Land,Labour and Ambivalence: Lutheran Missionaries Managing Land Disputes at Cape Bedford Mission

This article provides a close reading of a land dispute between Lutheran missionaries at Cape Bedford mission during the 1920s and 1930s in order to extrapolate understandings of missionary ambivalence, power, and privilege within colonial processes of dispossession. The main contention is that missionaries felt compelled to promote Aboriginal engagement in agricultural labour in order to ensure that they could visibly demonstrate the land's productivity, and then maintain access to it. It also contributes to understandings about missionary power and privilege within the colonial context and how at times the authority of missionaries was undermined by bureaucracy. It points to the discrepancies between settler and humanitarian discourses around Indigenous land use in Queensland's north during this period, and the relationships between missions and the state.     

Warwick: report on the excavation of an early 17th‐century English shipwreck in Castle Harbour,Bermuda

Warwick, a colonial merchantman owned and operated by Sir Robert Rich, Second Earl of Warwick, sank in Castle Harbour, Bermuda, in1619. Between 2010 and 2012, Warwick's hull remains and associated artefacts were excavated and recorded. Built early in the 17th century, Warwick’s structure revealed a traditional shipbuilding style. Covered with two layers of planking and a layer of sheathing, the ship was purpose‐built for extended transatlantic voyages. Not exceeding 200 tons, Warwick was an average‐size vessel with sufficient burthen to bring supplies and passengers to the colonies and return with tobacco.     

Performing the national territory: The geography of national‐day celebrations

The nation is a relatively abstract imagined community that is visualised through a variety of symbols as well as communicative and performative practices. In this paper, we explore how the national territory, one of the foundations of the nation‐state, is performed on national‐day celebrations and brings the nation into being. Drawing on ethnographic research on national days in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, we show how the state's internal administrative divisions and ethnic differences are at once made explicit but also subordinated to the nation. Moreover, we show how in such celebrations, potentially disruptive or competing affiliations such as ethnicity and regional loyalties are re‐imagined. Both the rotation of the central celebration and its replication all over the national territory carry the nation into the regions and integrate the regions into the nation‐state. The ‘co‐memoration’ turns participants and spectators from locals into national compatriots and thus not only performs nationality but also performs the relationship among nation, state and citizen, set within a particular territory.     

A Palaeodietary Study of Stable Isotope Analysis from a High‐status Burial in the Copper Age: The Montelirio Megalithic Structure at Valencina de la Concepción–Castilleja de Guzmán,Spain

This palaeodietary study presents carbon and nitrogen stable isotope data from human and faunal skeletal remains from the Copper Age settlement of Valencina de la Concepción–Castilleja de Guzmán, located in Seville, Spain. Montelirio, the only Valencina–Castilleja human group from which we have obtained reliable palaeodietary results, had a diet based on C₃ terrestrial resources, including both plants and animals. The protein component of the diet consisted mainly of meat, milk and dairy products from livestock as well as C₃ plant protein from cereals and pulses. This study compares data from Montelirio, the Copper Age group from Valencina–Castilleja, with the published data from other Iberian Late Neolithic–Copper Age (LN‐CA) societies. This comparison reveals a homogeneous diet with some exceptions. Overall, the LN‐CA diet in the Iberian Peninsula consisted mainly of animal proteins from meat, milk and dairy products from livestock as well as C₃ plant sources from the characteristic agriculture of the societies of these periods. This study also demonstrates the minor use of aquatic resources from the Neolithic to the Copper Age period in the Iberian Peninsula. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Age Estimation by Tympanic Bone Development in Foetal and Infant Skeletons

