Voyages,mobilités,lumières

For a very long time and still today, travel stories have fascinated a vast public. It is important to debate their role and the model for intellectual and sensitive construction they propose. An essential link for the European elite's acculturation, they cannot for as much be separated from a much wider circulation which concerns society as a whole. In relation to the social morals of our past, the concept of mobility allows us to appreciate the totality of social practices and to confront the notions of movement and localization. The main cultural categories of space, time, sociability, social constraints and freedoms, are thus creating a structure for our understanding of change.     

Prometheus Unbound: Southern Caucasia in Prehistory

This paper examines the intellectual traditions and recent advances in the archaeology of the Bronze and Iron Ages of the South Caucasus. The first goal of the paper is to provide an account of the scholarly traditions that have oriented research in the region since the mid-nineteenth century. This discussion provides a detailed case study of an archaeological tradition that arose within the context of Russian and Soviet research—traditions still poorly understood within Western archaeology. Yet archaeology in the South Caucasus was strongly influenced by international research in neighboring southwest Asia, and thus the region’s intellectual currents often diverged from the debates and priorities that predominated in Moscow. The second goal of this paper is to outline the primary issues that orient contemporary work in the region from the Neolithic through the Urartian period. My interest here is both didactic and prognostic. While I am concerned to fairly represent the primary foci of contemporary regional scholarship, I also make an argument for a deeper investigation of the constitution of social life. Such studies are critical to the advancement of archaeology in the South Caucasus over the coming decade.     

The Archaeology of the Plateau of Northwestern North America During the Late Prehistoric Period (3500–200 <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">B.P.</Emphasis>): Evolution of Hunting and Gathering Societies

The Plateau of northwestern North America offers one of the world's most important records of hunter–gatherer cultural diversity and evolutionary process. During the late prehistoric period, Plateau hunter–gatherers participated in a wide variety of mobile and sedentary mobility regimes, maintained diets emphasizing anadromous fish, roots, and larger game animals, and held patterns of social organization spanning egalitarian through ranked societies. In this paper, we provide a broad overview of the final 3500 years of human occupation on the Plateau that includes two primary goals. First, we provide a new chronology of late prehistoric cultural change and stability that integrates data from the Northern or Canadian Plateau and the Southern or Columbia Plateau. Second, we offer new ideas concerning the emergence, dispersal, and diversification of Plateau hunting and gathering societies. We close with recommendations for Plateau archaeology in the 21st century.     

Assessment of the Southern Dispersal: GIS-Based Analyses of Potential Routes at Oxygen Isotopic Stage 4

This paper explores the geographic and environmental context of the Southern Dispersal Route, which has been proposed as a migratory route for Homo sapiens from East Africa to Australasia during oxygen isotope stage (OIS) 4 (71–59 kyr). A series of assumptions and constraints garnered from modern hunter-gatherer observations are used to build a model of coastal foragers, which is then integrated with high-resolution physiographic analyses to produce a potential dispersal route along the coastline of the Indian Ocean. Paleoenvironmental conditions that may have supplied critical resources or served as obstacles to human colonization are identified and discussed in regards to human subsistence, the speed of migration, and demographic expansion. These factors suggest that rapid dispersals along coastlines and river valleys would have occurred upon the initial expansion out of Africa, but slowed as populations expanded demographically into South Asia and the Sunda Shelf. This also suggests that archaeological signatures relating to the earliest modern Homo sapiens are more likely to be recovered in South Asia.     

A Brief Overview of the Evolution of Historical Archaeology in Argentina

This introductory chapter presents a brief overview of the evolution of Argentine historical archaeology as a scientific discipline, starting from the first pioneering work until its consolidation and future prospects. It also includes a summary of each of the paper presented.     

Archaeology in Antarctica: Nineteenth-Century Capitalism Expansion Strategies

Antarctica was the last continent to be discovered in the early nineteenth century. In order to become acquainted with the process of incorporation of Antarctica to the scope of the capitalist system we have focused on particularity: i.e., specific economic and technological and ideological aspects of everyday life in sealer camps spread along the coastline of the South Shetland Islands. Archaeological research in Byers Peninsula–Livingston Island provides an approach to the mechanisms implemented to organize the first resource exploitation in these lands.