Measuring reduction in stone tools: an ethnoarchaeological study of Gamo hidescrapers from Ethiopia

Stone tools were knapped, not built. This truism means that tools were reduced from larger pieces in the production process. But many tools were further reduced in use, to repair damage or as edges dulled. Reduction reduced size (trivially), but also changed the proportions among tools' elements or dimensions. Such allometric variation (change in proportion as a function of change in size) is useful to estimate the degree of reduction that tools experienced. Reduction itself is a measure of curation, a theoretical concept of great interest in lithic studies and Paleolithic archaeology. To determine the reduction that archaeological tools experienced, we must compare their size and proportions at first use to the same properties at discard that we directly measure. By now many size estimates can be made from discarded tools. Some are experimentally tested but few are validated using direct ethnoarchaeological controls. We validate two allometric reduction measures—ratios of plan area to thickness and of an estimate of original to discarded volume—against direct measures of use and reduction in ethnographic Gamo hidescrapers from Ethiopia.     

The emergence of status inequality in intermediate scale societies: A demographic and socio-economic history of the Keatley Creek site,British Columbia

Explaining the emergence of status inequality in human societies is an important priority for many anthropological archaeologists, particularly those whose research includes intermediate scale societies (complex hunter–gatherers and early agriculturalists). Yet, fine grained records of emergent inequality are still exceedingly rare. This paper outlines a fine-grained record of cultural change from the Keatley Creek site, a complex hunter–gatherer village in British Columbia, in which it is possible to recognize the emergence of inequality and its demographic and economic correlates. Results of the study suggest that status inequality emerged abruptly after an extended period of socio-economic stability in the village under conditions of adversely altered resource conditions, demographic packing, and subsistence resource diversification and extensification.     

Political Economies of Predynastic Egypt and the Formation of the Early State

Considered one of the world’s earliest examples of a pristine state, the ancient Egyptian state arose by ca. 3000 BC. State formation in Egypt became a focus of much research in the 1970s and 1980s, as investigations of the Predynastic period in Egypt, when complex society arose there, began to uncover new evidence of the indigenous roots of this phenomenon. More recently, archaeological investigations in the Delta as well as continued work in southern Egypt have provided new evidence for the changes that took place in the fourth millennium BC. But the specific events and processes involved in this major sociopolitical and economic transformation and the resultant state still remain incompletely understood. To better understand the problem in Egypt, this study looks at the contrasting polities in fourth millennium BC Egypt and Nubia from the perspective of the political economy and the strategies to power proposed by the dual-processual theory, which also helps elucidate processes of state formation and the type of early state that developed there. The territorial expansionist model helps explain where and when this state first emerged.     

Becoming (ethnic minority) teenagers: a practice study of emotional well-being at a Danish sports school

This article explores how everyday school life interacts with students’ practices of ‘becoming teenagers’ at a Danish school, analysing how age and ethnicity intersect with emotional well-being. The article builds on an ethnographic study at a public sports school following ethnic minority and majority students in two school classes from the fifth to seventh grades. Taking a practice approach, the article first analyses school as a social site before turning phenomenological attention to experiences and expectations of becoming teenagers, focusing on the experiences of ethnic minority students. The article addresses how school as social site constituted by discursive, material and social arrangements shapes a normative linear process of becoming at school, that is, becoming a responsible, healthy, Danish citizen. Consequently, dissonance between embodied being and expected normality affects the emotional well-being of ethnic minority students, whose transnational practices are constrained within a national practice architecture.     

Blurred lines: the home front,the battlefront,and the wartime relationship between citizens and government in the Republic of Vietnam

In the Republic of Vietnam, the blending of the home and battle fronts shaped the relationship between citizens and their government. Civilians viewed the national government as the institution responsible for various forms of social welfare related to the war and the resulting militarisation of non-combatants’ lives. An examination of citizens’ letters to its ministries shifts the focus from questions of political legitimacy to citizens’ expectations of their government. The role of gender in family and social structures also shaped how Vietnamese civilians perceived their war experiences and their relationships to the government.     

