Tales of the Unexpected: Exploring Car Boot Sales as Marginal Spaces of Contemporary Consumption

Marginal and/or resistant consumption practices have been neglected in current geographical debates on consumption and retailing. This has resulted in partial and skewed theorizations of exchange within contemporary consumption. Consumption spaces such as car boot sales represent sites in which the conventions of the marketplace are suspended or abandoned, and replaced by forms of sourcing, commodity circulation, transaction codes, pricing mechanisms and value quite different from those which typify more conventional retail malls and department stores. Drawing on the anthropological literature on traditional and peasant markets, we argue that exchange within the car boot sale is socially, culturally and geographically embedded and we emphasize the intrinsic importance of fun and sociality to such activities. Marginal spaces such as the car boot sale offer both some important clues into the potential for rethinking marketplace dynamics, notably with respect to our understandings of value, and some intriguing possibilities for consumer politics.     

Discourse on the Docks: Containerization and Inter-Union Work Disputes in US Ports, 1955–85

Research on labour markets has often focused on the economics of work location. Far less attention has been paid to how labour markets are constructed discursively. In this paper, I analyse how the creation of rival discourses concerning traditions of work were central elements in the efforts of two unions to structure local labour markets, in order to retain work for their members in the face of technological innovation. The struggle between the two unions centred on their abilities to construct rival discourses concerning the historical geography of work in the industry. These formed the basis for judicial interpretations concerning whether the actions of the dockers' union represented a legal work preservation action or an illegal work acquisition measure. Such interpretations shaped the subsequent evolution of work and labour markets in the industry. The ability of economic actors to shape discourse in their favour can be a powerful force in the regulation of local labour markets, and thus in the production of economic landscapes.     

Origin and Collapse of Complex Societies in Oaxaca (Mexico): Evaluating the Era from 1965 to the Present

I summarize recent archaeological work in Oaxaca, Mexico, with a focus on questions central to world prehistory: the origin and collapse of complex societies. Monte Albán was the capital of an emerging civilization in the southern highlands of Mexico during the second half of the first millennium B.C. Soon after the foundation of the ancient city, there is evidence for state formation and a political expansion into regions outside the Valley of Oaxaca. Centuries later, Monte Albán went into decline, giving way to the competing small polities found throughout Oaxaca at the time of the Spanish conquest. Since the late 1960s, our knowledge of these changes has been transformed by study of Oaxaca's pre–Monte Albán past, regional settlement surveys, and processual model building. Evolutionary and historical perspectives allow for significant refinement of current debates surrounding the rise and fall of complex societies in Oaxaca.     

The Transition from Prehistory to the Historic Period in the Upper Mun Valley

The Early Historic Period in the Mun Valley occupies a critical three centuries, from A.D. 500 to A.D. 800, a period often known as that of Zhenla, a name derived from early Chinese accounts. This article first describes early findings of fieldwork designed to illuminate the prehistory of the upper Mun Valley, a period which covers approximately two millennia, with initial settlement now dated between 1500 and 1000 B.C. It then considers the nature of the transition to the complex polities of Zhenla. This involves a combination of archaeological and documentary evidence. Sources for the latter are rare for the Mun Valley, but by broadening the area considered, it is possible to integrate archaeological and historical sources in order to portray the intensifying social changes which characterize the Early Historic Period. It is suggested that most of the Mun Valley was occupied by Khmer speakers during the Iron Age, people responsible for the transition to increasingly centralized polities of the Early Historic Period. In the upper reaches of the Mun catchment, and in the Chi Valley to the north, the late prehistoric inhabitants spoke Mon. They had close affinities with the Dvaravati polities of Central Thailand. If confirmed, this hypothesis would indicate a series of local trends towards increasing social complexity which we can recognize in the early epigraphic record.     

Rethinking “Resistant Accommodation”: Toward an Archaeology of African-American Lives in Southern New England, 1638–1800

Scholarship concerning the lives of enslaved African Americans in southern New England has shifted rapidly from outdated models of acculturation to conflict-driven models of domination and resistance. With the assumption of conflict as the outcome of all power relations, both economic production and historical contextuality have been overlooked, with slavery systems in New England simply equated with other regions of the Atlantic world, rather than compared and contrasted. This essay reconsiders contests over power in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New England. Drawing on the work of Greene (1966), Piersen (1988), and others, I argue that the system of slavery in the region may represent an anomalous case in terms of the means of control or the means of resistance. By examining demographic patterns, economic production, and agricultural landscapes in Rhode Island's East Bay, I argue that there may be more to be learned from William D. Piersen's (1988, p. 143) concept of resistant accommodation as a middle ground between the two extremes of the theoretical spectrum. The essay concludes with suggestions for further research on the archaeology of African-American lives in the region.     

甘肃酒泉、嘉峪关壁画墓霉菌分离鉴定与防治研究

通过对墓葬壁画霉菌分离鉴定,筛选出合适的防霉材料,对壁画进行防霉处理是解决未搬迁尚很潮湿壁画墓科学保存问题的一个重要方面。     

Revolutionary archaeology in Cuba

The Revolution of 1959 brought forth changes in the mission, theoretical orientation, and organization of archaeology in Cuba and created a role for, and constraints on, the profession that are unique in the Western Hemisphere. This paper draws upon examples from substantive field and laboratory research to examine the methods and theoretical perspectives of Cuban archaeology since the Revolution, focusing on the period from 1962 until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Archaeological practice during the Revolutionary period in Cuba has reflected the aims of the Revolutionary government, the influence of Soviet archaeology, the legacy of pre-Revolutionary approaches in North American archaeology, and the Cuban sense ofpatria.     

Settlement and social change in central Europe, 3500–1500 BC

The chronology of the period is briefly considered in the light of the dendrochronological results which have appeared in recent years. Patterns of settlement history in different parts of the area are then examined, and it is suggested that in some of them the late fourth millennium was a period of population decline which was not reversed until the Early Bronze Age, 1000 years later. Detailed information about specific local occupation patterns is provided by recent work on the circum-Alpine lake villages. Changes in cultural patterns during the period, especially the appearance of the Corded Ware, are discussed and explanations of them reviewed. It is argued that changing patterns of gender relations were a major feature of the period, linked to processes which eventually led to the development of small-scale chiefdoms. The development of copper and bronze metallurgy and its connection to these processes are discussed.     

高颐阙残损阙檐的修复技术

高颐阙是东汉晚期的红色砂岩的建筑物。位于四川省雅安市。阙檐东面残缺.导致日晒雨淋加剧,苔藓丛生,从而引起严重风化。为此,对残损阙檐进行了修复。根据高颐阙的结构.雅安市的气候特征及阙石的化学组成和物理性质.讨论了薄片检查和 X 衍射分析的结果、修复残缺阙檐的理论基础以及计算、修复的程序和效果。