Lithic Artefacts as a Source of Cultural,Social and Economic Information: the evidence from Aksum,Ethiopia

Extended research covering an area of approximately 300 sq km centered on the ancient metropolis of Aksum has revealed a coherent sequence of development in stone tool production and use spanning most of the last millennium BC and the first millennium AD. It has provided new evidence of the presence of multiple independent lithic traditions in the Pre-Aksumite period, and of Aksumite social and economic organization. This paper summarizes the results of the detailed study of a large corpus of excavated and surface-collected lithics, emphasizing their functional characteristics.

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Résumé  De vastes recherches couvrant sur une superficie d’environ 300 kilomètres carrés et concentrées sur l’ancienne métropole d’Aksoum ont mis à jour une série cohérente de développements dans la production et l’utilisation d’outils de pierre au cours du dernier millénaire avant J.C. et du premier millénaire après J.C. Ces recherches ont fourni de nouvelles informations sur la présence de multiples traditions lithiques indépendantes durant la période pré-aksoumite, et sur l’organisation sociale et économique des Aksoumites. Cet article présente les résultats d’une étude détailée portant sur un large répertoire de vestiges lithiques recueillis au cours de fouilles et collectes de surface, et met en exergue leurs caractéristiques fonctionnelles.

     

Garu Kime: A Late Borno Fired-Brick Site at Monguno,NE Nigeria

Abstract  

This paper primarily presents analyses from geophysical data and archaeological remains collected at one of a few known sites to the west of Lake Chad associated with fired-brick structures. It reports on previous fieldwork at the location, considers its alleged relationship with the early history of the Borno kingdom and then turns to present new data that provide fresh insights into the physical appearance, dating, material remains, economy and environment of the site. A brief discussion of the historical purpose of the fired-brick structures and the site itself concludes the paper.     

Landscape and Social Relations at Charleston Townhouse Sites (1770–1850)

Restoration projects at Charleston townhouse properties, both public and private, have provided opportunities for archaeological exploration on a variety of scales. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these properties were the homes of wealthy planters and merchants and enslaved African Americans, who lived and worked in the service buildings and work yard. The inter-dependence of these diverse occupants, their daily affairs, and the landscape elements under their purview has been revealed in the research of scholars from a host of disciplines, including archaeology. Townhouse compounds included support structures and activity areas required to meet the range of daily life affairs, from the necessary to the luxurious. While the front of the house, and the formal garden, presented a well-ordered façade, the work yard housed the facilities for the necessities of daily life, in an often dirty, noisy, and unordered space. The deliberate separation of space and placement of specialized service buildings and their occupants created an urban landscape suitable to the social values, as well as physical needs, of the townhouse owners. Thus, owner and slave lived in a compound that was physically close, but socially distinct. Archaeological case studies are used here to explore the racial power dynamics embodied in the urban townhouse landscape. The archaeological mixing of material from master and slave is, however, a material reflection of the racial power dynamics played out in constricted urban spaces.     

Missionization in New Zealand and Australia: A Comparison

This paper discusses missionization in New Zealand and Australia during the nineteenth century. Despite sharing aspects of colonial history and a geographical proximity in the South Pacific, the development of missions in both countries was disparate, leading to two very different types of missions, types I have identified as the “household” mission in New Zealand and the “institutional” mission in Australia. In both types common themes can be found, concerned with the “civilizing mission,” domesticity, and gender roles. These two types of missions were replicated in other parts of the globe, such as North America and the Pacific.     

The Archaeology of Missions in Australasia: Introduction

Missions have long been recognized as spaces of colonial contact and cultural exchange, and they are significant places in Indigenous landscapes today. However, archaeologists have only recently begun to explore such places across Australasia. This collection canvasses a range of approaches to this dynamic field.     

Legends,Traditions or Coincidences: Remembrance of Historic Settlement in the Central Highlands of Scotland

Study has established that sources of evidence (local traditions, documentary, cartographic, archaeological) of the burning of a settlement at Bunrannoch during the 1745/6 Jacobite uprising are contradictory. Some contradictions may result from conflation of long term social memories of earlier events during the late first millennium CE and the way in which the events surrounding the uprising were subsequently remembered. Such conflation may stem from the way identities of local communities were conceived during the late eighteenth century. Some members of local communities would have grounded themselves in traditional life ways, which were being actively transformed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In contrast, sponsors of change, or improvement, viewed such communities as largely criminal and impoverished.     

A Patina of Age: Elizabeth Macquarie (née) Campbell and the Influence of the Buildings and Landscape of Argyll,Scotland, in Colonial New South Wales

Elizabeth Macquarie, a daughter of Campbell of Airds, was the wife of Lachlan Macquarie, the fifth governor of New South Wales (1810–21). The buildings of Argyll, Scotland, strongly influenced choices made by Elizabeth in the buildings erected during her husband’s 12-year administration of the colony. By examining these Scottish influences, through theories of landscape and the transfer of traditional, even “old-fashioned,” architectural styles to this far-flung colony, new layers of meaning embedded within the landscape of Sydney Cove are disentangled to reveal a deeper understanding of how British cultural identity was recreated on the far side of the world.     

Islands in a Sea of Change? Continuity and Abandonment in Dark Age Corinth and Thessaloniki

In the sixth century after Christ, the Greek cities of Corinth and Thessaloniki were both still centers of imperial Roman and nascent Christian administrations, ancient population centers protected by high fortification walls. But much of scholarship continues to portray Thessaloniki as a veritable island of civilization during the next two “dark” centuries, with cities of southern Greece like Corinth virtually abandoned after earthquakes, plague, and barbarian invasion. Yet recently historians are reading the few literary sources much more critically, and excavation is also slowly beginning to fill in this gap. Thus long-known evidence of urban continuity in Thessaloniki along with the fruits of some of these methodological advances can begin to provide a new model of Dark Age continuity and abandonment for Corinth and other ancient cities of Byzantine Greece.