Building economies from the bottom up: (mis)representations of poverty in the rural American Northwest

This paper examines interconnected processes of economic restructuring and representations of poor subjects that rely on imaginaries of race, ethnicity, class and rural space. We argue that poverty and privilege are mutually produced and so we focus on the representational practices of White leaders in persistently poor counties across the American Northwest. We draw from case study research to understand region-wide material and discursive processes that are contributing to economic distress and social marginalization. We interrogate the range of representational practices that White leaders employ to explain, deny and/or racialize poverty in their communities. We also draw attention to how poverty emerges from the intersection of political, economic and cultural processes operating across a range of scales and sites. We further analyze how representations of the poor and poverty rest on a host of imaginary landscapes about who belongs, who is an outsider and who has a right to a place and its services. We argue that these representations serve to invigorate neoliberal policies and silence a more critical debate about poverty in the USA.     

Human soft tissue preservation in the Cova des Pas site (Minorca Bronze Age)

The preservation process of soft tissues in an archeological context is mainly unknown because they occur only in truly exceptional situations. The Cova des Pas is a Bronze Age site in Minorca where the special conditions enabled the preservation of some soft tissues associated with 66 individuals. This finding allows the study of the preservation process that took place by means of the analysis of the histological and chemical characteristics of the tissues. Our results show that the preservation mechanism was the adipocere, because the fatty acids profile shows higher concentration of saturated than unsaturated fatty acids. The evidence indicates that the kind of funerary ritual and the environmental conditions favored this preservation.     

Graptolite faunas and monaxonid demosponges of the Cyrtograptus lundgreni event (late Wenlock,Silurian) interval from the Orange district,New South Wales

Muir, L.A. & Botting, J.P., December, 2007. Graptolite faunas and monaxonid demosponges of the Cyrtograptus lundgreni event (late Wenlock, Silurian) interval from the Orange district, New South Wales. Alcheringa 31, 375-395. ISSN 0311-5518.

Three monograptid and five retiolitid graptoloids, and one species of sponge, are described from late Wenlock sections (Cyr. lundgreni and Co. ludensis biozones) at Spring Creek and Wallace Creek, near Orange, New South Wales, Australia. The sponge Janussenia orangense gen. et sp. nov. is the first monaxonid demosponge to be described from the Australian Silurian. An object containing broken Testograptus testis, and interpreted as the faecal pellet of a predator or scavenger on graptoloids, is described.

Lucy A. Muir [l.muir@nhm.ac.uk], Department of Palaeontology, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK. Joseph P. Botting [joe@asoldasthehills.org], 2C Roslyn Close, Mitcham CR4 3BB, UK. Received 28.4.2006; Revised 10.10.2006.     

Heritage,identity and community engagement at Dunluce Castle,Northern Ireland

As Northern Ireland transitions out of conflict, increased attention is being paid to the role heritage can play in building peace across society and developing a more sustainable future. Recent archaeological investigations at Dunluce Castle have uncovered elements of the site’s Gaelic past and the remains of an early seventeenth-century town built immediately prior to the Crown-sponsored Plantation of Ulster. The project included a dynamic programme of community engagement and outreach that created opportunities to work as a group in the embodied act of recovering the physical past. This formed a space in which to challenge aspects of the region’s contested past and facilitated the renegotiation of accepted local histories and existing identity constructs.     

Archaeological,Historical, and Ethnographic Approaches to the Study of Sewn Boats: past,present, and future

Sewn‐plank vessels have been a pervasive form of ship construction since antiquity. This paper provides an introductory overview of the current state of the field of sewn‐plank studies, with a particular focus on the Indian Ocean. It describes the basic function of sewn‐plank techniques, and then discusses textual references and historical approaches to the topic. The relevant archaeological evidence is reviewed, and prior ethnographic work relating to the topic is outlined. It summarizes numerous experimental sewn‐plank reconstructions that have been undertaken and concludes with a discussion of the current directions of the field and suggestions for the future.     

Book-in-a-box to Xbox: materiality and the contemporary textual object

Book-in-a-box to Xbox is a discussion of developments in the material form of contemporary textual objects and of the impact this has on user/reader experience. The article formulates itself as a contemporary book history, situating the texts in question within the broader sphere of digital culture, and analyses textual function, reception, form and user interaction, presenting a cultural theorising of contemporary textual objects. The article conducts these discussions via a consideration of Marc Saporta's Composition No. 1 (a key example of materially experimental literature); recent developments in e-reading and the implications of these developments; designing interactivity in massively multiplayer online gaming; and emerging forms of sociality, or shared experience, in virtual reading and playing communities.