Romita pottery revisited: a reassessment of the provenance of ceramics from Colonial Mexico by LA-MC-ICP-MS

The origin of Romita pottery has been a controversial topic during the last three decades of Colonial Mexico archaeological studies. Lead isotopic analyses of glaze coatings of Spanish and Mexican pottery, and Romita ceramics unearthed from the archaeological site of the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City provide evidence that support a Mexican origin.     

POTENTIAL HISTORY: READING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FROM INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGES*

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, history, as a core concept of the political project of modernity, was highly concerned with the future. The many crimes, genocides, and wars perpetuated in the name of historical progress eventually caused unavoidable fractures in the way Western philosophies of history have understood change over time, leading to a depoliticization of the future and a greater emphasis on matters of the present. However, the main claim of the “Historical Futures” project is that the future has not completely disappeared from the focus of historical thinking, and some modalities of the future that have been brought to the attention of historical thought relate to a more-than-human reality. This article aims to confront the prospects of a technological singularity through the eyes of peoples who already live in a world of more-than-human agency. The aim of this confrontation is to create not just an alternative way to think about the future but a stance from which we can explore ways to inhabit and therefore repoliticize historical futures. This article contains a comparative study that has been designed to challenge our technologized imaginations of the future and, at the same time, to infuse the theoretical experiment with contingent historical experiences. Could we consider artificial intelligence as a new historical subject? What about as an agent in a “more-than-human” history? To what extent can we read this new condition through ancient Amerindian notions of time? Traditionally, the relationship between Western anthropocentrism and Amerindian anthropomorphism has been framed in terms of an opposition. We intend to prefigure a less hierarchical and more horizontal relation between systems of thought, one devoid of a fixed center or parameter of reference. Granting the same degree of intellectual dignity to the works of Google engineers and the views of Amazonian shamans, we nevertheless foster an intercultural dialogue (between these two “traditions of reasoning”) about a future in which history can become more-than-human. We introduce potential history as the framework not only to conceptualize Amerindian experiences of time but also to start building an intercultural dialogue that is designed to discuss AI as a historical subject.     

Revolutionary versus Reactionary: Contrasting Portuguese and Spanish Civil-Military Relations during Democratisation

The military is an important factor for the success or failure of democratisation processes. Portugal and Spain provide two paradigmatic cases. Despite their socio-economic, political and cultural similarities, these countries developed very different civil-military relations which significantly impacted their transitions. After having handed power over to a civilian dictator, Salazar, the Portuguese military eventually caused the downfall of his authoritarian Estado Novo regime and steered the transition to democracy. In contrast, the Spanish military, which had helped Franco defeat the Second Republic, remained loyal to the dictator’s principles and, after his death, obstructed the democratisation process. Drawing on primary and secondary sources, this interdisciplinary article contrasts the challenges posed by the military and the policies implemented by the Iberian governments to depoliticise and control it. It shows that the failed coups d’état in these countries helped tighten civilian control and paved the way for democratic consolidation. Using a policy instruments comparative framework, this paper demonstrates that not only the attitudes of the military but also the tools used to keep them under control were substantially different in Portugal and Spain. Historical legacies from the Spanish Civil War, Second World War and Colonial conflicts, as well as contextual factors, serve to explain this variation.     

Wave Hindcasting and Anchoring Activities in Ancient Harbours: The Impact of Coastal Dynamics on Ancient Carthago Nova (Cartagena,Spain)

Journal of Maritime Archaeology - This study analyses nautical harbour activities and their spatial distribution using a high-resolution method of wind-wave hindcasting, in order to identify the...     

Aroche (Huelva,Andalucía): a new Neolithic axehead of Alpine jade in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula

The discovery of a Neolithic Alpine jade axehead in Aroche, in the southwest of Spain, revives the question of long-distance exchange between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe. This polished blade belongs to a typological model quite characteristic of Alpine production during the second half of the 5th millennium B.C. Different mineralogical approaches (macroscopic features examination, specific gravity, direct XRD, non-destructive μXRF spectroscopy, optical stereomicroscopy, magnetic susceptibility determination and microprobe analysis) have identified the rock as an omphacitic jadeitite (mixed jade) with some tiny garnets and a weak retromorphosis. This analysis and the comparison of the rock structure with the referential JADE of Alpine natural jade samples, as well as the extraction modalities and shaping of the axe, provide strong arguments to assign the Aroche axe to a production of Mont Viso: the origin of thousands of axes that circulated in Europe between Ireland and Sicily. The Aroche axe, discovered not far from the variscite mines of Encinasola, could be considered as part of a possible exchange system between the Iberian Peninsula and the Gulf of Morbihan, in Brittany.     

