Urbanization in Iron Age Europe: Trajectories,Patterns, and Social Dynamics

The development of the first urban centers is one of the most fundamental phenomena in the history of temperate Europe. New research demonstrates that the earliest cities developed north of the Alps between the sixth and fifth centuries BC as a consequence of processes of demographic growth, hierarchization, and centralization that have their roots in the immediately preceding period. However, this was an ephemeral urban phenomenon, which was followed by a period of crisis characterized by the abandonment of major centers and the return to more decentralized settlement patterns. A new trend toward urbanization occurred in the third and second centuries BC with the appearance of supra-local sanctuaries, open agglomerations, and finally the fortified oppida. Late Iron Age settlement patterns and urban trajectories were much more complex than traditionally thought and included manifold interrelations between open and fortified sites. Political and religious aspects played a key role in the development of central places, and in many cases the oppida were established on locations that already had a sacred character as places for rituals and assemblies. The Roman conquest largely brought to an end Iron Age urbanization processes, but with heterogeneous results of both abandonment and disruption and also continuity and integration.     

Bronze Age Barrows: Factors Influencing Their Survival and Destruction

This paper analyses the influences on the survival of Bronze Age round barrows in two regions of southern Britain, the Upper Thames Valley and the Stonehenge Environs. It is clear that persistent arable farming in the medieval period had a highly destructive effect on these burial mounds. This can be seen despite later agricultural activity. Other factors such as the type of barrows can also be important factors in the survival and destruction of these burial mounds. Nevertheless, when analysing the distribution of these Bronze Age monuments, later historic land use must be considered as well as the contemporary prehistoric landscape.     

The Bioarchaeological Investigation of Childhood and Social Age: Problems and Prospects

Recently, the value of the study of children and childhood from archaeological contexts has become more recognized. Childhood is both a biological and a social phenomenon. However, because of specialization in research fields within anthropology, subadults from the archaeological record are usually studied from the biological perspective (bioarchaeology) or, more predominantly, the social perspective (social archaeology), with little research that incorporates both approaches. These polarized approaches to childhood and age highlight the dualistic way in which “biological” and “social” aspects of the body are viewed. Some recent literature criticizes bioarchaeological approaches, and calls for the incorporation of childhood social theory, including social age categories, into subadult health analysis. However, few studies have explicitly addressed the practicalities or theoretical issues that need to be considered when attempting this. This paper critically examines these issues, including terminology used for defining subadulthood and age divisions within it, and approaches to identify “social age” in past populations. The important contribution that bioarchaeology can make to the study of social aspects of childhood is outlined. Recent theoretical approaches for understanding the body offer exciting opportunities to incorporate skeletal remains into research, and develop a more biologically and socially integrated understanding of childhood and age.

Settlement Dynamics and Social Organization in Eastern Iberia during the Iron Age (Eighth–Second Centuries BC)

Summary.   This paper explores the formation of urban societies in the eastern Iberian Peninsula. From the Early Iberian Iron Age onwards it is possible to trace the emergence of a hierarchical settlement pattern in which larger settlements carried out the most important functions of control and exploitation of the resources in this territory, extending their authority over several small farming villages. This settlement pattern is associated with the complex socio-economic structures and political organization of Iberian aristocracies. In this paper we will focus on the development of the Iberians' active role in exchanging goods with oriental traders; it is this contact which subsequently produces social change in the Iron Age period.     

This is not a Monument: Rhetorical Destruction and the Social Context of Cultural Resource Management

Abstract

Cultural resource management is often seen as a matter of identifying and valuing historic buildings, monuments and landscapes, and protecting their special interest through a suite of suitable heritage legislation and policy. However, unexpected damage and loss of heritage assets occur with regularity despite clear identification of their importance and the existence of suitable heritage legislation. While this problem is frequently seen as exceptional, this paper argues that it is not helpful to see these cases as such. Instead, it is argued that such cases highlight the social context within which cultural resource management takes places and, in particular, the rhetoric that is employed within the context of competing discourses.     

