Last Meals: Recovering Abdominal Contents From Skeletonized Remains

Excavation and analysis of human remains is becoming a polarized field in anthropology; it is therefore necessary to consider alternate avenues of data collection from these features to maximize their potential. The analysis of abdominal soils for digestive tract contents is consistently overlooked in research designs. Two previous studies have attempted to recover abdominal contents through systematic sampling methods using multiple inhumations and two others have recovered colon contents in isolated instances. This research briefly familiarizes the reader with current state of investigation, and then proposes and tests a different method to recover abdominal contents in skeletonized inhumations. Using this method, more than 70% of the sampled inhumations yielded data on ingested botanical products. Though recovered, faunal remains were rare. The implications of recovery, some interpretations for each population, and avenues of future research are considered.     

Animal Remains from Industrial Iron Age Communities in Phalaborwa, South Africa

The Phalaborwa region in the Northern Province of South Africa has one of the richest copper- and iron-bearing deposits in southern Africa. These deposits have been worked for 1200 years and are still being worked. The abundance of ore reduction and metal production sites, dating mostly to the Late Iron Age, testifies to the importance of these deposits. Those sites that were excavated provide valuable insight into the industrial processes, economy, rituals, and use of animals by these specialized communities. The faunal remains reflect different lifestyles, but also indicate that animal husbandry was not of primary importance. The communities were focused predominantly on metal production. The soils and climate of the region are not very suitable for herding and agriculture. Subsequently products of the metal working activities such as hoes were used as replacement for cattle in bride wealth. La région Phalaborwa dans la province Nord d'Afrique de Sud constitue l'un des dépôts les plus riches de cuivre et de fer du sud d'Afrique. Ces dépôts ont été exploités pendant 1200 années et le sont toujours. L'importance de la réduction du minerais et de la production de métal de ces sites, datés pour la plupart sur la fin del'Age de Fer, témoignent de la richesse de ces dépôts. Deux sites qui furent fouillés, donnent des renseignements valables à propos des processus industriels, de l'économie, desrites et de l'utilisation des animaux par ces communautes spécialisées. Les ossements de la faune reflètent différents modes de view, mais indiquent également que l'économie animalière n'était pas de la première importance. Les sols et le climat de la région ne sont propices, ni à l'agriculture. D'autres produits issus du travail du fer, comme des houes, ont été utilisées en remplacement de l'élevage.     

The Return of Zipf: Towards a Further Understanding of the Rank-Size Distribution

We offer a general-equilibrium economic approach to Zipf's Law or, more generally, the rank-size distribution—the striking empirical regularity concerning the size distribution of cities. We provide some further understanding of Zipf's Law by incorporating negative feedbacks (congestion) in a popular model of economic geography and international trade. This model allows the powers of agglomeration and spreading to be in long-run equilibrium, which enhances our understanding of the existence of a rank-size distribution of cities.     

Gendering resistance: British colonial narratives of wartime New Zealand

In 1850s New Zealand, the British Crown forced the purchase of indigenous Maori land at Taranaki, an event that hastened the brutal land wars of the 1860s. A group of British church and government officials and their wives voiced their opposition to this land confiscation, participating in what became known as the «pamphlet war» over Taranaki. The authors compare the anti-colonial writings of a number of prominent colonial men and women, drawing out the significance of both ideological and embodied gendered differences and the discursive representations of place produced out of them. In addition to differences and similarities in genre, content, and audience, the authors highlight the significance—and spatiality—of anti-colonial Maori testimony that appeared in one of the pivotal texts.     

A Supermarket of anthropology: AAA 2002

Conference reviewed:
Mette Louise Berg, A Supermarket of Anthropology AAA Meeting, New Orleans, 20–24 November 2002     

Maritime Cultural Landscapes,Maritimity and Quasi Objects

Does the concept of maritime cultural landscapes bridge a division between land and sea, or does it maintain a gap that perhaps doesn’t even exist? This paper discusses maritime and maritime cultural landscapes as phenomena in the light of Actor Network Theory, where maritimity is given attention as a derivation of the modern metaphysics as described by Bruno Latour. The paper makes use of a case study from Norwegian Cultural Heritage Management (CHM), where land and sea archaeologists meet each other in a joint venture project at the island of Smøla, Møre &; Romsdal County.     

Late Holocene fishing strategies in southern Africa as seen from Likoaeng,highland Lesotho

The open-air campsite of Likoaeng in the eastern highlands of Lesotho, southern Africa, preserves an extensive record of fishing activity by late Holocene hunter-gatherers. This paper reports the results of the analysis of the enormous fish assemblage recovered from its excavation. Fishing appears to have become more important from the start of the late Holocene neoglacial, c. 1000 cal. BC, with people camping at Likoaeng to intercept seasonal spawning runs of two species, Labeo capensis (the Orange River mudfish) and Labeobarbus aeneus (the smallmouth yellowfish). The latter dominates in the lower part of the sequence, with the former becoming dominant after 560 cal. BC. As a result, the focus of occupation probably shifted from high summer to spring. Estimates of Standard Length show that some fish were significantly larger than historically recorded maxima, but there is no sign that human predation affected fish size. The massive quantities of fish taken suggest that people may have used seasonally predictable spawning events as a focus for social aggregation. While there is no evidence for fish being preserved or removed off-site, the strong focus on fishing at Likoaeng strengthens the case for intensified hunter-gatherer interest in freshwater resources in southern Africa during the late Holocene.