This article analyses age‐related changes in the development of the temporal bone in a sample of foetal and infant skeletons to contribute to the estimation of age by means of this skeletal element in bioarchaeological and forensic contexts. The sample was selected from a contemporary documented skeletal collection and is constituted by the temporal bones of individuals of both sexes (n = 37) with ages from 23 weeks of gestation up to 11 postnatal months. Different states of fusion of the tympanic ring and development of the tympanic plate were scored separately, and intra‐observer consistency was evaluated. Both documented chronological age and skeletal estimated age were examined in relation to successive stages of fusion and development in the pre‐ and postnatal periods. It was found that the state of fusion of the tympanic ring is especially useful in the discrimination of foetal and postnatal individuals, whereas the development of the tympanic plate is helpful in the differentiation of individuals from and below 3 postnatal months. Even though a certain degree of overlap between successive stages was observed, the fusion of the tympanic ring and the development of the tympanic plate constitute good indicators of age in foetal and infant skeletons. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Entheseal Changes in Free‐Ranging Versus Zoo Reindeer—Observing Activity Status of Reindeer

We evaluate whether entheseal changes (EC) can be used to reconstruct activity among reindeer to study its domestication. Humans influence reindeer activity patterns through corralling, which renders them less mobile than free‐ranging reindeer and through use as draught animals, which can result in overuse of certain muscles. There is also variation within free‐ranging reindeer in baseline activity levels due to environmental factors. Other sources of variation at entheses include age, sex, pathology, size, and genetic disposition. Here we examine if there are differences in the entheses between zoo versus free‐ranging reindeer. We recorded the entheses of reindeer long bones using a modified EC scoring system. Weight effects were accounted for by performing analyses separately for specimens under and over 95 kg, but unfortunately age information was lacking. We found that several flexor muscle insertion sites in the ulna were more developed among free‐ranging reindeer. This difference is likely due to feeding behaviour. The free‐ranging animals were digging for lichen from under the snow whereas the zoo reindeer were fed by their keepers. This difference in entheses, however, was found to be significant only among the heavier reindeer. Among the zoo reindeer, the insertion for Subscapularis muscle was more developed, possibly due to increased time spent immobile with the shoulder‐bracing muscle apparatus activated. This difference was significant among the heavier deer and nearly statistically significant among the lighter weight reindeer. Domesticated Siberian draught reindeer fell between zoo and free‐ranging reindeer in several tibial entheses. According to these results, some forelimb entheses may be useful to study differences in mobility and feeding patterns between groups of reindeer. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cultural Changes in Funeral Rites During the Neolithic in the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula? The Cave of Pantà de Foix (Barcelona)

During the third millennia bc , there is a change in the funerary patterns of the populations in Catalonia. This novelty usually has been usually related to a change in the economical source of the human groups that become less sedentary as the stockbreeding becomes more important. In the present study, we analyse this change, reflected in the mortuary practices, by the study of diet and health markers such as caries, dental calculus or enamel hypoplasias and of biological affinities based on dental non‐metric traits. It has been included a total amount of 317 permanent teeth from Cova del Pantà de Foix sites, a sepulchral cave found at the south‐west of the city of Barcelona and dates from the third millennia bc . The 74.2% of them present dental calculus deposits, which are usually related to a high protein intake. Nevertheless, the high prevalence of carious lesions (15.3% of the teeth) suggests that the main dietary contribution comes from carbohydrates. Furthermore, when this group is compared with one from the Middle Neolithic Age, which presents a lower calculus prevalence, no biological differences are observed. This lack of differences among these groups denote that the origin of the high amount of calculus deposit is environmental, which is consistent with the elevated observation of hypoplasias of the crown enamel. The absence of dietary, biological and economical differences indicates that the population substrate during the Neolithic in Catalonia is the same and that the transition in the funerary rite is related to a substantial change only regarding to mortuary practices. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

First identification of an ancient Egyptian mummified human placenta

In the course of excavations at Thebes‐West, Upper Egypt, a human organ was recovered from the poorly preserved torso of a female mummy, which was archaeologically dated to the New Kingdom. In the field, the organ was tentatively identified as a liver, but without much certainty. After rehydration and fixation, histological observations led to a rejection of this diagnosis and resulted in the hypothesis that this organ could be a placenta. Comparative histology, performed on an experimentally mummified modern human placenta, revealed a close similarity of microstructural features, which strongly supports the diagnosis of the organ as a placenta. In this paper, we can therefore present the first report of an ancient Egyptian mummified human placenta and provide new insight into Egyptian funeral practices in general, and the fate of the excavated female in particular. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.