Historical Archaeologies of the American West

Historical archaeology in western North America includes a vast collection of research that underscores the region’s dynamic cultural heritage. Here, I review a sample of the literature related to this research and organize them into four conceptual themes: colonialism and postcolonialism, landscape transformation, migration and diaspora, and industrial capitalism. I conclude that the future of historical archaeology in the West will be grounded in research that integrates these themes. As the region continues to experience human dilemmas related to issues such as balancing resource extraction with sustainable conservation and lingering issues of colonialism, these archaeologies have value for transcending the nature–culture divide and for understanding the ways in which humanity can navigate pressing issues relevant to our modern world, including vulnerability, risks, adaptation, resilience, and sustainability.     

美国西部牧区的掠夺开发及后果

美国内战后至20世纪初的西部牧区开发,虽然使曾被称为“美国大荒漠”的大平原兴起为一个疆域辽阔的“牧畜王国”,但牧区繁荣是靠掠夺性开发促成的。这种残暴的掠夺性开发造成牧区超载放牧,形成牛羊相残、农牧争地的混乱局面,甚至引发流血冲突和“牧区战争”。掠夺性开发酿成悲剧后果:它破坏了大平原的自然风貌;打破了自然界的生态平衡,导致草原沙化和沙尘暴频仍;白人拓居者对大平原的主人——印第安人施行种族灭绝政策,建立的是缺乏和谐、受垄断资本控制的白人富有者主宰的社会。     

美国西部牧区的“赶拢大会”

在美国西部史论中,有两个专门术语：“赶拢”(Roundup)“长途驱赶”(Long Drive)。两的产生,都与美国内战后在其西部兴起的“牧牛王国”有关。它们都是“敞开”放牧区(Open Range)的产物。美国史学家对“赶拢”和“长途驱赶”在西部开拓中的作用都极为重视。     

美国史学的兼容并包与社会影响

史学要产生较为广泛的社会影响,很重要的一点,就是要通过兼容并包来促进史学形式多元化局面的形成,在一般情况下,只有形式的多元化,史学才能在更大程度上去影响社会。美国史学就是一个较好的例证。     

当代美国大都市区社会问题与联邦政府政策

大都市区,一般由一到两个中心城市和周围数个甚至数十个城市及其郊区组成。自1940年美国大都市区人口接近全国总人12I的一半以来,大都市区就在美国社会经济生活中占据主导地位。到目前为止,美国已有268个大都市区,其人口占全国总人口的80％。所以,当代美国的所谓城市问题,主要在大都市区范围内,宜定义为大都市区问题①。     

美国西部开发的政治影响分析

美国西部开发有很深远的政治影响．西部新州加入联邦改变了美国政治舞台的区域力量构成;西部民主制度的确立和发展加速了美国政治民主化的趋势;西部开发加尉南北矛盾,但却有利于自由劳动制度的全面胜利;西部开发影响着美国两党制的形成与确立。     

The story of Comanche: horsepower,heroism and the conquest of the American West

Marked by the Census Bureau’s closure of the frontier; the symbolic end of American Indian resistance at Wounded Knee and powerful articulations on the ‘winning of the West’ from Frederick Jackson Turner and Buffalo Bill Cody, the early 1890s was a critical moment in the history of the American West. It also saw the death of one of the region’s most famous cavalry horses, Comanche, who succumbed to colic in 1891 aged twenty-nine. Famously billed as ‘the only living thing to survive the Battle of the Little Bighorn’, this article uses Comanche as a locus around which to examine the history of warhorses in the military culture of the American West, and, more broadly, to point towards a growing scholarship on war and the environment that emphasises the usefulness of such themes as spatiality and inter-species exchange in embellishing our understanding of the experience, impact and cultural memory of war. Not only does Comanche’s lifespan (c.1862–1891) usefully coincide with the federal government’s final conquest of the West but his equine biography serves as valuable testament to the use of horses in the US military as both practical and symbolic agents of American expansionism.     

美国西部牧区拓荒的牛仔与牧羊人

内战以后,美国的西部开发在第二次工业革命的推动下步入了新阶段。牧业开发是西部三大行业开发的重要组成部分之一。由于牛仔和牧羊人的艰苦开拓,西部崛起了“牧牛王国”和“牧羊帝国”。牛仔和牧羊人主要来自美国社会下层的劳动者和外国穷苦移民。他们是美国西部牧区的主要劳动力,是牧牛场主和牧羊主的雇工。他们的生活条件和工作环境非常艰苦,所承担的工作极为劳累、繁重和艰险。美国西部牧业的繁荣是他们艰苦创业和开拓进取的结果。牛仔和牧羊人都是牧区拓荒的先驱者和英雄。他们都对西部开拓做出了巨大贡献．佃长期以来,存美国却存存着褒杨牛仔和贬抑牧羊人的明显俪向．汶县栅不公诈的．     

As Basket and Papu: Making Manus Social Fabric

Between 2012 and 2019, Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, hosted Australia's offshore detention centre for asylum seekers and refugees, known as the Regional Processing Centre (RPC). This paper analyses some of the social impacts of the RPC on Lorengau town, the urban centre of Manus, through the analytical lens of the Manus idiom, as basket (Tok Pisin). Materially this refers to the everyday Manus basket whilst metaphorically, it refers to an individual's or community's social, cultural, political and economic base. First, I examine asylum seekers and refugees as a social category that emerged during this period when they were referred to as papu by locals. Papu is an honorific kinship term for grandfather or elder man; for men who are symbols for family identity, social belonging, and rights to land. Second, I examine the changing materiality of Lorengau's markets as indicative of wider societal transformations and dissonance brought about by the RPC. My ethnographic data are based on long term involvement in Manus, including three recent visits to Lorengau in 2017, 2018, and 2019 where I studied the social impacts and the changing social practices of Manus people in response to the RPC.