The Wire: Progress,Paradox, and Disaster in the Strategic Networking of China, 1881–1901

This study of the introduction of telegraphy to China in the late-nineteenth century tells three interrelated stories: China’s pursuit of telegraphic sovereignty with its strategic networking of the empire in the period 1881–99; the functioning of China’s hybrid express courier-telegraphic communications infrastructure; and the international communications crisis during the Boxer Uprising and the “Siege of the Legations” in 1900. The material reality of two inter-connected networks—the privately owned Imperial Telegraph Administration network and the government-run telegraph network—allowed Qing-era Beijing and its provincial governors to communicate with much greater speed. The materiality of these networks—how this new communications technology affected the practical realities of government communications, including the ease of lateral communications between provincial governors—is explored in the context of the communications crisis of 1900. In May and June of 1900 all telegraph lines to Beijing, and throughout much of North China, were cut or otherwise destroyed. While these blinded Western governments are no longer able to exchange telegrams with their Beijing-based envoys, the Qing express courier system continued to operate. Moreover, both the court and provincial officials quickly improvised ad hoc telegraphic communication protocols through the use of “transfer telegrams” (zhuandian) that relied on mounted express couriers between Beijing and those North China telegraph stations with working network connections. This assessment of real-time secret imperial communications between the Qing court and the provinces is based on the documentary register Suishou dengji (Records of [documents] at hand) maintained by communications managers in the Grand Council. China lost its telegraphic sovereignty in the capital region when Allied troops occupied the Beijing-Tianjin line of communications in the summer and fall of 1900. Moreover, Western dreams of laying, landing, and controlling submarine cables on the China coast were finally realized in North China by the end of 1900. The British, therefore, were able to add a critical section to their planned global network of secure telegraphic communications. China’s recognition of the Western and Japanese right of protecting the Beijing-Tianjin line of communications was codified in Article 9 of the Boxer Protocol of September 1901. These losses of China’s telegraphic sovereignty would not be completely reversed until after 1949.     

Integrating shallow geophysical survey: archaeological investigations at Totógal in the Sierra de los Tuxtlas,Veracruz, México

The Postclassic site of Totógal in the western Tuxtla Mountains of Veracruz, Mexico contains rare examples of stone architectural features in the southern Gulf Lowlands. Today, the partial remains of one such structure are highly visible; however, the amount of wall fall, looters' pit destruction and over-growth masks the extent and form of the feature. Local histories ascribe these ruins to early Colonial construction periods, however Postclassic Aztec-style artifacts recovered near this architecture question the occupational sequence of the site and its constructions. To better examine the extent of construction, as well as the occupation associated with them, we conducted a program of shovel testing, topographic mapping, electromagnetic induction survey and excavation. We discuss our findings in this paper and demonstrate the utility of geophysical surveys as complementary field strategies in the Tuxtla Mountains and other volcanic regions.     

A new calibration of the XRD technique for the study of archaeological burned human remains

A new calibration of human bones as a function of programmed temperature (200–1000 °C) and time (0, 18 and 60 min) is presented and discussed in order to investigate the issues related to the study of cremated bone remains by using the powder X-ray diffraction approach. The experimental results confirm the growth of hydroxylapatite crystallites as a function of the applied temperature, with a sigmoid behaviour that has been parameterized to the experimental data points. Particularly, it was observed that the thermal treatments for 60 min anticipate of about 100 °C the effects that are otherwise observed after the treatments for 0 min. The developed procedure was subsequently applied to cremated remains of various archaeological sites of Spain and supplied precise information not only about the temperature reached during the funerary rites, but also on the presumed duration for the cremation.