Survey,Shovel Probes,and Population Estimates: Studying Regional Demography in the Intermediate Area Using Subsurface Sherd Deposits

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory - Shovel probes are a common form of archaeological data collection in densely vegetated landscapes. They were once the subject of critical analyses that...     

Migration and Death Ceremonies On St. Kitts and Nevis

Since British slave emancipation in 1838, Afro-Caribbean men and women of St. Kitts and Nevis in the Leeward Caribbean have emigrated and returned in order to sustain their local societies. Economic uncertainty and social oppression both at home and abroad have inspired Kittitians and Nevisians to develop mobile livelihood strategies in order to tap ever-changing sources of employment. Labor migrants from the two islands have therefore often resisted permanent commitments in any one direction except for occasionally returning home. These periodic returns are important to the local community because the migrants usually bring back money and gifts to kinsmen and friends. A related obligation, especially in recent years, has been for migrants to return to family funerals. Funeral attendance confers economic advantages on both permanent residents of St. Kitts and Nevis and the migrant workers abroad. The money and gifts brought back by returning migrants help sustain the local community. The returning migrants themselves are also assured a warm welcome in case they are forced to return in the future by changing conditions abroad, a not unlikely possibility. Local mortuary practices on St. Kitts and Nevis are therefore not simply symbolic displays but also important economic events.     

Where the battle rages: war and conflict in Post-Medieval Archaeology

SUMMARY: War and conflict has been well represented in Post-Medieval Archaeology over the last 50 years with a range of research exploring the archaeology of conflict in the modern world. The aim of this article is to review themes of war and conflict as presented in Post-Medieval Archaeology and to track the changing nature of their scope and focus, such as the move towards an increasingly multidisciplinary approach encompassing all aspects of human conflict. By highlighting key articles and innovative research, this article also reflects on the impact and influence of the journal on the burgeoning discipline of conflict archaeology.     

Mapping the past: Turkish Cypriot narratives of time and place in the Canbulat museum,northern Cyprus

The Canbulat museum is located within the Venetian Walls of the mediaeval city of Famagusta in northern Cyprus, and traditionally marks the spot where the Ottoman warrior Canbulat fell during the siege of Famagusta in 1571. The tomb of Canbulat, which is housed within the museum, has for centuries played an important part in the folk tradition of Turkish Cypriots. Its incorporation into a formal museum in 1968 marked a conscious reworking of the Canbulat legend into a narrative of the Turkish presence in Cyprus. This paper explores the relationship between history and memory which emerges from the shared space and diverging practices of shrine and museum and considers the alternative visions of past, present and future which it opens up.     

Traditional and computed tomographic (CT) techniques link modern and Cenozoic fruits of Pleiogynium (Anacardiaceae) from Australia

Computed tomography (CT) and traditional techniques were used to study the internal morphology of modern fruits of Pleiogynium timoriense (DC.) Leenh., and phosphatized and silicified fruits that were considered to belong to the genus. The results demonstrate that phosphatized fruits from the Oligocene–Miocene Dunsinane site at Riversleigh and silicified fruits from the Oligocene Glencoe Site, which are both in Queensland, are referable to Pleiogynium. The Riversleigh material (Pleiogynium wannanii Rozefelds, Dettmann & Clifford sp. nov.) is very similar to extant P. timoriense (DC.) Leenh. Both possess locules that, in the vertical axial plane, are asymmetrically reniform and enclosed by a two-layered endocarp, the inner layer woody and resistant to decay, the outer of fibres and parenchyma, surrounded by a mesocarp of fibres and sclereids and a parenchymatous exocarp. The outer mesocarp is sculpted by meridionally arranged, elongate depressions (germination apertures) situated at the dorsal surface of each locule; erosion of the mesocarp and outer endocarp provides passage for emergence of the embryo’s radicle on germination. The silicified material from Glencoe (P. parvum Rozefelds, Dettmann & Clifford sp. nov.) is smaller in all its parts and has locules that are ovate in the vertical axial plane. Discrete, cap-like, opercula are not evident in the fruit wall of the fossil and extant fruits studied. The presence of Pleiogynium, and associated taxa, indicates the existence of rainforest communities at Glencoe, and mixed open forest/rainforest at Riversleigh during Oligocene–Miocene times. The multilocular, fossil fruit described as Pleiogynium mitchellii Collinson, Manchester and Wilde from the Eocene deposits at Messel Quarry, Germany, is not considered to belong in the genus, as evidence of elongate depressions on the dorsal surface of the fruit stones has not been demonstrated conclusively, and its internal morphology/anatomy differs significantly from that of Pleiogynium.