Looking ahead

La coeditora K. Anne Pyburn felicita a Nick Shepherd por el primer número de la revista y propone como tema para el segundo número el tema “Ense?ando Arqueología como un Acto Revolucionario”, que ella misma editará.

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Résumé La coéditrice, K. Anne Pyburn, félicite Nick Shepard pour le premier numéro et présente le thème du prochain numéro qu'elle éditera: Enseigner l'archéologie comme un acte révolutionnaire.

     

A case of exemplarity: C. F. Rottböll's history of smallpox inoculation in Denmark-Norway, 1766

Smallpox inoculation was one of the great discoveries of the 18th century and has been written into the grand narrative of medical progress, describing the taming of epidemic disease. Setting the perspective of progress aside, the article explores how this medical innovation was situated in 18th-century society and culture. The aim is to investigate how medical practice was intertwined with social structure and cultural patterns. The article takes its case from a book published in Copenhagen in 1766 by Professor C. F. Rottb?ll, former Head Physician of the Royal Inoculation House in Copenhagen. Being the first medical treatise on inoculation in Denmark-Norway, the book also has a historical section followed by a collection of reports and letters written by a number of other authors from various parts of the kingdom. Through close reading, the article explores how the introduction of the new technique was described in the texts. The reports were written to present practice and discuss cases. In doing so, they also presented a variety of other concerns so that a diversity of aims and intentions are added to the medical ones. The social and rhetorical strategies employed illuminate social ambition and systems of patronage, as well as understandings of history and of truth.     

Feminist Mediations of the Exotic: French Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, 1921–39

This article considers why and how locality influenced feminists' perceptions of colonised women. It does so through an analysis of how militants and novelists linked with the Union Française pour le Suffrage des Femmes (French Union for Women's Suffrage, UFSF) perceived the Arab and Berber women of colonial North Africa. The organisation had branches in North Africa, and thus feminists in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia are compared to those in France. Where these women lived shaped their understanding of French women's roles in the colonies, along with their opinions regarding the rights to which colonised women could lay claim. Tensions among UFSF members are traced here through the literary figure Elissa Rhaïs, articles in the feminist newspaper  La Française  and correspondence among UFSF members. These sources indicate that while all these French women positioned themselves as mediators of colonialism and women's rights, their precise interpretations of that mediation were consistently influenced by local concerns.     

Hunter–gatherer foraging ranges, migrations, and travel in the middle Holocene Baikal region of Siberia: Insights from carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures

Foraging ranges, migrations, and travel among Middle Holocene hunter–gatherers in the Baikal region of Siberia are examined based on carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures obtained from 350 human and 203 faunal bone samples. The human materials represent Early Neolithic (8000–6800 cal BP), Late Neolithic (6000–5000 cal BP), and Early Bronze Age periods (∼5000–4000 cal BP) and come from the following four smaller areas of the broader region: the Angara and upper Lena valleys, Little Sea of Baikal’s northwest coast, and southwest Baikal. Forager diets from each area occupy their own distinct position within the stable isotope spectrum. This suggests that foraging ranges were not as large as expected given the distances involved and the lack of geographic obstacles between the micro-regions. All examined individuals followed a similar subsistence strategy: harvesting game and local fishes, and on Lake Baikal also the seal, and to a more limited extent, plant foods. Although well established in their home areas, exchange networks with the other micro-regions appear asymmetrical both in time and direction: more travel and contacts between some micro-regions and less between others. The Angara valley seems to be the only area with the possibility of a temporal change in the foraging strategy from more fishing during the Early Neolithic to more ungulate hunting during the Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age. However, the shift in stable isotope values suggesting this change can be viewed also as evidence of climate change affecting primary productivity of the Baikal–Angara freshwater system.     

Canids as persons: Early Neolithic dog and wolf burials, Cis-Baikal, Siberia

Interpretations of dog burials made by ancient foraging groups have tended to be based upon our own relationships with such animals and modern western cosmological and ontological concepts. Osteological studies of early dogs often focus only on issues of taxonomy, and as a result very little is known about these animals’ life histories. Eastern Siberia has produced many Holocene dog burials, but these are typically not well described and the explanatory frameworks provided for them are very underdeveloped. Here we examine in detail two Cis-Baikal canid burials, one of a wolf and the other a dog, both in large Middle Holocene hunter-gatherer cemeteries. We link the mortuary treatment of these animals to other cultural practices, particularly the treatment of the human dead, and broader patterns in Northern human-animal relationships. This interpretive model is combined with detailed osteobiographies for the canids and contextual information for these and other dogs and wolves from Middle Holocene Cis-Baikal. It is argued that canids here were understood and treated in a variety of ways. We suggest that some animals with unique histories were known as distinct persons with ‘souls’ and because of this at death required mortuary rites similar to those of their human counterparts.     

Interpreting the expansion of sea fishing in medieval Europe using stable isotope analysis of archaeological cod bones

Archaeological fish bones reveal increases in marine fish utilisation in Northern and Western Europe beginning in the 10th and 11th centuries AD. We use stable isotope signatures from 300 archaeological cod (Gadus morhua) bones to determine whether this sea fishing revolution resulted from increased local fishing or the introduction of preserved fish transported from distant waters such as Arctic Norway, Iceland and/or the Northern Isles of Scotland (Orkney and Shetland). Results from 12 settlements in England and Flanders (Belgium) indicate that catches were initially local. Between the 9th and 12th centuries most bones represented fish from the southern North Sea. Conversely, by the 13th to 14th centuries demand was increasingly met through long distance transport – signalling the onset of the globalisation of commercial fisheries and suggesting that cities such as London quickly outgrew the capacity of local fish supplies.     

The strange case of the Freudian case history: the role of long case histories in the development of psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud's five long case histories have been the focus of seemingly endless fascination and criticism. This article examines how the long case-history genre developed and its impact on the professionalization of psychoanalysis. It argues that the long case histories, using a distinctive form that highlighted the peculiarities of psychoanalytic theory, served as exemplars in the discipline. In doing so, the article extends John Forrester's work on "thinking in cases" to show the practical implications of that style of reasoning. The article illustrates how the form disappeared once the theoretical basis of the movement was set. The genre never became institutionalized, although the content of the five long case histories did, because of Freud's accepted role as theoretician of psychoanalysis.     

Shifts in Neandertal mobility,technology and subsistence strategies in western France

We propose a reassessment of Neandertal mobility strategies by crossing technological and zooarchaeological data. A broad comparative approach to the Middle Paleolithic series from western France shows that the Levallois and laminar flaking systems, the Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA) shaping system and the Quina and discoidal-denticulate flaking systems, vary significantly in terms of duration of reduction sequences, blank versatility and tool maintenance. These technological systems, which prevail in this context over different time periods, reflect distinct mobility strategies as a response to differing hunting practices. This new approach to Middle Paleolithic technologies and related mobility patterns gives new insights into Mousterian diversity. It also highlights the determinant role played by large game hunting strategies in the organization of late Neandertal societies.