The Sociopolitics of Archaeology in Quebec: Regional Developments within Global Trends

In the 1960s, archaeology was a newcomer to Quebec’s cultural francophone scene, and commercial archaeology made its first appearance at the end of the 1970s. Today, in a context of global chronic economic crisis, we intend to examine the effects of provincial and federal ideological and economic trends on the praxis of archaeology in Quebec. These include a progressive deregulation of the public sector by weakening the institutions through the termination of archaeological posts or/and non-replacement of retired archaeologists, and a progressive disengagement of the public sector through conditional regulation, accompanied by a lax attitude towards entrepreneurs, and stickler regulations for archaeologists. We present a series of current issues and examples in Quebec archaeology which illustrate these trends, in particular two case studies occurring in Montreal and Northern Quebec, respectively.     

Reappraisal of Austrosaurus mckillopi Longman, 1933 from the Allaru Mudstone of Queensland,Australia’s first named Cretaceous sauropod dinosaur

Poropat, S.F., Nair, J.P., Syme, C.E., Mannion, P.D., Upchurch, P., Hocknull, S.A., Cook, A.G., Tischler, T.R. &; Holland, T. XX.XXXX. 2017. Reappraisal of Austrosaurus mckillopi Longman, 1933 Longman, H.A., 1933. A new dinosaur from the Queensland Cretaceous. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 10, 131–144. [Google Scholar] from the Allaru Mudstone of Queensland, Australia’s first named Cretaceous sauropod dinosaur. Alcheringa 41, 543–580. ISSN 0311-5518

Austrosaurus mckillopi was the first Cretaceous sauropod reported from Australia, and the first Cretaceous dinosaur reported from Queensland (northeast Australia). This sauropod taxon was established on the basis of several fragmentary presacral vertebrae (QM F2316) derived from the uppermost Lower Cretaceous (upper Albian) Allaru Mudstone, at a locality situated 77 km west-northwest of Richmond, Queensland. Prior to its rediscovery in 2014, the type site was considered lost after failed attempts to relocate it in the 1970s. Excavations at the site in 2014 and 2015 led to the recovery of several partial dorsal ribs and fragments of presacral vertebrae, all of which clearly pertained to a single sauropod dinosaur. The discovery of new material of the type individual of Austrosaurus mckillopi, in tandem with a reassessment of the material collected in the 1930s, has facilitated the rearticulation of the specimen. The resultant vertebral series comprises six presacral vertebrae—the posteriormost cervical and five anteriormost dorsals—in association with five left dorsal ribs and one right one. The fragmentary nature of the type specimen has historically hindered assessments of the phylogenetic affinities of Austrosaurus, as has the fact that these evaluations were often based on a subset of the type material. The reappraisal of the type series of Austrosaurus presented herein, on the basis of both external morphology and internal morphology visualized through CT data, validates it as a diagnostic titanosauriform taxon, tentatively placed in Somphospondyli, and characterized by the possession of an accessory lateral pneumatic foramen on dorsal vertebra I (a feature that appears to be autapomorphic) and by the presence of a robust ventral mid-line ridge on the centra of dorsal vertebrae I and II. The interpretation of the anteriormost preserved vertebra in Austrosaurus as a posterior cervical has also prompted the re-evaluation of an isolated, partial, posterior cervical vertebra (QM F6142, the ‘Hughenden sauropod’) from the upper Albian Toolebuc Formation (which underlies the Allaru Mudstone). Although this vertebra preserves an apparent unique character of its own (a spinopostzygapophyseal lamina fossa), it is not able to be referred unequivocally to Austrosaurus and is retained as Titanosauriformes indet. Austrosaurus mckillopi is one of the oldest known sauropods from the Australian Cretaceous based on skeletal remains and potentially provides phylogenetic and/or palaeobiogeographic context for later taxa such as Wintonotitan wattsi, Diamantinasaurus matildae and Savannasaurus elliottorum.

Stephen F. Poropat* [sporopat@swin.edu.au; stephenfporopat@gmail.com] Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, Swinburne University of Technology, John St, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia; Jay P. Nair [j.nair@uq.edu.au; jayraptor@gmail.com] School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia; Caitlin E. Syme [caitlin.syme@uqconnect.edu.au] School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia; Philip D. Mannion [philipdmannion@gmail.com] Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, UK; Paul Upchurch [p.upchurch@ucl.ac.uk] Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK; Scott A. Hocknull [scott.hocknull@qm.qld.gov.au] Geosciences, Queensland Museum, 122 Gerler Rd, Hendra, Queensland 4011, Australia; Alex G. Cook [alex.cook@y7mail.com] School of Earth Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia; Travis R. Tischler [travisr.tischler@outlook.com] Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, Lot 1 Dinosaur Drive, PO Box 408, Winton, Queensland 4735, Australia; Timothy Holland [drtimothyholland@gmail.com] Kronosaurus Korner, 91 Goldring St, Richmond, Queensland 4822, Australia. *Also affiliated with: Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, Lot 1 Dinosaur Drive, PO Box 408, Winton, Queensland 4735, Australia.     

