Milton,drama, and Greek texts: preface

ABSTRACT

This collection of essays explores the connection between Milton’s approach to drama and his engagement with Greek antiquity. Paying attention to early Christian and early modern interpretive traditions as well as Greek literature, it situates the power of this conjunction for Milton within the larger project of the northern Renaissance.     

Size and form in the analysis of flake debris: Review and recent approaches

Flake debris — the by-product of lithic reduction — is abundant, not subject to uncontrolled collection, and sometimes culturally diagnostic. Its greatest virtue, however, is in registering the kinds and amounts of toolmaking and tool-using behavior that curated tools themselves may not. Most debris studies emphasize formal dimensions, yet even the best approaches assume rather than demonstrate a relationship between behavior and formal variation. Moreover, the diversity of formal typologies hinders interassemblage comparison. Progress in debris analysis has two prerequisites: (1) a minimum attribute set for individual flakes and (2) the combination of formal and continuous approaches to variation. Preliminary study suggests that Ahler's mass-analysis model and log skew Laplace functions hold particular promise for behavioral interpretation from debris assemblages.     

Recent trends in the archaeology of the southeastern United States

The archaeological literature pertaining to the southeastern United States is examined for the 5-year period between 1988 and 1992 inclusive. Research traditions identified in an earlier article by Patty Jo Watson (Southeastern Archaeology 9: 43–54, 1990) as characteristic of the Southeast in the previous half-century are considered in light of recent contributions. Topics examined include Mesoamerican connections, trade, pottery typology, historical archaeology, subsistence studies, bioarchaeology, and lithic artifact research.     

Hunters and gatherers past and present: Perspectives on diversity,teaching, and information transmission

This article reviews four books on hunters and gatherers. It begins with a discussion of the debates over the concept of hunter-gatherers. Theoretical approaches to hunter-gather studies are examined briefly. The view then assesses the four books and the various subjects which they address. These subjects include the issue of ethnographic analogy, diversity, evolution, and archaeological perspectives as well as understanding contemporary hunter-gatherer societies. Additional topics include land use, the assignment of meaning to landscapes, way finding, territoriality, boundary-marking, and networks. Social learning, teaching, and information dissemination are discussed, with emphasis on some of the things that are learned, such as sharing, fair treatment of others, the importance of compassion, and moral values. Hunter-gatherer studies have evolved to the point where both archaeologists and anthropologists are taking into careful consideration the need to consider both past and present in their investigations and to focus also on the non-hunter-gatherer societies with whom they are interacting. As people who defined themselves as indigenous, hunter-gatherers are well aware of the social, economic, environmental and political challenges that they are facing, and they are seeking to address these challenges along with support organizations and researchers in an attempt to ensure their long-term security and well-being.     

An experimental ethnoarchaeological approach to understanding the development of use wear associated with the processing of river cane for split-cane technology

Southeastern Indians have been using cane (Arundinaria spp.) for basketry and matting for thousands of years. Unfortunately, it is only under extraordinary preservation conditions that such items survive archaeologically. Inferring the production of split-cane technology requires an understanding of prehistoric manufacturing and processing techniques. It is hypothesized that stone tools were once used to process cane for use in split-cane technologies. In the Southeast, it is not uncommon to find stone tools with traces of plant use; however attributing wear to specific plants has been problematic. Pilot experiments, grounded on ethnoarchaeological observations, were conducted with river cane (Arundinaria gigantea) in collaboration with expert basket weavers in the Cherokee Nation. The experimental ethnoarchaeological program was designed to test the efficiency of stone tools in cane processing and document use wear through microscopic observations. The results found that non-retouched flakes were efficient for processing river cane and that the different stages of splint preparation resulted in the differential development of use-related wear. Additional experimentation with river cane is necessary to better define use wear and establish criteria for identification in archaeological contexts. Nonetheless, the collaborative and experimental approach undertaken demonstrated the utility of combining traditional archaeological methods with experimentation, ethnoarchaeology, and tribal knowledge.     

