Forty Thousand Arms for a Single Emperor: From Chemical Data to the Labor Organization Behind the Bronze Arrows of the Terracotta Army

This paper explores the integration of chemical data with metric studies and spatial analyses of archaeological artifacts to investigate questions of specialization, standardization, and production organization behind large-scale technological enterprises. The main analytical focus is placed on the 40,000 bronze arrowheads recovered with the Terracotta Army in the First Emperor’s Mausoleum, Xi’an, China. Based on the identification by portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry of chemical clusters that correspond to individual metal batches, and combined with a study of their context in the tomb complex, we argue that the manufacture of arrows was organized via a cellular production model with various multi-skilled units rather than as a single production line. This system favored more adaptable and efficient logistical organization that facilitated dynamic cross-craft interaction while maintaining remarkable degrees of standardization. We discuss the use of “the batch” as an analytical category and how our method might be applied to other studies of craft organization in complex societies and imperial systems.     

Policy Innovativeness and Interstate Compacts

Are some American states inherently more innovative than others? This question has confounded researchers for more than four decades. In this study we develop a measure of collective policy innovation that measures formal cooperative policy arrangements among the states, compare the measure to existing measures of internal state policy innovation, and assess whether existing innovativeness measures explain policy cooperation among the states. This test of the innovativeness concept addresses internal and external validity concerns that have long plagued this research tradition. Our multivariate analyses indicate that policy innovativeness is often a statistically and substantively important determinant of compact participation. These results suggest that (i) innovativeness is a meaningful and durable state attribute, (ii) several existing indices successfully capture the underlying latent concept, and (iii) innovativeness provides analytic utility in multiple empirical contexts.     

Review and assessment of the potential of post-IR IRSL dating methods to circumvent the problem of anomalous fading in feldspar luminescence

Quartz has been the main mineral used for optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of sediments over the last decade. The quartz OSL signal, however, has been shown to saturate at relatively low doses of ～200–400 Gy, making it difficult to be used for dating beyond about 200 thou-sand years (ka), unless the environmental dose rate is low. The infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) from feldspars has been shown to continue to grow to higher dose levels than quartz OSL. The application of IRSL dating of feldspars, however, has long been hampered by the anomalous fading effect. Recent progress in understanding anomalous fading of the infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) signals in potassium-feldspar has led to the development of post-IR IRSL (pIRIR) protocols and also a multiple elevated temperature (MET) stimulation (MET-pIRIR) protocol. These procedures have raised the prospect of isolating a non-fading IRSL component for dating Quaternary deposits containing feldspars. In this study, we review the recent progress made on (1) overcoming anomalous fading of feldspar, and (2) the development of pIRIR dating techniques for feldspar. The potential and problems associated with these methods are discussed.     

Agents in Inter-Action: Bruno Latour and Agency

This paper aims to describe Bruno Latour's contributions to the theory and methodology of agency in the Philosophy of Science and to apply them to the study of agency in archaeology. These contributions include an understanding of how artifacts or representations of the world emerge, what the best conditions to study them under are and how to understand the process of change they undergo. A case study using the Hopewell burial mounds of the Lower Illinois Valley will serve to demonstrate the application of this methodology.     

Study and restudy of curated skeletal collections in bioarchaeology: A perspective on the UK and the implications for future curation of human remains

This paper considers the bioarchaeological study and restudy of human skeletal remains in museums and other institutions that curate human remains from archaeological sites. Papers published from 1990 to 2009 in the Journal of Archaeological Science, Journal of Paleopathology, American Journal of Physical Anthropology and International Journal of Osteoarchaeology were considered and contributions dealing with skeletal remains from UK archaeological sites were assessed. There were 258 papers published that matched these criteria and 352 instances when a skeletal collection had been analysed. Seventy‐nine per cent of the papers were based on skeletal samples curated in five geographic areas, London, Bradford, Portsmouth, Canterbury and York; the two sites that were most used were those of Wharram Percy, North Yorkshire, curated in Portmouth at English Heritage, and Christ Church, Spitalfields, curated at the Natural History Museum, London. Reasons for this concentration of research are suggested. It is recommended that the ‘use load’ should be better and more evenly spread around skeletal samples in other geographic areas of the UK in order that knowledge is not limited just to a few skeletal collections, and that a centralised database of skeletal collections curated by different institutions would contribute to this aim. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.