Lathom House: The Northern Court

Abstract

Thomas Stanley is credited with the creation of a fine new house at Lathom when he was made earl of Derby in 1485. This house, according to the poets and writers if the 16th and 17th centuries, was a sumptuous and well-defended place surrounded by moats and with as marry as eighteen towers. Indeed, it was claimed that Henry VII, stepson if the first earl if Derby, based his design for Richmond Palace on Lathom. After the house had fallen to the Parliamentarians it is usually accepted that the place was razed to the ground and, since the latter years of the 18th century, there has been considerable debate regarding its location. Recent archaeological work at the site if a later house, designed by Giacomo Leoni, is now providing evidence to show that Leoni's building probably lay on the site of the earlier structure and that some if the medieval masonry was incorporated into the rubble fill if the 18th-century walls. This study now examines the evidence for the first earl of Derby's house and argues that Lathom should be considered amongst the most important late 15th-century houses in England and Wales.     

Ceramic Technology and Social Boundaries: Cultural Practices in Kalinga Clay Selection and Use

This study examines cultural sources of variation in ceramic compositional patterning in two pottery-making villages of the highland Philippines. In Dalupa, many potters are part-time specialists whereas in Dangtalan, women make pottery less frequently. Previous studies show that both pottery form and decoration correspond well with Kalinga social boundaries, but how do morphological and decorative patterning relate to compositional variability? Although researchers have made substantial advances in our understanding of natural and postdepositional sources of compositional variability, little is known about behavioral factors that affect chemical and mineralogical compositional patterning. This study examines cultural practices of clay selection and use in an ethnographic setting, and undertakes technical analyses to assess the relationship between behavior and material culture patterning. Our study identified paste differences between the clays and fired ceramics from Dangtalan and those from Dalupa. Findings from our compositional research thus parallel earlier morphological and stylistic studies, and illustrate multivariate differences in ceramics from these two Kalinga communities. This ethnoarchaeological and analytical project contributes, therefore, to understanding objective parameters within a behavioral context. It also provides an example of how a combined characterization approach, using chemical and petrographic techniques, can yield insights on intraregional variation at a finer scale of resolution than is often attempted.     

从时代特点和社会发展需要看华侨华人研究的意义

华侨华人研究作为一门新兴学科要受到社会各界的重视,需从时代的特点和我国社会发展的现实需要两方面揭示其作用和意义。研究者尤其应当开阔视野,转变观念,从全球化的高度认识华侨华人问题,从中国走向世界的广度研究应对机遇与挑战的现实问题,从科学本身所要求的深度探索华侨华人生存发展和侨务工作的规律性问题。     

Evidence of Social Stratification in Bronze Age Denmark

Abstract

The Late Bronze Age hoards (12th–6th centuries B.C.) from Denmark are examined as evidence of the existence of social ranking in that prehistoric society. The hoards contain bronze weapons and ornaments which seem to function as sumptuary goods and appear to be ranked according to regular rules. The hoards also represent economic wealth and include objects of ritual importance. This intersection, in single finds, of material reflections of the political, religious, and economic systems in the society, along with the inferred existence of social ranking, suggests the presence of a prehistoric chiefdom in Denmark in the Late Bronze Age.     

Making Change Materialize: An Archaeology of Social Reform in the Age of Obama

The 2008 American presidential election led some to believe that an era of possibility had finally dawned. But change remains elusive, and questions about how to advance social justice causes persist in the age of Obama. Critical examinations of past social movements help answer these questions, and to this end I offer research on Smithfield and North Elba, two New York towns imagined as utopias by reformer Gerrit Smith (1797–1874). While some have emphasized a narrative of utopia realized, research on the artifacts, landscapes, and texts associated with them has revealed past struggles and knowledge of what hinders future imaginaries.     

Profiling House Members: The Policy Dimensions Approach

Abstract

With decreasing debate, a unidimensional approach to the study of roll-call voting in Congress has increasingly achieved acceptance. We argue in favor of an alternative, the policy dimension approach, and suggest that such an approach has the advantage of allowing us to examine sets of policy positions that deviate from a unidimensional model, and to explain these policy profiles.