Threads: Collecting Cloth in the North American French Colonies

Trade of European-produced cloth and clothing enabled indigenous and non-indigenous inhabitants of colonial New France to rethink the “hand-woven”, impacting how self could be presented through dress. At the same time, objects were being collected in New France for cabinets of curiosities and museums. These different collections resonated in different ways through history, subsequently influencing modern understandings of colonial cloth and clothing. This paper examines colonial experiences of cloth by looking at archaeological remnants of cloth and cloth production as compared to how indigenous and non-indigenous colonial peoples were and are being represented by cloth and clothing in museum collections.     

After the Fanfare: Education,the Lasting Legacy

Shipwrecks are resource rich. The recent Gulf of Mexico Deep Gulf Wrecks Project was meant to be shared and explored, not only by professional scientists but also by the public. The project website was the public link to the deepest reaches of the Gulf of Mexico during the scientific expedition. The website welcomed hundreds of visitors each day during the project. The audience composed of professionals and interested public followed the daily logs and videos. The overall scientific and educational data sets amassed from the project were, at times, overwhelmingly vast, but when segmented by topic, became manageable. After the fanfare generated by following along with the expedition ended, the primary project goals shifted to analysis and the creation of a lasting educational legacy. This legacy is presented digitally via the web. Project curriculum gives classrooms around the globe long-term access to the exciting scientific data. Along with the documentary film project the Deep Gulf Wrecks Project ensures that the legacy at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is indeed a lasting legacy.     

Ancient plant use and palaeoenvironmental analysis at the Gumugou Cemetery,Xinjiang, China: implication from desiccated plant remains

The Gumugou Cemetery is located in the Lop Nor region of the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, northwest China. Radiocarbon dating found the site to be 3800 years BP. Due to the exceptionally arid conditions, most of the plant remains are well-preserved. Morphological and anatomical studies suggest that the plant remains consist of: Triticum cf. aestivum, Phragmites australis, Populus euphratica, Ephedra sp., as well as Typha sp. These ancient plants imply that the indigenous people lived in oases surrounded by extensive desert. Caryopses of T. cf. aestivum might have been used as funeral objects of the mummies as well as a subsidiary food source of the inhabitants, while the wild plants were used in other aspects of daily life.     

Geographin in der Autostadt

Das Auto besitzt in unserer Gesellschaft einen hohen Stellenwert, dies betrifft die Arbeitswelt ebenso wie die Freizeitgestaltung. Dabei wird dem fahrbaren Untersatz neben seinem puren Gebrauchswert eine große emotionale Bedeutung zugemessen. Der VW-Konzern hat dies aufgegriffen, rund 850 Millionen Mark investiert und auf einem 25 Hektar großen Gelände in Wolfsburg einen neuartigen Erlebnispark geschaffen. Zeitgleich mit der EXPO 2000 öffnete die AUTOSTADT ihre Pforten und lockte seitdem schon über sechs Millionen Besucher an. UTE C. BAUER sprach mit DIPL.-GEOGR. UTE LAGESCHULTE über das Phänomen Autostadt und ihre Tätigkeit.     

Archaeological Explorations of Cultural Identity and Rural Economy in the North of Ireland: Goodland,County Antrim

Renewed examination of an enigmatic settlement site perched atop a cliff above Murlough Bay in Goodland Townland, County Antrim, Northern Ireland calls into question long held ideas about Gaelic rural economy on the eve of the Ulster Plantation by reintroducing the complex cultural and political relationships between the north of Ireland and the Scottish isles. Long interpreted as temporary post-medieval booley huts associated with seasonal transhumance, recent re-evaluation of the site suggests instead that Goodland represents a permanent seventeenth-century Highland Scottish village. Although the medieval linkages between the north of Ireland and the Scottish isles have long been acknowledged, twentieth-century sectarianism has subjugated awareness of the Highland (Roman Catholic) Scots focusing upon the legacy of the in-migration of Protestant Lowland Scots during the Ulster Plantation. Material evidence at Goodland re-introduces the Highland Scot to the contested landscape of contemporary Ulster identity, while also facilitating analysis of continuity, change, and cultural complexity in the rural economy of early modern Ireland.     

Civilisation et Naissance de l’Histoire Mondiale Dans l’<Emphasis Type="Italic">Historie des Deux Indes</Emphasis> de Raynal

In the Histoire des deux Indes, the concept of civilization applies initially to the making of modern Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire, in which the commerce does much to promote the civil and political «enfranchisement» of the third-estate in sovereign states. For Raynal, this historical experience of Europeans serves as paradigm, based upon which he depreciates the civilization of the ancient empires of the two Indies, and also elaborates various political proposals for transformation, or even for abolition, of the European colonial empires. Thus, universalizing the political structure of modern Europe, and pursuing the realization of civil and political liberty in diverse modes, he announces the advent of historical and political space of the modern world, composed of nation-states against the background of the global commercial networks.     

Échange,Contrat et Civilisation

With the word «exchange», the confusion is often made between the savage of social contract and the savage of the market. This paper would a contrario set the one against the other, in showing how the two characters agree in fact to two absolutely different kinds of argumentation, which the Enlightenment led to coexist according to very distinct issues. Then the modern term of «civil society» has never solved this ambiguity and we find here the matter of several teachings, because it is possible to think at once about what is a «concept», a «historicity» and a «citizen». Methodology, anthropology and politics come therefore into sight as three horizons of an analysis which does not want to reduce the equivocation, but rather to measure its wealth.