At Intersections of Technology and a Modern Mass Medium

This article examines the intersections of technology and the exhibition medium by focusing on an individual, the mechanical engineer Robert Runeberg. It makes visible individual involvement in transnational mobility and in large-scale processes of modernization. The article explores how becoming a modern professional was not only connected to formal education and practical training, but also to the capacity to extract and produce knowledge via the exhibition medium. Concurrently, the case discloses essential qualities, such as the cohesion, dynamicity and flexibility of the exhibition medium.     

What is a Burin? Typology,Technology, and Interregional Comparison

Classification of artifacts has long marked a significant edge between theory and practice in archaeology. While considering classification to be a necessary methodological device, most practitioners also recognize that it carries with it built-in assumptions. This essay approaches the issue by way of a specific stone tool type from Old World sites: the burin. By asking “what is a burin?” the study shows the need to reconsider typologies to reflect changes in research questions and progress in dating methods, especially when working with museum collections and secondary data between regions and across national traditions, and the need to study whole collections from the perspective of technological choices.     

The Archaeology of the Gaucho <Emphasis Type="Italic">“Vago y Mal</Emphasis><Emphasis Type="Italic">Entretenido”</Emphasis>

The purpose of this article is to explain and discuss the essential operational characteristics of the technology of power (sensu Foucault) perpetrated on the internal frontiers with the Indians in nineteenth-century Argentina. The conquest and colonization of the Pampas took shape in the establishment of military camp structures placed to create a defensive cordon, known as “the Indian frontier line.” These constructions were fortlets defended by gaucho cavalry squadrons (know as Blandengues during the Spanish period, and then Guardias Nacionales after Argentinean Independence). This process is known in Argentinean historiography as “the conquest of the desert.” This particular technology of power existed in this historical context and operated at every social level, impacting strongly on the lower classes that inhabited the incorrectly named “desert.” Its implementation in the military field enabled the existence of an array of micro-powers that surrounded the gaucho, called vago y malentretenido—“a vagrant and lingerer”—and their women's lives. The army as institution was the locus of various forms of coercion and old forms of punishment (such as the stakes, whipping, and public executions) most of which affected peasants, nonresidents, itinerant workers, and the rural youth. This schema was adopted in different areas: in the enrolment and discipline of the gaucho soldiers, in life in the fortlet-prisons, and in the ritualism of power. The alternative chosen by soldiers to evade this technology of power and the fortlet-panopticons was escape through desertion. The utility of those observations is demonstrated, because an important part of the area of research of historical archaeology that has developed with the greatest impetus in Argentina has taken fortlets as its subject of study.     

Interpreting pachyderm single carcass sites in the African Lower and Early Middle Pleistocene record: A multidisciplinary approach to the site of Nadung’a 4 (Kenya)

Nadung’a 4 is one of the single carcass pachyderm sites recorded in East Africa during the Lower and Early Middle Pleistocene. The site has yielded an abundant lithic assemblage in close association with the partial carcass of an elephant. Conjoined pedological, geoarchaeological, spatial, technological, and taphonomical analyses have been carried out to address the relationship between hominids and elephant. The resulting data are consistent with a non-fortuitous association between both categories of remains. The lithic artefacts do not match a classical Acheulean tool-kit, as would be expected for the time period ascribed to the site, and the functional patterns inferred from their analysis make this site radically different from other purported butchery sites. The implications of these original features are discussed.     

湖北荆门左埭楚墓群出土金属器研究

利用XRF、金相显微分析等手段对湖北省荆门市境内左冢楚墓群出土的金属器,特别是青铜器进行了测试分析,XRF分析表明该楚墓群出土的青铜器多为铜、锡、铅三元合金,且容器的锡含量低于兵器和工具,而铅含量则相反。金相分析显示左冢楚墓群出士青铜器多为铸造组织,其中3件铸后经过不同程度的加热：而热锻成形的器物有4件,其中有一件在锻后进行了冷加工。结果显示,此批青铜器合金成分比较科学、制作工艺比较先进。     

20世纪50年代中国在引进基础上的技术创新

20世纪50年代中国的技术引进和技术创新活动集中在“一五”时期和“大跃进”时期,虽然这两个时期在引进基础上的创新活动都是在重工业优先发展战略下的体制框架内进行的,但在引进技术的行业构成、规模、项目建设的实施和技术的消化乃至技术创新机制、成效等方面都有所不同。“一五”时期采用了全面、系统、灵活多样的方式和重点攻关,在消化、吸收引进技术方面取得了明显的成效,某些领域实现了技术再造,技术创新能力得到了迅速积累,但从总体上看仍处于对引进技术的翻版、修改阶段。“大跃进”时期的技术创新机制被严重干扰,群众运动代替了深入细致的科学研究,在群众性技术革新运动中引进基础上的创新活动格外活跃,通过技术革新运动学会了自行制造一些成套设备、生产工艺,但并没有从产业部门或行业整体上真正实现引进基础上的再次创新,其整体水平依然停留在对引进技术的“初级模仿”阶段。     

毛泽东与中国科学技术的自主研发

毛泽东将科学技术视为革命者完成自身历史使命的重要工具,他洞见先进技术在后发国家追赶发达国家中的作用,将大力发展科学技术视为国家的重要职能,在西方国家封锁禁运、苏联毁约的困境下,千方百计引进先进科技并努力促进自主研发,果断地发展高科技产业,提高中华民族的国际地位,为中国进一步发展打下了基础。回顾毛泽东与中国科学技术自主研发的历程,有助于我们深刻认识和实践新形势下中共中央、国务院做出的建设创新型国家的重大战略决策。     

The Materiality of Social Power: The Artifact-Acquisition Perspective

This paper explores the materiality of social power relationally through study of social interactions with artifacts. Specifically, it is argued that acquisition of an artifact instantiates social power by imposing interactions on groups taking part in that artifact's life-history activities. We introduce the “performance-preference matrix,” an analytic tool for systematically studying the effects of such acquisition events on activity groups. The use of the performance-preference matrix is illustrated through an example: the acquisition of electric-arc lights for lighthouses in the 19th century. Suggestions are offered for analyzing culture-contact situations and for handling singularized artifacts such as heirlooms and monuments.