Toward the Historical Archaeology of Levuka, a South Pacific Port of Call

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Fijian port of Levuka alternately passed through incarnations as a beachcomber community, boisterous port of call, commercial entrepôt, and colonial capital. Initial investigations in this town in 2000 provide a data set through which archaeology's potential for a meaningful dialogue on Levuka's past can be explored. These data reflect upon an increasingly segregated European community structure, through which social transformations in alcohol use, landscape alterations, and material culture consumption patterns are examined.     

Stone anchors from the Mediterranean coasts of Anatolia, Turkey: underwater surveys and archaeometrical investigations

This study is mainly based on the expeditions and underwater study of stone anchors from the Cilician coast, Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology and the Kaš Uluburun wreck. The stone anchors found on the Cilician coast are very similar to eastern Mediterranean stone anchors with respect to shape and characteristics. The stone anchors from BMUA and KUW were examined by thin section and XRD analysis. They are made of volcanic, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. The study indicates that the anchors are similar to others found in the Mediterranean.     

Hohokam Craft Economies and the Materialization of Power

The Prestige Goods Economy Model invoked by archaeologists to explain the development of power in middle-range societies generally fails to discriminate the varied roles of social valuables. This study illustrates a multi-faceted approach for identifying the symbolic utility of craft economies among the Hohokam in North America. Contextual analyses of marine shell artifacts disclose their functions as material symbols of group membership and identity, ritual performance paraphernalia, instruments of power, and insignia of office. These valuables were imbued with ideological meanings that legitimized the emergence of corporate modes of power from individualized networks. Applications of the Prestige Goods Economy Model in other world regions would also be enriched by more detailed examination of the meanings of social valuables.     

Cattle Before Crops: The Beginnings of Food Production in Africa

In many areas of the world, current theories for agricultural origins emphasize yield as a major concern during intensification. In Africa, however, the need for scheduled consumption shaped the development of food production. African cattle were domesticated during the tenth millennium BP by delayed-return Saharan hunter-gatherers in unstable, marginal environments where predictable access to resources was a more significant problem than absolute abundance. Pastoralism spread patchily across the continent according to regional variations in the relative predictability of herding versus hunting and gathering. Domestication of African plants was late (after 4000 BP) because of the high mobility of herders, and risk associated with cultivation in arid environments. Renewed attention to predictability may contribute to understanding the circumstances that led to domestication in other regions of the world.     

中国艺术考古学的奠基

艺术考古学作为一门在考古学与艺术学的边缘地带产生的交叉学科,其形成和确立顺应了考古学与艺术学学科发展的必然趋势;同样,考古学与艺术学理论的发展也为艺术考古学的建立奠定了理论和实践上的坚实基础。     

以田野考古为主探索夏文化已经取得硕果——纪念徐旭生先生赴豫西考古调查"夏墟"49周年

本文回顾了几十年来探索夏文化、早商文化的历程及突破,并对学术研究中存在的一些问题进行了讨论,指出学术研究要遵守实事求是的原则.     

遥感与地理信息系统在城市考古中的实践

遥感与地理信息系统是城市考古研究中重要的技术手段。借助遥感技术,在识别遗迹的基础上,首先可以对城址开展地图测量,确保研究数据的准确性,其次可以获取不同精度的地形地貌数据,从宏观和微观层面分析城址的空间环境和布局结构,最终可以为城市复原研究提供线索,提高田野考古工作的效率和精度。在地理信息系统应用方面,本文提出了"城市圈"的概念,将城址与周边遗址和自然环境纳入同一个空间集合进行考察,可以充分发挥地理信息系统的空间分析功能,行之有效的剖析城市空间属性所反映出的人地关系和社会关系。     

The historical geography of 1 Kings 9:11–14

ABSTRACT

1 Kings 9:11–14 relates Solomon’s sale of the land of Cabul to Hiram, king of Tyre. Commentaries and studies on this pericope have dealt with its linguistic and historical aspects without reaching consensus on where this land was, what the term ‘Cabul’ actually means, or even whether these verses preserve an actual historic event from the 10th century BCE. This article addresses these issues through a more systematic presentation of the archaeological remains and geographic realities in the Galilee, and in so doing, offers a more contextually derived understanding of the events recorded in 1 Kgs 9:11–14 than has heretofore been offered.     

A quantitative assessment of intraspecific morphological variation in Gahagan bifaces from the southern Caddo area and central Texas

ABSTRACT

This investigation aggregates intact or reconstructed Gahagan bifaces from the southern Caddo area and central Texas to test the hypothesis that Gahagan biface morphology differs between the regions. The Gahagan bifaces (n=102) were scanned, then analyzed using a novel landmarking protocol and the tools of geometric morphometrics. Results provide a preview of the significant differences in Gahagan biface morphology expressed between the southern Caddo area and central Texas regions. The size discrepancy represents an inversion of current theoretical constructs that posit a decrease in tool size thought to articulate with an increase in distance from the raw material source. It is posited that the contrasting morphologies represent two discrete communities of practice; one (emergent Caddo horticulturalists) where Gahagan bifaces were enlisted primarily for burial and ritualistic activities, and the other (central Texas hunter-gatherers) where Gahagan bifaces were utilized over a longer time span in more practical and utilitarian contexts.     

Country Roads: Travel,Visibility, and Late Classic Settlement in the Southern Maya Mountains

Mayanist archaeology has long been concerned with creating and evaluating explanatory models for the locations of ancient sites relative to one another and to the physical geography of the Maya world. This study combines epigraphic data and spatial analyses to explore motivations for settlement location and to interrogate territorial strategies in Late Classic (a.d. 600–830) kingdoms in the southern Maya Mountains, around the modern towns of Dolores and Poptún, Guatemala. Least-cost path analyses were used to model natural travel corridors and their relationship with site location was assessed. In conjunction, viewshed analyses were applied to evaluate the importance of visual connections to likely travel routes. The results are considered in the context of the socio-politics and economics of the region, and raise questions about the character of and interconnections between travel, exchange, settlement location, and mechanisms for reinforcing territorial claims in the Late Classic Southern Maya Mountains.