric of the new public health and anti-globalization sentiments. With the former, an emphasis on individualized self-protection, in the health sense, justified the generalized avoidance of those stigmatized. In relation to the latter, in the post-9/11 era, avoidance of the stigmatized other was legitimized on the basis of perceiving the SARS threat as a consequence of the mixing of different people predicated by economic and cultural globalization.     

The archaeology of complex hunter-gatherers

Archaeologists' reconstructions of paths to complexity have all too often excluded complex hunter-gatherers. However, recent theoretical contributions and long-term field research programs in several regions of the world have now significantly advanced our understanding of complex hunter-gatherers. A discussion of definitions of complexity and a review of current models of the emergence of complexity provide a framework for analyses of complex hunter-gatherers and important cultural phenomena such as sedentism, political integration, prestige economies, feasting, and ideology.     

Authenticity,antiquity and archaeology

If nationalism shaped the assumptions and methods of archaeology for well over a century, archaeological concepts and practices made a significant contribution to the nationalist ideal of the distinctive, territorial nation. This is partly because nationalism and archaeology shared a belief in the ethnic uniqueness and tangibility of archaeological cultures, and partly because of the influence of key archaeological concepts and practices. The latter included a profound concern with the authenticity of material cultures; the related belief in ethnic rootedness in the historic territory; archaeology's well‐known interest in the antiquity of civilisations; and its use of the stratigraphic method to analyse continuity and change. Aside from these contributions, the archaeological domain provides a repertoire of vivid symbolism in its often spectacular ‘finds’, which have been able to express and embody the nation's unique culture and the intimate nature of the national bond.