A Brief Overview of the Evolution of Historical Archaeology in Argentina

This introductory chapter presents a brief overview of the evolution of Argentine historical archaeology as a scientific discipline, starting from the first pioneering work until its consolidation and future prospects. It also includes a summary of each of the paper presented.     

Historical Archaeology as Modern-World Archaeology in Argentina

Historical archaeology has grown at a remarkable pace in the last decade. South America has seen a major growth in historical archaeology, with archaeologists in Argentina playing a large role in the maturation of the discipline on the continent. Much of this archaeology can be characterized as “modern-world archaeology” because of the archaeologists’ interest in issues relevant to post-Columbian cultural history.     

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.     

Scale Locality and the Caribbean Historical Archaeology

Historical archaeologists have become increasingly concerned with regional analysis focusing on the interconnections between different archaeological sites in order to develop a better sense of social relations. This development is in part due to the realization of many years of research and subsequent topical and theoretical syntheses. It also reflects a shifting concern in research towards fluidity of landscape and translocality (Hicks in World Archaeol 37:373–391, 2005; Lightfoot K (2005). University of California, Berkeley; Orser CE Jr (1996) A historical archaeology of the modern world. Plenum, New York; Wilkie LA, Farnsworth P (2005) Sampling many pots: an archaeology of memory and tradition at a Bahamian Plantation. University Press of Florida, Gainesville). The Caribbean as a world area highlights the need for broader regional analyses where tensions between local specificities and global/translocal processes are mediated. These tensions have been explored through discussions of identity, agency, colonialism and political economy. In this volume we explore the utility of scale of analysis in the framing of colonial landscapes between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries in the Caribbean. Contributors to this volume have concentrated on the ways in which scale as a concept is explicitly analyzed or implicitly employed to shape how we as archaeologists focus on topics associated with the African Diaspora in the Caribbean to draw out narratives of everyday life.     

A Report on Historical Archaeology Publications in Latin America

Historical archaeology is today widely practiced in Latin America. Scholars not living or working in the region often are unaware of the research conducted in the countries south of the United States. This brief report outlines some of the historical archaeology conducted in Latin America and provides a brief bibliography.     

Historical Archaeology and the Post-Columbian World of North America

Historical archaeology, with its interest in material culture and its use of the broader perspectives of anthropology and anthropological archaeology, has contributed to a distinctive understanding of the North American experience. Historical archaeologists have, to varying degrees, investigated the material traces of class, race, gender, and state formation. These studies provide an understanding of the origin of many of the social practices that undergird modern culture, a necessary, though neglected, case in a unified anthropological archaeology's goal of writing innovative world histories.     

Archaeology, History, and Historical Archaeology in South America

This paper discusses the relationship between history and archaeology in general, their common concerns and links with historical archaeology. It deals with the development of historical archaeology in three related South American countries, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, and pays attention to recent trends in the theory and practice of the discipline in the area.     

Reconceptualizing Resistance in the Historical Archaeology of the British Isles: An Editorial

The present resonates with the harmonics of past events. Our archaeologies, because they deal with the everyday materiality of life, should not neglect to concern themselves with the domination of past people, since many similar forms of oppression persist. Moreover, we should consider the resistance to such domination. Rather than seeing resistance as simply reactive a problem which has generated much criticism—we can reconceptualize it to encompass a more nuanced understanding of the volition and agency of people in inferior positions of power. This lends new strength to the role of archaeologists in representing historical narratives of resistance.     

Archaeologies of Aspiration: Historical Archaeology in Rural Central Sicily

Using material from a survey and excavation project in central Sicily, this paper discusses the complexities of understanding the material effects and archival data related primarily to nineteenth- and twentieth-century rural landscapes. Although it is possible to frame the relevant processes in terms of resistance and capitalist relations, the authors suggest that to understand this material within its historical context, it is necessary to identify aspirations and values related to the various overlapping as well as competing social groups with interests in the countryside, including large land-owners and institutions, leaseholders and their associates, small landholders and landless peasants.     

