良渚文化神徽解析

良渚文化的中心在太湖流域,太湖流域的原始文化从早期发展到良渚文化时期,是良渚文化神徽产生的时间条件;太湖流域特殊的地理环境和气候条件,是良渚文化神徽产生的空间条件。由于这一地区的人对频繁发生的洪水的恐惧,从而把雷神作为天神来敬仰,这正是良渚文化神徽的真正内涵,这种信仰在某些少数民族地区流传至今。     

Obsidian types from Holocene sites around Lake Turkana,and other localities in northern Kenya

Obsidian has been widely used by early Holocene hunter-gatherers and succeeding Pastoral Neolithic peoples in northern Kenya. Here we report the results of over 2000 electron microprobe analyses of artifactual and non-artifactual obsidian from the greater Lake Turkana region. Of the 15 compositional types of obsidian observed, a preponderant type is widespread across the region from the Barrier in the south to Ileret in the north and east as far as Kargi. This obsidian is the principal type at Lowasera and most Pastoral Neolithic sites, including the Jarigole Pillar site and Dongodien (GaJi4). The source of this obsidian is not known, but based on its distribution the source may be located on the Barrier or in the Suguta Valley immediately to the south of Lake Turkana. Although there are several possible sources of local obsidian identified for minor types, in stark contrast to the central part of the Kenyan Rift, major sources of obsidian available for artifact manufacture are not known in the Lake Turkana region. The lack of obsidian from demonstrable Ethiopian Rift and central Kenyan Rift sources, and the absence of obsidian with compositions found at the Turkana area sites in assemblages in the central part of the Kenyan Rift suggests that the earlier Pastoral Neolithic peoples around Lake Turkana interacted with each other, but perhaps not as strongly with people farther south along the Rift Valley, even as herding practices were expanding to the southward into central Kenya.     

Midwest Archaeological Conference 2014 Distinguished Career Awards

This paper presents and contextualizes the results of recent research at the Cedar Creek Earthworks (AaHq-2) in Essex County, Ontario, one of the few remaining Late Prehistoric earthen enclosures in the western Lake Erie region. First documented in the 1930s, the site consists of a unique semicircular berm and ditch feature to which has been appended three earthen projections or “nodes.” Despite a combination of remote sensing, testpitting, and targeted test excavations both within and beyond the earthworks, a dearth of material culture remains and subsurface features (including evidence for a palisade) suggests the site did not serve as a village and raises questions regarding the role(s) Cedar Creek played in the lifeways of past aboriginal populations.     

How was Bell Beaker economy related to Corded Ware and Early Bronze Age lifestyles? Archaeological,botanical and palynological evidence from the Hegau,Western Lake Constance region

Abstract

The Europe wide spread of what has been called the Bell Beaker phenomenon remains an enigma of European prehistory. While most of the recent research stresses the ideological aspects of using Bell Beaker material culture, here we take a regional and economical perspective. We look for the chronological relationships and the economic choices of the Bell Beaker phase and of its closest neighbours in time and space: the Late Neolithic Corded Ware and the Early Bronze Age. We focus on the regional archaeological settlement history and present the hitherto richest European Bell Beaker-associated collection of palaeobotanical macro-remains, together with our high-resolution palynological work on annually laminated lake sediments. These different lines of evidence are tied together by an absolute chronology derived from new radiocarbon accelerated mass spectrometry (AMS) dates (now more than 200) and from the dendrodates from the World Heritage wet preserved pile dwellings. We show the preceding Late Neolithic, the actual Bell Beaker, and the following Early Bronze age economies each relying on different agricultural strategies that focus on distinct parts of the landscape. There is no link obvious between Late Neolithic and Bell Beaker, but there is between Bell Beaker and Early Bronze Age. Related to different modes of production, differences in ideology become visible in food preferences as well as in other parts of the material culture. We conclude that the Bell Beaker economy represents a re-orientation of the mode of production focusing on single, rather small farmsteads which often do not leave a distinct signal in the archaeological record.     

Canal projects in the isthmus of Panama and adjacent regions

This article examines some of the problems of studying patterns of internal trading and the operation of periodic market centres in the context of seventeenth‐century Scotland. The changing distribution of periodic market centres throughout the century is discussed, and the difficulties of moving from a theoretical framework based on networks of authorised centres, towards the one which existed in practice, is examined by means of a case study from Perthshire.     

‘Keeping up the Culture’: Gunai Engagements with Tourism

ABSTRACT This paper intervenes in the hidden history of Aboriginal art in south eastern Australia. I argue that for Aboriginal people living in the assimilation era engagement with tourism represented an important means of cultural survival. Working across anthropology and art history this paper focuses on the boomerangs and other artefacts produced by Gunai in Gippsland, Victoria for their own use and for exchange with tourists. The findings from this paper show that, far from being a sign of commodification and a capitulation to capitalism, this cultural production was carried out in opposition to authorities who viewed it as potentially disruptive and counter to assimilation policies. It was this history of cultural practice which contributed to the resurgence of Koorie culture in the 1970s and 1980s.     

