When the Revolution Reached the Countryside: Use and Destruction of Imported Wares in Alta Gracia,Córdoba, 1810

During the 1970s, excavations were conducted in Alta Gracia, Córdoba, Argentina, in a compound that once was a seventeenth and eighteenth-century Jesuit Convent and is presently a museum. During the excavation, an amazing amount of historic material never studied before was discovered inside a sealed privy. After studying the material, we were able to identify the objects as once belonging to Santiago de Liniers, a man who successfully resisted and expelled British invaders from Buenos Aires. As a result, he was appointed Viceroy, though eventually he was shot in 1810 for confronting the Independence movement. Our hypothesis is that these objects were thrown into the privy as a gesture of contempt associated with his capture and execution.     

Newlyweds,Young Families,and Spinsters: A Consideration of Developmental Cycle in Historical Archaeologies of Gender

The social relations of class, gender, and ethnicity affected individuals and families in the nineteenth century and shaped (as well as were shaped by) uses of the material world. Changes in demographic composition of the household, successions in land ownership, and other events that altered the developmental course of the family unit, however, were also significant. Variations in the material and spatial expressions of gender ideologies, for example, were more than simply deviations from middle-class cultural norms. They represented the active negotiation of dominant ideologies and the construction of alternate meaningful gender relations and forms of domesticity.     

On the Particularism of English Landscape Archaeology

The aim of this paper is to explore the question: why is the archaeology of English historic landscapes apparently so provincial? Inevitably the response must be that matters are more complex. In this paper, I examine the work of W. G. Hoskins, the “father of English landscape history,” and draw attention to: the complex way in which landscape is embedded in nationalism; the relations between locale, province, and nation; and the way wider tensions, in particular of colonialism are embedded within Hoskins's own discourse. In conclusion, I examine ways in which this problematic continues to structure enquiry into the English landscape today and to inhibit a genuinely international and comparative approach to historic landscapes.     

The Archaeology of the Gaucho <Emphasis Type="Italic">“Vago y Mal</Emphasis><Emphasis Type="Italic">Entretenido”</Emphasis>

The purpose of this article is to explain and discuss the essential operational characteristics of the technology of power (sensu Foucault) perpetrated on the internal frontiers with the Indians in nineteenth-century Argentina. The conquest and colonization of the Pampas took shape in the establishment of military camp structures placed to create a defensive cordon, known as “the Indian frontier line.” These constructions were fortlets defended by gaucho cavalry squadrons (know as Blandengues during the Spanish period, and then Guardias Nacionales after Argentinean Independence). This process is known in Argentinean historiography as “the conquest of the desert.” This particular technology of power existed in this historical context and operated at every social level, impacting strongly on the lower classes that inhabited the incorrectly named “desert.” Its implementation in the military field enabled the existence of an array of micro-powers that surrounded the gaucho, called vago y malentretenido—“a vagrant and lingerer”—and their women's lives. The army as institution was the locus of various forms of coercion and old forms of punishment (such as the stakes, whipping, and public executions) most of which affected peasants, nonresidents, itinerant workers, and the rural youth. This schema was adopted in different areas: in the enrolment and discipline of the gaucho soldiers, in life in the fortlet-prisons, and in the ritualism of power. The alternative chosen by soldiers to evade this technology of power and the fortlet-panopticons was escape through desertion. The utility of those observations is demonstrated, because an important part of the area of research of historical archaeology that has developed with the greatest impetus in Argentina has taken fortlets as its subject of study.     

Peck-Marked Vessels from the San José Market Street Chinatown: A Study of Distribution and Significance

Ceramic bowls and plates with Chinese characters pecked into their surfaces are documented on almost every nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Chinatown site in California. Typically, these vessels are said to bear marks of ownership, and further analysis has been uncommon. Given the socio-political atmosphere surrounding Chinese immigration and labor during this time period, as well as the cultural relevance of this marking practice, it is the author's belief that this explanation is incomplete. Through analysis of archaeological materials from the Market Street Chinatown in San José, California, this paper explores the possibility that Chinese immigrants were using and hybridizing the familiar Chinese cultural practice of marking vessels to aid in creating an environment within the Chinatown that was both more comfortable and more livable.     

