Camels and Arabian balîya and other forms of sacrifice: a review of archaeological and literary evidence

The paper surveys the recent archaeological information for the balîya immolation tradition of pre-Islamic Arabia, whereby a camel or other valued animal was slaughtered to accompany a person of status in death so that they had an animal to ride or to maintain their status in the afterlife. In contrast to the dhibh immolation, which is prescribed in the Holy Qur'ân in memory of the sacrifice of the Prophet Ibrâhîm, the balîya is forbidden in Islam. Unlike the dhibh immolation, the balîya sacrifice was interred whole and provides precise archaeological information about the circumstances of its slaughter and burial. Information about such immolations derives largely from excavations in southern and eastern Arabia.     

Exceptional preservation of a prehistoric human brain from Heslington,Yorkshire, UK

Archaeological work in advance of construction at a site on the edge of York, UK, yielded human remains of prehistoric to Romano-British date. Amongst these was a mandible and cranium, the intra-cranial space of which contained shrunken but macroscopically recognizable remains of a brain. Although the distinctive surface morphology of the organ is preserved, little recognizable brain histology survives. Though rare, the survival of brain tissue in otherwise skeletalised human remains from wet burial environments is not unique. A survey of the literature shows that similar brain masses have been previously reported in diverse circumstances. We argue for a greater awareness of these brain masses and for more attention to be paid to their detection and identification in order to improve the reporting rate and to allow a more comprehensive study of this rare archaeological survival.     

An experimental ethnoarchaeological approach to understanding the development of use wear associated with the processing of river cane for split-cane technology

Southeastern Indians have been using cane (Arundinaria spp.) for basketry and matting for thousands of years. Unfortunately, it is only under extraordinary preservation conditions that such items survive archaeologically. Inferring the production of split-cane technology requires an understanding of prehistoric manufacturing and processing techniques. It is hypothesized that stone tools were once used to process cane for use in split-cane technologies. In the Southeast, it is not uncommon to find stone tools with traces of plant use; however attributing wear to specific plants has been problematic. Pilot experiments, grounded on ethnoarchaeological observations, were conducted with river cane (Arundinaria gigantea) in collaboration with expert basket weavers in the Cherokee Nation. The experimental ethnoarchaeological program was designed to test the efficiency of stone tools in cane processing and document use wear through microscopic observations. The results found that non-retouched flakes were efficient for processing river cane and that the different stages of splint preparation resulted in the differential development of use-related wear. Additional experimentation with river cane is necessary to better define use wear and establish criteria for identification in archaeological contexts. Nonetheless, the collaborative and experimental approach undertaken demonstrated the utility of combining traditional archaeological methods with experimentation, ethnoarchaeology, and tribal knowledge.     

An accidental Bangkok theme park

ABSTRACT

Bangkok's Nana precinct began as an Indian real estate venture in the 1920s and 1930s, then emerged as an R&R destination for American servicemen in the Vietnam War era. In the present time, it has become the main focus for Middle-Eastern tourism to Bangkok. It continues as an Indian commercial community in the remnants of an American recall, catering to an un-(anti-)American Middle-Eastern clientele in a milieu of frantic consumption, bright-light spectacle, un-Islamic music and surreptitious, forbidden pleasures. This extraordinary intersection of the incongruous is approached here through four perspectives which, it is suggested, are extendible to accidental urban theme parks generally: (1) as spectacle; (2) as cultural destabilization when spectacle is interrogated in a framework of multi-cultural, multi-voiced cacophony; then (3) when interrogated in a political economy context, as deconstructive of held assumptions attaching to both consumer society and global geopolitics; thence (4) at least potentially as globally transformative – the tourist as metamorphic agent in a dialectic of assemblage and ecosystem.     

Living With the Other's Pain: The Ethical Implications of Mitsein in Simone de Beauvoir's Le sang des autres

This article establishes that the suffering of the other represents a serious philosophical and ethical problem in Beauvoir's first post–World War II novel. In fact, the other's suffering poses such a complex problem in Le sang des autres particularly because Beauvoir depicts her characters’ world as a kind of Mitsein, which is Heidegger's word to describe how our lives necessarily intertwine with and envelop the lives of others while still allowing for the existential experience of separation. In the novel, the main characters’ potential responses to the other's suffering—quietism, indifference, charity, and empathy—fail according to the novel's existentialist ethical framework because of the ways these responses deny the fundamental ambiguity of Beauvoirian Mitsein. Only in accepting separation and connection as codependent ethical values do the characters find an ethically palatable response to the other's suffering at the end of the novel.