Serpent Mound: Still Built by the Adena,and Still Rebuilt During the Fort Ancient Period

Radiocarbon dates from the base of Serpent Mound in Ohio demonstrate that it was built 2,100–2,300 years ago during the Adena period but was subsequently rebuilt or repaired about 900 years ago during the Fort Ancient period. We describe the basis for supporting the chronology of this building sequence, why it is the best and most complete explanation from the data at hand, and discuss the errors and misconceptions that critics of it have put forth. Our interest is in establishing a chronology of mound construction in order to address questions about cultural continuity/discontinuity, appropriation, and reuse of cultural monuments and religious/political symbols. We also plead that researchers jointly collect new data from Serpent Mound to end the back-and-forth questioning of chronological context and research competence.     

清末各省大学堂与现代中国大学的缘起

1901年9月,清廷应两广总督陶模奏请,谕令各省设大学堂,前因虽是戊戌变法期间康有为倡言在省会改书院为高等中学,却是混淆专门学的高等学与大学,令疆臣们进退维谷。袁世凯率先想出挂羊头卖狗肉之策,以大学的名义办中小学的正斋、备斋,化两难为两便。各省争相跟进,纷纷效法,上演了一出君臣之间心照不宣的闹剧。壬寅、癸卯学制拨乱反正,重回各省高等学堂的轨道。不过,作为普通学向专门学的过渡,来自日本特有的高等学堂究竟应该是一省教育的最高学府,还是大学堂的预科,直到民初仍然聚讼纷纭,摇摆不定。而各方就此展开的争论,对于时下平衡基础教育与高等教育的衔接,仍有借鉴作用。     

‘The Weary Titan Staggers under the Too Vast Orb of its Fate’. Post-Federation Australia and the Problem of Imperial Defence

This article investigates an under-studied aspect of the British/Australian defence relationship in the immediate post-Boer War period. The essential nature of the Australian Imperial Force was not an accident of 1914. Rather, as this article will show, the form, style and structure of the force that fought at Gallipoli was set in stone more than a decade before that famous name entered the popular Australian lexicon.     

New light on Schumacher’s Südliches Burgtor at Megiddo

The Südliches Burgtor is a massive structure that was uncovered by Gottlieb Schumacher on the southern edge of the mound of Megiddo in the early twentieth century. Its vicinity was partially excavated by the Oriental Institute team in the 1930s. Still, the stratigraphic affiliation of the building as well as its date and function remained unclear. Here we present evidence from the southwestern sector of Area Q of the renewed excavations at the site, which shed light on these issues. The Südliches Burgtor was originally built in Stratum VII, probably in its later phase (VIIA), of the Late Bronze III, and continued to be in use until the devastation of the city in Stratum VIA at the end of the late Iron I. The building did not disclose clear evidence of its function, but circumstantial considerations based on finds in Area Q to its east point to possible cultic usage.     

Mississippian Habitation Components at Dickson Mounds in the Central Illinois River Valley

The Myer-Dickson area is a habitation component of the well-known Spoon River Mississippian mortuary site Dickson Mounds. About 20 domestic and public buildings were excavated at the site in the 1960s and 1970s, including the second-largest Mississippian building known in Illinois. Though sometimes characterized as a nucleated village, detailed analysis of material remains and their spatial distribution suggests two and possibly three periods of use during the Larson phase between A.D. 1200 and 1300. The large public building is one of several structures bordering a plaza, all of which are almost totally devoid of Mississippian artifacts. Domestic use of other sections of the site during the late Larson phase is part of a broader pattern of dispersed settlement on valley-edge ridges, a pattern that indicates at least some periods when fears of raiding were lessened despite the presence of contemporaneous palisaded towns.     

“Ill‐natured comparisons”: Racism and relativism in European representations of ni‐Vanuata from Cook's second voyage

Landes’ anthropological theorizing, highlighting the connections between race, gender, sexuality and class, expressed an Eastern European Jewish female praxis well-established by the late 1920s and early ‘30s when Landes began her research career. Landes’ changing Jewish identification through her life resulted from gendered aging and the reformulation of Jewish racialization processes in the U.S. Her late life reflections are evidence of what Susan Watkins calls ‘gendered late-style’ as well as Jewish conceptions of time as anti-linear and counter-normative. I investigate how her Jewish socialist Yiddish-speaking family background inflected her interpersonal and professional networks and her writings on anti-racist, class and gender-based themes.

Abbreviations: RLP: Ruth Landes Papers; NAA: National Anthropological Archives; SI: Smithsonian Institution; RBP: Ruth Benedict Papers; ASC: Archives and Special Collections Library; VCL: Vassar College Libraries     

The problematic ‘chelicerate’ Melbournopterus crossotus Caster & Kjellesvig-Waering: a case of mistaken identity

The type (and only known) specimen of Melbournopterus crossotus Caster & Kjellesvig-Waering, an enigmatic late Silurian fossil that was initially assigned to the eurypterid family Stylonuridae, is critically examined for the first time in 60 years. It is reinterpreted as most likely the dorsal valve of a craniate brachiopod, with prominent paired adductor muscle scars (described originally as ‘lateral eyes’) situated anteromedially, a short hingeline and a spinose anterior margin.

James C. Lamsdell [lamsdell@ku.edu], Department of Geology and Paleontological Institute, University of Kansas, 1475 Jayhawk Boulevard, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA; Ian G. Percival [ian.percival@industry.nsw.gov.au], Geological Survey of New South Wales, W.B. Clarke Geoscience Centre, 947–953 Londonderry Road, Londonderry NSW 2753, Australia; Markus Poschmann [markus.poschmann@gdke.rlp.de], Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe RLP, Direktion Landesarchäologie, Referat Erdgeschichte, Große Langgasse 29, D-55116 Mainz, Germany. Received 12.10.2012; revised 13.12.2012; accepted 26.12.2012.     

清末民初钦廉改隶之争探究

清末民初,广东之钦廉曾三次被提议改隶广西省。第一次是在光绪末年,与广西迁省南宁一并提出,因当时桂林籍官绅的强烈反对和清政府财政拮据而未实现。另外两次是在民国初年老桂系势力发展的背景下提出,因广东各属绅商、侨寓外地各社会团体的强烈反对以及桂粤矛盾等多种因素仍未实现。通过对此事件的分析,可以得出如下结论:在研究民国初期的行政区划变更时,不仅要考虑传统的因素,还要考虑基层民意、地方绅商的势力和近代报纸的舆论影响。     

扬州甘泉山二号墓年代献疑

根据墓葬形制和随葬品特征,可以推定扬州甘泉山二号墓主是东汉晚期而不是东汉早期的广陵王。文献记载也表明,终东汉之世,广陵国的王国地位始终保持,附近发现的"广陵王玺"金印为东汉晚期或使用至东汉晚期的可能性都存在。