《维摩演教图》及其相关问题讨论

《维摩演教图》是宋人师承李公麟的白描人物画。作者经过对比分析,认为此图不是金马云卿的《画维摩不二图》。而关于王振鹏《临马云卿画维摩不二图》也存在诸多疑问,它或许是曾经元内府收藏、清《秘殿珠林初编》著录的李公麟《画维摩不二图》卷的临摹本。     

Sclerochronological analysis of archaeological mollusc assemblages: methods,applications and future prospects

Accreting skeletal tissues found in bone, teeth, otoliths and molluscan shell act as sensitive recorders of local environmental and climatic conditions. Owing to their robust nature, ubiquity and abundance in the archaeological record as well as the potential for high-resolution data acquisition, the accreting skeletal tissues of archaeological molluscs are increasingly employed as palaeoenvironmental proxies. Researchers have chiefly utilised such proxies to extend instrumental records of environmental conditions through palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and explore the impact of environmental and climatic change on human populations. However, the use of environmental proxies from the archaeological record can be hampered by a number of methodological challenges including inadequate sampling strategies, appropriate calibration, the use of inappropriate proxies and the broad extrapolation of localised results. This paper reviews the use of molluscan shell from archaeological contexts as palaeoenvironmental proxies. We focus on the application of sclerochronology—a suite of high-resolution physical and geochemical data recovery methods widely used in conjunction with molluscan shell. This paper presents an overview of the potential of these techniques in approaching more nuanced understandings of human-environment interactions and how they can be more successfully incorporated into archaeological research.     

Sourcing copper ores for production of bronzes excavated at Shuangyantang,a Western Zhou (1046–771 <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">bc</Emphasis>) site in Chongqing (Southwest China): evidence from lead isotope analysis

Energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) and lead isotope analyses were applied to 12 Western Zhou (1046–771 bc) bronzes unearthed from the Shuangyantang site in Wushan County, Chongqing (southwest China), to investigate their chemical compositions and possible mineral source(s). The results showed that (1) the investigated bronzes were mostly bronzes with low, common lead and (2) their lead isotopic values almost all fall into a relatively narrow range, suggesting possibly the use of raw materials from a common copper mine. The comparison between lead isotopic values for Shuangyantang bronzes and those already published for copper mines and other bronzes produced and used about at the same times leads us to believe that the Shuangyantang bronzes probably used the same copper ores as used in bronzes from the Peng and Jin states in Shanxi Province. However, it would not be possible at this point to come up with a clear idea of where exactly these copper ores may come from. Candidate copper mines might be the Tonglvshan mines in Hubei Province, the Zhongtiaoshan mines in Shanxi Province, or the Dajing copper mines in Inner Mongolia.     

Radiometric dates and micromorphological evidence for synchronous domestic activity and sheep penning in a Neolithic cave: Cueva de El Toro (Málaga,Antequera, Spain)

We present radiocarbon dates and preliminary micromorphological information from the Neolithic cave site of Cueva del Toro (Antequera, Málaga, Spain). This site has yielded a rich early and late Neolithic archaeological record. The late Neolithic assemblage reflects specialized handcraft activity including in situ ceramic manufacture, textile production, and food processing along with sheep and goat penning, suggesting that the cave occupants and their domestic animals shared the same living space. Until now, dating of the stratigraphic sequence was incomplete, and the function of the combustion activities carried out at the cave remained unclear. New absolute dates from the main late Neolithic domestic activity area, corresponding to the most intense Neolithic occupation of the cave, allow us to place the entire sequence between 5320 and 5170 BP (or 4250–3950 to 2σ Cal BC). Micromorphological results show that many combustion features from this site represent recurrently burnt episodes on sheep/goat stabling deposits all along the sequence, corroborating human-goat/sheep cohabitation. This practice had not been previously documented in southern Spain for such early dates. Our results exemplify the importance of characterizing archaeological deposits at a microstratigraphic scale of observation.     

Characterisation of archaeological mortars from Pompeii (Campania,Italy) and identification of construction phases by compositional data analysis

This work describes the compositional characterisation of coccciopesto and natural pozzolanic mortars sampled in the Regio VI area of the archaeological site of Pompeii, with particular reference to the Casa di Pansa in Insula 6 and Casa 17 in Insula 2. Samples were studied by optical microscopy and analysed by XRF, SEM-EDS, LA-ICP-MS and XRPD. The XRF and SEM-EDS data, subjected to multivariate analysis (cluster analysis), identified the three main construction phases involved in building the Casa di Pansa. In addition, mineralogical and petrographic characteristics of the aggregate were determined and found to be compatible with pyroclastic deposits from the volcano Vesuvius. Study revealed C–S–H phases in the binder, due to pozzolanic hydration phemomena of hydrated lime with cocciopesto and natural pozzalana.