Hunter-gatherer land use in Late Glacial south-east Italy

This paper is concerned with the Late Palaeolithic settlement of south-eastern Italy at the close of the Pleistocene. The Late Palaeolithic assemblages of the region have been studied previously from a rigid typological stance, with various schemes put forward suggesting evolution of the assemblages through different stages of an Epigravettian tradition, while the potential role of social and economic factors in shaping the various industries has been ignored. This paper shows how the Late Palaeolithic occupation of the region should be considered in relation to the former existence of an extensive coastal plain and to the sea-level rise which submerged it. Factors such as the availability of lithic raw material and the alternative strategies by which it was procured, the particular activities in which the tools were used and the role of the sites within a larger land use system were clearly crucial to assemblage composition.     

Betwixt and Between: Trauma,Survival and the Aboriginal Troopers of the Queensland Native Mounted Police

ABSTRACT

Much has been written about the history of the Queensland Native Mounted Police, mostly focussing on its development, its white officers, how much the Colonial Government genuinely knew about the actions of the Force, and how many people were killed during the frontier wars. Far less attention has been given to the Aboriginal men of the force, the nature of their recruitment, and the long-term traumatic impacts on Aboriginal peoples’ and communities’ psyches rather than broadscale changes to Aboriginal culture per se. This article examines the historical and ongoing psychological impacts of dispossession and frontier violence on Aboriginal people. Specifically, we argue that massacres, frontier violence, displacement, and the ultimate dispossession of land and destruction of traditional cultural practices resulted in both individual and collective inter-generational trauma for Aboriginal peoples. We posit that, despite the Australian frontier wars taking place over a century ago, their impacts continue to reverberate today in a range of different ways, many of which are as yet only partially understood.     

Defining the OE hearg: a preliminary archaeological and topographic examination of hearg place names and their hinterlands

The OE term hearg is interpreted variously as ‘pagan temple’, ‘hilltop sanctuary’ and even ‘idol’. It is a rare survival in the English place‐name record. When it can be identified, the place name is commonly considered to refer to a location of pre‐Christian religious activity, specifically a pagan Anglo‐Saxon temple. Taking inspiration from the extensive and methodologically well‐advanced studies in Scandinavia, which have successfully related place‐name evidence for cultic and religious sites with the archaeology and topography of these localities, this paper adopts and uses a similar methodology to investigate the archaeological and topographic character of a selection of hearg locations. The traditional interpretations of the place name are questioned and evidence is presented that these sites are characterized by long‐lived, localized cult practice spanning the late prehistoric to early historic periods, but with activity reaching a zenith in the late Iron Age to Romano‐British eras, rather than the fifth to seventh centuries AD.     

A cultural justice approach to popular music heritage in deindustrialising cities

ABSTRACT

Deindustrialisation contributes to significant transformations for local communities, including rising unemployment, poverty and urban decay. Following the ‘creative city’ phenomenon in cultural policy, deindustrialising cities across the globe have increasingly turned to arts, culture and heritage as strategies for economic diversification and urban renewal. This article considers the potential role that popular music heritage might play in revitalising cities grappling with industrial decline. Specifically, we outline how a ‘cultural justice approach’ can be used within critical heritage studies to assess the benefits and drawbacks of such heritage initiatives. Reflecting on examples from three deindustrialising cities – Wollongong, Australia; Detroit, USA; and Birmingham, UK – we analyse how popular music heritage can produce cultural justice outcomes in three key ways: practices of collection, preservation and archiving; curation, storytelling and heritage interpretation; and mobilising communities for collective action.     

Feminist geography in the UK: the dialectics of women-gender-feminism-intersectionality and praxis

Abstract

Feminist praxis has always been about both the individual and the collective; one of the revolutionary and utopian promises of feminism is that of being, bringing, and working together. This piece provides a brief account of some of the significant scholarship and collective activities within British feminist geography over the last twenty five years, with a particular focus on the work of the Women and Geography Study Group/Gender and Feminist Geographies Research Group. We underscore the importance of intersectional approaches to scholarship and praxis in UK feminist geographies in this period, and in going forward, as well as signalling some of the dialectical opportunities and tensions arising from this approach.     

Countermapping the Past: Reenvisioning Ancient Maya Spaces at Say Kah,Belize

This paper explores possibilities for recognizing and analytically using culturally-specific understandings of artefacts and spaces at an ancient Maya archaeological site. In the case study that we present, we use Classic Maya material categories – derived from hieroglyphic texts – to re-envision our representations of artefactual distributions and accompanying interpretations. We take inspiration from countermapping as an approach that recognizes the positionality of spatial representations and makes space for multiple/alternative spatial perspectives. We present spatial analyses based on our work at the Classic Maya archaeological site of Say Kah, Belize, juxtaposing modern modes of visualizing the results of multiple seasons of excavations with visualizations that instead draw upon reconstructed elements of ancient inhabitants’ perspectives on the site, its spaces, and usages (based on information drawn from Classic Maya textual ‘property qualifiers’). We argue that even incomplete information, such as that available for archaeological contexts, allows us to reimagine past spatial perspectives and experiences. Furthermore, doing so represents a move towards inclusion that changes our understanding of sites in terms of ancient experience and usage. The outcome is a shifted perspective on the spaces of the site that decentres the modern, archaeological vision, accompanied by a more reflexive awareness of the processes we use to construct our interpretations. We end with larger reflections useful for archaeologists curious about translating these ideas to other cultural settings.