大辛庄遗址发掘与历史时期考古学文化的思考

2003年大辛庄遗址采用新的考古发掘技术与方法,全面收集材料,开展综合研究,具有重要的方法论意义。对于历史时期考古学文化研究而言,历史工作者当顺应考古学发展趋势,采纳新技术与方法,用整体观分析问题,实现多学科合作,开展综合研究,有利于我们多层面地复原古代社会。     

The Historical Tradition and Mission of Chinese Archaeology

Chinese President Xi Jinping, gave an important speech describing the great achievements and significance of Chinese archaeology, pointing out the way forward for the development of Chinese archaeology in the new era. By reviewing the century-long history of Chinese archaeology, its historical tradition and the mission of the times are distinctive. Since 1949, under the guidance of archaeological culture theory and regional systems and cultural types theory, Chinese archaeology has made a series of significant achievements and taken up the mission of the times in inheriting historical traditions and exploring major issues including the origins of Chinese civilization. The current development of Chinese archaeology should further the historical tradition of Chinese archaeology under the guidance of the spirit of Xi Jinping’s speech. From a longitudinal perspective, Chinese archaeology should strengthen the research on the origin of Chinese civilization and its characteristics, development trajectory, major landmark achievements, and the way of civilization inheritance after its formation, especially to strengthen the exploration of how the“5,000-year continuous unity” was formed after the unification of the Qin and Han dynasties. From a horizontal perspective, with the Belt and Road Initiative as the main thread, we should continue to strengthen archaeological research on cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, advocate mutual appreciation of civilizations, tell the Chinese story well, and contribute Chinese historical wisdom and experience to the world. On the whole, we should strengthen the theoretical construction and ability training of archaeology, strive to build Chinese archaeology with salient Chinese features, style, and ethos, and realize the historical mission of the new era of the Centennial“Chinese Dream.”     

Archaeological,Historical, and Ethnographic Approaches to the Study of Sewn Boats: past,present, and future

Sewn‐plank vessels have been a pervasive form of ship construction since antiquity. This paper provides an introductory overview of the current state of the field of sewn‐plank studies, with a particular focus on the Indian Ocean. It describes the basic function of sewn‐plank techniques, and then discusses textual references and historical approaches to the topic. The relevant archaeological evidence is reviewed, and prior ethnographic work relating to the topic is outlined. It summarizes numerous experimental sewn‐plank reconstructions that have been undertaken and concludes with a discussion of the current directions of the field and suggestions for the future.     

Toward the Historical Archaeology of Levuka, a South Pacific Port of Call

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Fijian port of Levuka alternately passed through incarnations as a beachcomber community, boisterous port of call, commercial entrepôt, and colonial capital. Initial investigations in this town in 2000 provide a data set through which archaeology's potential for a meaningful dialogue on Levuka's past can be explored. These data reflect upon an increasingly segregated European community structure, through which social transformations in alcohol use, landscape alterations, and material culture consumption patterns are examined.     

Household Archaeology in the Andes

Data from domestic contexts can be used to address significant anthropological research questions. Archaeological investigations in the Andes (areas once incorporated into the Inka empire, including northwestern Argentina, highland Bolivia, northern Chile, Ecuador, and Peru), like many parts of the world, rely on ethnohistory and ethnography to interpret the archaeological remains of domestic areas and make inferences about households. In this review I describe the ideas about Andean households that archaeologists are using and how domestic remains are being examined to infer social, economic, and political processes. Household archaeology in the Andes requires ethnoarchaeology and theory-building in order to understand the complex social dynamics at the foundation of ancient Andean societies.     

《中国考古学年鉴》的特色及其在考古学科发展中的作用

本文比较详细地介绍了《中国考古学年鉴》的特色及其在考古科研工作中所起的作用。     

The Tragedy of Cambridge Anthropology: Edwardian Historical Thought and the Contact of Peoples

The essay identifies and explores the intellectual formation of a hitherto overlooked constellation of ‘anthropologists’ in Edwardian Cambridge. Three core members of this group were William Ridgeway, Hector Munro Chadwick, and William H. R. Rivers, who today are more normally associated with (respectively) Classics, Anglo-Saxon studies, and Anthropology. However, in the decade before World War I all three were active members of the new Board of Anthropology, and each, in his particular field of study, began to turn away from established evolutionary explanation to investigate social phenomena as arising out of the contact of different peoples. The essay first shows the connections between the work of Chadwick and Rivers, and then suggests that both were following a path recently beaten down by Ridgeway who, in his disputes with the so-called Cambridge Ritualists, advanced an account of ancient Greek tragedy as arising out of a fusion of native and intrusive performances, both relating to the commemoration of the dead.     

