Trees and shrubs: the use of wood in prehispanic Teotihuacan

Charcoal recovered from different archaeological excavations carried out in the Teotihuacan Valley, México was used to evaluate whether significant changes in the use of wood took place through time (approx. 400 B.C.–A.D. 1500). Sixteen taxa of trees and shrubs characteristic of the Basin of Mexico were identified (including Pinus, Quercus, Arbutus, Cupressaceae, Alnus, Prunus, Taxodium, Salix, Baccharis and Buddleia, among others). Variations in the proportions of taxa are interpreted as a reflection of the intensity of use rather than an indicator of deforestation. The analysis of the data shows a pattern of continuity in the utilization of taxa throughout the occupation. This includes the use of different vegetative parts (trunk and branches), genera and species with different life forms (trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants) and primary (Pinus and Quercus) as well as secondary taxa (Prunus and Arbutus). We propose that the inhabitants of the Teotihuacan Valley implemented practices to manage vegetation in order to assure resource availability in the region.     

Spies and Postmen: Communications Liaisons and the Evolution of the Qing Bureaucracy

This article introduces the “communications liaison” (titang guan)—an official category little acknowledged in past scholarship on the late imperial Chinese state. Communications liaisons stationed at garrisons and administrative seats compiled intelligence and news reports for supervising officials in distant locations. In Beijing, capital liaisons compiled documents into court gazettes and supervised the distribution of documents, seals of office, and imperial gifts to the provinces. Besides these responsibilities, capital liaisons acquired reputations for following personal and patronage agendas that undermined the integrity of the bureaucratic state. Longstanding financial and administrative inconsistencies within the Qing bureaucracy induced liaisons to misbehave. Still, characterizations of liaison malfeasance transformed over the course of the dynasty due to institutional developments including the implementation of new communications systems, the standardization of provincial administrations, and the expansion of office sales. Whereas liaisons in the early and mid-Qing periods were parties to political exchanges among the bureaucratic elite, by the dynasty’s waning years, liaisons provided services for the larger population of bureaucratic personnel. The liaisons’ transformation from spies into postmen, as seen through the eyes of official critics, offers an opportunity to evaluate the impact of major changes in the Qing bureaucracy upon some of its least known officeholders.     

Partisan identity in the French civil war, 1405–1418: reconsidering the evidence on livery badges

This article examines the efficiency with which John the Fearless used his personal badges during his conflict with Louis of Orleans and the Armagnacs, and questions current thinking on the relationship between the emblems of both parties. As early as 1405, he began distributing emblems that corresponded directly to his ideology: first the carpenter's plane, and from 1410 onwards, his mason's level, two symbols that were representative of his platform for reform. In August 1411, his urban supporters in Paris and elsewhere began wearing crosses of St Andrew, his patron saint, as a means of identifying themselves as Burgundian partisans. This study argues that in making a conscious decision to link his symbols to his ideology, and in making them available to his vassals and urban supporters alike, John the Fearless forged a strong Burgundian community that transcended social barriers. In so doing, he also manufactured an Armagnac anti-community, a tangible entity against which his partisans' animosity was directed from 1411 onwards. As badges of allegiance, the symbols helped fuel a war that had, thus far, remained a private conflict between the princely houses of Burgundy and Orleans.     

A Roma Nation? Constructing Romani identity in the context of extreme displacement

The process of displacement has affected the articulation of collective identity among the Romani diaspora. The nation state persists as the main vehicle through which diasporic identities are formulated. A challenge to this is when a diaspora has lost its homeland as its territorial reference point. This article reflects on the way in which the Romanies – a 1,000‐year‐old diaspora – confront traditional understandings of diasporic identity as combining the ideas of a loss and longing for a homeland. It explores the limits and possibilities of building a collective Romani identity in the context of extreme displacement, with reference to narratives of identity and belonging articulated by the Romani diaspora in Britain.     

Forging the Missionary Ideal: Gender and the Family in the Church Missionary Society Gleaner

The missionary press in Britain served not only to diffuse knowledge, but to create identity. For an emergent evangelical middle‐class, notions of masculinity, femininity, and family were negotiated and refined through the representations of missionaries and their lives in the field. Evangelical identity was configured through the ideologies and practices of gender and domesticity in the mission context. This article explores the representations of gender and the family in the philanthropic press in Britain through the case study of the Church Missionary Society Gleaner. For the missionary public at home, the pages of the missionary press contained the exemplary normativity of gender, culture, and family. In forging those ideals through the work and representation of mission endeavour, notions of gender and family became both implicitly and explicitly linked to Empire. By once again taking the colony and metropole into the same analytical space, we can consider the ways in which colonialism “out there” structured Britishness not only “at home.” but in the heart of the home as well.     

The potential of paleoethnobotanical evidence for the study of Teotihuacan foodways

Macro- and microscopic plant remains recovered from excavations at Teotihuacan over several decades contribute to an understanding of the subsistence resources available to the city’s inhabitants. However, associated contextual evidence may be inconclusive regarding the specific uses of the plants in question and, particularly, whether their presence or relative abundance indicates processing and consumption or the consequence of depositional processes. While the analysis of archeological plant remains is necessarily an interdisciplinary endeavor, involving aspects of botany, ecology, ethnography and history among other disciplines, contextual archeological evidence provides the matrix for interpretation. In this paper, we explore direct archeological evidence for plant use, considering the significance of appropriate contextual evidence (e.g., activity areas, associated ceramics, lithics, etc.) and the potential complementary role of analytical techniques such as residue analyses, and carbon isotope signatures in faunal and human osteological remains as well as stratigraphic sediments.     

Fiat Lux: Functional Analysis of Three Saxo-Norman Pottery Lamps from Berkeley,Gloucestershire

THIS PAPER COMPRISES analysis of three Saxo-Norman pottery lamps recovered during archaeological excavations in 2012 in the Edward Jenner Museum garden, Berkeley, Gloucestershire. While such vessels have been known to archaeologists since the earliest days of Saxon and medieval pottery studies, their specific function, other than general ‘lighting’, has never been considered. Similarly, the composition of the fuel in such lamps has not been scientifically verified. In the following paper, both of these areas are addressed through experimental archaeology and organic residue analysis. The conclusion reached is that the lamps were chosen for use in a late-Saxon industrial workshop as they were ideal for the setting, providing a consistent, stable and bright light source in comparison with other available lighting methods of the period.     

Embodiment,linguistics, space: American Sign Language meets geography

ABSTRACT

The relational turn in geography has led to an understanding of space and place as actively produced agents in people’s everyday lives. Geographers have also long recognized the importance of language in understanding the social and relational nature of space. The study of American Sign Language (ASL) presents a unique opportunity to examine how language use and language creation influence the production of linguistic space. For users of ASL, space is incredibly significant. Because of the visual and spatial nature of ASL, the space surrounding a signer’s body is important not only for the signer to communicate, but also for others involved in the conversation to participate. Environments created during conversations in ASL reflect the cultural and linguistic perception of the American Deaf community. By taking a critical perspective on the production of space, it will be shown that those who use ASL, through the medium of bodily performance, create linguistic, and communication spaces that are dynamic and visual. The embodied language of ASL and the Deaf community is a perspective geographers have yet to address.