Personal,Political, Pedagogic: Challenging the Binary Bind in Archaeological Teaching,Learning and Fieldwork

In this paper, we consider how we can undercut the various binaries of gender and sexuality in archaeological practice and particularly in our teaching. We argue that taking an assemblage theory approach enables us to look at the multiplicity of identities of those practicing archaeology as different and intersecting assemblages that bring one another into being through their connections at different scales. In particular, we examine how this approach can be applied to archaeological pedagogy and how this in turn enables us to move away from modern binary distinctions about sex and gender identities from the ‘bottom up’, fostering an approach in our students that will then go on to be developed in professional practice.     

Her Mirror,His Sword: Unbinding Binary Gender and Sex Assumptions in Iron Age British Mortuary Traditions

At the site of Hillside Farm, Bryher, on the Isles of Scilly, a materially rich single Iron Age inhumation was discovered containing the unsexable fragmented remains of one adult with a number of high-quality metal grave goods including an iron sword with a bronze scabbard and a bronze mirror. Swords and mirrors have long been considered high-status, oppositionally gendered grave goods that crosscut regional divisions in the pre-Roman British Iron Age (c. 800 B.C.–A.D. 43). Their combined presence within the burial of a single individual represents a touchstone within the ongoing unraveling of a long-held, interconnected set of reified binary sex and gender assumptions that have permeated discussions of British Iron Age mortuary contexts. In better recognizing this web of “binary binds,” we can deconstruct the a priori, exclusionary, interconnected sex and gender assumptions that configure how we investigate the terms of engagement between materials and persons in these burial contexts. Crucial to this analysis is an approach to patterning that (1) does not begin with a search for sex and gender as evidence of male and female dichotomies, (2) sees the potentiality for any component of a mortuary assemblage to have multiple points of significance, and (3) embraces data ambiguity. Developing such critical approaches will ultimately contribute to the deployment of more inclusive forms of analysis that do not reify sex and gender as the primary organizing principles within mortuary contexts, aiding scholars in avoiding assumptions that bind sex and gender analyses into artificially binary paradigms.     

Technological,Functional and Contextual Aspects of the K2 and Mapungubwe Worked Bone Industries

Mapungubwe (AD 1220–1290) is generally regarded as the first urban centre in southern Africa, functioning as the seat of power for an extensive but short-lived polity. More than 80 years of excavations here, and at its nearby predecessor K2 (c. AD 1000–1220), resulted in a substantial assemblage of material remains from elite and commoner contexts. This assemblage includes a large collection of worked bone objects, such as needles, awls, tubes and objects of personal adornment. Of particular interest are the bone arrowheads and link-shafts, of which a significant number of specimens were found complete and intact. Such quantities of well-preserved worked bone objects are unique in the archaeological record of the region. The worked bone assemblages from these two sites provide a rare opportunity to study multiple components of the production process as well as the use context of bone objects. In this paper, we characterise the K2 and Mapungubwe worked bone industries through various morphological, technological, use-trace and contextual approaches and discuss the significance of these aspects in terms of raw material selection and manufacture and archaeological use context. In particular, this study shows the complexity of these worked bone industries over time.     

Clay Tobacco Pipes from a Colonial Refuse Deposit in Fort San Severino,Matanzas Province,Cuba

This article provides a detailed study of clay tobacco pipes excavated from a refuse deposit at Fort San Severino, Matanzas city, Cuba. The pipes date to the late eighteenth through the nineteenth century and are dominated by reed-stem typology. The collection includes Dutch, British, Spanish, and Balkan specimens. The study of these pipes contribute to the archaeology of clay pipes in Cuba and provide insight into the socioeconomics of pipe culture at fort San Severino. Moreover, it brings special attention to the occurrence of western Mediterranean reed-stem tobacco pipes, yet to be studied from other Spanish sites in the Caribbean.     

Ancient Pottery Surface Treatments from Dakhleh Oasis,Egypt: an Experimental Study

This study examines the heating and cooling effectiveness of three common surface treatments associated with the prehistoric pottery from Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt. Experiments were conducted on replica vessels with plain, compacted and textured surfaces—observations on thermal damage were also taken to explore the relationship between surface treatment and vessel durability. The study is interested in understanding if, and how, these treatments perform differently in heating and cooling the vessel contents. This could help to explain long-term trends in the archaeological record at Dakhleh, particularly shifts in subsistence patterns. Importantly, the study highlights the potential to incorporate more experimental research within the expanding field of Egyptian ceramic studies.     

