Recent Advances in Moche Archaeology

The discovery of the royal tombs at Sipán in 1987 propelled Moche archaeology to the forefront of Andean studies. In the last decade, the study of Moche political organization and ideology through public architecture, cultural remains, funerary patterns, and iconography has forced the revision of previous conceptions about Moche state formation, urbanism, and the functioning of this complex society. Major advances in iconography, internal organization of urban centers, temples and domestic architecture, craft production, and mortuary patterns are embedded in a new chronology that supports a longer development and a more gradual collapse. The recognition of Moche as the first state in South America is still valid, but its monolithic character is rejected in favor of several autonomous polities. The number and size of potential Moche states are currently debated, as is the role of warfare and ideology in Moche state formation.     

World-Systems Analysis and Archaeology: Continuing the Dialogue

Many archaeologists have used world-systems analysis in precapitalist settings. Some have criticized it; others have dismissed it out of hand. Critiques include that it was developed for the “modern” world, that it is overly economistic, that it neglects individual actors, and that it inappropriately uses modern analyses in ancient settings. Although there is some validity to these charges when applied to Wallerstein’s original formulation, most are misdirected. The critiques are rooted in inattention to the last three decades of work on world-systems, especially modifications made with the explicit intention to make world-systems analysis useful in precapitalist settings. Newer comparative versions of world-systems analysis were initially developed to better understand the evolution of world-systems that gave rise to the modern world-system. These new advances are useful for the study of interregional interactions and long-term development. Archaeologists are well placed to contribute to the further development of world-systems analysis; they can shed light on ancient world-systemic processes and the origins of the modern world-system, provide empirical backing for hypotheses, and raise new theoretical and empirical questions.     

Studying Pleistocene Neanderthal and cave hyena Dietary Habits: Combining Isotopic and Archaeozoological Analyses

Stable isotope analysis is increasingly used to gain insight in the configuration of Pleistocene ecosystems. The application of isotope analysis to Neanderthal and cave hyena bone assemblages has led to hypotheses about the niche differentiation between these species. Comparing isotopic data with archaeozoology analyses shows discrepancies between the results of both analytical methods. Here, the results of all northwest European stable isotope studies on Neanderthals are reviewed. The emphasis of the analysis is on a sample of sites from MIS 4-3 in southwest France. Causes of the discrepancy between archaeozoological and stable isotope results are discussed and hypotheses reconciling the data are proposed. Recommendations for further research will allow testing of the hypotheses and increase our understanding of the functioning of Pleistocene ecosystems.     

Middle-Class Ideologies and American Respectability: Archaeology and the Irish Immigrant Experience

This study illustrates the materialization of identity shifts through refined ceramic and glass forms recovered from working class Irish immigrant and Irish-American communities. The sites used in this article were chosen because of their spatio-temporal compatibility covering dynamic periods of Irish identity in the United States. Historians argue that 1880 marks the beginning of an identity shift from Irish immigrant to Irish-American. This research attempts to provide the necessary materials to begin a discourse bringing together material and historical evidence illuminating the conflict between competing ideologies of respectability and changing conceptions of Irish identity in America.     

The Social,Political and Economic Functions of Courtyard Houses in Umm Qais,Northern Jordan

The courtyard house represents a model for the collective social, political and economic functions of the peasant community during the nineteenth century in northern Jordan. Ethnography, landscape and space syntax analyses were used to reconstruct these functions in the area of Umm Qais, Jordan. The results show that the various social systems in the study area were centered on kinship leaving projections in the form and order of the various spaces in the courtyard house. The nature of the landscape was a determinant factor in the location of courtyard houses, which was triggered by the climate regime in the area.     

Colonial Encounters,European Kettles,and the Magic of Mimesis in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century Indigenous Northeast and Great Lakes

Copper kettles, in high demand among indigenous communities of the Northeast/Great Lakes, became prominent items in the exchange repertoires of early Basque, French and Dutch traders. Kettles’ origin with these “Others” and its connection to a medium (copper) that had held symbolic significance for millennia led them to be used in an indigenous ‘metaphorical’ value regime influencing trade during the late sixteenth/early seventeenth century. An artisan living on the threshold of colonial encounter in Northern Michigan between 1470 and 1660 CE—having seen European goods but not having access to them—harnessed the mimetic faculty to make a small, miniature, ceramic imitation or skeuomorph of a European trade kettle. Rather than the sincerest form of flattery, I suggest this imitation was made to acquire the power of the original to fend off the colonial danger and to connect to this symbolic value regime. I suggest the “magic” of mimesis offered personal and organizational power in the indigenous Northeast/Great Lakes during early contact. This specific case speaks more broadly to how mimesis can provide a robust framework for exploring the material cultures of colonial encounter.     

Mortality,Money, and Commemoration: Social and Economic Factors in Southern California Grave-Marker Change During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Social and economic factors significantly influenced grave-marker choice in southern California cemeteries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Gradual changes in the American way of death since Victorian times underwent punctuated shifts in mortuary attitudes, commemoration practices, and funerary materials following moments of extreme social and economic duress. While the form of gravestones slowly evolved from large monuments to smaller flush markers during the late 1800s and early 1900s, they collectively experienced a pronounced shift during the 1920s, reflecting American responses to the devastating human losses of World War I and the 1918–19 influenza pandemic. Financial conditions directly affected decisions regarding those materials selected to mark the deceased as well. Although overall trends reveal that granite gravestones gradually replaced marble as the marker of choice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pronounced fiscal struggles during the 1907 Bankers’ Panic and the Great Depression were evinced in distinct surges in less expensive marble and metal grave markers.     

Living in the Industrial City: Housing Quality,Land Ownership and the Archaeological Evidence from Industrial Manchester, 1740–1850

This paper looks at the recent archaeological evidence for industrial housing in Manchester, United Kingdom. The paper argues that a fragmented land-holding pattern developed in a number of city-centre areas during the second half of the eighteenth century. This land-holding pattern gave rise to overcrowding as a result of the domestic redevelopment of back yard plots and the conversion of older housing to tenements. This redevelopment was at its most acute during the peak decades of population growth in the city, 1800–40, and this led to the conditions of poverty, disease, and overcrowding recorded in contemporary accounts from the mid-nineteenth century.     

Order (and Disorder) in Early Colonial Moquegua,Peru

In the viceroyalty of Peru, Spanish authorities imposed several mechanisms to try to establish Christian social order among the colonists and dwindling indigenous populations, two of which were encomienda and reducción. The implementation of these and other policies and practices is examined using a case study in Moquegua, a colonial periphery in far southern Peru: the encomienda of Cochuna and the reduction site of Torata Alta. Incomplete knowledge of local conditions left the area vulnerable to social and religious disorder: overlapping boundaries, contested jurisdictions, and competing interests. Further historical archaeological consideration of such disorder can illuminate local impacts of colonialism.