How to Make an Unfired Clay Cooking Pot: Understanding the Technological Choices Made by Arctic Potters

Between about 500 a.d. and the late nineteenth century, clay cooking pots associated with the Thule culture were produced in the Arctic region. Ethnographic and archaeological records indicate that these vessels were typically underfired (often even unfired), highly porous, and easily broken. Despite these characteristics, the evidence indicates that they were used to heat water over open fires. In this paper, we examine how Arctic potters were able to produce unsintered vessels capable of holding liquids without disintegrating. We conclude that the application of seal oil and seal blood to the pot’s surface was the key to their success.

Estimating Migration Flows from Birthplace‐Specific Population Stocks of Infants

When adequate data on migration are unavailable, demographers infer such data indirectly, usually by turning to residual methods of estimating net migration. This paper sets out and illustrates an inferential method that uses population totals in the first age group of birthplace‐specific counts of residents in each region of a multiregional system to indirectly infer the entire age schedule of directional age‐specific migration flows. Specifically, it uses an estimate of infant migration that is afforded by a count of infants enumerated in a region other than their region of birth to infer all other age‐specific migration flows. Since infants migrate with their parents, the migration propensities of both are correlated, and the general stability of the age profiles of migration schedules then allows the association to be extended to all other age groups.     

Ceramic production and provenience at Gordion, Central Anatolia

Phrygian Gordion was the political center of an influential Iron Age polity that extended across west central Anatolia during the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Though the borders of this polity remain vague a characteristic of the Phrygian “footprint” is the distribution of highly distinctive ceramics. The extent to which Gordion potters were the originators of these wares remains uncertain. In this paper we use Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) to establish the local signature of predominantly Iron Age ceramics for this site by combining samples from several decades of excavation with an extensive regional sediment sequence. We also compare previous NAA work at Gordion to suggest that the formative stages of the Phrygian state appears to have involved a more extensive network of non-local specialist producers than previously thought.     

Unborn in the USA: Inside the War on Abortion

Unborn in the USA traces the activities of antiabortion activistsin thirty-five states, documenting a range of antichoice activism,from exhibiting photo displays of aborted fetuses to a folkartist who creates life-sized sculptures of fetuses at variousdevelopmental stages. It offers only one side in the abortionwar—those opposed to the procedure—and only thosewho attempt to derail support for abortion by presenting imagesof aborted fetuses, even though, curiously, the     

Conservation Narratives in Costa Rica: Conflict and Co‐existence

This article examines narratives about nature conservation in Costa Rica, specifically those related to wildlife and biodiversity, and their evolution with the growth of tourism and bioprospecting industries. It outlines a traditional conservation narrative and two streams of an emerging counter‐narrative, and discusses problems and prospects for each in contemporary Costa Rica. The use of narrative and counter‐narrative follows Roe (1991, 1995), Fairhead and Leach (1995), and Leach and Mearns (1996). The article focuses particularly on the ways in which the narratives are increasingly drawing on, informing, and sometimes conflicting with one another; it is based on the author’s research undertaken in various protected areas in Costa Rica since 1994 and on research published by others.     

Non-destructive chemical characterization of ceramic sherds from Shipwreck 31CR314 and Brunswick Town, North Carolina

The purpose of this study was to chemically and texturally characterize ceramic oil jar sherds from North Carolina Shipwreck 31CR314 and to explore the utility of environmental scanning electron microscopy/X-ray energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM/EDS) for that purpose. The oil jar sherds, widely dispersed about Shipwreck 31CR314, are morphologically similar to each other, which suggests they could be from a single jar, but with so few joins this could not be concluded with certainty. Therefore, an aim of this study was to investigate whether chemical or textural characterization of the sherds might reveal unique attributes that could distinguish individual jars; results of characterization perhaps could give information on their origin and possibly site formation processes, such as whether environmental forces could have scattered sherds of a single jar during and after sinking of the ship. Previous studies have indicated this shipwreck is likely the remnants of the Queen Anne's Revenge, flagship of the pirate Blackbeard. Sherds from this shipwreck were compared with similar oil jar sherds excavated from a land site, Brunswick Town, North Carolina, to explore the use of composition and texture as hallmarks. The chemical components of the artifacts were determined by SEM/EDS. This method of analysis is valuable for archaeological research because it is rapid and non-destructive to the ceramic artifacts. Both groups of lead-glazed coarse red earthenware sherds were texturally similar except for the glazed sides of all 31CR314 sherds that exhibited small tracks of unique crescent-shaped marks. These marks may be due to manufacturing effects and immersion in seawater, and the marks may serve as hallmarks for individual jars or potentially individual manufacturers. The sherds were generally similar in composition, but the two groups exhibited distinct differences. Brunswick Town sherds consistently contained more phosphate on unglazed sides, an average 1.46 wt.% P₂O₅, and also contained trace elements not detected in the Shipwreck 31CR314 sherds. These distinct differences could be due to different manufacturing origins for Shipwreck 31CR314 and Brunswick Town ceramics but also could reflect their subjection to different environments during use and loss prior to archaeological recovery.