“You've Got to Work on This Axon”: J. Z. Young and Squid Giant Axon Preparations in 20th-Century Neurobiology**

Employing and extending Hans-Jörg Rheinberger's analytical concept of epistemic things, this essay proposes one reason why squid giant axons, unusually large invertebrate nerve fibers, had such great impacts on twentieth-century neurobiology. The 1930s characterizations of these axons by John Zachary Young reshaped prevailing assumptions about nerve cells as epistemic things, I argue. Specifically, Young's preparations of these axons, which consisted of fibers attached to laboratory technologies, highlighted similarities between giant axons and more familiar ones via lines of comparative study common to aquatic biology. Young's work convinced other biologists that the squid giant fibers were, in fact, axons, despite their unusual fused (syncytial) structures, thereby promoting further studies, such as intracellular measurements, made possible by the fiber's size. Tracing direct relations between preparations of squid axons and broader interpretations of neurons as epistemic things, this paper renders an actors’ category, “preparations,” into an analytical one. In turn, it offers glimpses into how aquatic organisms shaped twentieth-century neurobiology and how local experiments can drive broader, disciplinary changes.     

Transnational turns for archaeological heritage: From conservation to development,governments to governance

National sentiments have historically overwhelmed global ones in the modern era. Archaeology was born in the service of the nation-state, as a technical means for engaging with the past within a specific calculus of territory, sovereignty, and nationhood. Significant shifts are currently underway, however, towards transnational modes and mechanisms of governance that have arisen in the wake of international dysfunction and neoliberal reforms. Within this emerging field of action it is development, rather than conservation, that shapes the diverse work of archaeological practice in the world. Transnational sociopolitical contexts for archaeological practice most visibly gained traction with multilateral development banks’ turn to heritage development in the 1990s, built around the tenets of participation, capacity-building, and sustainability. From these roots a second generation of concerns has emerged—transnational communities, heritage rights, and global climate change—for archaeological practice attuned to a “politics of engagement” (Mullins 2011 Mullins, P. R. 2011. “Practicing Anthropology and the Politics of Engagement: 2010 Year in Review,” American Anthropologist 113(2): 235–245. doi: 10.1111/j.1548-1433.2011.01327.x[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in a transnational key.     

Fluid chemistry in the Solitaire and Dodo hydrothermal fields of the Central Indian Ridge

Fluid chemistry and microbial community patterns in chimney habitats were investigated in two hydrothermal fields located at the Central Indian Ridge. Endmember hydrothermal fluid of the Solitaire field, located ~3 km away from the spreading center, was characterized by moderately high temperature (307°C), Cl depletion (489 mm ), mildly acidic pH (≥4.40), and low metal concentrations (Fe ≤ 105 μm and Mn = 78 μm ). Chloride depletion indicates that the subseafloor source fluid had undergone phase separation at temperatures higher than ~390°C while the metal depletion was likely attributable to fluid alteration occurring at a venting temperature of around 307°C. These different temperature conditions suggested from fluid chemistry might be associated with an off‐spreading center location of the field that allows subseafloor fluid cooling prior to seafloor discharge. The microbial community in the chimney habitat seemed comparable to previously known patterns in typical basalt‐hosted hydrothermal systems. Endmember hydrothermal fluid of the Dodo field, standing on center of the spreading axis, was characterized by high H₂ concentration of 2.7 mm . The H₂ enrichment was likely attributable to fresh basalt–fluid interaction, as suggested by the nondeformed sheet lava flow expansion around the vents. Thermodynamic calculation of the reducing pyrite–pyrrhotite–magnetite (PPM) redox buffer indeed reproduced the H₂ enrichment. The quantitative cultivation test revealed that the microbial community associated with the hydrothermal fluid hosted abundant populations of (hyper)thermophilic hydrogenotrophic chemolithoautotrophs such as methanogens. The function of subseafloor hydrogenotrophic methanogenic populations dwelling around the H₂‐enriched hydrothermal fluid flows was also inferred from the ¹³C‐ and D‐depleted signature of CH₄ in the collected fluids. It was observed that the hydrothermal activity of the Dodo field had ceased until 2013.