3400 years of agricultural engineering in Mesoamerica: lama-bordos of the Mixteca Alta,Oaxaca, Mexico

The origins of early Mesoamerican agricultural techniques are not well established. Our charcoal-derived radiocarbon chronology dates cross-valley check dams, or lama-bordos, buried by up to 11.5 m of sediment in arroyos near Coixtlahuaca, Oaxaca, Mexico. Now it is clear that people in highland Mexico built lama-bordos at least 3400–3500 years ago, several hundred years earlier than previously dated engineering systems in Mesoamerica. Lama-bordo systems evolved as intensively and extensively managed landscapes coeval with climate shifting to more arid conditions. They provide clear examples of human-produced stratigraphy and artificial landscapes (stair-stepped valleys). More importantly, these lama-bordo systems signal a major cultural tipping point toward sedentary agricultural life and solidify our understanding of the Neolithic transition in Mesoamerica.     

Aimé Césaire 1913–2008

In a necessarily selective way, this paper explores the historiographical evolution of ‘settler colonialism’ as a category of analysis during the second half of the twentieth century. It identifies three main passages in its development. At first (until the 1960s), ‘settlers’, ‘settlement’ and ‘colonisation’ are understood as entirely unrelated to colonialism. The two do not occupy the same analytical field, pioneering endeavours are located in ‘empty’ settings and the presence and persistence of indigenous ‘Others’ is comprehensively disavowed. In a second stage (until the late 1970s), ‘settler colonialism’ as a compound identifies one specific type of diehard colonialism, an ongoing and uncompromising form of hyper-colonialism characterised by enhanced aggressiveness and exploitation (a form that had by then been challenged by a number of anti-colonial insurgencies). During a third phase (from the late 1970s and throughout the first half of the 1980s), settler colonialism is identified by a capacity to bring into being high standards of living and economic development. As such, settler colonialism is understood as the opposite of colonialism and associated underdevelopment and political fragmentation. It is only at the conclusion of a number of successive interpretative moments that ‘settler colonial’ phenomena could be theorised as related to, and yet distinct from, colonial ones. On the basis of this transformations, beginning from approximately the mid-1990s, ‘settler colonial studies’ as an autonomous scholarly field could then consolidate.     

Significance of diadematid echinoid ossicles in micropalaeontological samples,Miocene–Pliocene of Indonesia

Fragments of diadematoid echinoids from the early and middle Miocene, and late Miocene–Pliocene, respectively, of Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, Indonesia, are identified as diadematid spp. indet. (radioles from all sites) and Centrostephanus sp. (an interambulacral plate; early Miocene, Java). The radioles are probably a mixture of Diadema ± Centrostephanus ± Echinothrix. This is the first report of identifiable fossil diadematoid remains from Indonesia and demonstrates that these echinoids, so common in modern reef environments, were present in the Neogene of the region. Even though classified in open nomenclature, Centrostephanus sp. nevertheless provides further evidence for the Cenozoic record of a genus in which the only nominal species are of Late Cretaceous and Holocene age.     

After Madison. Public-Spiritedness and Local Political Life

This article examines the themes of political community, race, family, and history in the John Sayles film Lone Star. Although Sayles explicitly states that he is using the film to call into question many of the boundaries that individuals and communities take for granted, the author suggests that the film presents a more complex and more positive view of the place of boundaries in the life of an individual or a community.     

Reviews

Sam Smiles, The Image of Antiquity: Ancient Britain and the Romantic Imagination, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994. x + 252 pp., 128 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–300–05814–4. £35.00.

Marcia Pointon (ed.), Art Apart: Art Institutions and Ideology Across England and North America, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1994. 292 pp., 39 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–7190–3918–5. f 10.99.

Daniel J. Sherman and Irit Rogoff (eds.), Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles, London: Routledge and Minneapolis: the University of Minnesota Press, 1994. xx + 301 pp., 26 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–415–09274–4. £14.99.

Sheena Mackellar Goulty, Heritage Gardens. Care, Conservation and Management, London and New York: Routledge, 1993. 176 pp., 82 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–415–07474–6. £19.99.

Anne Fahy (ed.), Collections Management, London and New York: Rontledge, 1995. xii + 304 pp., 2 figs. ISBN 0–415–11283–4. £19.99.

Annie E. Coombes, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994. vii + 280 pp., 112 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–300‐ 05972–8. £35.00.

Lesley Hoskins (ed.), The Papered Wall. The History, Patterns and Techniques of Wallpaper, London: Thames and Hudson, 1994. 256 pp., 185 col. and 157 b. & w. illus. ISBN 0–500–23695‐X. £32.00.     

Theoretical Perspectives on Labor and Colonialism: Reconsidering the California Missions

Many recognize that labor was a central feature of colonialism, especially in the Americas, but few have considered the anthropological implications of labor for interpreting colonialism. A new theoretical perspective involves conceptualizing labor as practice and as a social, rather than simply an economic, phenomenon. Building on theories of practice, labor can be defined as a colonial imposition and attempt at social control and as a medium of agency and resistance for those laboring. Although historical documents provide solid information on the structure and implementation of labor from the top down, archaeological research is often required to access the native experience of labor from the bottom up. To develop the labor-as-practice approach, I present a case study of the 18th- and 19th-century California missions that integrates historical data on regional mission labor organization with archaeological data from the specific site of Mission San Antonio de Padua in southcentral California. The results provide new insights into the interpretation of Mission San Antonio's archaeological record, fresh perspectives on the complexity of material culture in colonial and pluralistic settings, and increased appreciation for the role of colonial labor in structuring the spatial and material aspects of culture contact, colonialism, and daily life in the past.