Tradition as play: pilgrimage to “England’s Nazareth”

This article explores the “invention of tradition” thesis by examining the physical and ideological reconstruction, as well as the contemporary use, of the Christian pilgrimage site of Walsingham, in Norfolk, England. We argue that a focus on the actions and motivations of cultural élites encourages a one‐dimensional view of ritual and ignores how traditions may be transformed in the process of re‐enactment by other members of society.     

Subsistence economics,family size,and the emergence of social complexity in hunter–gatherer systems in eastern North America

A consideration of ethnographic data, computational model results, and archaeological data suggest that changes in family-level economics coincident with subsistence intensification contributed to the emergence of social complexity among prehistoric hunter–gatherers in eastern North America by creating the conditions for a “rich get richer” scenario. Ethnographic data are used to construct a general computational model representing key person- and family-level behaviors, constraints, and decisions affecting the size and composition of hunter–gatherer families. Results from model experiments suggest that lowering the age at which children make a significant contribution to subsistence (e.g., through the broadening of the diet to include the kinds of mass-harvested, “low quality” foods that were increasingly exploited during the Archaic and Woodland periods) relaxes constraints on family size and makes large, polygynous families economically viable. Positive feedbacks between the productive and reproductive potentials of larger families produce right-tailed distributions of family size and “wealth” when the productive age of children is low and polygyny is incentivized. Size data from over 800 prehistoric residential structures suggest right-tailed distributions of family size were present during the Late Archaic through Middle Woodland periods. These distributions would have provided variability in family-based status that permitted the emergence of hereditary social distinctions.     

近50年来国内关于史学传统的研究

中国史学的优良传统是当代史学得以发展的重要思想资料之一。发掘和继承中国史学的优良传统,作为我们史学创新的起点,这是当前历史条件下史学发展的要求。近50年来国内关于史学传统的研究从整理史学遗产工作开始,对史学传统的研究逐渐从内容的总结上升到对民族精神、人文精神的挖掘,并就一些史学传统之间的联系和现实意义展开讨论,出现了活跃的局面。从中可以预见中国史学传统研究的趋势和前景,为新时期史学进行新创造提供借鉴。     

论《毛传》“独标兴体”的诗学贡献

本文仅以《毛传》解《诗》“独标兴体”为题,从历时角度,阐明其特殊的诗学地位和贡献,认为：《毛传》把《诗三百》原本单纯的引起之“兴”,发展为复杂的隐喻之“兴”,从而构建起自己独特的解诗之道,开创了以讽喻、寄托释“兴”的传统,并通过《郑笺》、《文心雕龙·比兴》篇的阐释得以延续和不断丰富起来,进而对后世中国古代诗学以及古代思想文化传统的建树均居功甚伟,影响深远。     

Hopewell Archaeology: A View from the Northern Woodlands

A tremendous amount of research on Hopewellian societies in the Northern Woodlands of the United States has been conducted within the last decade. This article summarizes the main themes and directions of that current research and presents a general model of Hopewellian societies. Local communities appear to have been small in size and relatively sedentary; sets of these communities shared a greater sense of cultural identity within a lineage and possibly clan organization, with each riverine drainage system occupied by a mosaic of lineages. Each in turn was spatially centered on specific clusters of religious, nonresidential public architecture. Alliances were based on a number of historically shifting variables, including religion, kinship, politics, and economics. It is suggested that future research continue existing methodologies and analyses and consider new ecological, genetic, and ideological research as a means of adding greater local historic nuance to this general model of Hopewellian societies.     

中国的通史传统与世界史编纂

中国的通史传统是指在长期、丰富的通史编纂实践中,中国历史学家逐渐形成的以通古今之变为核心的历史认识理论和通史编纂思想。通史传统是中国历史编纂学重要的理论资产之一。在世界史研究和编纂过程中,应当通过对通史传统的深入挖掘和不断发扬,赋予当代中国世界史研究理论体系鲜明的民族特色,并进一步推进马克思主义理论、中国史学优秀传统和当代中国世界史研究的融会贯通。     

The Thaikkal-Kadakkarappally Boat: an Archaeological Example of Medieval Shipbuilding in the Western Indian Ocean

Recent excavations at Kadakkarappally in Kerala, south-west India, have unearthed the remains of an iron-fastened boat, believed to predate the earliest known records for the use of iron in South Asian boatbuilding. The design departs significantly from the traditional view of Indian watercraft, although the use of locally available timber and the suitability of the design for use in the backwaters that characterise the region suggest that it was built and used in India. This is the first excavation of its type to take place in Kerala and contradicts the belief, widely held in Kerala, that the survival of organic remains has been negated by the tropical climate of the region.
© 2004 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

Managing Meaning at an Ancient Site in the 21st Century: the Gummingurru Aboriginal Stone Arrangement on the Darling Downs,Southern Queensland

ABSTRACT Aboriginal stone arrangements occur throughout Australia and are of ritual importance to Aboriginal peoples. Stone arrangements are part of the dynamic context within which Aboriginal peoples lived in the late Holocene, where constant renegotiation of social alliances required an increasing reliance on ceremonial places with ritual importance. This is the past social context for the Gummingurru Aboriginal stone arrangement site complex on the Darling Downs, Queensland. In the late 19th century Gummingurru was a highly significant men's initiation site but by the early 20th century most of the traditional custodians of the site had been removed to the government‐run Aboriginal mission of Cherbourg. Since 2000, traditional custodians have returned to the site and have given the place and its cultural landscape a new meaning. No longer used for initiation, Gummingurru now has contemporary value as a site of learning and reconciliation for all Australians. Today Gummingurru has been given a new meaning and occupies a new place in Aboriginal society and political networking.     

布什"单边主义"的文化传统

布什的单边主义深深地植根于美国文化传统之中,它根源于美国的个人主义传统,发展于美国的"天赋使命"的观念,强化于美国的"清教传统和白人优越论"的观念,成就于美国的"善恶二元论"。单边主义是美国历代统治者孜孜以求的目标之一,也是美国历史文化中最深厚的积淀之一。从这个意义上说,无论谁成为美国的总统,在美国霸权衰落以前,单边主义都将是美国外交最明显的风格。     

Textual Authority and Its Naturalization in Liang Shuming's Dong–Xi wenhua ji qi zhexue

This article discusses how Liang Shuming's Dong–Xi wenhua ji qi zhexue (Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies) adopted a genealogical mode of textual authorization which took shape in its depiction of Chinese history as a failure to live up to an ideal way of life imagined by Confucius. Implied in this discourse was the idea that Liang himself had been the first Confucian to understand what Confucius had truly meant. This genealogical discourse authorizing Liang and his text by linking them directly to Confucius was further strengthened by a rhetoric which naturalized the discourse passed down from Confucius to Liang, distinguishing it from other forms of discourse seen as artificial. Finally, the text's genealogical discourse also managed to incorporate the May Fourth critique of Confucianism by rejecting the historical manifestations of Confucianism before salvaging an ideal imagined by Confucius which was presented as uncontaminated by history and Confucianism's enmeshment in state power.