Excavations at Tilbury Fort,Essex

Tilbury Fort is situated on the N. bank of the Thames 25 miles doumstream from London (TQ 651 754) (FIG. 1). It is the best preserved example of late 17th-century military engineering in England and has been in guardianship since 1950. Plans by the Department of the Environment to alter the visitor access to the site from the riverfront to the landward approach necessitated excavations to establish the original construction of the earthworks, redan and ravelin and to identify the routes and levels of the roadways. Excavations were undertaken in 1973 by Jerry Pratt, concentrating on the ravelin, and in 1980 by the Passmore Edwards Museum. The results of both excavations are presented in this report.     

Paleoenvironmental reconstruction at Canyon del Muerto,Arizona, based on principal-component analysis

A multivariate statistical technique, principal-component analysis, is used to interpret pollen assemblages from archaeological context in terms of paleoenvironmental information. The pollen samples originate from an archaeological site in northeastern Arizona (Canyon del Muerto) covering the period between AD 700 and AD 1300. Through the use of principal-component analysis the percentage constraint in the pollen counts is removed and the data set effectively reduced to groups of co-varying taxa. Once these groups are ecologically defined as to the environment they represent, their changes of dominance through time can be analysed. This study has shown a correlation between a population expansion in Canyon del Muerto (AD 1050–1150) and the dominance of upland forest types suggesting slightly cooler and/or wetter conditions. The pollen data compare well with the tree-ring indices for this region. Local disturbance is reflected in the record during the period of greatest population. A shift to a shrubland vegetation during the peak construction phase indicates the clearing of cottonwood, fir, spruce and pine (all found within the site) by local inhabitants. Thus, the palynological evidence suggests both cultural and climatic factors are involved in the explanation of pollen deposition.     

Fantastic topographies: neo-liberal responses to Aboriginal land claims in British Columbia

This paper presents an analysis of the referendum on Native land claims that took place in British Columbia (BC) in the spring of 2002. The province's Liberal Government claimed that the referendum was needed in order to secure a public mandate for a set of negotiating principles that would breath new life into the supposedly stalled treaty process. Drawing evidence from government press releases, politicians' statements and media coverage, we argue that the BC Government and its supporters employed a discourse centred on neo-liberal economic logic in order to justify the exercise. Furthermore, we charge that this discourse relies on an erasure of the historical–geographical contexts of Native–newcomer relations in the province. By drawing on Cindi Katz's socio-spatial metaphor of 'topographies', we suggest that Native space in British Columbia needs to be understood as a series of situated and grounded experiences of colonialism and capitalist production. Then, extending the metaphor, we highlight the ways in which the referendum supporters' rhetoric contains a vision of future topographies of Native experience that adhere to the private property ethic of neo-liberal economics. We conclude that the politics surrounding the treaty process must be understood as a contest over the terms of Aboriginal citizenship and not merely as a conflict over the allotment of land and resources.     

Manufacturing Modernity: Cleaning,Dirt, and Neoliberalism in Chile

Since the coming to power in 1973 of the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, neoliberalism in Chile has been discursively tied to the goal of “modernizing” Chilean society. This discourse of modernization has relied for its articulation upon another important discourse, that of “cleanliness” as a marker of progress: clean spaces are seen as those of modernity whereas dirty spaces are taken to represent social and economic “backwardness”. In this paper, then, we explore how spaces which are considered emblematic of the modern economy—shopping malls, giant office complexes, university campuses—are maintained as clean spaces. However, in order for the discourse of cleanliness as modernity to work, it is crucial that the corridors of mobility—train routes, subways, city streets—which allow passage between these nodes of the modern economy also be maintained as sanitary spaces. The result is the construction discursively of an almost seamless nexus of hygienic spaces, one which stands in contrast to the dirty spaces of the “other” Chile. The paradox in all of this, however, is that the workers who are crucial to this project—janitors—have suffered greatly as a result of neoliberalism.     

Analysis of possible paleofecal samples from Pellejo Chico Alto,Peru: results and lessons

The analysis of four presumed paleofecal samples (coprolites) recovered from the Pellejo Chico Alto site in Peru is reported herein. The samples were processed using standard methods for paleofecal specimens but were discovered to be large pieces of intact tissue, rather than coprolites. While the results provided information regarding diet and cuisine at Pellejo Chico Alto, it also serves as an instructive lesson in the identification and analysis of paleofecal samples.