Reassessing the Oppida: The Role of Power and Religion

For a long time, the origins and development of Late Iron Age oppida were viewed from predominantly economic perspectives and as dependent on contacts with the Mediterranean world. However, advances in research in recent decades make it necessary to qualify and reassess many of the traditional interpretations of the genesis and functions of these centres, one of the most striking phenomena of the last two centuries BC. This article emphasizes the political and religious role of continental European oppida, understanding them as a new ‘technology of power’, which enabled a more hierarchical and centralizing ideology to be articulated. Moreover, new evidence suggests that many oppida may have had their origin in spaces for ritual gatherings. The result is a new interpretation of the genesis and characteristics of Late Iron Age centralization processes.     

The Rohingya crisis

Myanmar's recent ethnic cleansing of its Rohingya people, in which more than 600,000 people have been forced into Bangladesh, has shocked the world. This guest editorial considers some potential root causes driving the violence, principally the combination of economic precarity felt by average Burmese people, affective and participatory deficits within Burma's current democratic experience, ethno‐nationalist mobilizations, and Islamophobia. These factors are combining to produce the Rohingya not only as foreign ‐ not a part of the fabric of the Myanmar nation ‐ but as a threat to that nation worthy of expulsion.     

ISOTOPIC DISCRIMINANTS BETWEEN LATE BRONZE AGE GLASSES FROM EGYPT AND THE NEAR EAST

This paper presents oxygen, strontium and neodymium isotopic analysis from a series of Late Bronze Age glasses from Egypt and Mesopotamia. It was found that oxygen and neodymium isotopes alone cannot readily distinguish between glasses from the various sites. However, combined Sr and Nd isotope analysis separate the data into three groups: an Egyptian group with relatively low Sr and Nd ratios; a Late Bronze Age (LBA) Nuzi group with high Sr and low Nd ratios; and an intermediate Sr and high Nd ratio grouping of glasses from Tell Brak. These findings suggest that most of the glass from Nuzi and Tell Brak had different raw materials and hence the glass was probably produced at different manufacturing sites. However, one glass ingot found at Tell Brak (TB1) appears to have Nuzi‐type Sr–Nd characteristics. This is the first positive identification of multiple production sites in LBA Mesopotamia and an exceptional example of a glass that may have been exchanged from one LBA site to another.     

CHARACTERIZING THE SEDIMENTARY HISTORY OF CAVE DEPOSITS,USING ARCHAEOMAGNETISM AND ROCK MAGNETISM,ATAPUERCA (NORTHERN SPAIN)

We use a combination of rock magnetism (anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility, AMS) and magnetic polarity to characterize cave deposits and as a proxy for sedimentary fabric. In three localities at the Atapuerca archaeological site (Galeria, Gran Dolina and Sala de los Cíclopes), magnetic foliation (K_max/K_int) is always greater than lineation (K_int/K_min), consistent with a primary, depositional, sedimentary fabric. Our results, although preliminary, reveal a higher degree of anisotropy in autochtonous deposits compared to allochthonous deposits, possibly indicative of a higher hydrodynamic regime in the former. At two localities the magnetic lineation (K_max) defines a cluster, which is thought to be antipodal to the palaeocurrent direction. Hence we are able to retrieve palaeoflow directions in deposits that otherwise lack any other sedimentary structure. We conclude that AMS is a powerful tool for determining the hydrodynamic character of depositional environments in cave sediments at the Atapuerca archaeological site. A better understanding of the depositional environment and how sedimentation occurred allows reconstruction of the karst evolution and ultimately a better definition of human interaction with the environment.     

KOSELLECK,ARENDT, AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE

This essay is the first attempt to compare Reinhart Koselleck's Historik with Hannah Arendt's political anthropology and her critique of the modern concept of history. Koselleck is well‐known for his work on conceptual history as well as for his theory of historical time(s). It is my contention that these different projects are bound together by Koselleck's Historik, that is, his theory of possible histories. This can be shown through an examination of his writings from Critique and Crisis to his final essays on historical anthropology, most of which have not yet been translated into English. Conversely, Arendt's political theory has in recent years been the subject of numerous interpretations that do not take into account her views about history. By comparing the anthropological categories found in Koselleck's Historik with Arendt's political anthropology, I identify similar intellectual lineages in them (Heidegger, Löwith, Schmitt) as well as shared political sentiments, in particular the anti‐totalitarian impulse of the postwar era. More importantly, Koselleck's theory of the preconditions of possible histories and Arendt's theory of the preconditions of the political, I argue, transcend these lineages and sentiments by providing essential categories for the analysis of historical experience.     

Christianity and Cultural Reconfigurations in South West Pentecost.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the cultural impact of the introduction and evolution of Christianity in south west Pentecost, Vanuatu from the late 19th century to the 21st century. In particular it offers an explanation for the success and sustainability of Christianity due to the willingness of local individuals and communities to seize the new world view; and their welcome of Christianity's capacity to provide principles for appropriate social behaviour, opportunities for individual spiritual salvation, and the potential for temporal achievement. It acknowledges novel conduits to power and prestige emerging from socio‐cultural reconfigurations consequential to the tensions between Christianity and kastom in the 20th century, and scrutinizes the manner in which Christians in the 21st century have capitalised on kastom in their response to the pressures and demands of globalisation.