A Report on Historical Archaeology Publications in Latin America

Historical archaeology is today widely practiced in Latin America. Scholars not living or working in the region often are unaware of the research conducted in the countries south of the United States. This brief report outlines some of the historical archaeology conducted in Latin America and provides a brief bibliography.     

Silent Voices,Hidden Lives: Archaeology,Class and Gender in the CMS Missions,Bay of Islands,New Zealand, 1814–1845

This paper explores the themes and tensions of class and propriety at one of New Zealand’s early European settlements, a Church Missionary Society mission in the Bay of Islands. Archaeological investigations at the site of the Te Puna mission house revealed a cellar containing, among other articles, items connected with domesticity and feminine concerns, demonstrating the presence of women and their daily activities. The interweaving of the archaeological and historical record sheds light upon the replication of class and culture through themes such as the “cult of domesticity” at this remote location, a decade prior to British colonization.     

Lithic Economy and Specialized Activities Among the Iberomaurusian Populations of Tamar Hat Rockshelter (Northeastern Algeria)

Tamar Hat rockshelter (Béjaïa, northeastern Algeria) has yielded a lithic assemblage showing general characteristics of an Iberomaurusian Early Late Stone Age nature. Specific “becs,” which we shall call “becs of Tamar Hat,” appear as an important component of the assemblage in the upper occupations, which occurred at the end of Late Glacial Maximum. These becs, from a technological point of view and especially by their shaping processes, constitute a reliable reference collection, though showing morphological variability resulting in part to the reduction process. The use-wear analysis conducted, based on a microscopic examination validated by experimentation, testifies the becs would have functioned for engraving hard bone, such as those of deer. Other scars observed on the sharp edge and lower face near the active portion of the tool are caused by hafting. Hence, the results of the technological and functional analyses of the becs from Tamar Hat reveal the presence of specialized activities in the upper occupations, related to the animal bone processing. These results are supported by the archaeozoological study, which confirms that the site functioned as a seasonal habitat, where Megacerin deer was exploited in the upper occupations for utilitarian, non-food purposes. The emergence of the use of the becs of Tamar Hat is synchronous with the end of the Upper Paleolithic, prior to the expansion of bec use in the Upper Magdalenian of Europe, where technical and stylistic convergences were observed. This raises the question of the emergence of these lithic implements in North Africa and the possible spread of similar industries elsewhere.     

Architecture,Power, and Communication: Case Studies from Ancient Nubia

Monumental architectural remains are among the most impressive relics of the ancient civilizations. Of course, this is also true for ancient northeast Africa. In this contribution, monumental architecture is considered not just as a static marker and manifestation of power, often embedding the state itself in the landscape, but as a location, a setting for performing public activities which are producing and replicating social relations. Some case studies of the Kerma and Meroitic cultures of ancient Nubia are discussed. Hypotheses on the ceremonies taking place are proposed.     

Why the Donkey Did Not Go South: Disease as a Constraint on the Spread of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Equus asinus</Emphasis> into Southern Africa

Donkeys are the only ungulate definitely known to have been domesticated in Africa and were widely employed in the north of the continent and through the Sahara and the Sahel as pack animals, as well as spreading through much of the Old World. Used in Egypt by 4000 bc, they are attested in Nubia in the third millennium bc, in eastern Sudan in the second millennium bc and, in a Pastoral Neolithic context, at Narosura, Kenya, in the first millennium bc. However, they went completely unremarked by early European observers in southern Africa and appear never to have reached that region, unlike cattle and sheep, both of which reached it before the beginning of the Christian era in a process that linguistic and genetic data now firmly link to the migration of herders from East Africa. Taking its lead from previous studies of the impact of epizootic disease on the expansion through Sub-Saharan Africa of cattle and dogs, this paper asks if disease also constrained the southward movement of donkeys and, if so, what the consequences of this may have been.     

The Technology of the Early Oakhurst Lithic Techno-Complex from Klipdrift Cave,Southern Cape,South Africa

The analysis of the lithics recovered from the layers dating between cal bp 10,700 and cal bp 13,700 at Klipdrift Cave, southern Cape, South Africa, provides new information on the Oakhurst techno-complex. A comparison with contemporary sites such as Matjes River Rock Shelter indicates not only technological similarities, but also unexpected differences. The Klipdrift Cave Oakhurst shares many characteristics typical of this techno-complex from the southern Cape, for example, in the dominance of quartzite, irregular and unstandardised flakes; the occurrence of irregular cores; and typical large side and end scrapers. It differs from most coastal Oakhurst sites however, in the more intensive exploitation of quartz, and the presence of a blade component, especially in the lowermost layers. Palaeoenvironmental data, derived from stable isotope analysis of ostrich eggshell, suggest that it was dry in this region during this time period. This was partially a result of the colder conditions that prevailed during the Younger Dryas. The lithic technological production techniques are stable at Klipdrift Cave during the period that the site was occupied from cal bp 13,700 to cal bp 10,700. Our data suggest that the lithic technology did not change in response to possible climatic variability.     

Breaking Ground: Hoes in Precolonial South Africa—Typology,Medium of Exchange and Symbolic Value

In sub-Saharan Africa, every cultivator of the soil in a precolonial, agriculturist society needed a digging implement, and this normally took the form of a hoe with an iron blade hafted on a wooden handle. This paper marks the first attempt to document the surprising variety of hoe blade styles and map their regional distributions within South Africa. While the primary function of the hoe—this key item of material culture in African farming communities—was to cultivate the soil, the large quantity of metal and therefore labour required to make a hoe blade accorded it great value in the years before European industrial copies flooded the market. The hoe was an important item in trade networks, in marriage transactions and in a number of symbolic contexts associated with individual and collective ancestry. This biographical approach to hoe exchange, use and recycling reveals the complex significance of this tool in the lives of precolonial farmers. In particular, we are able to show that hoes could in some circumstances be accorded the same values as cattle in marriage exchange.