The Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 2003–2005: A Retrospective

Abstract

Archaeologists have long recognized that the Hopewell period was marked by the movement of exotic raw materials and artifacts across the eastern United States. The use of archaeometric techniques to trace the sources of these materials is well established. However, little work has been done on sourcing the pipestone used in Hopewell pipes. In this research we use Portable Infrared Mineral Analyzer (PIMA) technology to identify the presence of Minnesota catlinite as a raw material used for pipes recovered from the Tremper Mound (33SC4) caches in the Scioto Valley of Ohio. A new radiocarbon date places the deposition of these caches between B.C. 50 and A.D. 79. The presence of catlinite pipes in Ohio and in Wisconsin, but rarely in Illinois, suggests the existence of a direct west-to-east route from the catlinite quarries through Wisconsin to Ohio. This movement of catlinite appears to have been a short-term Hopewellian event and the material was not used again until late prehistoric times.     

“Frequent Deaths”: The Colonial Development of Concentration Camps Reconsidered, 1868–1974

This article sheds new light on the development of concentration camps in colonial warfare in the longue durée from 1868 to 1974. Introducing different examples of forced removal and deportation in the Spanish and Portuguese empires, the analysis emphasizes their interrelation, highlighting possible transfers of knowledge that have been neglected in comparative discussions. Specifically, the article reassesses the Cuban experience of concentrating civilians in times of war (1868–98); it critically evaluates Spain’s forgotten concentration camps on the Canary Islands, which emerged during the Ifni-Sahara war of 1957–58; and it focuses on both the theory of revolutionary warfare and the practice of so-called strategic resettlement in the long and protracted Portuguese colonial wars in Africa (1961–74). In particular, the camps on the Canary Islands suggest the need for an analytical distinction between the function of forced removals in counter-guerrilla warfare and administrative internment; they are related but essentially different policies. Based on hitherto ignored archival material, this empirically supported analysis challenges common assumptions about the “origins” of camps, and questions traditional temporal boundaries in the development of (anti-)guerrilla warfare.     

‘The Principles of Steam’: Political Transfer and Transformation in Japan, 1868–89

In the first decades of the Meiji period Japan started a deliberate modernization programme of state and society in which foreign models played a very important role. The speed with which foreign ideas concerning a constitution, a national assembly and popular rights were adopted and adapted is astonishing. Perhaps most impressive is the fact that this policy was not simply an elite matter, issued from above, but involved the general public as well. The various drafts of constitutions that have been found in village storehouses show political modernization had a broad social basis. European political history in the nineteenth century shows numerous instances of the rhetorical use of the foreignness of particular political models or ideas. Their foreign background made rejection or opposition easier. In Japan we meet a proud country that embarked on a course in which the adoption—and adaptation—of foreign political ideas and institutions was simply considered the proper thing to do. Japan became a perfect example of how political practices migrated, in the process were transformed in a national context and were used in political rhetoric.

Résumé:?Dans les premières décennies de l'ère Meiji le Japon commença un programme de modernisation de l'état et de la société dans lequel les modèles étrangers jouaient le plus grand rôle. La rapidité avec laquelle les idées étrangères sur la constitution, l'assemblée nationale et le droit surprend encore. Peut-être plus impressionnant encore est le fait que cette politique n'était pas le fait du pouvoir seul mais aussi celle du public dans son ensemble. Des propositions de constitutions ont été trouvées dans des archives villageoises qui démontrent bien le soutien populaire pour la modernisation. L'histoire européenne est aussi riche de nombreux exemples de l'utilisation rhétorique de modèles étrangers, leur origine étrangère facilitant également leur adoption ou le rejet. Dans le cas japonais l'adoption et l'adaptation de modèles étrangers furent plus simplement la chose à faire. Le Japon représente l'exemple ultime de la migration de pratiques politiques transformées par un contexte national.     

London Stone: Stone of Brutus or Fetish Stone—Making the Myth

The remnant of once-famous “London Stone” stands almost unnoticed today in Cannon Street, in the City of London. Speculation about its origin began as early as the sixteenth century. This paper considers in particular the identification of the Stone as London's talisman (a view embodied in an invented “ancient saying” that linked it to the city's legendary Trojan foundation), or as a prehistoric “fetish stone” set up when London was first settled. The mythologising of London Stone continues, and at the turn of the twenty-first century it is regarded by some as an essential element in London's indefinable “sacred geometry.”     

A Fleet in Being: The Rise and Fall of Italian Sea Power, 1861–1943

JAMES D. TRACY, ed. The Political Economy of Merchant Empires: State Power and World Trade 1350–1750. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. vi, 504.

K.N. CHAUDHURI. Asia before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xviii, 477.     

The Emergence of Multiple Sclerosis as a Nosological Category in France, 1838–1868

Neurologists have retold a story about the discovery of multiple sclerosis (MS) in essentially the same form from the 1870s to the present. Upon close analysis this narrative was found to be problematic. Once the nosological category of MS came into existence in 1868, physicians reread the scientific past through this new category and created a linear story. Following generations received this story uncritically, rereading the past through the conceptual lens of their own times. Writers selected the earlier cases, illustrations, and medical writings in the literature for inclusion in the discovery narrative and did not analyze them in their original historical contexts. The author offers an alternative account of the discovery of MS. The creation of the disease category of MS by Charcot in France was the result of several converging factors including a new histopathological technology, a unique relationship between patient and physicians in the clinic, a unique relationship between the clinic and the autopsy room, and a neurological culture emphasizing disease specificity.