Truth as historical recapitulation: the dead of Cape Town’s District One

In this essay, I reflect on the massive and dramatic re-emergence of the dead of Cape Town’s District One in 2003, and its aftermath. I discuss how the resurfacing of these ancestors helps us understand how heritage discourses operate in Cape Town, and how their agency forces us to consider what it means to live in the city during post-apartheid urban renewal. I argue that the agency of the District One dead hinges on their exposure of the internal workings of discourse and the associated disciplinary practices through which we experience Cape Town and its heritage. This story ends ambiguously. I discuss how, following the storage of the District One dead in the Prestwich Ossuary, the gaze on Cape Town was redirected away from the city’s past and towards its future; I explore how their reinterment foreclosed a series of discussions regarding the reconciliation of past events with the present realities of Cape Town. I argue, finally, that truth at District One can be understood as a form of historical recapitulation.     

Empires for Peace: Denis Veiras’s Borrowings from Garcilaso de la Vega

Writing The History of the Sevarambians in the 1670s, the Huguenot Denis Veiras borrowed many ideas from Garcilaso de la Vega, also known as El Inca, whose Royal Commentaries of the Incas was published in 1609. Both works describe the history of an empire and justify it on the ground that it brought peace and unity. While Garcilaso’s book purported to be a history, his selection of facts reflected his goal of improving the treatment of the Incas by the Spanish. Veiras’s story also claimed to be a history, but it was transparently a fiction, even to the point of lifting many elements from Garcilaso’s book. What both works equally emphasized was that empires could aim at, and could be justified by, the benefits they provided their subjects. Both tell stories of benevolent and paternalistic rulers who founded nearly ideal societies in the countries they conquered. These were models of empire for peace and unity rather than merely promoting toleration of differences or concord among differing parties. Veiras’s utopia thus offers an instructive case study of the effects of cross-cultural borrowings of literary and political ideas.     

ROCK ART SITES IN JAMAICA AND THEIR ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION

26 sites with Pre‐Columbian (Taíno) rock art are known in Jamaica, most with petroglyphs only, but there are four with painted images, and three of these are discussed: Mountain River Cave, Potoo Hole, and Spot Valley Cave. In addition, an account is given of the Warminster rock shelter, which has petroglyphs described as among the best remaining in Jamaica. Spot Valley Cave was newly surveyed in 2005, with the help of the Jamaican Caves Organization, and in the same year a rescue operation to restore the Warminster petroglyphs was carried out, in cooperation with Dr Johannes Loubser. Comparisons are made, where appropriate, to Taíno artefacts in different materials, and also to Pre‐Columbian images on other islands in the Caribbean, notably Puerto Rico. The interpretation of the Taíno images, in Jamaica and elsewhere, relies to a considerable extent on the “Account of the Antiquities of the Indians”, compiled by Fray Ramón Pané in 1494–1498, on the express instructions of Columbus. Whatever the shortcomings of a narrative compiled by an outsider, we would be much worse off without it.     

The New Cinema Going to the Dogs? The Encounter with Animal Otherness in the Film El aura

This paper explores the topic of animal alterity in Argentinian cinema in general, but primarily in Fabián Bielinsky's El aura. Through one of its much overlooked main characters, a wolfish dog, and her relationship with the human protagonist, this thriller develops a dialogue with the excluded and repressed visual subject status of animals. Historicizing this visual paradigm as originating in Renaissance perspectivism, and theorizing it alongside the gendered category of castration anxiety and the representation of women as to-be-looked-at-ness in film, this essay proposes that El aura reworks these traditions and comes to an innovative, even radical, conclusion about the possibilities of the human in relation to other, non-human forms of subjectivity. The dog fills the gap, and alters the parameters, of the missing femme fatale, if we read the film as pertaining to the noir (or neo-noir) genre. In its treatment of the relationship between the canine and human protagonists, it also reorients the viewer, thematically as much as esthetically, with regards to hegemonic binary categories such as active/passive, good/evil, predator/prey, and strong/weak. This article engages centrally with recent scholarship on human-animal relations.