Reconfiguring the Silk Road: New Research on East-West Exchange in Antiquity. Philadelphia,PA: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

正ISBN:978-1-934536-68-1,pp.136,31 color,9 b/w illus,$59.95.Since"The Belt and Road Initiative"reviving the ancient trade land and maritime trade routes was proposed by the Chinese state at the end of 2013,the routes linking East and West by land and sea,whereby silk,spice,and glass were transported by ship or camel,are frequently mentioned.From East Asia to Europe,it garners increasing attention from institutes,think-tanks,and forums     

OBSERVATION: REDISCOVERING HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY IN THE LAND OF NORUMBEGA

Recent appraisals of historical geography range widely in their assessment of the field. Donald Meinig (1989), writing of 'The Historical Geography Imperative,' concludes: 'historical geography is not, has never been, just another item in the proliferating diversity of our grand enterprise. Rather, like physical and environmental geography, it is one of the foundations of the whole enterprise. In its own way historical geography encompasses and contributes to all of geography. Micheal Dear (1988) disagrees. In 'The postmodern challenge: Reconstructing human geography,' he states that historical geography is 'overde-termined,' and 'an empty concept' conveying 'few (if any) significant analytical distinctions …. He concludes that historical geography does 'little more than confirm what geography is about. Both writers agree on the pervasive and comprehensive nature of historical geography, but Dear sees this inclusiveness as more of a cincture, whereas Meinig conveys the fundamental and embracing understanding of geography inherent in the practice of historical geography.     

A Better Savage than the Savages: Thor Heyerdahl's Early Ethnographical Attempts and their Importance for the Development of the ‘Kon-Tiki Theory’

ABSTRACT

In this paper Thor Heyerdahl's early attempts at ethnography and his first contact with Polynesian archaeology are discussed. It is argued that Heyerdahl, prior to his first Pacific expedition to the Marquesas Islands in 1937, carried with him a romanticized perception of the Polynesian people, imagining them to be the last living ‘natural men’. This perception was shattered during his expedition, and the disappointing contrast between the imagined reality and the lived reality led Heyerdahl to separate the contemporary Polynesian population from the Polynesian archaeological record. It is further argued that this separation between contemporary Polynesians and the Polynesian archaeological record would form the foundation for the dual migration wave hypothesis Heyerdahl later launched with his ‘Kon-Tiki theory’.