Intrasite features distribution as a source of social information: The case of Djaba-Hosséré (Northern Cameroon)

The spatial organization of Dìì settlements has been considered as the reflection of the peculiar social organization of Dìì chiefdoms: a model based on an association of several lineages, most of them being necessary for the working of the whole. The distribution of thousands of surface remains (features and ceramics) located on the eastern foot of the Djaba massif, the site of the eponymous chieftaincy in the early 19th century, together with stratigraphic data, is likely to provide information about the age and the foundation process of a Dìì chiefdom. Following the spatial analysis, we will see that, locally, the growth of political complexity began about the 18th century and that this process may have resulted in the arrival of ‘foreigners’ among one or more of the autochthonous communities, one of what appears to have been strongly involved in metallurgical activities. Archaeological data seems thus to indicate that the foundation myth of the ‘generous foreigner’ shared by most of the Dìì chieftaincies was based on historical events.     

The Hidden Meaning of Forms: Methods of Recording Paleolithic Parietal Art

There are many restrictions placed on researchers studying Paleolithic Cave art due to the constraints of conservation that limit direct contact with the original works. This paper discusses how recent advances in technology have revolutionized the study and interpretation of Paleolithic cave art. The interpretation of Paleolithic symbolic systems is a complex process and hypotheses must be applied to cave art with the greatest of precision. A detailed analysis of the painted or engraved surfaces leads to a greater understanding of both the techniques employed and the actual sequence in which parietal compositions were executed. By unlocking the creative process followed by Upper Paleolithic artists we are able to glimpse the artist’s motivations and to understand a portion of the art’s hidden meaning.

Honoring Ambiguity/Problematizing Certitude

In this paper I argue that the practice of archaeology over-emphasizes and over-rewards unambiguous certainty in our interpretations, even though our conclusions are usually drawn from necessarily partial, underdetermined and complex evidence. I argue that full or partial erasure of ambiguity from our data and from our interpretive assertions does not serve the long-term interests of the discipline; that a feminist practice aimed at more nuanced understandings of the past and open to more subtle, multivalenced notions of reality, must accept ambiguity as a central feature of archaeological interpretation. After I review familiar strategies that are used to obscure troubling areas of uncertainty in archaeology, I urge feminist practice to resist employing these “mechanisms of closure” in our work. It is only by openly recognizing and preserving the ambiguity that resides in messy data arrangements today that we stand any hope of fuller and richer understandings in the future.

Building Power in Rural Hinterlands: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Vernacular Architecture in Tigray,Ethiopia

In Tigray, Ethiopia highland farmers and noblemen used a common vernacular architecture to build places of political authority and power during the last century of Ethiopia's feudal economy. This study contributes to the perspective that domestic houses are active political locales integrated into the larger political landscape. In addition, it is argued that vernacular architectural style generates hierarchical power in part by manipulating building strategies usually attributed to monumental construction. The study concludes that vernacular architecture is actively engaged in rendering a political aesthetic that reproduces state authority in rural hinterlands.     

Dating European Palaeolithic Cave Art: Progress,Prospects, Problems

Over the last decade several dozen direct dates on cave art pigments or associated materials have supplemented more traditional style-based attempts to establish a chronological (and developmental) scheme for cave art. In the “post-stylistic” era an holistic integration of pigment “recipe” analysis, formal stylistic analysis and direct chronometric dating have been applied to a handful of dates. Here, we examine the state-of-the-art of Palaeolithic cave art dating, with particular emphasis on certain radiocarbon and Uranium-series projects. We examine the relative successes and weaknesses of this cutting edge science. We conclude that there are several weaknesses in current applications that are in serious need of addressing. Issues of sample contamination and of the heuristic relationship between materials dated and the production of the art are particularly problematic. It follows that one should at present be very cautious about straightforward interpretations of apparent “dates” of cave art.     

Analogy or Erasure? Dialectics of Religious Transformation in the Early <Emphasis Type="Italic">Doctrinas</Emphasis> of the Colca Valley,Peru

This paper examines the tension between the Spanish evangelical ideal of religious conversion (erasure and replacement of “idolatrous” praxis) and the exigencies of its enactment (inter-cultural communication via analogy) among a series of sixteenth century Franciscan doctrinal settlements (doctrinas) in the Colca valley of southern Peru. I suggest that the necessity and outcomes of inter-cultural communication during initial evangelization made conversion impossible, despite increasing institutionalization of coercive doctrinal measures through time. Combined archaeological and historical analysis explores how these tensions were locally negotiated. Written texts describe early extirpation campaigns, while archaeological evidence documents the remains of early doctrinas in the form of rustic chapels at local settlements which were previously centers of Inka power. Associations between these chapels and Inka ritual spaces hint at an analogical approach to conversion that is not as evident in the documentary record. Analogies linking Inka and Christian religious symbols were later “re-written” onto the surfaces and spaces of Spanish-style reducción villages established in the 1570 s.