Environmentalism,Culture, Ethnography

Such is the ubiquity of environmentalism as a significant community experience throughout the world that most anthropologists will nowadays find themselves attending to the concerns their respondents have for the environments which surround and sustain them. In this article, we take stock of some of the issues addressed, and the achievements realized, by environmental anthropology to date. First, we emphasize that there is already a literature which stands as testament to the variety of environmental issues ‐ water, whales and the weather, for instance ‐ on which anthropologists have original insights to offer. Second, we argue that an important anthropological focus is on how ordinary people think and talk about their environments, especially when faced with external forces that have to be responded to in innovative and creative ways in order to be effective. It is not the view from above or below, but the view from within environments that matters most in local settings, which anthropologists have been concerned to unravel. Third, we emphasize that the Asia Pacific region constitutes an exceptionally rich field for anthropological research. Studies already carried out in places as diverse as Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, the Philippines, Indonesia, Chile and the Torres Strait make categorically clear that local and regional environmental concerns and conflicts are influenced by history, religion, Indigeneity, ethnicity, gender and other considerations that deserve critical anthropological enquiry. It is a crucial message that is endorsed and amplified by our fellow contributors in this special issue.     

Absence makes the heart grow fonder: transatlantic Irish nationalism and the 1867 Rising

L'éloignement renforce l'affection: le nationalisme irlandais transatlantique et l'insurrection de 1867

While nationalist temporal narratives continue to be demythologized, relatively little comparative work has been done to demythologize nationalist spatial narratives. Consequently, the theorizing of nationalism often remains safely corralled within the territorial boundaries of a respective nation-state. In order to advance theoretical understandings of nationalism, it is imperative that geographers break this sedentary spell. This paper seeks to do just that, through analysis of a particularly vehement brand of nineteenth-century Irish nationalism known as Fenianism, and by revealing the crucial role that the Irish diaspora played in the transatlantic development of Irish nationalism.

Pendant que se poursuit la démythification des récits nationalistes d'ordre temporel, proportionnellement peu d'études comparatives ont été menées pour démythifier les récits nationalistes d'ordre spatial. De ce fait, la théorisation du nationalisme est généralement circonscrite à l'intérieur des limites territoriales d'un état-nation en particulier. Pour faire progresser les savoirs théoriques sur le nationalisme, il importe que les géographes puisse rompre ce charme sédentaire. Cet article vise à rendre compte de cela par un examen d'une sorte particulièrement véhémente de nationalisme irlandais au dix-neuvième siècle connu sous l'appellation de Fénianisme. Il montre aussi le rôle déterminant que jouait la diaspora irlandaise dans la montée du nationalisme irlandais transatlantique.

La ausencia es al amor lo que al fuego el aire: que apaga el pequeño y aviva el grande: el nacionalismo irlandés transatlántico y el levantamiento del año 1867

Aunque se sigue sacando del terreno de la mitología las narrativas nacionalistas temporales, hay pocos trabajos comparativos que hacen lo mismo con las narrativas nacionalistas espaciales. Por consiguiente la teorización sobre el nacionalismo se queda encorralada dentro de las fronteras territoriales de una respectiva nación-estado. Si los geógrafos quieren potenciar entendimientos teoréticos sobre el nacionalismo es imprescindible que rompan este hechizo sedentario. Es éste el objetivo de este papel y tratamos de hacerlo por el análisis de un tipo de nacionalismo irlandés del siglo diecinueve llamado Fenianismo, que era especialmente vehemente, y por revelar el papel decisivo de la diáspora irlandesa en el desarrollo transatlántico del nacionalismo irlandés.     

The Protohistoric Time Period in Northwest Ohio: Perspectives from the XRF Analysis of Metallic Trade Materials

This paper presents the results of an experimental study into the usefulness of X-ray florescence (XRF) in identifying the composition of metal artifacts found at aboriginal sites in northwestern Ohio. In the late 1990s, we subjected 96 samples to XRF and documented our results. We then compared our data to that collected by more precise spectrographic methods to assess the effectiveness of the XRF method for this application. While not precise enough to source native coppers, we conclude that XRF is a cheap, nondestructive method for differentiating native copper from its European counterparts at sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Late Woodland sites.     

