Culinary Crafts and Foods in Southwestern Ethiopia: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Gamo Groundstones and Pottery

Few ethnoarchaeological studies have combined the production and use of groundstones and pottery as indicators of household variation in subsistence and socioeconomics. This ethnoarchaeological study explores how the Gamo people who live in southwestern Ethiopia interact with their culinary tools of pottery and groundstones. One of the unique cultural features of the Gamo is their strict caste system, which forces artisans such as potters and groundstone makers into a full-time specialization. This paper uses a chaîne opératoire analysis regarding groundstone and pottery production and then addresses their use by drawing from household studies from three Gamo communities. The analysis discusses the role that social hierarchy can have on cooking and craft variation within households. Thus, these artisans bring to life crafts that give the Gamo tools to create their daily subsistence, and these tools and foods allow us to explore two key archaeological issues: subsistence and socioeconomic variation of people’s households.     

Metropolitaner Anspruch versus l?ndliche Realit?t

Tagungen und Kongresse

Metropolitaner Anspruch versus l?ndliche Realit?t     

Notes and News

MAGIC : A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY. By HUTTON WEBSTER. Stanford University Press, California. 1950. Pp. 524. $ 6.00. Reviewed by E. O. James

SUGGESTIONS CONCERNING CLASSIFICATION, STORAGE, AND LABELLING OF OBJECTS ILLUSTRATING ENGLISH LIFE AND TRADITIONS. British Ethnography Committee. The Royal Anthropological Institute. 1950. Price 2s. 6d. Reviewed by A. T. Lucas.

THE BALLAD TREE. By EVELYN KENDRICK WELLS. The Ronald Press Company, New York, 1950. ix–370pp. $450. Reviewed by Arthur Brown.

FOLK SONGS OF VIRGINIA. By ARTHUR KYLE DAVIS. Duke University Press, 1949. lxiii +389 pp. 30s. Reviewed by Arthur Brown.     

Is the Future of Mobility Electric? Learning from Contested Storylines of Sustainable Mobility in Iceland

Planning for sustainable mobility is a complex and demanding task and the knowledge of how to trade off multiple, often conflicting, goals is not entirely clear. One of the most contentious and confounding issues in the context of urban planning has been, and continues to be, the place of the automobile within the evolving sustainable mobility paradigm. The recent emergence of strong policy and planning support for the introduction of electric vehicles raises thorny questions as to whether or not this development will be complementary to, or conflicting with, other sustainable mobility planning goals, such as the pursuit of compact cities, restrictions on automobiles, promotion of walking and bicycling, and support for public transport. The results of a recent pilot study conducted in the Reykjavik city region suggest that a strategy of provision for electric vehicles on a large scale may represent a continuation of the dominant transport engineering approach, drawing scarce financial and institutional resources away from path-breaking measures such as the efforts to create denser development patterns and promote non-motorized and public forms of transport.