Iron Age animal husbandry in the wetlands of the western Netherlands

During the Iron Age a subsistence economy based on mixed farming existed in the Dutch wetlands. A model based on subsistence is put forward and tested against the archaeozoological data of 27 sites in order to gain insight into the role of animal husbandry. The model confirms that cattle husbandry was the dominant form of animal husbandry but pigs and sheep were also important at some sites. Although a high number of pig bones were expected, their role is mostly insignificant. An explanation is sought in their lack of secondary products and their competition with humans for the scarce cereals in the wetlands. The mortality profiles for cattle are largely in accordance with the subsistence model. Older cattle are used for traction, milk and herd security and sheep were mainly kept for their meat but also for their milk and wool. Differences in animal husbandry between sites also exist. At two sites more cattle were killed for their meat and at three sites the proportion of older cattle was larger than expected. Although this first test renders the subsistence model viable, it needs to be tested against more sites with larger bone samples.     

Archaeological Perspectives on the Rise of the Okinawan State

This paper presents an examination of processes of secondary state formation that occurred during the emergence of the Ryukyu Kingdom, in southwestern Japan, from the tenth to seventeenth centuries A.D. These processes include the influx of new populations, the appearance of new subsistence strategies and political groupings, shifting patterns of long-distance trade, the development of new patterns of foreign relations with China and Japan, the creation of indigenous culture and new ideology, and the transformation of gender hierarchy. I examine these processes from the perspective of political leadership and the nature of political hierarchy, concluding that the Okinawan case is distinctive in its heterarchical organization. The corporate, collective nature of Okinawan communities was overlain by a state-level network system that developed at the time of tributary linkages with China in the fourteenth century A.D.     

Commoner Power: A Case Study from the Classic Period Collapse on the Oaxaca Coast

This article argues that the agency of commoners has not been adequately theorized in archaeological studies of the political dynamics of complex societies. Recent developments in social theory emphasize that political relations are produced through social negotiations involving commoners as well as elites. This paper considers the role of commoners in the Classic period collapse in the lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico. Regional survey and excavation data demonstrate that the Classic-to-Postclassic transition was marked by dramatic changes in settlement patterns and sociopolitical organization, including the decline of the Late Classic regional center of Río Viejo. The research indicates that rather than passively reacting to the sociopolitical developments of the Classic-to-Postclassic transition, commoners actively rejected many of the ruling institutions and symbols that were central to the dominant ideology of the Late Classic state. Early Postclassic people reused and reinterpreted the sacred spaces and objects of the Río Viejo state such as carved stone monuments and public buildings. The evidence from the lower Verde is examined in the context of an emerging theoretical perspective in archaeology that considers commoner power. We argue that commoners contribute to the social negotiation of dominant discourses through three overlapping forms of social interaction: engagement, avoidance, and resistance.     

LAND EVALUATION: REVIEW

Land Evaluation - Papers of a C.S.I.R.O. Symposium Organized in Co-Operation with UNESCO, Canbera, 26–31 August, 1968, edited by G.A. Stewart