The Process is the Outcome

Ethics are the key to what WAC is all about. It is our stated responsibility as WAC members to help shed the dark disciplinary past and forge a future archaeology of solidarity with the aim of fostering equality (but not sameness) among people everywhere. The present Forum section of Archaeologies showcases the scope and depth of the discussions surrounding this core aspect of WAC, which took place at the first meeting of the Committee on Ethics (henceforth CoE) at Stanford Archaeology Center (California, USA) from April 19th to 21st 2007. It is an invitation to WAC members and others to partake in the process of drafting a “General Code of Ethics” for WAC, a process that ultimately is much more about inclusive discussions and decisions on a framework for ethical practice than about writing a text or proscribing how to behave. The second affiliation for Julie Hollowell will be in effect from 15 December 2007.     

What Happened at the First Meeting of the World Archaeological Congress Committee of Ethics?

Herrera reflects on the committee’s deliberations in how to approach developing a framework for ethics in tune with the aims and ethos of WAC. He points out the importance of a foundation of meaningful principles, embedded in the thread of the actions of individuals acting in specific cultural and historical social contexts and based on core values that at the same time acknowledge the contradictions inherent in diverse standpoints. The committee faces major questions of how to define social justice and appropriate ethical behaviour for people and institutions embedded in different social and historical contexts across the globe.     

大足多宝塔供养人冯大学即冯楫的史料调查

在大足石刻北山多宝塔内,有两龛造像和六件铭文与冯大学、冯某有关。经考证,冯大学、冯某即南宋绍兴时官员冯楫。     

论俄国缙绅会议

缙绅会议在俄国从16世纪中期开始到17世纪中期逐渐停止召开,存在了一百多年。俄国学者多从西欧政治制度发展的模式来理解俄国缙绅会议,认为它是俄国的等级代表制度。与西欧封建等级议会相比,俄国缙绅会议在起源、作用上都有很大不同。它只是在16—17世纪发挥了短暂作用,并没有演变为西欧那样稳定的等级代表制机构。缙绅会议的代表制只不过扩大了沙皇进行统治的阶级基础,成为沙皇制度在一段时期可以利用的工具。使用西方模式和概念来认识俄国政治制度的演变,只能说其像谁,而不能说其是谁。     

考古发现所见两汉琥珀印探述

琥珀制品在两汉时期风靡一时,琥珀印在琥珀制品中颇具特色。本文在对中国境内考古发现所见两汉琥珀印资料收集与整理的基础上,对其出土地域、自身特征、出土位置及伴出物品等问题进行了探讨。研究表明出土琥珀印的墓葬等级较高,且出土位置特殊,并伴随有水晶、玛瑙、海蓝宝等贵重宝石。这些宝石的产地可能源自南亚或东南亚地区,而这类随葬品在两汉墓葬中的流行亦体现了当时物质交流的成果。     

Constructing America from the Sea: Maritime Archaeology Research,International Cooperation and Best Practices in the Underwater Cultural Heritage of Latin America

This article introduces this special issue of the Journal of Maritime Archaeology by giving a brief introduction to the current situation of the practice of maritime archaeology in Latin America, as well as reviewing the main challenges that the discipline faces here. An assessment of existing regional cooperation, the presence of maritime archaeology within the international community and its importance to develop new theoretical and methodological perspectives that advance access to knowledge is made. Finally, the article focuses on some of the current work carried out in Latin America.     

Regional Maritime Contexts and the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Maritorium</Emphasis>: A Latin American Perspective on Archaeological Land and Sea Integration

In the field of maritime archaeology, the use of maritime, coastal, riverine, and lacustrine spaces by past societies has been perceived in different and changing viewpoints. These perspectives have flourished in dynamic and varying ways in many countries, and under different theoretical constructs. If in the 1970s the subject was perhaps not recognized as a central research subject by much of our community, it is now not only accepted but it has become a robust area of interest in maritime research. Two concepts in Latin America have been accepted that have had widespread application and influence, namely the regional maritime context and the maritorio. The points of contact between both are so intense that it is possible to speak about a single alternative with two possible names. In this article, their origins, applications, and theoretical influences are presented in a way that unifies these two concepts into a single approach (the maritorium), and examines how these ideas have been applied to research carried out in Mexico, Chile, and Uruguay. These applications are wide ranging, as they include the interconnected complexity between land and sea as used and inhabited by past societies. They have been applied in the study of ship traps, whole fleets, sites of maritime conflict and warfare, exploration activities, and ethnographic research. These will also be presented in light of other concepts of similar interest in the international sphere, such as the widespread concept of the Maritime Cultural Landscape, and also in view of other theoretical frameworks coming from the wider sphere of the profession, such as Landscape Archaeology and Phenomenological Archaeology.     

Allochthonous red pigments used in burial practices at the Copper Age site of Valencina de la Concepción (Sevilla,Spain): characterisation and social dimension

The use of red pigments linked to burial practices is widely documented in the Iberian prehistoric record and very often it has been traditionally interpreted as a ritual practice entailing the utilisation of local raw materials (iron oxides). Some research works, nevertheless, have also detected the use of red pigments which can only be interpreted as allochthonous. The red pigments spread over a single inhumation in a monumental Megalithic tomb surrounding Valencina de la Concepción Copper Age settlement was studied by means of X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray microfluorescence, micro-Raman and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopies. This approach allowed characterising the red pigments as cinnabar, mixed with tiny amounts of iron oxides. The presence of cinnabar, a product that was necessarily imported, in a context of an exceptional set of grave goods, suggests that the use of cinnabar was linked not only to ritual but also to practices related to the display of social status.     

Maya heritage: entangled and transformed

This article discusses two aspects of heritage – entanglement and transformation – that became clear during a recent cultural heritage project in Yucatan, Mexico. Regarding entanglement, heritage becomes relevant only when coupled with other concerns, ranging from politics to livelihood to personal biographies. An unpredictable array of entanglements came into being during the project and these entanglements elevated the impact and visibility of local heritage to an unanticipated degree. Transformation refers to the claim that heritage is not frozen in the past. Instead, it is in motion and subject to change. The transformations of heritage discussed in this paper are examined from the perspective of a mobilities paradigm and understood, in part, as resulting from the experience of performing heritage for outsiders for the first time. In so far as the heritage project precipitated changes in identity, this paper explores what is meant by Maya identity and argues that it is a fluid construct that can be both anchored in the past and negotiated in the present. This perspective makes sense of an event in which contemporary people anchored their identity in a spectacular 1000-year-old ruin, but falls short of explaining the uneven recognition of smaller ruins.