Using Actor-Network Theory to Characterize the Production of Ancient Maya Caching Events at Cerro Maya (Cerros,Belize)

Inspired by actor-network theory, this research uses an operationalized archaeological actor-network approach to characterize and examine human-object relationships associated with ritual caching deposits (votive bundles of objects) at the site of Cerro Maya (formerly Cerros), Belize. Designed to be broadly applicable for archaeological studies, our archaeological actor-network approach made it possible to inductively examine, characterize, and diachronically compare the complex arrays of human and nonhuman relationships. In contrast to previous studies that characterized caches mainly in symbolic terms, we treated caches as traces of the small-scale actor-networks that emerged during the production of ancient Maya caching events. More specifically, our actor-network methodology made it possible to characterize caches and caching events in terms of the relationships between materials, temporality, objects, places, and groups of people, their intentions, and actions. The inductive and diachronic focus of approach also allowed us to compare arrays of caching actor-networks over time while considering the social affect that caching events had on subsequent caching events and the site’s social development. This approach demonstrates that even simple artifact clusters can be viewed as proxies for highly complex networks of interlinked social relations that play roles in shaping important historical interactions and social orders over time.

     

In search of a better method to distinguish artefacts from geofacts

Archaeologists use a method of evaluating the characteristics of flakes, called scoring, to distinguish geofacts (pseudo-artefacts or eoliths) from artefacts. Lower total scores are considered indicative of a natural source of the finds, while higher ones support the opposite. However, this method has some limitations. The most important are the small quantity of assemblages subject to such an analysis and the unclear boundary drawn by a ranking within a point-based score evaluation between collections with finds of cultural and anthropic origin. Here, we present a method that minimizes these limitations. It consists of a statistical approach using scoring percentages, a new method of visualizing them and the application of clustering. This way, we obtained clear differences between pseudo-artefacts and artefacts by considering flakes from six flint assemblages from Central Europe as well as an experimental assemblage.     

Zeitpfeile,Zeitfaltungen und Diskursanalyse: zu Kontinuitäten der Imaginationslehre

Time Lines, Folded Time, and Discourse Analysis: Continuities of Maternal Imagination. Focusing on a discourse‐oriented history of knowledge, this article deals with the relation between continuity and time. It will discuss concepts of linear and homogenous time and problematize a one‐sided focus on discontinuity and rupture in discourse analyses. After examining notions of continuity, discontinuity, and temporality in the work of Michel Foucault, I will ask how continuous elements can be theorized both as instruments and objects of research, without adopting a linear concept of time. Thus, Michel Serres' concept of folded time will be presented, because it implies a multiple, heterogenous and non‐linear temporality and entails both continuous and discontinuous entities. Thereby relations of power should be considered as factors influencing the shape of the folding. In this way, folded time can serve as a useful tool for discourse analysis, enabling to examine specific and local continuities that vary in different discursive formations. To give an example, I will briefly turn to the concept of women's imagination in pregnancy. According to most historical analyses, this concept declined in the middle of the 18^th century and persisted afterwards only as an outdated remainder in folk knowledge. Nevertheless, a closer examination reveals that knowledge on imagination was actively produced in medical advice literature and some scientific discourses until the first decades of the 20^th century. This demonstrates that an overemphasis both on rupture and on the timeline of academic medicine might conceal continuous elements and the folded time of specific knowledge formations.     

Francis Hutcheson on Luxury and Intemperance: The Mandeville Threat

This paper looks at two figures in the modern, European, eighteenth-century debate on luxury. It claims to better understand the differences between Francis Hutcheson and Bernard Mandeville by exploring how Hutcheson treated the topic of luxury as a distinction between two desires, thus differing from Mandeville's concept of luxury, and a concept of temperance based on moral sense. It explores why Hutcheson believed that luxury was a moral, social and political issue and particularly why he considered Mandeville the embodiment of a threat that went beyond simple considerations of the content of The Fable of the Bees to touch on reflections on the equilibrium of a social and political system. It aims to show how the psychological and the moral dimension were connected to Hutcheson's political theory and how luxury was one of the key points of this connection.