Computed tomography study of snuff trays from San Pedro de Atacama (Northern Chile)

Wooden snuff trays from San Pedro de Atacama (SPA) in northern Chile are objects of particular museological value. Computed tomography (CT), a non-destructive analytical technique useful in the analysis of archaeological objects in which physical tampering is not desirable, was used to study provenience of wood, quality of craftmanship, taphonomic processes and nature of gemstone inlays in a group of snuff trays. While wood used in the manufacture of trays was mostly exogenous to SPA, gemstones used in inlays were likely of local origin. These findings support the active exchange of goods proposed for the south-central Andes region. Several features revealed in the trays support the view that craftsmen producing them were skillful artisans.     

The Yali movement in retrospect: rewriting history,redefining ‘cargo cult’

This paper is concerned with a definition of the term ‘cargo cult’ as formulated by Papua New Guineans from their personal experience of the colonial encounter. An examination of the negative connotations inherent in their interpretative reconstruction of the concept ‘cargo cult’ reveals that these resulted from a dialogue with western cultural constructions of ‘cargo cults’ which effectively discredited these movements. Interpreted in this way, the indigenous definition can also become the starting point for a reconsideration of the anthropological concept of ‘cargo cult’.     

On the provenience of wood used in the manufacture of snuff trays from San Pedro de Atacama (Northern Chile)

The consumption of hallucinogenic substances is a long-standing tradition in the Americas. San Pedro de Atacama (SPA) in Northern Chile is the archaeological zone with the highest incidence of snuffing implements in the world. Snuff trays from SPA have been studied under a variety of prisms but their provenience, in particular that of the wood used in their manufacture, has not yet been addressed. The delicate nature of trays and their excellent state of preservation call for the use of non-invasive analytical methods. Wood density was used to demarcate a possible range of species and hence as a broad provenience marker, and its value determined for 169 trays from the museum at San Pedro de Atacama. The results showed that although some of the SPA snuff trays studied may have been manufactured with local wood, most of them used exogenous wood as raw material. At this point, it is not possible to ascertain the precise origin of such wood, but Bolivia and NWA appear as likely candidates. Three distinct styles have been defined for SPA trays: Tiwanaku, San Pedro, and Circumpuneño (encompassing the area around the Puna de Atacama and including SPA). The effect of style on density points to different sources of wood in Tiwanaku style trays and trays in San Pedro and Circumpuneño styles. As expected from geographically and temporally dynamic patterns of interaction of SPA with neighboring regions, diachronic differences in wood density distributions were found. Tray manufacturing technique was not dependent on wood density, suggesting that the skill of artisans and the quality of their tools allowed them to use any type of wood for their art work, independent of its complexity.     

Reconfigurations of Place and Ethnicity: Positionings,Performances and Politics of Relocated Banabans in Fiji

Spatial belonging and ethnic identity among the Banabans resettled on Rabi Island in Fiji are the product of historically and culturally specific articulations and transformations. Such reconfigurations of place and ethnicity, based mainly on enmeshments between the Banabans' new island home, Rabi, and their island of origin in the Central Pacific, Banaba, have let them position themselves as an autonomous community living out a diaspora existence. Central to this identity politics of positioning are ethnic performances in which neo‐traditional enactments are deployed to produce embodied knowledge of Banaban existence and to communicate such knowledge to a wider world. We argue that the Banabans of Fiji, caught in a post‐colonial environment of ethnic‐nationalist discourses and practices, make strategic use of such ethnic performances to affirm and advance, both internally and externally, their own politics of spatial and ethnic positioning on Rabi.     

Climate Change: An Important Foreign Policy Issue

International climate policy is one of the most fascinating issues in foreign policy, yet in recent years it has become one of the most contentious. The failure of the conference in The Hague revealed, among other things, strongunderlying rifts in the transatlantic relationship. As the self-acclaimed worldleader, the United States is not in a position to exert leadership in this vital area owing to a mixture of constitutional constraints and an ever-growing cultural dependence on fossil fuels such as oil and gas. It therefore falls to the European Union to take up this challenge. This will require careful coalition building with the rest of the world as well as confidence in the ability of Europe to develop a united position, to stick to that position and to translate the rules of the Kyoto Protocol into stringent domestic climate policy. The climate change regime is at a crossroads. At the resumed COP-6 con-ference, the Parties must decide whether to continue the process under theassumption 'that global problems require global solutions' or whether to turn to the more regional concept of 'think globally, act locally'. In either case, steering climate policy in this century on to a successful path will require the skills and dedication not only of natural scientists and technology developers, but also of those in the foreign policy community.     

Mitochondrial DNA studies of the Pazyryk people (4th to 3rd centuries BC) from northwestern Mongolia

The discovery and excavations in 2006 by joint Russian–German–Mongolian expeditions of the Pazyryk culture burial sites (4th to 3rd centuries BC, Early Iron Age, the Scythian period) in the Altai mountains of northwestern Mongolia near the Russia border provided new material for studying various aspects of these ancient peoples lives, including human, animal and plant remains. Ice accumulation in the graves preserved the human remains, allowing biological analysis of the samples. We conducted a genetic study based on mitochondrial DNA from remains of three Pazyryk culture representatives to investigate the possible genetic relationships of this Siberian Scythian group with populations of adjacent territories. These data support possible genetic contacts between populations of Altai and other Eurasia regions in the Early Iron Age, and are in good agreement with corresponding archaeological and anthropological data. However, a large-scale study of the Pazyryk population gene pool structure must be performed to further confirm these findings.     

Emotions and the Relevance of the Past: Historicity and Ethnicity Among the Banabans of Fiji

This article treats the ability emotions have to point up the relevance of past events and so structure consciousness of history. It shows how knowledge of the past is embodied via the agency of emotions. The case study looks at how history is given emotional expression among the Banabans, a group stemming from Banaba Island in central Oceania and later resettled in Fiji. Under the hegemony of Western “regimes of historicity”, the Banabans created a new specific consciousness of history, transforming in the process themselves and their relationships with others. By analyzing several of the channels (oral, artistic, performative) via which Banabans vent their history, the article shows how they articulate knowledge of the past—underscored as relevant by emotions—with awareness of their ethnicity in the past and present. It is argued that emotions are involved in forming historicity, a process that is marked, not least, by reciprocity.     

A comprehensive numerical chronology for the pre-Columbian cultures of the Palpa valleys,south coast of Peru

Before the arrival of the Spaniards in Peru in 1532, many different societies flourished in the coastal desert of southern Peru. Of these, one of the best known is the Nasca culture (living in the area between about 260 cal BC and 640 cal BC.), which created the famous geoglyphs on the desert floor. In this paper we present a numerical chronology for the cultural development in the valleys of Palpa, in the northern part of the Nazca region, which spans the time from the Archaic Period (starting there around 3760 cal BC) to the Late Intermediate Period (terminating with the arrival of the Spaniards in 1532 AD). The chronology is based on more than 150 ¹⁴C samples collected by our project from well-documented archaeological excavations of 17 different sites in and around Palpa. Thanks to the advanced AMS-¹⁴C dating technique, demanding only few milligrams of organic material, we could focus on samples of plants, like beans, corn, or reed, representing single years of growth or use, and also on delicate materials like straw from clay bricks (adobe) and textiles. All single ¹⁴C dates were combined to cultural phases using a Bayesian statistical model, implementing the a priori information of the archaeological contexts, and adopting the relative ceramic chronologies available for this area.