Late Mesolithic burials at Casa Corona (Villena,Spain): direct radiocarbon and palaeodietary evidence of the last forager populations in Eastern Iberia

Current knowledge about the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in the Central and Western Mediterranean European regions is deeply limited by the paucity of Late Mesolithic human osteological data and the presence of chronological gaps covering several centuries between the last foragers and the first archaeological evidence of farming peoples. In this work, we present new data to fill these gaps. We provide direct AMS radiocarbon dating and carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) stable isotope analysis were carried out on bone collagen samples of two single burials from the recently discovered open-air Late Mesolithic site of Casa Corona (Villena, Spain). The results shed new light on the chronology and subsistence patterns of the last Mesolithic communities in the Central Mediterranean region of the Iberian Peninsula. Radiocarbon results date the human remains and funerary activity of the site to 6059–5849 cal BC, statistically different from other Late Mesolithic sites and the earliest Neolithic contexts, and bridging the 500 yrs chronological gap of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition from the area. Isotopic evidence shows that diet was based on terrestrial resources despite the proximity to the site of lagoon and marine ecosystems. This and previous isotope studies from the region suggest a lower reliance upon marine resources than for Atlantic and Cantabrian sites, although intra-regional patterns of neighbouring Mesolithic populations exhibit both fully terrestrial diets and diets with significant amounts of aquatic resources in them. We hypothesize that in the Central Mediterranean region of Spain the Late Mesolithic dietary adaptations imposed structural limits on demographic growth of the last foragers and favoured rapid assimilation by the earliest Neolithic populations.     

Late Ordovician cephalopods,tentaculitides, machaeridians and echinoderms from Kuh-e Faraghan,High Zagros,Iran

Ghavidel-Syooki, M., Evans, D.H., Ghobadi Pour, M., Popov, L.E., Álvaro, J.J., Rakhmonov, U., Klishevich, I.A. & Ehsani, M.D., 15.5.2015. Late Ordovician cephalopods, tentaculitides, machaeridians and echinoderm columnals from Kuh-e Faraghun, High Zagros, Iran. Alcheringa 39, 530–549. ISSN 0311-5518.

Late Ordovician (Katian, uppermost Acanthochitina barbata to Armoricochitina nigerica chitinozoan zones) cephalopods, tentaculitides, machaeridians and echinoderms are documented for the first time from the southern Zagros Ranges. A low-diversity cephalopod fauna includes Geisonocerina dargazense sp. nov., Isorthoceras sp. cf. I. bisignatum (Barrande) and other undetermined orthoceratides. The presence of Late Ordovician tentaculitides in the high- to mid-latitude margins of Gondwana has been documented previously, but no examples have been described in detail. Thus, Costatulites kimi sp. nov., which currently occurs associated with brachiopods characteristic of the Svobodaina havliceki (brachiopod) Association, represents the earliest undoubted record of tentaculitides in Gondwana. Machaeridians constitute a relatively common component of the Late Ordovician benthic faunas from the Mediterranean margin of Gondwana, but no previous records on the Gondwanan Iranian-Arabian segment have been reported. Three echinoderm taxa based on dissociated columnals are documented from the Armoricochitina nigerica chitinozoan Zone, including Sumsaricystis radiatus Stukalina, Ristnacrinus sp. and Rosulicrinus rosulus Stukalina.

Mohammad Ghavidel-Syooki [m_ghavidelsyooki@yahoo.com] Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Technical Faculty of Tehran University, PO Box 11365-4563, Tehran, Iran; David H. Evans [david.evans@naturalengland.org.uk], Natural England, Suite D, Unex House, Bourges Boulevard, Peterborough PE1 1NG, UK; Mansoureh Ghobadi Pour* [mghobadipour@yahoo.co.uk], Department of Geology, Faculty of Sciences, Golestan University, Gorgan, Iran; Leonid E. Popov [leonid.popov@museumwales.ac.uk], Department of Geology, National Museum of Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff CF10 3NP, UK; J. Javier Álvaro [jj.alvaro@csic.es], Instituto de Geociencias (CSIC-UCM), c/ José Antonio Novais 2, 28040 Madrid, Spain; Utkyr Rakhmonov, Kitab State Geological Reserve, 9 Ipak Yuli Street, Sakhrisabz, Uzbekistan; Inna A. Klishevich, Department of Historical Geology, Geological Faculty, St Petersburg State University, Universitetskaya Naberezhnaya 7/9, 199034 St Petersburg, Russia [inna@IK4848.spb.edu]; Mohammad H. Ehsani [mh_ehsani@hotmail.com], Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Technical Faculty of Tehran University, PO Box 11365-4563, Tehran, Iran. *Also affiliated with Department of Geology, National Museum of Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff CF10 3NP, UK.     

Modelling the heritage world: Economic,legal and political considerations

Abstract

The economic literature on heritage has primarily analysed the impact of building preservation on real‐estate values and community redevelopment. Recently, economists have expanded their study on heritage to include everything from historic buildings and antiques to museums and monuments. However, this research ignores the political and legal characteristics of heritage and is used primarily to justify government expenditures on heritage. The economic study of heritage should include a conceptual framework to explain the process through which certain artefacts acquire historic significance and value. This framework would provide guidance to establish which economic agents form part of the heritage world and what incentives guide them to join it. With this framework in place., we can evaluate how the tools used by these agents to obtain their own goals affect the provision of historic resources.