Network Analysis and Entanglement

This article explores the extent to which formal network analysis can be used to study aspects of entanglement, the latter referring to the collective sets of dependencies between humans and things. The data used were derived from the Neolithic sites of Boncuklu and Çatalhöyük in central Turkey. The first part of the analysis involves using formal network methods to chart the changing interactions between humans and things at these sites through time. The values of betweenness and centrality vary through time in ways that illuminate the known transformations at the site as, for example, domestic cattle are introduced. The ego networks for houses across four time periods at the two sites are also patterned in ways that contribute to an understanding of social and economic trends. In a second set of analyses, formal network methods are applied to intersecting operational chains, or chainworks. Finally, the dependencies between humans and things are evaluated by exploring the costs and benefits of particular material choices relative to larger entanglements. In conclusion, it is argued that three types of entanglement can be represented and explored using methods taken from the network sciences. The first type concerns the large number of relations that surround any particular human or thing. The second concerns the ways in which entanglements are organized. The third type of entanglement concerns the dialectic between dependence (potential through reliance) and dependency (constraint through reliance).     

Reflections on the Identities and Roles of the Artists in European Paleolithic Societies

In an attempt to introduce concerns with social identities into the discussion and understanding of the making of what we call Paleolithic art, this article considers issues of gender, skill, apprenticeship, and tradition. We note that, as in every period of history, Paleolithic art can be seen as embedded in the society that studies it. Over the last 20 years, the research attention given to women in Paleolithic societies has grown considerably, leading us to ask what could have been the roles of women in Paleolithic art. On what criteria could we base a determination of those roles or of other social identities that were likely part of the making and viewing of Paleolithic art?Thanks to our microscopic analysis of engravings, it is possible to identify the skill level and expertise of the artists and thus to address the question of apprenticeship and how these techniques were transmitted. We observe many similarities that allow us to group together various works of art, sometimes from very distant sites, which indicate a movement of ideas, objects, and people. Are we talking about “imitation”? How can we define an “invention” within a social context strongly bound by traditions?     

“Seek and you Shall Find.” How the Analysis of Gendered Patterns in Archaeology can Create False Binaries: a Case Study from Durankulak

The gender structures of the communities of the Late Neolithic and Copper Age in South East Europe have been firmly placed in a binary system by past archaeological analysis. The analysis of cemetery remains has indicated that binaries are expressed through differences in body position and the types of artefacts placed in the grave. However, re-evaluation of evidence from Durankulak cemetery on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast demonstrates that such interpretations may result from the imposition of a modern Western understanding of gender as binary based on sex; these assumptions can lead to the exclusion of data which points to more complex and varied gender relationships. This paper briefly discusses the problems in starting archaeological analyses from an assumed binary in both sex and gender. It is argued that any approach that starts with this binary is likely to be misleading, and that large-scale data sets, such as cemeteries, should be investigated using multivariate statistical techniques to uncover a variety of horizontal and vertical social categories and roles, of which gender may be a part. It demonstrates that in the case of Durankulak, while there are gender differences, there was a great deal of more complexity than a simple male/female division. Some artefacts are exclusively associated with male burials, while female graves have less variety in their assemblages.     

Terrestrial and maritime taphonomy: differential effects on spatial distribution of a Late Pleistocene continental drowned faunal bone assemblage from the Pacific coast of Chile

Site GNL Quintero 1 (GNLQ1), located on the central coast of Chile, is the only documented Late Pleistocene drowned terrestrial site along the Pacific Coast of South America. Faunal evidence at the site is varied, and so far, remains of the following taxa have been found: extinct Camelidae, Cervidae, Equidae, Mylodontidae, Xenarthra, but also Myocastoridae, Canidae and Octodontidae. Both geological and paleoenvironmental data indicate that GNLQ1 developed in a floodplain or low-energy environment during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Prior to the post-glacial rising of the sea level, the site would have been located several kilometres inland as the paleoshoreline was farther out on the continental shelf. In accordance with this background, the present study addresses the analysis of the spatial distribution of the bone deposits of GNLQ1 by considering both scenarios, the terrestrial phase related to the formation and modification of the fossil assemblage prior to the transgression, and the marine phase, subsequent to inundation. Results indicate modifications related to low-energy flow environment and carnivore activity dominated during the terrestrial phase and the action of marine organisms during the marine phase. Other taphonomic modifications are not easily attributable to either one or the other environmental context.