From Pleistocene Mariners to Complex Hunter-Gatherers: The Archaeology of the California Channel Islands

California’s Channel Islands were home to some of the most distinctive Native American peoples along the Pacific Coast. Never connected to the mainland during the Quaternary, the Channel Islands have an impoverished terrestrial flora and fauna, but some of the richest and most productive marine environments in the Americas, including diverse kelp forest, intertidal, and offshore marine habitats. Native Americans occupied the Channel Islands for roughly 13,000 calendar years until the early nineteenth century, providing one of the longest and best preserved records of maritime hunter-gatherers in the Americas. We provide an overview and analysis of Channel Islands archaeology, from the relatively mobile peoples who colonized the islands during the Late Pleistocene to the complex hunter-gatherers documented by early Spanish explorers. Our analysis demonstrates the importance of Channel Islands archaeology for enhancing knowledge on a number of broad anthropological issues, including coastal and aquatic adaptations, seafaring, cultural complexity, trade and exchange, and ancient human impacts on the environment.     

Exemplaire parlement…

The archives of the parlement of Paris are not only exceptionally important historically but also exceptionally complex. This article begins by surveying the formation and history of these archives. It treats their cataloguing and the many collections of copies and extracts that have been made, before discussing the ways in which archivists have treated and researchers have utilized the series, as well as the perspectives the series can open to historical research. The archives of the Parlement illustrate the full range of problems posed by conservation, communication to the public, and utilization, They reveal with special clarity the complementarity and interaction (verging on confusion) that necessarily occurs among the approaches taken by historians on the one hand, and archivists on the other. The archives of the Parlement also demonstrate that researchers' knowledge of the history of the archives goes beyond simple archival practice and contributes to the recognition of documentation as a «source» of history.     

Erhalt der biologischen Vielfalt—ein Instrument zur Armutsminderung?

Vor dem Hintergrund, daß Pflanzen, Tiere und Mikroorganismen seit Jahrtausenden von Menschen als Nahrungsund Rohstoffquelle genutzt werden, greift die in der öffentlichen und politischen Diskussion teilweise stattfindende Gleichsetzung von Erhalt der Biodiversität mit Naturschutz oder Artenschutz zu kurz. So hat sich die Völkergemeinschaft im Rahmen des Übereinkommens über die biologische Vielfalt (CBD) angesichts ihrer zentralen Funktion für das globale Überleben und ihrer Gefährdung auf eine deutlich umfassendere Definition von Biodiversität festgelegt: Neben der Vielfalt von Tieren und Pflanzen werden auch die genetischen Codes und die verschiedenen Lebensräume eingeschlossen. Auch die Stoßrichtung der Konvention geht deutlich über die eines altruistischen Naturschutzes hinaus: Soziale und ökonomische Zielsetzungen werden formuliert, da der Erhalt der biologischen Vielfalt vor allem der Sicherung menschlicher Lebensgrundlagen dient. Inzwischen sind 187 Staaten und die Europäische Union der Konvention beigetreten. Deutschland hat sich als Vertragsstaat verpflichtet, die Entwicklungsstaaten bei der Erreichung der Ziele zu unterstützen.     

La trame de la logique floue et l'usure du temps

Sans résumé à propos de: ClaudeRosental,La Trame de l'évidence. Sociologie de la démonstration en logique, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 2003, 15×22, 367 p., index (Sciences, modernités, philosophies).     

L'anthropologie des animaux

Traditional historiography sees Charles-Georges Le Roy as one of the first observers of animal behaviour in its natural habitat. This paper highlights the manner in which this empirical «ethology» of the Enlightenment used an elaborate and systematically organised body of anthropological knowledge. However, more was at stake than the simple projection, on animals, of human characteristics deemed to be universal. This seemingly empirical ethology mobilized in fact a common-sense anthropological knowledge, historically and culturally variable. The particular case study presented here points to the necessity of more research on the relationship between the empirical data accumulated by ethology and anthropological representations which underlie their interpretation.     

西玉东传与东工西传——黄河流域龙山时代玉器比较研究

黄河流域龙山时代存在四个玉器文化较为发达的区域,即海岱地区、晋南地区、陕北地区以及甘青地区。四个区域玉器文化之间存在着较为明显的互动交流,具体表现为玉料由西向东的逐步扩散以及工艺与器形自东而西的渐进传播。     

Provenancing East Mediterranean cedar wood with the <Superscript>87</Superscript>Sr/<Superscript>86</Superscript>Sr strontium isotope ratio

⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr isotope ratios of cedar wood from forests in the East Mediterranean have been compiled in order to investigate the feasibility of provenancing archaeological cedar wood finds. Cedrus sp. forests furnished a great amount of wood in antiquity, for purposes ranging from ship to temple construction, and for fashioning cult statues and sarcophagi. The ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr signatures of archaeological cedar samples may be compared with the preliminary dataset presented here to help determine the geographic origin of wooden artifacts. Sample sites include two forest areas in the Troodos Massif of Cyprus, five in the Lebanon, and two in Turkey’s Taurus Mountains. Sr ratios for wood varieties (i.e., early heartwood, late heartwood, sapwood, and twig wood) demonstrate relative uniformity between the xylem types frequently recovered from archaeological contexts. As such, this pilot study also assesses important issues of archaeological sampling and the geographical factors that influence Sr uptake in cedar trees of this region. While the regional signatures are distinct in most cases, small sample sizes and range overlap indicate the need for additional methods to make a case for a certain source forest. Alone, this method continues to be best used to disprove assumed wood provenances.     

Isotopic evidence for the trade and production of exotic marine mammal bone artifacts at Chavín de Huántar,Peru

This study uses stable isotope analysis to identify the possible origin and taxon of unusually large worked bone artifacts recovered from the site of Chavín de Huántar in the central highland of Peru (3200–2200 BP). The site was traditionally considered to be an ideal trading point halfway between the Pacific coast and the Amazon jungle. The archaeological specimens were discovered in a workshop area located in the La Banda sector across from the main temple, and they were analyzed for the stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and oxygen. Results indicate that the worked bone artifacts are marine in origin and are likely from a cetacean or large pinniped. Their exotic origin and elaborate work have implications about ancient production practices and exchange, and they provide benchmark data and a comparative approach for future analysis of exotic bone artifacts.