The Chaco Connection: Evaluating Bonito-Style Architecture in Outlier Communities

Because architecture shapes and is shaped by human actions and perceptions, architectural variability has the potential to provide information about relationships among prehistoric social groups. This study examines communicative and enculturative information contained in Bonito-style architecture constructed in Chaco Canyon and outlying communities during the late eleventh century A.D. Does the appearance of Bonito-style architecture at outliers constitute direct involvement on the part of a centralized, Chacoan entity or could local people have been emulating Bonito-style architecture they saw at Chaco or in neighboring communities? These questions have implications for existing models of Chacoan social organization. To investigate, a comparative architectural analysis uses data from 61 great houses in 55 outlier communities. Analysis is based on the premise that outlier similarity should reflect a unified, direct Chacoan source for Bonito-style architecture, and diversity should reflect the converse. Because highly visible, external architectural characteristics can be emulated, five internal, low-visibility great-house architectural attributes were selected for comparison. Results indicate substantial diversity is contained within the Chacoan world. A variety of relationships probably existed between outlier communities and Chaco Canyon, and a range of explanatory models is necessary. Bonito-style architecture is more likely to be associated with a struggle to legitimate social power than with spontaneous, cooperative communal activity. Competitive emulation may account for the appearance of Bonito-style architecture in outlier communities toward the local end of the outlier spectrum.     

A Matter of Judgment: Politics,Law and the Trial of Bishop Thomas Watson

Thomas Watson's controversial expulsion from the bishopric of St David's – and hence from the house of lords – after a long and bitterly‐fought series of legal actions, raised fundamental and difficult questions about the right to control membership of the house of lords and about the relationship between politics and the law, as well as between church and state. This article explores both the local and the national political contexts that prompted Watson's ordeal, suggesting that subsequent demonisation by Gilbert Burnet has obscured the extent to which Watson was the casualty of William III's determination to cow his political opponents. It concludes that Watson was marked out for opprobrium precisely because, like Sir John Fenwick, his political and social insignificance enabled him to be victimised without risking a backlash of opposition from the social and political elite.     

New evidence for the establishment and management of the European fallow deer (Dama dama dama) in Roman Britain

The semi-domestic status of the European fallow deer (Dama dama dama) renders its ancient biogeography a reflection of human activity with the potential to provide important insights into the movement, trade patterns and ideology of past societies. Given this potential, fallow deer have received surprisingly little attention from scientists within the fields of archaeology, biology and zoology. Here we present new AMS radiocarbon dates, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data and genetic evidence (the first ancient DNA sequences for the species) resulting from the analysis of a set of remains recovered from the Roman settlement at Monkton on the Isle of Thanet, Kent, UK. By viewing our results against the very limited available comparative data, this paper provides new information for the establishment and management of fallow deer in Britain. We argue that much more could be achieved with even a slight increase in sample sizes and a plea is made for greater research into this culturally significant species.     

The Temple of Venus (Pompeii): a study of the pigments and painting techniques

We report here on a study of 57 fragments of wall painting excavated from the Temple of Venus (Pompeii). These samples were characterised by a wide range of analytical methods. Data showed that the palette is varied, although not so broad as that found in other buildings in Pompeii, and is consistent with pigments used elsewhere in Pompeii and in the Roman Empire. It is composed of: natural earths, minerals and rare artificial pigments. Paintings are made up of thin paint layers (0.01–0.10 mm thick) strongly adhering to the underlying preparation layer. Nonetheless, in some cases thicker layers (up to 0.40 mm) were recognised, often spread on other previous painting layers. Samples were also compared with the microstratigraphic criteria developed in Piovesan (2009) to distinguish wall painting techniques. This comparison demonstrated that both fresco and lime painting techniques were adopted.     

‘No One Knows What He is Until He is Told’: Audience and Personhood in a Colonial African Diary

ABSTRACT

This article explores questions of audience and personhood in the diary of Akinpelu Obisesan, a Yoruba man who lived in colonial Nigeria. In particular, it examines how Obisesan wrote between the genres of autobiography and biography so as to generate a sphere for self-fashioning in the colonial context. After introducing Obisesan and exploring briefly the relationship between autobiography, diary writing and the self, I show how Obisesan’s diary narrated a deeply relational form of personhood, which he both generated as a writer and consumed as a reader. The article analyses this narrative, exploring how Obisesan constituted various real and imagined audiences for his diary, while simultaneously claiming his privacy and ‘archiving himself’ into a tin trunk. In the final section of the article, I present a close reading of sections of the 1927 diary, to show how, when writing his diary, Obisesan projected multiple audiences into his text. He used these audiences as a foil for enhancing his own sense of self, thus constituting his personhood and legitimating his precarious social position in colonial society.