Stone Tool Research at the End of the Millennium: Procurement and Technology

The literature of stone tool procurement and technology published in the past decade is reviewed in this article. The presentation attempts to be geographically comprehensive but, because of where it was written, it provides fuller coverage of New World publications, particularly those from North America, than of literature from the rest of the world. Topics covered include raw materials and procurement, flake experimentation, technology, and specific tool types. An article in a subsequent issue of this journal will discuss issues of function, behavior, and classification in lithic analysis.     

Writing the History of Archaeology in the Pacific: Voices and Perspectives

ABSTRACT

In histories of world archaeology to date the Pacific is all but missing. There has been some investigation into the history of archaeology in Australia and New Zealand, and other piecemeal work focusing on single countries or biographies of individuals, but much remains to be done. We offer a critical overview of general literature on the history of archaeology in the Pacific and stress the potential for a deeper knowledge of archaeology's histories in the region to transform current archaeological theory and practice. We then suggest important avenues for further investigation, including the historiography of Pacific archaeology, diverse national and linguistic traditions, international linkages between scholars and practitioners, pre-World War II excavations, theories about trans-Pacific contacts, and the often-hidden importance of women and Indigenous scholars and interlocutors in the field. Each of these themes is addressed by one or more of the papers in this special issue.     

Sources of obsidian artefacts,exchange networks and landscape use in Auca Mahuida (Neuquén,north-western Patagonia)

The results of the X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis of 59 obsidian samples from 11 archaeological sites in the Auca Mahuida region of north-western Neuquén, Argentina, are present. They indicate that several obsidian sources were used; however, the intensities of their exploitation were variable. Strong differences appear between the Colorado River basin, characterized by a low variability of obsidian groups from northern Neuquén; the Auca volcano, with a low variability of obsidian groups, but from local sources located north and southwards of the study area; and along Bajo del Añelo, which presents a high variability of obsidian groups from several local and non-local sources. The pattern recorded fits different mechanisms of access to the sources and the conveyance of obsidian across the landscape. Two distinct paths of direct access are suggested for obsidian availability along the Colorado River in northern Neuquén and for Portada Covunco obsidian in central Neuquén. Additionally, the presence of obsidian from sources in southern Neuquén province (Cerro Las Planicies-Lago Lolog), located about 350 km from the study area, is suggested. While not yet conclusive, this possibility parsimoniously integrates the available geochemical and spatial information, allowing the existence of either long-distance transport or indirect access by exchange or similar mechanisms to be proposed.     

Psychological components of middle paleolithic technology: The proceduralization of lithic core reduction

Exploring the evolution of human cognition has been as methodologically problematic as it has been a vital area of study over the last couple of decades. In particular, the integration of archaeology and psychology, while fundamental to many such studies, has suffered from a difficulty by many researchers to effectively link models from the cognitive sciences with the archaeological data ( [Wynn, 2009] and [Wynn and Coolidge, 2010] ). In the current study one psychological process, proceduralization is used to examine the technological strategies that underpin the sequential nature of lithic core reduction. This is done via the application of sequential lithic information analysis (SLIA), a method developed by the author for the concurrent study of qualitative and quantitative sequential information. In the present context SLIA helps elucidate both the micro- and macro-level dynamics that underlie the reduction of a sample of Middle Paleolithic refitted Levallois cores from the site of Taramsa-1, Upper Egypt. The results of this study provide an explanation for the variability recognised within the Levallois technology and also speak to the existence of certain aspects of modern cognition by ca. 70,000 years before present.     

The early neolithic pottery of the volga-ural region (based on the materials of the elshanka culture)

This article deals with the technologies of pottery-making used by the population of the Volga-Ural region during the Early Neolithic. The analyzed assemblage includes 344 specimens of ceramics (conventionally regarded as separate vessels) from 12 sites of the Elshanka culture (end of the 7th–6th millennium BC). The research method elaborated by A.A. Bobrinsky is based on binocular microscopy, use-wear analysis, and physical modeling. The origins and evolution of the Early Neolithic ceramic traditions in the Volga-Ural region and the role of their admixture are discussed.