Experimental protocols for the study of battered stone anvils from Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)

Percussive activities are highly relevant in the economy of modern hunter-gatherer societies and other primates, and are likely to have been equally important during the Palaeolithic. Despite the potential relevance of percussive activities in the Early Stone Age, attempts to study battered artefacts are still rare. In order to establish protocols of analysis of battered tools, this paper pursues an interdisciplinary approach combining techno-typological, refit, use-wear and GIS studies of experimental anvils from Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania). The main aim is to classify types of damage on battered artefacts according to the percussive task performed, and hence identify patterns that can be used to interpret the Oldowan and Acheulean evidence. Our results indicate that abrasion marks on anvil surfaces are typical of nut cracking, while bone breaking leaves characteristic scars and abrasion marks on the edges of anvils. Pounding of soft materials such as meat and plants also causes battering of anvils, producing morphological and spatial patterns that can be discerned from the heavy breakage of anvils during bipolar flaking. By integrating macroscopic, microscopic and spatial analyses of experimental stone tools, this paper contributes to create a referential framework in which Early Stone Age battered artefacts can be interpreted.     

Identification of dermestid pupal chambers on Southern Levant human bones: inference for reconstruction of Middle Bronze Age mortuary practices

Unique bone damage identified on Middle Bronze Age human skeletal material from the Southern Levant provided important information about the processes of modification and the possible funerary practices resulting in such damage. By comparing archaeological remains with recent skeletal material and by using computed tomography (CT) scans and 3D imaging techniques, the damage is interpreted as pupal chambers created by dermestid beetles. Using skeletal remains from two Middle Bronze Age sites, Jericho Tomb E1 and Munhata Tomb 641, we then discuss how the bores and tunnels left by dermestid beetles on human bones might constitute an interpretative key to the funerary practices of Middle Bronze Age collective burials.     

Insight into lingulid evolution from the Late Devonian

Well preserved lingulids from near the base of the Mandagery Sandstone in the Late Devonian Hervey Group, N.S.W. are described as Apsilingula parkesensis gen. et sp. nov. The internal structures are better preserved than those of any previously described Palaeozoic lingulid and it has been possible to reconstruct the muscle system and to demonstrate a close similarity to living species of Lingula.     

Maya heritage: entangled and transformed

This article discusses two aspects of heritage – entanglement and transformation – that became clear during a recent cultural heritage project in Yucatan, Mexico. Regarding entanglement, heritage becomes relevant only when coupled with other concerns, ranging from politics to livelihood to personal biographies. An unpredictable array of entanglements came into being during the project and these entanglements elevated the impact and visibility of local heritage to an unanticipated degree. Transformation refers to the claim that heritage is not frozen in the past. Instead, it is in motion and subject to change. The transformations of heritage discussed in this paper are examined from the perspective of a mobilities paradigm and understood, in part, as resulting from the experience of performing heritage for outsiders for the first time. In so far as the heritage project precipitated changes in identity, this paper explores what is meant by Maya identity and argues that it is a fluid construct that can be both anchored in the past and negotiated in the present. This perspective makes sense of an event in which contemporary people anchored their identity in a spectacular 1000-year-old ruin, but falls short of explaining the uneven recognition of smaller ruins.     

‘As a lever gains power by its distance from the fulcrum’: tracing Frederick Douglass in the Irish Atlantic World

Following the publication of his autobiography and fearing recapture and return to slavery, in 1845 the abolitionist Frederick Douglass embarked on an 18-month lecture tour of the United Kingdom, during which his thinking on the subject of abolitionism developed significantly. While this period in Douglass’ life has received only modest scholarly attention, even less has been paid to the fact that the tour commenced in Ireland – then arguably more akin to a colony than an integral region of the UK. Drawing on archival research and scholarship that advocates for a more interconnected sense of place, a more oceanic perspective on history and consequently a better sense of how political activity is forged relationally, the paper traces Douglass’ journey through the Irish nodes of the abolitionist Atlantic network. In the process, it considers the degree to which Douglass was influenced by this colonial and deeply sectarian society, it illuminates a forgotten world of Irish abolitionist activity, and contributes to debates regarding intersecting histories and geographies in the Atlantic World.     

‘Leger est aprendre mes fort est arendre’: wool,debt, and the dispersal of Pipewell Abbey (1280-1330)

It has long been known that English Cistercian monasteries often sold their wool in advance to foreign merchants in the late thirteenth century. The abbey of Pipewell in Northamptonshire features in a number of such contracts with Cahorsin merchants. This paper looks again at these contracts in the context of over 200 other such agreements found in the governmental records. Why did Pipewell descend into penury over this fifty year period? This case study demonstrates that the promise of ready cash for their most valuable commodity led such abbots to make ambitious agreements – taking on yet more debt to service existing creditors – that would lead to their eventual bankruptcy.