Middle Holocene hunter-gatherers of Cis-Baikal, Siberia: An overview for the new century

The paper examines Middle Holocene hunter-gatherer adaptive strategies in the Baikal region of Siberia based on diverse data (radiocarbon, mortuary, geochemical, genetic, human osteological, and zooarchaeological) accumulated over the last 10–15 years. The new model emphasizes the cyclical nature of the long-term changes and recognizes similarities between the Early Neolithic and Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age cultures. The overall impression seems to be that change in the region was rapid rather than gradual. A number of interesting correlations between various cultural and environmental variables have been identified. During the Early Neolithic and Late Neolithic–Bronze Age, the spatial distributions of mortuary sites, open landscape, and good fisheries are all correlated and both intervals are coeval with periods of environmental stability. For the Early Neolithic two additional sets of correlated variables have been identified: (1) the uneven distribution of fish resources, uneven distribution of the human population, and cultural heterogeneity; and (2) poorer overall community health, more extensive male travel and heavier workloads, and higher reliance on fishing. For the Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age, the sets of correlated variables are somewhat different: (1) more even distribution of terrestrial game resources (herbivores), more even distribution of the human population, and cultural homogeneity; and (2) better overall community health, less travel and lighter workloads, more equitable distribution of labor between males and females, and higher reliance on game hunting. Viewed together, these patterns emphasize the much more dynamic pattern of hunter-gatherer cultural variability, temporally and spatially, compared to what was known before.     

Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Investigations Along the Southern Fringes of Lake Chad, 1993–1996

Archaeological and ethnohistorical investigations were conducted in the area around the town of Ngala in Borno State, Nigeria, situated immediately south of Lake Chad. Four mounds were excavated. Comparison with data from excavations and ethnohistorical studies provided a fairly complete picture of the settlement and cultural history of that most environmentally peculiar region. It is now evident that Late Neolithic settlers established themselves around 1000 CalBC in permanent hamlets with year-round occupation and a subsistence based not only on gathering, hunting and fishing but also on cattle herding and probably the cultivation of domesticated Pennisteum. Certainly, cultivation is attested after the onset of the Early Iron Age around 500 CalBC. Although from then on we see a steady development toward further complexity with the establishment of compact villages during the middle of the first millennium CalAD and the foundation of local principalities during the fourteenth century AD it was not before the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries AD, that the mode of subsistence and the political and societal structure typical for the area today was fully developed. By then, the wider region came under control of the Borno Empire, a situation which lasted up to the early colonial days at the onset of the twentieth century. Des recherches archéologiques et ethnohistoriques ont été conduites dans les environs de la ville de Ngala (état du Borno, Nigeria) située immédiatement au sud du lac Tchad. Quatre tertres d'habitat ont été fouillés. La comparaison des matériaux excavés avec ceux des fouilles antérieures, complétée par des analyses ethnohistoriques, a permis de reconstituer de manière assez complète l'évolution du peuplement et la succession des cultures dans cette zone qui se distingue par des conditions environnementales particulières. Il est clair aujourd'hui que les colons du Néolithique récent se sont installés, vers 1000 CalBC, dans des hameaux permanents occupés toute l'année, et que leur subsistance n'était pas uniquement basée sur la chasse, la collecte et la pêche, mais probablement aussi sur l'élevage et la culture du Pennisteum domestique. Certainement l'agriculture est attestée au début de l'Age du fer Ancien, vers 500 CalBC. A partir de ce moment, on observe certes une évolution régulière et soutenue vers plus de complexité, avec l'apparition de gros villages dans le courant du premier millénaire CalAD, et la fondation, au quatorzième siècle, de principautés locales, mais ce n'est pas avant les quinzième et seizième siècles que le mode de subsistance et la structure socio-politique qui caractérisent cette région aujourd'hui se sont véritablement mis en place. A partir de ce moment, la zone à laquelle appartient notre domaine d'étude a été intégrée dans l'empire du Bornou, une situation qui s'est maintenue jusqu'au début de la période coloniale, à l'aube du vingtième siècle.     

环境压力与土地利用形式的转变——以汾阳文湖变迁为例

文湖是古代晋中重要湖泊之一,宋、金以前,湖域广阔,有着重要的社会经济效益。随着人地矛盾压力增大,宋、金已有两次开渠泄湖,到了万历四年彻底泄湖,文湖随即消亡。通过对文湖变迁过程的环境因素分析,本文认为文湖土地利用形式的转化,是区域自然、人文环境压力日趋紧张作用的结果,在看到泄湖为田之后的负面影响时,也应指出在区域生态环境长期发展下的行为适应性和无奈。这种因环境压力而导致的适应性土地利用行为,是历史时期人类土地利用形式转变的共性之一。     

博斯腾湖旅游开发的初步研究

博斯腾湖是新疆现存最大的湖泊,其巨大的水体景观与周围荒漠、戈壁景观形成巨大反差,是干旱区不可多得的旅游资源。本文从旅游业空间结构和市场竞争角度,对博斯腾湖旅游开发作了初步研究,得出以下结论:①博斯腾湖旅游开发的近期市场定位应是度假为主、观光为辅的地区级旅游地;②对于新疆内的市场,重点开发2-4日游;对于新疆外的市场,应把博斯腾湖作为一个结点,纳入到南疆旅游区以及整个新疆的旅游路线中。