Avian Remains from Late Pre-colonial Amerindian sites on Islands of the Venezuelan Caribbean

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the results of the analyses of 3793 bird remains archaeologically recovered from seven late pre-Hispanic sites (～AD 1000–1500) on islands of the Venezuelan Caribbean. In order to address subsistence and manufacturing uses of bird bones, we first discuss the recovery process of this unique sample. We proceed to investigate the bones' archaeological contexts as well as the taphonomy in play and analyze diverse bone categories. We found that indigenous peoples consistently targeted several families of birds for food or feathers or both, and that avian bones were used for fashioning tools and adornments. We also discuss possible signatures of island campsite seasonal occupancy as inferred from the bio-ecology of the identified bird taxa. The data suggest that the differentiation of nesting grounds between the Red-footed and Brown Booby in the Southeastern Caribbean may be a result of anthropogenically-induced adaptation. The findings discussed in this paper open challenging avenues for assessing long-term changes in bird communities including the dynamics of resident and wintering bird populations.     

Scuttled in the Morning: the discoveries and surveys of HMS Warrior and HMS Sparrowhawk,the Battle of Jutland's last missing shipwrecks

Due to the circumstances of the loss of HMS Warrior and HMS Sparrowhawk in 1916, in which subsequent to disablement both had drifted and been towed unknown distances from the Jutland battlefield, they were not located in the 2015 Jutland survey. In August 2016 both ships were located and HMS Warrior was revealed to be a pristine warship wreck, the only example in this condition of the 25 ships sunk in the battle. HMS Sparrowhawk had a similar pattern of disturbance as seven of the other Battle of Jutland destroyer wrecks. The survey of these wrecks draws to a conclusion a long period of discovery at Jutland and raises questions as to how these important cultural artefacts should be treated in the future.     

Radiocarbon Dating and the Historical Archaeology of Korea: An Alternative Interpretation of Hongryeonbong Fortress II in the Three Kingdoms Period,Central Korea

Relying heavily upon historical records to build archaeological chronologies, many Korean historical archaeologists question the utility of radiocarbon dating. To challenge this tendency, we test a model based on historical records by analyzing radiocarbon dates. We dated two bulk samples from Hongryeonbong Fortress II, Seoul, South Korea, which is known historically to have been occupied between a.d. 500 and 551. By dividing bulk samples into smaller aliquots, we dated 40 subsamples and statistically estimated consensus dates. The consensus dates do not support expectations of the historical model, as they do not lie within the temporal range provided by historical records. We propose an alternative model that explains both the radiocarbon dates and the historical records. It is suggested that radiocarbon dating can be successfully applied to the reconstruction of historical periods and is a way of mitigating possible biases of models based solely on historical records.     

Consuming the Past: Public Perceptions towards the Discipline of Archaeology in Zimbabwe

This paper discusses the public perceptions of archaeology and the information that archaeologists produce in Zimbabwe. There have been accusations that archaeologists in various parts of the world research for themselves. The products of archaeological research are often presented in academic jargon only accessible to those in the profession. Archaeological research in developing countries has been criticized for having limited involvement, if any, with the local communities in which it is conducted, and fails to address development issues that are important and much more relevant to the concerned societies. The paper discusses the extent to which these accusations are justified in Zimbabwe, focusing on the perceptions that local communities have on archaeology, archaeologists, archaeological remains, archaeological research, and institutions dealing with archaeological cultural heritage in that country. It also discusses why it seems difficult to put into practice some of the suggestions that have been made in the past on how to engage with the public. The paper argues that, although there have been efforts to change the situation, southern African archaeology in general and specifically its practice in Zimbabwe remains largely a preserve of the initiated. It concludes by recommending that writing on archaeological issues be accessible and that research issues should have social relevance. Awareness of local communities in research, outreach activities to schools, and the benefits of archaeological resources for local communities, are crucial means by which the value of the discipline can be appreciated by the public.