Expressing Ideology Without a Voice, or Obfuscation and the Enlightenment

The consumer culture produced by the Industrial Revolution obfuscates diversity in the archaeological record. Mass-manufactured goods might be read as mass-manufactured culture. It is important for historical archaeologists to attempt to decode the complexities of consumption. Using a feminist approach, I examine one archaeologically visible way in which muted groups simultaneously embrace and resist the tenets of a dominant ideology. I compare ceramic assemblages from four nineteenth/twentieth-century sites in Annapolis, Maryland, two mid-nineteenth-century assemblages from New York City, and some additional selected examples from North America.     

Accumulations research: Problems and prospects for estimating site occupation span

Accumulations research examines the dynamic relationship among artifact discard, duration of occupation, and population size. The history of accumulations research is reviewed, emphasizing studies that use accumulation rates to measure site occupation span. Ethnoarchaeological and experimental research demonstrates that cooking pots are an ideal artifact type for accumulations research. Data from the Duckfoot site in southwestern Colorado are used to develop an annual accumulation rate of cooking pot sherds for households. This rate is used, along with population estimates and estimates of the total cooking pot sherd accumulation, to determine the occupation span of five sites located in the nearby Dolores River valley.     

The Gender Sensitivity of Well-being Indicators

This article assesses the gender sensitivity of indicators of health, nutrition, education, and composite indices which are relevant to developing countries, using the analytical framework of ‘functionings’. It finds that a disaggregated under-10 female–male ratio (0–4 years and 5–9 years) appears to be a suitable indicator for health. Difficulties with data collection and interpretation reduce the reliability of indicators of morbidity and nutrition intake. Nutrition outcome indicators like anthropometric measures are potentially useful, if genetic differences between population groups as well as between males and females are controlled for. In assessing gender gaps in education, enrolment and drop-out ratios are more useful than adult literacy or mean years of schooling, but micro-level research is required to decide which of these two is better. Composite indices like the Physical Quality of Life Index and Gender-related Development Index are potentially useful, given some alterations to increase their relevance to developing countries.     

Cesium magnetometer surveys at a Pithouse Site near Silver City,New Mexico

The La Gila Encantada Site is located on an isolated ridge top north of Silver City, New Mexico in an area defined culturally as the Mimbres Mogollon region. The 180 m × 80 m (14400 m²) sized site was originally recorded as a dense scatter of ceramics, lithics, and ground stone along with a number of surface depressions that appear to represent pithouses. Cesium magnetometer surveys were conducted to identify hearths, pithouse boundaries, and activity areas outside of pithouses in support of archaeological investigations, and to test this instrument's ability to image these features. This paper presents a characterization of the magnetic signature of a pithouse as a magnetic high in the center caused by the central hearth, low magnetic variability along the floor of the house, and then increased magnetic variability at the pithouse boundary. This characterization was successfully confirmed for three pithouses using cesium magnetometery and archaeological excavation.